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Saber Size vs Crew

D

DavidGutierrez

Lieutenant Commander
Red Shirt
In perusing various reference works, Memory Alpha, and Ex-Astris Scientia, it is clear that no one agrees on the size of the Saber class. The ILM size chart makes it pretty big, while the DS9TM gives it the same dimensions as the Norway (probably a misprint). A general size range of 190m - 230m seems to be the fan community consensus.

Another thing which the fan community isn't debating is the generally-accepted crew complement of 40.

This leads me to ask: why are so few people crewing such a large ship?

By contrast, the Defiant carried a crew of 50 on a normal day. While the Defiant is sort of the posterchild for inconsistent sizing in canon, on-screen evidence and fan community consensus usually points to a 120m ship. This gives us 10 fewer people crewing a ship which is at best 70m and at worst 110m longer.

How could this possibly be so? Why such a tiny crew? Is the ship actually smaller? Is the crew actually bigger?
 
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FWIW, both ships are of a shape that gives rather little "crewable" volume per meter of length: the Defiant crew huddles between warp engines in a narrow hull with a major ventral cavity, and the Saber central sausage has big undercuts forward and aft while the side flares might be just one deck thick. Then again, many starships have awkwardly "wasteful" shapes like that.

That said, the Saber might also be a bit shorter than suggested above. About 170 m would already jibe with the deck count "analysis", that is, the number of identifiable window rows vs. the idea that a single deck might be just 3 m tall. It is futile to try and make that narrow pimple atop the forward hull be a "bridge set" anyway, unless the two bridge crew ride in tandem or something. It's probably just a sensor array atop a slightly broader facility deeper within the deck.

I for one would like to believe in a fairly small Saber, the "conventional" Starfleet escort that the Defiant was deliberately mis-designated against when Starfleet wanted to hide the fact that this escort-sized vessel in fact was an anti-Borg superweapon.

Timo Saloniemi
 
I watched a video on this topic a few days ago. I have to assume the hosts made up most of the information they stated for the ship, because it has never been talked about in a show or movie. However, their sources for the ship sizes seem legit, since it is the one thing for which they mentioned sources.

Their source for the size is the visual effects supervisor for First Contact, and that size is 190.5 meters. I think that's a good size for the ship. However, they mention a 40 person crew, with 200 person evacuation limit; I have no idea where they are getting this, and it does not make sense to me.

Using the st-v-sw volumetrics page, it gives the Defiant (120 m) a volume of 61,724 m³.
Intrepid (344) has a volume of 625,885 m³.
Saber (170 m) has a volume of 239,317 m³.
Nova (180 m) has a volume of 88,650 m³.

First, let's not argue about the lengths above, from the page, I know the volume grows very fast in relation to length, but in this case it's close enough to get an idea of where things should be crew wise. Again, I'm not trying to be definitive with this.

Continuing, Defiant with the above volume divided by 50 crew. That's, 1234.48 m³/crewman. But, Defiant is a high density ship, crew wise, we need a more voluminous figure for comparison. Voyager at 141 crew, and 625,885 m³ gives 4438.90 m³/crewman.

Saber = 193 - 54 crew
Nova = 71 - 20 crew

The Defiant density looks good to me with these ships, and the Nova figure confirms it, because not only does it just look right, it fits the figure of 78 crewmen stated in VOY: "Equinox." However, this does mean the crew is packed in there like sardines, just as in the Defiant's crew quarters. They're no bigger than a bathroom on the Enterprise-D, yet they pack in two people. The brig on the Enterprise-D is bigger, and has fewer people, than the Defiant's quarters.

We can go a step further and guess the evacuation limits of all the ships. In VOY: "Prophecy" Voyager beams over 204 Klingons, in addition to their crew. I don't recall Voyager's crew size at that time, but 118 rings a bell, so 322 total.
322-141 = 181
181/141 = 1.281.28*100 = 128%

Saber
193*1.28 = 247.04
193+247.04 = 440.04 evac limit

Nova
71*1.28 = 90.88
71+90.88 = 161.88 evac limit

Defiant
50*1.28 = 64
50+64 = 114 evac limit

USS Enterprise-D
1100*1.28 = 1408
1100+1408 = 2508 evac limit.

As we see with the E-D figure, this may or may not be a low ball, or the limit percentage scales up with the size of the ship at some sort of rate.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HmDxdppfvc
http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWvolumetrics.html
http://bobye2.deviantart.com/art/USS-Defiant-Crew-quarters-492236364
http://bobye2.deviantart.com/art/USS-Defiant-Quarters-variant-2-517309498
http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Brig
 
I can't seem to edit my post. I just wanted to add, if I low balled the Voyager evacuation limit, then that would cascade into getting the Galaxy limit wrong. Fortunately, that just makes this all the low end, which is good for estimates. I also seem to change 118 crew to 141 crew for Voyager at a random point, so the percentage may actually be even lower than what it should be at. The total evac limit should have been 345. That's what we get for 2 AM math.

345-141=204/141=1.45*100=145% is the right value.
 
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DavidGutierrez said:
This leads me to ask: why are so few people crewing such a large ship?
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Basically a armed a cargo hauler? Just a crew composed of a command staff, engineering personnel, and one doctor. No science contingent or security guards because it doesn't do exploration or survey work.

