The potential for refits

[m52nickerson]

Of course it will. Your point being?

The role of a battleship is not to be quick and maneuverable, it's to smash enemy ships apart and blow s**t up. For that role, bigger=better.

.....you can all the guns in the world, but if you can't bring them to bear on an faster enemy ship they are of little use. Going back to planes, this is why smaller fighter were such a threat to much larger bombers, and the fact the still today larger fighters are not always better.

Your point being? That doesn't affect my statement in any way. More space = more guns and generators.
Ergo, bigger = better.

Again if your opponent can say out of a majority of your weapon arcs, and pound on one shield area all that extra stuff is for not.

As Seafort pointed out, however, it can be used to further enhance your car's abilities in other respects.

Yes it could, my point was there are limitation to what space can be used for.

So? The GCS was a jack-of-all-trades. It was never designed as a pure battleship. It had a load of civilian equipment and facilities in it as well. It stands to reason that when all that stuff is removed, you could build a much smaller ship. Hence the smaller Defiant and Akira designs.

Even when the federation build a replacement battleship, the Soverign class, it was smaller. We know that had the means, why not build a battleship as large as the Galaxy class if bigger=better?

@Seafort, I am not ignoring your reply but since Rochey covered the same things I just replied to his to save space.

[Deepcrush]

.....you can all the guns in the world, but if you can't bring them to bear on an faster enemy ship they are of little use. Going back to planes, this is why smaller fighter were such a threat to much larger bombers, and the fact the still today larger fighters are not always better.

Wrong. The UFP uses phaser arrays that allow for a 360x360 fire arc. The only UFP ship to use direct fire weapons is the Defiant class and even she has phaser arrays on her dorsal and ventral surfaces.

Again if your opponent can say out of a majority of your weapon arcs, and pound on one shield area all that extra stuff is for not.

Doesn't apply. The extra shields and armor will always be helpful. Plus, all those added arrays means that you won't have to worry about blind spots.

Yes it could, my point was there are limitation to what space can be used for.

This all depends on what you are looking to do. If you are just upgrading the ship then you are right. But, many people here have been speaking about totally rebuilding and refitting a GCS into brand new ship. This Battleship could do just about anything they wanted it to. Seeing how a lot of the talk hhere involves gutting the whole thing.

Even when the federation build a replacement battleship, the Soverign class, it was smaller. We know that had the means, why not build a battleship as large as the Galaxy class if bigger=better?

Because they were fighting a war at the time and you need to turn out ships as fast as possible. Look at the US vs Japan in WWII. Super Battleships are nice but they're very costly and take a very long time to build. The is Sov superior to anything out there at the time. No reason to build a larger ship if it isn't needed.

[Captain Seafort]

you can all the guns in the world, but if you can't bring them to bear on an faster enemy ship they are of little use. Going back to planes, this is why smaller fighter were such a threat to much larger bombers, and the fact the still today larger fighters are not always better.

With the massive caviat that bombers don't have the equivalent of 12" armour plate. Starships do.

Again if your opponent can say out of a majority of your weapon arcs, and pound on one shield area all that extra stuff is for not.

1) More power = more power available for shields as well. Greater size, and the fact that area scales to length squared while mass scales to length cubed means that armour can be thicker for the same fraction of a ship's mass.

2) As Deep pointed out, Fed ships have 360 by 360 degree weapons coverage. They should also be able to redirect power to a certain extent, to beef up weapons on the side under heaviest fire.

Even when the federation build a replacement battleship, the Soverign class, it was smaller. We know that had the means, why not build a battleship as large as the Galaxy class if bigger=better?

1) As Deep pointed out, smaller ships means more of them can be built.

2) Recent Fed designs (the Intrepid, Sov and Prometheus for example) have tended to emphasise speed, in which case extra mass would be a problem.

[m52nickerson]

Wrong. The UFP uses phaser arrays that allow for a 360x360 fire arc. The only UFP ship to use direct fire weapons is the Defiant class and even she has phaser arrays on her dorsal and ventral surfaces.

360 x 360 if you are talking about all of the arrays together. So at many angle only one array may be able to hit an opponant.

Doesn't apply. The extra shields and armor will always be helpful. Plus, all those added arrays means that you won't have to worry about blind spots.

Armor or shields designed to protect the starboad side of the ship will not help if your enemy is hitting you somewhere else. Again you may have 20 arrays, but 19 may not be able to fire at your opponent.

