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They might not have had giant stations but they did have at least two planets Defended by ODP which would have to number in the tens of thousands at the least to protect a planet.

Its true there are a lot of unknowns involved but I still think the Fed Fleet is much larger than the Cardie Fleet. I also think that the Dominion would likely have focused most of their resources on building their own Fleet, at least after the Allies closed the Wormhole thus removing their reinforcements.

I'd agree with most of that.

True, but I'd imagine that the Dominion made some sort of contribution to bolstering the Cardassian war effort. I mean, what good is cannon fodder/living shield if there's none left?

Isn't the pre-war CU still smaller than the Federation?

It's certainly weaker technologically, given the thumping a GCS routinely gives a Galor, but overall it's capable of posing a serious threat. They were able to fight the Federation to a standstill, and intimidated them into acting against their own citizens even with strong evidence that the Cardassians were up to mischief in the DMZ. This suggests that they make up in quantity what they lack in quality. It doesn't help that the closest we've got to any explanation of the specfic size of any Trek power was Picard's "8000 ly, 150 worlds" description of the Federation in FC.

I believe so, but I think the idea is not that the CU out-built the UFP in terms of total quantity and quality - rather that they built in numbers to make up for lack of resources or ability to maximize the ability of each individual ship.

*EDIT* Beat me to the punch, Seafort.

Fair point. They needed SOMETHING to make Starfleet consider them a viable threat.

They certainly had something to make the Feds think twice, but that's not necessarily their fleet. There's pretty strong evidence that the Cardies have mechanised infantry, which would make one of their planets an extremely tough nut for Starfleet's pathetic excuse for light infantry to crack.

And in the TNG era they don't seem fond of orbital bombardment.

Wouldn't have been the first option in the CU-UFP war in any event - they were fighting over disputed territory, which would make one think that they'd want to take worlds/populations intact.

Thus making the Cardies' use of mechanised infantry a major factor in the war.

And as far as we know, even the MACOs don't exist in the 24th century. It's still true, that to hold the planet you need to be on the ground.

My point in bringing that up. QED. There were a number of factors other than fleet size/capability which could easily have made the CU a credible opponent for the UFP in that war.

I think it's quite obvious the MACOs didn't exist in the 24th century. They'd have been seen if they were.