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Because it suddenly provides three seperate targets, each capable of functioning completely independently from each other, and designed to deliver crippeling firepower from three different direction.

m52nickerson wrote:They were tracking it through the impacts of there phasers with the scimitars shields. It was stated that they could not tract were the Scimitar was by it's incoming fire. Picard ordered a full sweep of the area with the phasers and to then fire the torpedoes at any impact. Later when the Romulans showed up Worf was ordered to coordinates with the other tactical officers and give them coordinated of those impacts. Once the ship was found they could track it by continuously hitting it. The Enterprise only really lost the scimitar again after the two Romulan ships were disabled and they lost that constant fire. That is when Troy had to help find the ship.

Picard's "full sweep" was heavilly concentrated in the aft upper quadrant, exactly where the Scimitar was. They obviously couldn't pinpoint the ship's location, but they pbviously had at least a rough idea of where it was. The fact that Shinzon was almost sitting on the E-E's back helped.

No but they could cordinate there fire to cover a large area. Plus with multiple ships once the Scimitar was hit only a couple of ships have to keep hitting it to continue to trake it.

The problem would be hitting it in the first place. To do that you'd need to produce the sort of flack barrier the new Galactica puts out, and certainly far more than the dozen or so phasers even the most powerful Fed ships have. Moreover you'd need an extremely dense wall of ships - even a dozen kilometres from the firing point, shots only six degrees apart would have three quarter of a mile gap between them, more than enough for the Scimitar to pass through wingtip-to-wingtip. Given that the Scimitar would be able to lurk hundreds or thousands of kilometres from its opponents, and Fed ships have never been seen firing shots so close together, any suggestion that a fleet would be able to hit the thing if it were competently commanded is frankly laughable.

My point with the Prometheus is why was it desinged to seperate? What was the huge advantage?

The only conceivable advantage of the Prometheus is that it allows the ship to travel to an area at high speed, separate to perform a search, and then rendezvous and recombine for battle. Separating the ship reduces the power available to each phaser array, and weakens the ships defences by doubling or tripling the area of the shields.

We know it did. Whether it be the 52 stated or the 6 or so seen it did have the means to defend it self if it could not imedatly warp away after firing. The alternative would have the Scimitar fighting off any defences around a planet before decloaking and firing the thelaron weapon.

I know it had the means to defend itself. That was what I was saying all along. I was pointing out why the weapons themselves would have been given a higher design priority than the cloak.

No but they could cordinate there fire to cover a large area. Plus with multiple ships once the Scimitar was hit only a couple of ships have to keep hitting it to continue to trake it.

As Seafort pointed out, it'd require a tonne of ships putting out more firepower than we've ever seen before to reliably bracket the Scimitar.
And even if, through some miracle, they do manage to locate it, it can simply withdraw out of weapons range under impulse or warp drive and wait for them to stop shooting before flying back in and launching another attack.

My point with the Prometheus is why was it desinged to seperate? What was the huge advantage?

In reality, MVAM provides little real benefits.
In the show, it's because the ship now has the capability to attack form multiple angles with more powerful weapons than a ship of its size would otherwise hold.

Captain Seafort wrote:

m52nickerson wrote:They were tracking it through the impacts of there phasers with the scimitars shields. It was stated that they could not tract were the Scimitar was by it's incoming fire. Picard ordered a full sweep of the area with the phasers and to then fire the torpedoes at any impact. Later when the Romulans showed up Worf was ordered to coordinates with the other tactical officers and give them coordinated of those impacts. Once the ship was found they could track it by continuously hitting it. The Enterprise only really lost the scimitar again after the two Romulan ships were disabled and they lost that constant fire. That is when Troy had to help find the ship.

Picard's "full sweep" was heavilly concentrated in the aft upper quadrant, exactly where the Scimitar was. They obviously couldn't pinpoint the ship's location, but they pbviously had at least a rough idea of where it was. The fact that Shinzon was almost sitting on the E-E's back helped.

Well swepping in the upper quadrant makes sense because they at least knew that the ventral shields had been hit. As far as firing more heavy aft, I did not see that. They did fire a few more Phaser shots aft after the first hit.

Of course if the Enterprise could track the Scimitar by its incoming fire this could be a reason we don't see any smaller point defense disruptors firing. The ship comes in fires its larger main weapons then tries to hide again if found so it can once again get in a prime position to use its main guns. The use of the smaller disruptors constantly firing would have been like a spot light pointing out its position.

No but they could cordinate there fire to cover a large area. Plus with multiple ships once the Scimitar was hit only a couple of ships have to keep hitting it to continue to trake it.