This all depends on what you are looking to do. If you are just upgrading the ship then you are right. But, many people here have been speaking about totally rebuilding and refitting a GCS into brand new ship. This Battleship could do just about anything they wanted it to. Seeing how a lot of the talk hhere involves gutting the whole thing.

Agreed, I was speaking about just refitting the GCS, not a total re-build as far as this point.

Because they were fighting a war at the time and you need to turn out ships as fast as possible. Look at the US vs Japan in WWII. Super Battleships are nice but they're very costly and take a very long time to build. The is Sov superior to anything out there at the time. No reason to build a larger ship if it isn't needed.

War? All of those ships were designed before the Dominion war ever started.

[Deepcrush]

You build super ships during peace time. When your aren't in any rush. When you're not trying to replace losses. The DITL Paladin is a peace time ship. However, should war come production would be shifted over to smaller warships that are easier to build.

Same thing applys to the Dominion War. The UFP did what it needed to. Turning out a GCS or a pair of Sov's isn't a hard call when you at war.

[m52nickerson]

With the massive caviat that bombers don't have the equivalent of 12" armour plate. Starships do.

......and fighter plans did not have phasers.

1) More power = more power available for shields as well. Greater size, and the fact that area scales to length squared while mass scales to length cubed means that armour can be thicker for the same fraction of a ship's mass.

2) As Deep pointed out, Fed ships have 360 by 360 degree weapons coverage. They should also be able to redirect power to a certain extent, to beef up weapons on the side under heaviest fire.

Even the best armor fails under repeated attacks. Yes to a certain extent, but still only a fraction of the total firepower.

1) As Deep pointed out, smaller ships means more of them can be built.

2) Recent Fed designs (the Intrepid, Sov and Prometheus for example) have tended to emphasise speed, in which case extra mass would be a problem.

Yes more of them could be produced. At the time that the shift was made the biggest threat was from the Borg, who never were seen to attack with multiple ships. So why not develop a supership, unless just making it bigger is not always better.

[Captain Seafort]

...and fighter plans did not have phasers.

All phasers are not equal. A small bank can be powered by a low GW reactor, whereas a GCS has TW range power output. A ship with the former is not going to be a threat to a ship with the latter.

Even the best armor fails under repeated attacks.

So? 12" armour will fail a lot later than 6" armour.

Yes to a certain extent, but still only a fraction of the total firepower.

Unknown. All we know is that they can't focus the full power of the warp core through a single array.

Yes more of them could be produced. At the time that the shift was made the biggest threat was from the Borg, who never were seen to attack with multiple ships. So why not develop a supership, unless just making it bigger is not always better.

That's disputable. The Borg were a serious threat, but they only turned up occassionally. The Dominion were effectively sitting on the doorstep of the AQ, and had openly stated their intention to mount a sustained camapign against the quadrant.

There's also the distinct possibility that the War-GCS went into large-scale production whereas the Sov did not. We've frequently seen numerous GCSs on screen simultaneously, whereas we've only ever seen one Sov.

[Deepcrush]

360 x 360 if you are talking about all of the arrays together. So at many angle only one array may be able to hit an opponant.

So then what would be the problem of shifting power to that array. Faster recharge. Better rate of fire.

Armor or shields designed to protect the starboad side of the ship will not help if your enemy is hitting you somewhere else. Again you may have 20 arrays, but 19 may not be able to fire at your opponent.

You should of course figure out that ships in space have armor on more then just the just the starboard side. Sheilds can be redirected. Armor is spread across the whole of the ship. A fighter zipping around won't do much against that kind of protection.

Armor or shields designed to protect the starboad side of the ship will not help if your enemy is hitting you somewhere else. Again you may have 20 arrays, but 19 may not be able to fire at your opponent.

Then that one array will have 20 times the power to draw from.

Agreed, I was speaking about just refitting the GCS, not a total re-build as far as this point.

Then you would trade out what they have. Type Xs become type XIIs. PTLs become QTLs. Standard armor is replaced by about 20cm of ablative. Shields upgraded to what the Sov is using. It may not be as smooth running as the Sov which had these things in mind when it was built but it would still make a very solid Ship of the Line.

War? All of those ships were designed before the Dominion war ever started.

Not talking about the smaller ships. We're talking about the idea of building large ships during the war. They UFP designed and built smaller combat ships. Most of this was done because of the Borg and Dominion. So, this action was in future thought. The idea that should war come they would have to have ships that are quick, cheap and easy to build.

