Miranda class starships crew sizes and ship lengths

[James Wright]

How big was the starship Saratoga NCC-31911, which had families aboard, compared to the late 23rd century starfleet starship Saratoga NCC-1867?
When NCC-31911 was built something had to be done to accomadate the spouses and children of those crew members who would serve on the ship, either the crew was drastically reduced or that particular class was redisigned as a larger ship?
By the way, does anybody have any idea what the crew complement of NCC-1867 was, I've always thought 360?

James

 

[USS KG5]

How big was the starship Saratoga NCC-31911, which had families aboard, compared to the late 23rd century starfleet starship Saratoga NCC-1867?

Same size I imagine?

When NCC-31911 was built something had to be done to accomadate the spouses and children of those crew members who would serve on the ship, either the crew was drastically reduced or that particular class was redisigned as a larger ship?

I would imagine a second-line ship as the Miranda became would need a far smaller crew than a front-line ship like the Saratoga we see in ST4.

Therefore you maybe have a crew of 100 or less (the Defiant manages with only 50) and with a few families maybe only 150 on board tops. Plenty of spare room to knock through into family quarters.

By the way, does anybody have any idea what the crew complement of NCC-1867 was, I've always thought 360?
James

Sounds about right. Maybe a few less IMHO.

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

Fandom sources usually list about 360, given that the movie-era Enterprise has 500 from the same sources.

I've always thought that by the TNG era, a Miranda would operate under generally automated conditions with a minimum crew of 20. Extra crew would be assigned according to mission parameters or the specific confiruation of the class. For example, the cargo-configured Lantree had a crew of 26, and the science vessel Br!ttain was up to 34. I figured that aside from a base crew to run the ship, each of these would have six or fourteen permanent payload or mission specialists, respectively. Then they'd have plenty of room for additional mission-specific crew.

Extending this to Saratoga, she could easily have up to a hundred crew and families for some extended mission assignment. Altogether, we saw at least ten crew on the bridge and some thirty or more different people (mostly civilians) in the corridor and escape pod scenes. Assuming the three escape pods that launched held the same twenty plus escapees, and that there were at least four of them (we saw three launch), a crew count of 100 would be reasonable given how many people were probably killed by that point or were busy fighting the Borg or being assimilated (I firmly believe that the ship was boarded during all the time it was held in the tractor beam, but that's another thread.).

Mark

 

[James Wright]

Actually Mark_Nguyen, if you listen somewhere in the first motion picture the total number of crew for the Enterprise is given as 431, 11 in sickbay 172 on duty and 248 off duty.

James

 

[Praetor]

I'd throw in the pot that automation probably decreased the crew needs of older ships like the Miranda by a longshot in the 24th century. I believe we saw a transport variant in TNG that had a crew of, what, 24? I'd say mission played some role in how many crew a ship needed and how many civilians were allowed aboard, but wasn't the sole deciding "allowance" factor.

Base dimensions would no doubt be the same.

 

[Captain Fine]

Kinda bothers me that the second Saratoga's registry is so high.

 

[Praetor]

Eh, it was probably a last-generation of Mirandas that Starfleet cranked out. I don't think we've seen any with substantially higher registries. Presumably these are the ones that had a great longevity as they were already relatively modern and therefore easier to update.

 

[USS KG5]

Eh, it was probably a last-generation of Mirandas that Starfleet cranked out. I don't think we've seen any with substantially higher registries. Presumably these are the ones that had a great longevity as they were already relatively modern and therefore easier to update.

Plus it is quite likely that Starfleet had a huge increase in its need for ships as the Federation seemed to grow drastically between TOS and TNG.

Sometimes you have to build what you can, there would have been no point building 200 of a new untested design for a little bush-fire-fighting cruiser when you can build a tried and tested design. The Klingons seem to have been using similar designs for their ships for a couple of centuries after all.

 

[Praetor]

Yeah, and plus for all we know Starfleet tried to develop a direct replacement and it ended up being a dud, so they just built more Mirandas. The Centaur design mght be a good candidate for this.

 

[Timo]

Agreed in principle, although the lowest known registry for the Centaur type is higher than the highest known Miranda one...

Perhaps the real "replacement" for the Miranda was the Saber, an affordable-looking TNG era design in the same size range with somewhat frequent appearances. Or perhaps there never was a replacement, Starfleet deciding that a) it had no use for ships in that exact size and equipment range in the TNG era, but also that b) there was no pressing need to get rid of those earlier designs that still worked just fine.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kross]

Reminds me of this idea I had for Mirandas during the Dominion War - troop transports. The idea in general was that the crew would be minimized to the bone, with the majority of the interior being gutted and remodeled to make way for barrack-style quarters, armories, firing ranges and training areas. I figured the marines/security officers being ferried around could pull double duty when not fighting. I guess the weapons would also be downsized, to make room.

Edit: I agree about the Saber.

 

[Praetor]

Agreed in principle, although the lowest known registry for the Centaur type is higher than the highest known Miranda one...

Yeah, but doesn't that actually end up helping the argument? They ceased production on the Mirandas thinking that the Centaurs were going to be awesome, but as it turns out they built a dud.

Also, perhaps the Centaur was coincidentally the newest member of her class?

Perhaps the real "replacement" for the Miranda was the Saber, an affordable-looking TNG era design in the same size range with somewhat frequent appearances. Or perhaps there never was a replacement, Starfleet deciding that a) it had no use for ships in that exact size and equipment range in the TNG era, but also that b) there was no pressing need to get rid of those earlier designs that still worked just fine.

Timo Saloniemi

How about a little of both? Starfleet sometimes needed a little ship for the same mission profile, so it commissioned a limited class (the Saber) to pick up the slack, combined with the old ones that still worked fine.

Reminds me of this idea I had for Mirandas during the Dominion War - troop transports. The idea in general was that the crew would be minimized to the bone, with the majority of the interior being gutted and remodeled to make way for barrack-style quarters, armories, firing ranges and training areas. I figured the marines/security officers being ferried around could pull double duty when not fighting. I guess the weapons would also be downsized, to make room.

Edit: I agree about the Saber.

An interesting idea. I'd expand that to suggest perhaps the Mirandas were carriers of all different sorts of things, not just troops. We did already see the Lantree on TNG that had, what, a crew of two dozen and was referred to as an unarmed transport?

 

[Captain Fine]

I wish we got to see more of those FC ships in TNG. I'm glad they at least occasionally showed up on DS9. I wish we'd seen more of the Nebula-class as well.

 

[Kross]

Be kind of hard to see FC ships in TNG, wouldn't it?

 

[Praetor]

They were off somewhere. Boldly going, or something.

 

[Kross]

They were getting Blizzards at DQ, yum.