Can someone tell me if the Miranda, Nebula and Akira classes have auto reload torpedo launchers, something similar to the guns found on the cruisers and destroyers of most of navies today?
JDW
JDW
Torpedo Launchers?
- Thread starter James Wright
- Start date
I think each of those ships all have somewhat different varieties of torpedo launcher because their number, appearance and placement on the models are so different (but I'm sure, of course, they can all fire the standard torpedoes). But for commonalities between them, I can't imagine that 23rd and 24th century tech wouldn't have produced something you could equate with "auto-reload." What's the alternative, people down there physically carrying around the casings (with antigravs, since they are really heavy)? We may have seen this for funerals or specially modified torpedoes, but I don't imagine it is standard operating procedure.
Until "Enterprise" came along I would have said the question of "auto-reloading" was a silly question about any starship, but now don't we have a scene somewhere where Malcolm Reed picks up and places a torpedo in the tube with his bare hands.
I don't remember if that happened or not, but if it did it would make a bit of sense as a starting point.
You would have fully manual loading in Enterprise.
Semi-automated loading TWoK, where crewmen clear the deck plates off the launcher tube and an arm (Don't know if the arm is manned or not) that lowers the torpedoes onto the launchers.
To the quick launching presumably fully automated launchers of the TNG area.
I'd rather suspect it would be fully automated in TWoK, too - it's just that a training ship normally would use the torpedo room for purposes other than firing torpedoes, such as receptions for visiting Admirals, so there would be deck plates covering the tracks. After those were removed and the long-dormant system was primed, it would become fully automatic, rapid and efficient.
As for Enterprise, the producers certainly made every effort to make it look as if there was automation and machinery in place, even when they couldn't actually afford to include any in the construction of the set. Just because the missile surfaces from the bowels of the machinery for a little while for manual inspection doesn't mean the system wouldn't be "automatic".
Perhaps the hasty retrofitting of photon torpedoes for a system intended to use less volatile warheads may have made NX-01 less automated than the designers originally intended. But our Anti Drone[/i] here has come up with a cool way of interpreting the silly four-level rack on the set as an element of an extensive, integrated launch system that feeds from a separate underfloor magazine.
Timo Saloniemi
As for Enterprise, the producers certainly made every effort to make it look as if there was automation and machinery in place, even when they couldn't actually afford to include any in the construction of the set. Just because the missile surfaces from the bowels of the machinery for a little while for manual inspection doesn't mean the system wouldn't be "automatic".
Perhaps the hasty retrofitting of photon torpedoes for a system intended to use less volatile warheads may have made NX-01 less automated than the designers originally intended. But our Anti Drone[/i] here has come up with a cool way of interpreting the silly four-level rack on the set as an element of an extensive, integrated launch system that feeds from a separate underfloor magazine.
Timo Saloniemi
Well Chekov does ask for a "photon torpedo load status" in TMP prior to departure to intercept V'Ger. He could be querying the computer, but since nobody else asked the computer questions during the film, he might very well have been calling down to the torpedo room to ensure that the crew had both tubes loaded with shells.
Could the Miranda, Nebula and Akira have a torpedo reload system somewhat like the system used to reload the VLS(Vertical Launch System) of some navy ships today?
JDW
JDW
Plecostomus
Commodore
Dunno, how's that work exactly?
I suspect the manual system in TWOK was to teach the "traditional" hands-on method, you know.... proper respect for the weapon, safe practices, manual upkeep of the system and all that, and later on as cadets transfer to other ships or continue education they get trained up on the more advanced autoload systems and such.
I suspect the manual system in TWOK was to teach the "traditional" hands-on method, you know.... proper respect for the weapon, safe practices, manual upkeep of the system and all that, and later on as cadets transfer to other ships or continue education they get trained up on the more advanced autoload systems and such.
I assume that most 23th and 24th century ships always have fully automated torpedo systems and that the manual option is only there for redundancy for when power failures occur and the like which is rather often in the trek universe..
I like that explanation better than the old "Enterprise was a training vessel" idea.
Marian
'Course, they'd essentially be the same thing, as the trainees would obviously be taught to use the manual backups after or perhaps before they learned how to push the buttons of the automated system.
As for the Miranda arrangement, it doesn't seem particularly difficult to provide "conventional" crew access to the pod along that rollbar. It's about two meters thick, after all; one could install a "ship's ladder" that descends at a shallow angle, say, 20-30 degrees, in both directions so that the crew could run along (and of course trainees would always have to run along the upward slope!), or one could do a sliding tube or firepole that descended more steeply towards the pod. A closed-circuit transporter might be the most practical thing, of course, but would a military organization trust such a high-tech approach to what is essentially their manual backup?