The "crew" numbers doesn't include the crew's families.
 
In practical terms, the 170m Saber is just a slightly narrower Defiant with wings and a ventral deflector bulge. The crew of the DS9 ship is supposedly complaining about the crampedness; if you are doing escort duty with relatively slowly moving transports, you'd probably worry about crew comfort. So in a real escort, the 40 just get more space to rattle in.

Then again, if there are just 40 crew, then each one gets a personal lifepod, with at least 30 to spare... (But in a 170m ship, those are small enough to indeed be one-man lifepods!)

Timo Saloniemi
 
T'Girl said:
Basically a armed a cargo hauler? Just a crew composed of a command staff, engineering personnel, and one doctor. No science contingent or security guards because it doesn't do exploration or survey work.

The "crew" numbers doesn't include the crew's families.
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I've always liked the concept, of the ship only having the bridge crew and people to support them.

I guess the Galaxy class can have a maximum of 11 people on the bridge but only 10 are useful (Troi's seat). The fixed crew would be the CO, XO, Chief Engineer. The CO and XO don't have to be on the bridge at the same time except in critical situations, and we don't want the Engineer getting lonely, so he will be on the bridge in at least one shift too, and he will have two other officers under him. Here's what the shifts might look like.

CO + 9 randoes
XO + 9 randoes
CE + 9 randoes

That's 27 random officers, and three top guys makes 30.

Then there is the councilor, a doctor, security guy, and let's go luxurious with a bartender, for 34 personnel.

That number can go higher and lower, since Voyager had 6 primary stations, with 4 extras, and the Enterprise-D in Generations had 7-9 primary, with what looks to me like 9-7 extra stations.

Such a small crew work very well if the ship carries a lot of robots for heavy repairs and complex maintenance. Or, the ship would be designed for short missions and have to return to dock for any repairs and maintenance.
 
One web site stated that the Saber was part of a modernization program, along with the Steamrunner class.
 
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I always apply the following rule of thumb: When in doubt, count the decks.

For me the Saber was the 24th century Miranda replacement. It had two engines directly below a saucer shaped hull and a torpedo bay above its hull. At wartime they probably make good pickets, at peacetime they might do border patrols and courrier duty.
 
I love the Sabre-Class.

The design is interesting and unique, whilst the thought of a ship with a small crew always intregues me.

I always go with the smallest size option and look at the internal volume as space for fuel tanks, sensor palettes and cargo bays, so she acts more as long-range scout (much like the 23rd century Archer-Class, goes very far, very fast). As for all the escape pod hatches...um well...an overly-cautious junior design tech added them? :lol:
 
Bry_Sinclair said:
I love the Sabre-Class.

The design is interesting and unique, whilst the thought of a ship with a small crew always intregues me.

I always go with the smallest size option and look at the internal volume as space for fuel tanks, sensor palettes and cargo bays, so she acts more as long-range scout (much like the 23rd century Archer-Class, goes very far, very fast). As for all the escape pod hatches...um well...an overly-cautious junior design tech added them? :lol:
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You'd think a ship designed as part of Borg deterrent techology would sport lifeboats instead of helpless escape pods. :p
 
If its part of an anti-Borg design maybe there are only a dozen lifeboats for the crew and the other hatches launch missiles, or are used to hide projectile-firing railguns--seeing as how Borg shields seem ineffective against physical objects piercing them.
 
Ultimately, we don't have to believe in 40 crew. it's not just that there's no support for the figure in canon - it's that there's little support for it overall.

There are just two outstanding sources for that figure, and one is specific to the written adventures of the Starfleet Corps of Engineers team; their ship might well carry special gear that displaces two thirds of the crew, resulting in a significant drop in combat persistence yet mattering little to the SCE. Sure, the Da Vinci supposedly still sports all the standard weaponry, and has engaged in combat at times, but the crew balance would reflect a different mission balance.

As for the other source, well, the final pages of the DS9 Tech Manual get so many things explicitly and blatantly wrong that we can always ignore the Saber crew figure as another cut-and-paste error...

Timo Saloniemi
 
One web site stated that the Saber was intended as a scout. Which I guess would make it a replacement for the Archer class.
 
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Except there's probably a century-long gap between the two. And the Saber is about ten times bigger at the very least. I'd think 24th century technology could come up with a craft that's even smaller than the Archer and still does a better job...

Then again, while Commodore Reyes had an Archer attached for assorted errands and joyrides, Captain Sisko had the Defiant. Perhaps size requirements did go up in a century!

Timo Saloniemi
 
Look at the Enterprise lineage, it's gotten bigger and bigger each time.

As for the Sabre/Archer comparison, the larger size and crew would allow for some more flexibility with missions. But that is just my interpretation of the class.
 
I think that the Apollo and Nebula classes were intended as the Miranda replacement.
 
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Tim Walker said:
One web site stated that the Saber was intended as a scout. Which I guess would make it a replacement for the Archer class.
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The Nova class makes more sense as a scout, and as a replacement for the Oberth. Except, Voyager is far faster, still relatively small, and we know it's one of the fastest ships in the fleet. Officially it's second fastest after the Prometheus.
 
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