[m52nickerson]

All phasers are not equal. A small bank can be powered by a low GW reactor, whereas a GCS has TW range power output. A ship with the former is not going to be a threat to a ship with the latter.

....is the TW range for each array or a total for all of them?

So? 12" armour will fail a lot later than 6" armour.

It will still fail, and if a smaller more manuverable ship spreads the damage across its hull then it's armor may hold out longer.

Unknown. All we know is that they can't focus the full power of the warp core through a single array.

....and that phasers can over heat.

That's disputable. The Borg were a serious threat, but they only turned up occassionally. The Dominion were effectively sitting on the doorstep of the AQ, and had openly stated their intention to mount a sustained camapign against the quadrant.

There's also the distinct possibility that the War-GCS went into large-scale production whereas the Sov did not. We've frequently seen numerous GCSs on screen simultaneously, whereas we've only ever seen one Sov.

The Defiant was designed far before the Dominion was known about, the Akira most likely also.

[Captain Seafort]

is the TW range for each array or a total for all of them?

Over all of them. They'll still outgun the smaller array by at least an order of magnitude.

It will still fail, and if a smaller more manuverable ship spreads the damage across its hull then it's armor may hold out longer.

Or, more likely, the first shot will punch straight through its far thinner armour and out the other side.

and that phasers can over heat.

Yes. And?

The Defiant was designed far before the Dominion was known about, the Akira most likely also.

So? You can't run a fleet of all battleships - no matter how powerful they are they can only be in one place at a time. The point stands that they were building far more war-GCSes than Sovs.

[Deepcrush]

The Defiant was designed far before the Dominion was known about, the Akira most likely also.

The Defiant was built for fighting the Borg but we never saw the Akira until the Dominion war.

....is the TW range for each array or a total for all of them?

Doesn't matter. That Battleship's array is going to do a lot more hurt then that fighter's array will.

It will still fail, and if a smaller more manuverable ship spreads the damage across its hull then it's armor may hold out longer.

What do you think will fail first? 12'' plate on a battleship or 2'' plate on an attack ship. That little ship only has an advantage if you can first have plenty of numbers and and be able to survive the return fire. If that little ship can't survive the return it's going to get then it's just fucked.

....and that phasers can over heat.

Good thing most battleships have more then one gun.

[m52nickerson]

So then what would be the problem of shifting power to that array. Faster recharge. Better rate of fire.

Still does not mean you get the full power.

You should of course figure out that ships in space have armor on more then just the just the starboard side. Sheilds can be redirected. Armor is spread across the whole of the ship. A fighter zipping around won't do much against that kind of protection.

The smaller ship could concentrate on a certain section of the larger ship. Shields can be re-enforced to a point. What happens is you effectily have the smaller ship bringing all its weapons to bear while the larger one is reduced to a fracton of it's self.

Then that one array will have 20 times the power to draw from.

If it is just as simple as putting more power to that array, or there are no upper limits to how much an array can handle.

Then you would trade out what they have. Type Xs become type XIIs. PTLs become QTLs. Standard armor is replaced by about 20cm of ablative. Shields upgraded to what the Sov is using. It may not be as smooth running as the Sov which had these things in mind when it was built but it would still make a very solid Ship of the Line.

The type XII's phaser most likely take up more internal space then the type X so you may not be able to do it with out totaly changing supporting structurs. QTL may not fit, nor the shield generators. Ripping out and changing support structures is most likely not an easy thing.

Not talking about the smaller ships. We're talking about the idea of building large ships during the war. They UFP designed and built smaller combat ships. Most of this was done because of the Borg and Dominion. So, this action was in future thought. The idea that should war come they would have to have ships that are quick, cheap and easy to build.

[/quote]

Not building larger ships during the war does make sense.

[Captain Seafort]

we never saw the Akira until the Dominion war.

True, but the registries do suggest that it's quite an old design.

[Deepcrush]

So? You can't run a fleet of all battleships - no matter how powerful they are they can only be in one place at a time. The point stands that they were building far more war-GCSes than Sovs.

Could also be that they already had them built or already started building them so they just had to upgrade them instead of building them from keel up.

[Captain Seafort]

What happens is you effectily have the smaller ship bringing all its weapons to bear while the larger one is reduced to a fracton of it's self.

You're basing this on the assumption that the larger ship will only be able to bring a fraction of its strength to bear, whereas the smaller vessel will be able to bring everything to bear. Why?