Torpedoes on Runabouts?

[Redshirt214]

So... I was reading up on the Runabouts specs the other day and noticed that during the Dominion War, Runabout were apparently armed with photon torpedoes, allegedly with a single torpedo tube. Where would that be on the exterior of the ship? Do we ever see Runabouts firing torpedoes in the show?

The Runabout isn't a huge starship, and photon torpedoes do take up a quite a bit of space. So, how do you guys envision that working for a Runabout? I assume that they'd have a "photon torpedo bay" mid-module of some sort, but would it have a torpedo tube in it? I'd think that would take up a fair bit of space... could the torpedoes just be dropped off the outside of the ship with sustainers engaged, ala the WW2 MTBs that so clearly are the Runabouts inspiration?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter.

 

[matthunter]

The DS9 Tech Manual always stated that Runabouts had "micro-torpedoes", but could also carry a torpedo module with four full-sized ones.

We see the miniaturised Runabout fire torpedoes (or micro-torps) in One Little Ship to take down Jem'Hadar soldiers. Not sure if the video makes is clear where exactly the launcher is.

A Runabout fires a torp in The Search, Part II (well, in the Dominion simulation) but is seen from the crew perspective so just "from under the viewports".

 

[Timo]

(Uh, ninja'ed due to a distraction, but still... Sorry about that!)

We actually see a runabout fire a projectile in "Past Prologue", although it is not a torpedo; it is an explosive charge primed and loaded in the cockpit and then fired from below it. There are many greeblies below the cockpit, including a half-cylinder that might be some sort of a rotating drum launcher for small projectiles.

We also see pairs of torpedoes emerge from the underside of a runabout in "The Search", but in interior view that only reveals that they come from somewhere lower down than the lower edges of the front windows. (It's also a dream sequence, but the heroes are dreaming an otherwise realistic shared dream, and probably would get these details right, too.)

We also hear O'Brien equip the runabouts with torpedo launchers for the previous adventure, "Jem'Hadar". In the eventual fight, no torpedoes are fired by runabouts, though, perhaps because it's a proximity fight and photorps are no good in those.

In the fight against Maquis-operated attack fighters in "The Maquis II", the fighters are supposed to be armed with torps, and fire a variety of weapons at the runabouts, but the runabouts fire nothing looking like a torpedo. Yet in "The Maquis I", Gul Dukat had wanted to fire the torpedoes of Sisko's runabout, and Sisko had pointed him to the launch controls. Carrying of photorps doesn't appear to be an exceptional event, then.

Finally, a torpedo is fired by the miniature runabout in "One Little Ship", from an indistinct spot below the craft. (Indistinct mainly because the craft is so small at the time...!)

I gather the evidence is best matched by assuming a mid-module that simply drops the torps down and then allows them to speed away under their own power. This is something O'Brien could plausibly install; this would plausibly result in paired firings from below; and a mid-module mount would allow for magazines of at least the four torps seen in "The Search". I'd also like to postulate that a single "quarter module" is available for the purpose, and there were two of those carried in "The Search" side by side, but perhaps just one in "One Little Ship" and the like, and that four could be carried in total, much as per the DS9 Tech Manual.

The Tech Manual additionally tries to suggest microtorpedo launchers in the stub wings flanking the cockpit. While those were seen firing phaser beams once or twice (or then beams emerging from the upper front tips of the nacelles could be interpreted as coming from the stub wings), no projectiles were ever fired from there AFAIK.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I thought they were placed in special Torpedo pods mounted on the pylons on top

 

[Timo]

Apparently not. None of the runabouts that did fire torps were equipped with that pod, after all.

However, while the only real role of that pod was to differentiate multiple runabouts from each other in chase scenes or formation flight, we may speculate that at least one runabout in a formation needed to carry that pod for targeting purposes, helping guide the torpedoes of other runabouts in complex engagements. After all, the pod was carried in fights; if it were mere dead weight (say, a scientific sensor), O'Brien would have yanked it out when preparing the craft for battle. And Cal Hudson thought it worth his ammo to knock out that pod from Sisko's runabout in the "Maquis II" fight.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Deks]

Apparently not. None of the runabouts that did fire torps were equipped with that pod, after all.

However, while the only real role of that pod was to differentiate multiple runabouts from each other in chase scenes or formation flight, we may speculate that at least one runabout in a formation needed to carry that pod for targeting purposes, helping guide the torpedoes of other runabouts in complex engagements. After all, the pod was carried in fights; if it were mere dead weight (say, a scientific sensor), O'Brien would have yanked it out when preparing the craft for battle. And Cal Hudson thought it worth his ammo to knock out that pod from Sisko's runabout in the "Maquis II" fight.

Timo Saloniemi

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there was a battle between DS9 crew in a runabout with a pod and Maqui raiders which included firing torpedoes from the said runabout pod.

 

[Sgt_G]

IMNSHO, if the show had any semblance of proper size/scale, a photon torpedo launch system would be at least three times the size of a Runabout, and more like 8-10 time. I mean, the guns on a warship, how much space they take including the below decks parts. Even the "small" 5" / 8" guns take a lot of real-estate, about what the Main Weapons of a Starship should take up. IMNSHO.

 

[Timo]

Do the torpedoes need a "launch system", though? They appear perfectly capable of maneuvering all on their own, including at sublight and at extreme warp. They also never appear to leave the launcher at a particularly high speed, but hit faraway targets soon thereafter anyway.

Possibly a torpedo can be deployed from a rack just as well as from a launcher, "swimming out" like real-world torps even though those also have the option of being "blown out" at high initial speed. A swim-out launch might preclude the torp going to high warp, but if the firing vessel is at impulse to begin with, the target might be as well.

For an analogy of a different sort, you can dedicate the entire forecastle and all the structures below it to a swinging-arm launcher for Standard missiles and the adjoining magazine; plug a couple of dozen of the missiles in there in vertical silos and leave it at that; or just sprinkle individual Standards all over your decks, in single boxes, like the Koreans did with their old destroyers. The two former setups are more capable, but the latter one works fine as well.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there was a battle between DS9 crew in a runabout with a pod and Maqui raiders which included firing torpedoes from the said runabout pod.

The runabout flown by Dax and Kira is the one with the pod. It fires phasers at the fighters, neutralizing one; the other, with Hudson aboard, then fires a bolt of some sort at the runabout, removing the pod and neutralizing that runabout.

Subsequently Hudson fires a lot of torps, missing. Sisko's podless runabout hurts him with phasers; Hudson switches to forward-firing phasers of his own and cripples Sisko. A standoff ends when Hudson sails away. So, no torps fired by runabouts.

(But earlier on, Sisko's podless runabout had been ready to fire torpedoes; he had even pointed Dukat to the trigger button. So it's a bit of a wasted Chekhov's Gun here that when Sisko says no to Dukat's demands for blowing Hudson out of the sky, Dukat doesn't calmly reach under Sisko's arm and press the fateful button...)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Go-Captain]

The obvious way would be to use a top pod like the AWACS one, which would be able to hold maybe four to five torpedoes, but that's also the least capable way to do it.

The best way would be to use the modular nature of the runabout and create replacement sections to houses a launcher and magazine. That might hold 40 torpedoes if they're stacked efficiently with room left over for the extra M/MA to arm them.

A really extreme design could have the order from back to front go: bunks/head/airlock, command deck, magazine, sensors and weapons. Less extreme would be a new command module with off center deck to make way for an off center torpedo tube. That has an off center hatch to the mid module magazine with a corridor which runs to the aft bunk/lounge.