www.ditl.org

actually i think that the realnavalcomparison is very valid. Tho i will grant you perhaps not the 20thC...but im gonna run with that in a min to illustrate my point more.

If you look at the history of western navies (post Rome) you see that a true warship was a rare thing. Much of the english fleet that fought the armada were in reality merchant ships with guns.

if you look at this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battleship you can see the progression from "ironclads" to predreadnoughst to etc etc.

when i say that the federation needs to build a true battleship....what imtalking about in a sense is slotting the Soveriegn into the "ironclad" slot.

What the sov represents is an evolutionary development of ship design.Much like that which tookplace in the past on Ships of the Line.

The pre dreadnoughts were the result of the royal navy asserting naval dominance which had to some extent been lost. Thats what imlooking for, a ship that breaks that line, that isnt a development of the sov...but a break and a leap to the next stage.

The strength indexs on this site, which i have no real reason to dismiss, show the sov to be little better than a handfulof Akiras, but an HMS Vanguard (1945) is a helluva lot stronger than a few WW2 vintage d class destroyers.

So by your stand point there is not such thing as a battleship in star trek. Thats kinda weird but to each thier own. The scimitar was the greatest ship ever built. Its just plain stupid to compare the norm to a super ship.

and one more quick response to Jim, what your looking for there isnt a carrier to support the akiras and teh defiants...but an old fashioned fleet train,support ships to provide fuel and provisions.

A handful of akiras? I've seen destroyers take down battleships before. Something called a Torpedo. I"ve seen fighters take down battleships before. Its called a missle. Its a very poor comparison.

Deepcrush wrote:So by your stand point there is not such thing as a battleship in star trek. Thats kinda weird but to each thier own. The scimitar was the greatest ship ever built. Its just plain stupid to compare the norm to a super ship.

i woudlnt say its weird, what im doing is drawing parallels between the trek universe and reallife,and drawing lessons from there.

Which is how any military would do things to learn lessons for teh future.....you look at the past to try and predict the future. you try to see trends....you predict likely outcomes.

You see a gradual development of ships (galor to keldon) and you askhow best to beat that.

What Starfleet has done is develope ships which are slightly better then slightly better again.

What im suggesting is you jump a few steps.

Its not to say that there arent battleships,its making a ship that you look at and say well NEXT TO THIS, what came before isnt a battleship.

Like the 06 dreadnought made the rest of teh worlds battleship sobsolete.

thatcha wrote:and one more quick response to Jim, what your looking for there isnt a carrier to support the akiras and teh defiants...but an old fashioned fleet train,support ships to provide fuel and provisions.

From what I thought I remembered reading, the main issues with putting Def/Aks on the outside was not supply issues, but crew space/comfort (causing negative mental/moral/readiness problems) and that their speed was not quite up to par for traveling long distances between outer systems. Support/supply craft would not really help with either of those issues. A super charged engine (in my tactical example) would solve the speed issue. Adding additional crew areas to the basic tactical model would also fix the crew problems.

Deepcrush wrote:A handful of akiras? I've seen destroyers take down battleships before. Something called a Torpedo. I"ve seen fighters take down battleships before. Its called a missle. Its a very poor comparison.

The royal navy hit the italians at taranto with torps....didnt knock out the big ships.

How many torps did the US navy hit the yamato with during the pacific war, LOTS and it kept going. The Bismarck was the same....it was damaged by torps,but it took heavy guns (HMS Nelson) to sink her.

During the Falklands war severalbritish frigates and destroyers were hit by excocet missiles, which were damned good ship killers. But the HMS sheffield had to be scuttled.....if a missilelike that had hit a late design battleship it would have caused damage but not knocked her out of teh fight.

But more than that the torp has to get within range,and themissilehas to hit. Both are things that can be stopped. Its called CIWS and ASW.

If you want to use history then remember that all matters are subject to the time in which they are placed. It maybe a battleship today but then not tomorrow is a flawed stance. Where you got it right was that a battleship today may just be an Obsolete Battleship tomorrow. Its still a battleship by standards until a new standard it brought forward. Just because there is one doesn't make it standard.

but thats not what your saying about the standard.

Your saying that because its the most powerful then it is a battleship.

And your reading of history is just plain wrong (tho this may be the history student in me) just because something happened along time ago doesnt mean that there is nothing that can be learnt from those events and developments. Which is probably the reason why pretty much ever western military academy teachs their students about the Battle of cannae, more than 2000 years ago.

If the British Army/US Army et al thinks that they can learn something from the romans, why coudlnt the federation draw lessons from Ramsey and Nimitz?

by the way, i hope you didn't think that i was being disparaging about your mode of argument,because i wasn't

Deepcrush wrote:A handful of akiras? I've seen destroyers take down battleships before. Something called a Torpedo. I"ve seen fighters take down battleships before. Its called a missle. Its a very poor comparison.

I take that he was refering to that in early WW2 there were "new" battleships that could somply sit there and easily take fire from opposing destroyers with "minimum" worry of actually being defeated. I do not recall actual numbers so do not take that as an argue point, but it was somethign liek the destroyers 9 inch shells simply "bounced off" the new battleship armor.


Sorry... ignore... you guys are a lot faster than I am discussing this. I am trying to multitask ha!

thatcha wrote:

Deepcrush wrote:A handful of akiras? I've seen destroyers take down battleships before. Something called a Torpedo. I"ve seen fighters take down battleships before. Its called a missle. Its a very poor comparison.

The royal navy hit the italians at taranto with torps....didnt knock out the big ships.

How many torps did the US navy hit the yamato with during the pacific war, LOTS and it kept going. The Bismarck was the same....it was damaged by torps,but it took heavy guns (HMS Nelson) to sink her.

During the Falklands war severalbritish frigates and destroyers were hit by excocet missiles, which were damned good ship killers. But the HMS sheffield had to be scuttled.....if a missilelike that had hit a late design battleship it would have caused damage but not knocked her out of teh fight.

But more than that the torp has to get within range,and themissilehas to hit. Both are things that can be stopped. Its called CIWS and ASW.

Pearl Harbour...the majority of the US Pacific fleet's battleships ere obliterated due to torpedoes although i'll concede the Arizona's spectacular bomb explosion.

9 ships sunk, 21 damaged, 3 of the 21 beyond repair.......notreally a killingblow....as the use of US battleshipslater in the war proved.

Reliant121 wrote:Pearl Harbour...the majority of the US Pacific fleet's battleships ere obliterated due to torpedoes although i'll concede the Arizona's spectacular bomb explosion.

But that was not a real battle in that it was not two forces knowingly facing off against each other. The American ships were basically all sitting ducks. that analogy would fit to attacking a Dominion shipyard where all the ships are docked and not on allert. (A Dominion analogy might not be appropriate as I think they were basically always ready to fight, but you get the idea).

fair enough...