The problem would be hitting it in the first place. To do that you'd need to produce the sort of flack barrier the new Galactica puts out, and certainly far more than the dozen or so phasers even the most powerful Fed ships have. Moreover you'd need an extremely dense wall of ships - even a dozen kilometres from the firing point, shots only six degrees apart would have three quarter of a mile gap between them, more than enough for the Scimitar to pass through wingtip-to-wingtip. Given that the Scimitar would be able to lurk hundreds or thousands of kilometres from its opponents, and Fed ships have never been seen firing shots so close together, any suggestion that a fleet would be able to hit the thing if it were competently commanded is frankly laughable.

It would not exactly be blind. Ships would be able to tell what shields were impacted by the Scimitar's weapons. Some ships in the fleet would also be able to see the Scimitar while it fired at others. These cut down the area were the ship could be dramatically. Once hit the fleet could keep a constant amount of fire on the Scimitar and never loss it, unless it warped out.

My point with the Prometheus is why was it desinged to seperate? What was the huge advantage?

The only conceivable advantage of the Prometheus is that it allows the ship to travel to an area at high speed, separate to perform a search, and then rendezvous and recombine for battle. Separating the ship reduces the power available to each phaser array, and weakens the ships defences by doubling or tripling the area of the shields.

Or to allow a more constant stream of phaser fire on a targets shields.

Rochey wrote:

We know it did. Whether it be the 52 stated or the 6 or so seen it did have the means to defend it self if it could not imedatly warp away after firing. The alternative would have the Scimitar fighting off any defences around a planet before decloaking and firing the thelaron weapon.

I know it had the means to defend itself. That was what I was saying all along. I was pointing out why the weapons themselves would have been given a higher design priority than the cloak.

....but if the cloak can't hide the ship long enough to fire the thelaron weapon it seems it would be very hard to actually deploy it.

No but they could cordinate there fire to cover a large area. Plus with multiple ships once the Scimitar was hit only a couple of ships have to keep hitting it to continue to trake it.

As Seafort pointed out, it'd require a tonne of ships putting out more firepower than we've ever seen before to reliably bracket the Scimitar.
And even if, through some miracle, they do manage to locate it, it can simply withdraw out of weapons range under impulse or warp drive and wait for them to stop shooting before flying back in and launching another attack.

As long a they kept hitting it they could trak it, and follow it. Warping out would be an option, but then the whole thing would be repeated. It would be far better if the Scimitar was designed primarily to deploy the Thelaron weapon. If that weapon could envolup a planet, it could take out a whole fleet.

My point with the Prometheus is why was it desinged to seperate? What was the huge advantage?

In reality, MVAM provides little real benefits.
In the show, it's because the ship now has the capability to attack form multiple angles with more powerful weapons than a ship of its size would otherwise hold.

Why are multiply angles more effective?

m52nickerson wrote:Of course if the Enterprise could track the Scimitar by its incoming fire this could be a reason we don't see any smaller point defense disruptors firing. The ship comes in fires its larger main weapons then tries to hide again if found so it can once again get in a prime position to use its main guns. The use of the smaller disruptors constantly firing would have been like a spot light pointing out its position.

That theory would only hold any water if the Scimitar was commanded by someone with more than half a brain cell.

It would not exactly be blind. Ships would be able to tell what shields were impacted by the Scimitar's weapons. Some ships in the fleet would also be able to see the Scimitar while it fired at others. These cut down the area were the ship could be dramatically. Once hit the fleet could keep a constant amount of fire on the Scimitar and never loss it, unless it warped out.

The first they'd know about it would be when a ship was hit by a volley weapons fire, which, depending on how good a ship it was, could be enough to destroy it. Everyone would concentrate fire on the general area of the Scimitar's firing point, but by then, assuming a competent commander, it would already have changed course and accelerated, to warp if necessary. Then come around again, find the most isolated ship in the fleet (since their concentration would inevitably have disrupted the formation) and hit that. Rinse and reapeat as many times as necessary. The fleet under attack would never know where and when the next attack would come.

Or to allow a more constant stream of phaser fire on a targets shields.

You can do that far more effectively with a proper battleship. Look at the E-D's performance in BoBW - four or five phaser arrays in action simultaneously, firing PT bursts as quickly as they can reload. That's what a Trek battleship in action should look like, not deliberately splitting itself into smaller, weaker, more vulnerable segments.

Captain Seafort wrote:

m52nickerson wrote:Of course if the Enterprise could track the Scimitar by its incoming fire this could be a reason we don't see any smaller point defense disruptors firing. The ship comes in fires its larger main weapons then tries to hide again if found so it can once again get in a prime position to use its main guns. The use of the smaller disruptors constantly firing would have been like a spot light pointing out its position.

That theory would only hold any water if the Scimitar was commanded by someone with more than half a brain cell.

Perhaps he was a bit, not much, smarter then you give him credit for. Or they just could not track the incoming fire.

