6 Torpedo tubes for the Original Enterprise NCC-1701

[Bones1864]

I was watching Journey to Babel last week on my Portable DVD player.
The Best Of Sets are Cool. No worry off doing major damage if you lose an individual dvd when traveling. I lost a DVD once from a Box Set once and almost climbed the wall looking for it !

I never noticed until now Kirk's order to ready Photon Torpedo Tubes 2 , 4, and 6 ( Forward Tubes) and redy them for Firing at the Unknown Hostile ship that nearly destroyed the NCC-1701.

The Original Enterprise was obviously better Armored than previously realised.
She must have had other Main Phaser Turrets around the ship concealed.
I must have watched that episode 20 times over the years and never caught that line !

 

[Duncan MacLeod]

I think the line may be a nod to the WWII fleet submarines. They mounted six tubes forward, four aft, and frequently fired a spread of three torpedoes at enemy destroyers and light cruisers.

But, yes, the Enterprise was much more heavily armed than a lot of people seem to think. By the time of TMP the original six forward tubes had been replaced by two. I'm guessing that either the movie era torps were more powerful or the launchers were capable of rapid firing at least three torpedoes each. A case of why mount six tubes if you can get the same, or better, punch from two.

 

[Timo]

On a similar vein, "Paradise Syndrome" dialogue references phasers 1 through 4 for the forward firing arcs. Never mind that the beams always seem to come from the same place anyway, it's a Trek fact that the ship has more than one forward gun (or, more accurately, more than one pair of forward guns, for that familiar twin-beam effect).

The ship was probably bristling with armaments. But only a select few "main" weapon systems would ever see use against enemy ships; Kirk would be foolish to let his enemies so close that he could plausibly deploy (or would have to deploy) his secondary or tertiary weapons. Sometimes he might need to use those, though - just like the Mirror Archer needed to use the aft torpedoes and phasers of the Constitution class ship he hijacked, in ENT "In a Mirror, Darkly". We just didn't witness those moments in TOS.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[TIN_MAN]

I was thinking the other day about the illustration in 'TMOST' and how the phasers are shown much further up and spread further apart than we normally see them , this is also the case with the old 'Inside Star Trek' referance, which are at odds with that depicted in most plans (based in turn on where they are shown to fire from onscreen). so perhaps all locations are correct and there are two phasers clustered in the usual place as per screen evidence, and the two further up one quarter port and starboard respectivally? This would account for the four forward phasers mentioned on screen.

 

[RapidNadion]

By the time of TMP the original six forward tubes had been replaced by two. I'm guessing that either the movie era torps were more powerful or the launchers were capable of rapid firing at least three torpedoes each. A case of why mount six tubes if you can get the same, or better, punch from two.

Indeed. We see the lone remaining functional tube (starboard side) fire two torpedoes very quickly in TSFS, during the orbital fight with the Bird of Prey. This would seem to confirm the (non-canon, I know) Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise in its assertion that either tube could fire up to four pho-torps in rapid succession.

 

[DestinyCaptain]

I was thinking the other day about the illustration in 'TMOST' and how the phasers are shown much further up and spread further apart than we normally see them , this is also the case with the old 'Inside Star Trek' referance, which are at odds with that depicted in most plans (based in turn on where they are shown to fire from onscreen). so perhaps all locations are correct and there are two phasers clustered in the usual place as per screen evidence, and the two further up one quarter port and starboard respectivally? This would account for the four forward phasers mentioned on screen.

I guess I haven't seen this before. Are there any images with those images overlapping? If not, can someone round here rustle up a rough image or two?

 

[TIN_MAN]

I was thinking the other day about the illustration in 'TMOST' and how the phasers are shown much further up and spread further apart than we normally see them , this is also the case with the old 'Inside Star Trek' referance, which are at odds with that depicted in most plans (based in turn on where they are shown to fire from onscreen). so perhaps all locations are correct and there are two phasers clustered in the usual place as per screen evidence, and the two further up one quarter port and starboard respectivally? This would account for the four forward phasers mentioned on screen.