Timo Saloniemi
As for the Miranda arrangement, it doesn't seem particularly difficult to provide "conventional" crew access to the pod along that rollbar. It's about two meters thick, after all; one could install a "ship's ladder" that descends at a shallow angle, say, 20-30 degrees, in both directions so that the crew could run along (and of course trainees would always have to run along the upward slope!), or one could do a sliding tube or firepole that descended more steeply towards the pod. A closed-circuit transporter might be the most practical thing, of course, but would a military organization trust such a high-tech approach to what is essentially their manual backup?
Timo Saloniemi
Rather than a ladder or firepole like thing, why not have hand hand holds and make the roll bar a weightless area. The weapons crew could enter a room where the gravity plating is off and pull themselves up along the roll bar until they reach the torpedo launcher.
Yeah, but why settle for zero gravity when you can have nonzero gravity pulling you towards your goal? Two firepoles, one with "down" towards the pod and one with "down" towards the ship, would be faster than a tunnel that doesn't have "down" at all.
Starfleet would have had to devise something comparable for the Oberth class already - narrow turbolifts, ladderways, "landline" transporters, firepoles, zero-gee chutes. It might be a standard solution by the time the Miranda pod comes to be.
Timo Saloniemi
Starfleet would have had to devise something comparable for the Oberth class already - narrow turbolifts, ladderways, "landline" transporters, firepoles, zero-gee chutes. It might be a standard solution by the time the Miranda pod comes to be.
Timo Saloniemi
It's not quite an equal comparison, since the Oberth's lower section could be one big unmanned sensor pod. There'd need to be the kind of access you describe for maintenance purposes, but manning a battlestation is different from occasional maintenance visits. It needs to happen both frequently and quickly.
Why would a shipwright design such an arrangement when there many other, more practical (from a perspective of rapid crew access) locations for a torpedo room? The only explanations I can think of are A) the torpedo pod doesn't need to be manned for every red alert, or B) the shape confers some bonus that's worth the longer crew response time.
Marian
The Akira looks big enough that a turbolift could reach the weapons pod, ditto with the Nebula (which houses more than just the photon launchers IIRC). The Miranda is questionable, but who's to say that the pod itself doesn't have life support and a watch crew on duty all the time?
the manual loading sequence in The Wrath of Khan was probably simply because the ship had taken severe damage had didn't have full power.
Remember, most of the turbolifts were not even working
Kirk: "What is working around here?"
Spock: "Very little. We've partially restored main power"
Kirk: "Is that all?"
Spock: "Best we could do in two hours"
Remember, most of the turbolifts were not even working
Kirk: "What is working around here?"
Spock: "Very little. We've partially restored main power"
Kirk: "Is that all?"
Spock: "Best we could do in two hours"
We also have to ask "What manual sequence?". After all, nobody really touched a torpedo with their hands in that movie...
While there were personnel present during the operation of the system, this could have been because the system had been on shutdown mode for such a long time. Or then because automation was knocked offline, as you suggest. Or then because the ship wasn't fully crewed with competent personnel, and it was more practical to put lots of unskilled manual workers at the backups than to try and find even a few skilled people to run the automation.
Timo Saloniemi
While there were personnel present during the operation of the system, this could have been because the system had been on shutdown mode for such a long time. Or then because automation was knocked offline, as you suggest. Or then because the ship wasn't fully crewed with competent personnel, and it was more practical to put lots of unskilled manual workers at the backups than to try and find even a few skilled people to run the automation.
Timo Saloniemi
I always assume they're using a simple lift with an inner cage which is capable of rotating so that it doesn't matter if there's a slope or bend in the pylons, give the thing its own mini power source and it will work even if the ship's power is down.
An inner cage would seem clumsy and superfluous when we already know that the ship has artificial gravity that can be adjusted room by room. Simply have the gravity aboard the lift adjusted so that the occupant does not feel any sort of tilt.
The regular turbolifts are quite capable of this already, or else their high horizontal accelerations would throw everybody off balance even during standard operations.
A nonstandard, perhaps mechanically complex lift body might be needed to negotiate the sharp bends of an Oberth or Miranda pylon, though. These structures are just barely too small to comfortably house a standard turbolift - an idiotic choice from the Starfleet engineers, even if perhaps an aesthetically justifiable one from the ILM modelers...
Timo Saloniemi
The regular turbolifts are quite capable of this already, or else their high horizontal accelerations would throw everybody off balance even during standard operations.
A nonstandard, perhaps mechanically complex lift body might be needed to negotiate the sharp bends of an Oberth or Miranda pylon, though. These structures are just barely too small to comfortably house a standard turbolift - an idiotic choice from the Starfleet engineers, even if perhaps an aesthetically justifiable one from the ILM modelers...
Timo Saloniemi