It would not exactly be blind. Ships would be able to tell what shields were impacted by the Scimitar's weapons. Some ships in the fleet would also be able to see the Scimitar while it fired at others. These cut down the area were the ship could be dramatically. Once hit the fleet could keep a constant amount of fire on the Scimitar and never loss it, unless it warped out.

The first they'd know about it would be when a ship was hit by a volley weapons fire, which, depending on how good a ship it was, could be enough to destroy it. Everyone would concentrate fire on the general area of the Scimitar's firing point, but by then, assuming a competent commander, it would already have changed course and accelerated, to warp if necessary. Then come around again, find the most isolated ship in the fleet (since their concentration would inevitably have disrupted the formation) and hit that. Rinse and reapeat as many times as necessary. The fleet under attack would never know where and when the next attack would come.

It would be a contest to see if the Scimitar's crew was faster at changing couse and going to warp of members of the fleet could get in a few hits. It also begs the question, was the Scimitars cloak perfect at Warp speed? Plus with all that that intales would it not have been better to design the Scimitar so to be able to use the thelaron weapon while cloaked and take out most is if not all the fleet in one shot?

Or to allow a more constant stream of phaser fire on a targets shields.

You can do that far more effectively with a proper battleship. Look at the E-D's performance in BoBW - four or five phaser arrays in action simultaneously, firing PT bursts as quickly as they can reload. That's what a Trek battleship in action should look like, not deliberately splitting itself into smaller, weaker, more vulnerable segments.

Yes, but three ships could still lay down a more constant rate of fire. Perhaps the reason that is important is because quick successive hits are more effective against shields then single large volleys.

m52nickerson wrote:Perhaps he was a bit, not much, smarter then you give him credit for.

Despite the fact that he needed to go vampire on Picard to survive he waited 17 hours before even contacting him, didn't kidnap him whe he first boarded the ship, didn't kidnap him while they were having dinner, waited hours after he returned to the E-E before finally deciding to get on with it, and even then didn't perform the procedure immediately. If anything I'm overestimating Shinzon's intelligence

Or they just could not track the incoming fire.

Then we get back to the question of how exactly they happened to concentrate their "random" phaser spread in the small area where the Scimitar actually was.

It would be a contest to see if the Scimitar's crew was faster at changing couse and going to warp of members of the fleet could get in a few hits.

So what if they score a hit or two? The shields can take it, and once you're out of range they won't be able to spot you any more.

It also begs the question, was the Scimitars cloak perfect at Warp speed?

It was good enough that the E-E didn't spot the thing breathing down her neck all the way to the Bassen Rift. Dropping out of warp might cause problems as the Scimitar, unlike all other cloaked ships, is visible to the naken eye when she drops out of warp.

Plus with all that that intales would it not have been better to design the Scimitar so to be able to use the thelaron weapon while cloaked and take out most is if not all the fleet in one shot?

We don't know enough about the technology to know if that's even possible. Certainly it must have a prodigious output if it's designed to irradiate an entire planet, and the generator apparently has some effect on the cloak (a "spike in the theta band" as she decloaked the first time).

Yes, but three ships could still lay down a more constant rate of fire. Perhaps the reason that is important is because quick successive hits are more effective against shields then single large volleys.

There might be something in that - analogeous to modern burst-fire settings on SMGs. Nontheless, you'd still be able to do that, and more effectively, with a single more powerful ship rather than three, and a three round burst from an MP5 still isn't as effective as a single round from an SLR.

....but if the cloak can't hide the ship long enough to fire the thelaron weapon it seems it would be very hard to actually deploy it.

Indeed, hence the need for such powerful armament.

As long a they kept hitting it they could trak it, and follow it. Warping out would be an option, but then the whole thing would be repeated. It would be far better if the Scimitar was designed primarily to deploy the Thelaron weapon. If that weapon could envolup a planet, it could take out a whole fleet.

As Seafort pointed out, no Trek ship, even a fleet, has demonstrated the rate of fire needed to keep the Scimitar visible at all times. A single sharp turn that prevented a single shot hitting would render the ship invisible again, allowing it to withdraw.
Also, we don't know how thelaron radiation interacts with shields. It could be impotent against them (note that Shinzon only deployed it agains the E-E when the latter's shields were down).

Why are multiply angles more effective?

In reality, it would be of little to no effect.
The only real advantage it offers is that your opponent now has to split his firepower between three small and fast moving ships instead of one large and powerful ship.

Rochey wrote:The only real advantage it offers is that your opponent now has to split his firepower between three small and fast moving ships instead of one large and powerful ship.

Which isn't insignificant. However, I believe we're travelling once more into dangerous MVAM-debate waters...

Yeah, let's just leave that one alone for now.

Is that still one of those "forbidden topics" ?

Given that it inevitably goes round and round in circles until everyone agrees to disagree it is, pretty much.

I love it.

Uh-uh. Drop it like it's hot.