I guess I haven't seen this before. Are there any images with those images overlapping? If not, can someone round here rustle up a rough image or two?

Well, I can't seem to get the links for some reason, but the 'TMOST' plans are at cygnus-x1.net, and the other can be found at memory alpha under "Inside Star trek". But never mind, I remembered wrong and the phasers are in the usual place on the second source.

 

[Corallis]

^ The links had 'http' twice. Was easy enough to get around.

http://www.cygnus-x1.net/links/lcars/blueprints-main2.php

 

[GhostFaceSaint]

Hey Corralis, how are you doing?

So I hope we get that new USS Enterprise technical manual sometime in 2010 and that it hasn't been cancelled like the rumor says.

 

[Captain Robert April]

I think that new manual bit the dust the second the publisher found out how idiotically huge the new ship was and that they had a Budweiser brewery for an engine room.

 

[TIN_MAN]

Here's a thought FWIW, aren't there six 'windows' under the front of the saucer? Might these be the six torpedo tubes instead? I Know this isn't where we saw torpedoes firing in the show, but the idea has some logic to recomend it. for one, such an arrangement would make sense of kirk's orders to ready tubes 2, 4 and 6 as this would give a good forward sweep, and second, these 'windows' are about the same size and shape as the refit torpedo appertures. Besides these features never made much sense as windows anyway, due to their position and angle on the hull? Any thoughts?

 

[Nerys Myk]

I think that new manual bit the dust the second the publisher found out how idiotically huge the new ship was and that they had a Budweiser brewery for an engine room.

The least of a publishers worries. Pro Trek tech writers have made sik purses out of uglier sow's ears.

 

[Timo]

Any thoughts?

Just that I'd prefer to have that asymmetric assortment of apertures as windows, and the darker things in between as doorways.

Besides, we already generally assume that at least some of the phaser emplacements are neatly retractable, leaving no surface mark. That is, if we accept the aft phasers of "In a Mirror, Darkly" as standard Constitution fare (otherwise we could say that the ring around the lower saucer dome is a very visible phaser emitter, or something). And now we have the retroactive precedent of ENT to establish retractable gun mounts complete with gunports. That really tempts me to assume gunport-covered torpedo tubes in the otherwise featureless lower part of the saucer...

And once I accept smooth gunports, I'm tempted to assume lots of other smooth covers elsewhere on the ship, too. We know some of the windows have mechanical shutters on them ("Mark of Gideon"); perhaps the ship has much more windows than we usually see in exterior view, and most of them just happen to be shuttered during a normal working day?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Captain Robert April]

When setting up my deck plans of the Enterprise, I managed to set up six forward facing torpedo tubes (pretty much invisible when closed) and two aft, on either side of the fantail.

 

[The Castellan]

I think that new manual bit the dust the second the publisher found out how idiotically huge the new ship was and that they had a Budweiser brewery for an engine room.

Most excellent post.

 

[Wingsley]

I see no evidence that the TMP refit of the Starship Enterprise could not still have torpedo tubes still in operation in the saucer. The "new" bays on the ship's connecting dorsalfin "neck" simply means there are either more torpedo tubes than before, or some of them have been relocated.

 

[Captain Robert April]

The phasers getting cut off when the main reactor went down kinda tells me that there are a few bugs in the redesign.

 

[Timo]

...Corrected by the second movie, though.

One wonders if it really was Kirk who was ignorant of the capabilities of the ship in TMP, or if Decker was forgetting that the ship had a backup method for firing the phasers from auxiliary or even battery power if needed? I mean, such a backup would sound like an obvious thing to have: even the biggest power-operated turrets of WWII warships had some sort of manual backup. Perhaps Decker's expertise here only amounted to him knowing that the incomplete ship didn't have her backup systems online yet?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[The Castellan]

Just annoys me how they used torpedos for all the TOS films, except one. I'd have rather seen phasers be used like the TOS series did.

 

[buckeyenation]

the thing people have to consider when mentioning things such as this, there was no thought given to the future of the show. the writers and producers could not forsee that 40 years later, people would be bringing this stuff up. all they were trying to do was a keep the show on the air