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Just curious. Why was just ONE photon torpedo from the E-D able to so completely destroy this ship?

Mark wrote:Just curious. Why was just ONE photon torpedo from the E-D able to so completely destroy this ship?

I assume from the episode with the rapid-aging disease? Possibly, shields were down and a hit to a critical point.

RK_Striker_JK_5 wrote:

Mark wrote:Just curious. Why was just ONE photon torpedo from the E-D able to so completely destroy this ship?

I assume from the episode with the rapid-aging disease? Possibly, shields were down and a hit to a critical point.

It seems that ship was nearly vaporised. I guess if they targeted the warp core, but it didn't LOOK that way to me. But I could be wrong, though.

Yeah the only explanation is they hit a key spot and cause the whole ship to go bang.

Mark wrote:

RK_Striker_JK_5 wrote:

Mark wrote:Just curious. Why was just ONE photon torpedo from the E-D able to so completely destroy this ship?

I assume from the episode with the rapid-aging disease? Possibly, shields were down and a hit to a critical point.

It seems that ship was nearly vaporised. I guess if they targeted the warp core, but it didn't LOOK that way to me. But I could be wrong, though.

So could I, though.

As it was a stationary target, they may have bought out the slow, not very accurate, but damn powerful photon torpedo of explodey death.

I don't think ships usualy survive getting hit with more than one photorp anyway.

The Paladin could...

Rochey wrote:I don't think ships usualy survive getting hit with more than one photorp anyway.

It's not common, but we've seen it happen a good few times.

STII: The E-nil survived an unshielded hit in the first encounter, and the Reliant survived the hits that destroyed the torpedo pod and blew her port nacelle off.

STIII: Kruge's BoP survived being hit as it decloaked.

STIV: The E-A survived the hit that punched a hole through the saucer and Chang's BoP survived the initial tracking torpedo hit.

Generations: The E-D survived numerous hits.

I think the best solution is either kostmayer's idea of a sluggish high-yield torpedo (which dovetails with Voyager's high yield torps in "Scorpion") or that the survival of the other ships was due to addition structural integrity systems such as those implied by Saavik's "energise defence fields" order in STII, and the E-D remotely deactivated those systems before firing.

Ah, alright.

There's also the fact that a ships ability to withstand a torpedo doesn't necessarily increase at the same rate as the torpedoes ability to destroy. The TNG torpedoes maybe be five times as powerful as the TOS era ones, and the shields only twice as powerful.

No matter how powerful the blast, the Reliant should have survived losing the pod and its nacelle, it could obviously lose both of them without losing structual integrity, and the Reliant wouldn't really absorb any more of the blast.

And I have to say I love the Miranda Class design.

I liked the Miranda for its time but that time has long past. Hell, even my beloved Excelsior is nearing its end. Even with the Lakota upgrades, its still easier to just build a new ship.

Mark wrote:Just curious. Why was just ONE photon torpedo from the E-D able to so completely destroy this ship?

Plus, with the Miranda being such a venerable design, I'm sure everyone in Starfleet knows what her weak points are. I can imagine with such a robust and long lasting, but not front line design, the Academy probably uses them for all sorts of stuff. In system training flights, fodder for beginning engineers to work on and to study sound design, etc. Then there are conceptual uses, such as using the schematic to explain structural integrity fields in introductory courses and such. It would make sense to start simple to cover the basics, just like we do OOU.

As to why the Connies aren't still around but the Mirandas are, my theory has always been an analogy to the US F-14. The older Tomcat is in many ways more capable than the newer F-18, expecially when they first started switching them out. The F-14 was also very upgradable, allowing it continuing to fulfill useful roles such as ground attack as well as it's primary role. However, the design itself was very maintenance intensive and very costly to build. The F-18 was also thought to have more upgrade potential. So, you trade some performance for a better resource / performance ratio. This should allow you to build more ships for the performance trade off. Of course, there is nothing IU to say that this is the case with the Connie, but it would make sense as to why they would retire a design that was so good that they re-built it from the ground up rather than retire it.

It was really sad seeing so many of the Mirs getting trashed in DS9. Not only is it sad to see a cool design owned, but if we assume no automation at all, there are up to hundreds of crew on board just getting toasted. I prefer to think they were using a mothball fleet. If they could build them quickly, why not turn down production to increase the effectiveness a little and make them more of a match for Jem Hadar attack craft?

Interesting theory about everyone knowing the weak points since it is such a well known design.

As to why the Connies aren't still around but the Mirandas are,

I would imagin since the connies were thrashed a lot more.

...and initial cost probably meant that a lot more Mirandas were originally built than Connies.