Vengeance vs Narada

[xvicente]

(I assume this topic was discussed already but did not find the thread)

Which one is more powerful?

The only obvious yardstick is the Enterprise.

Both were shown to deal great damage to, and assumed capable of completely destroy, the Enterprise.

In STID the Enterprise seemed to be more damaged and more quickly.

In ST2009 the Narada quickly destroyed several ships (similar to the Enterprise) but that could be a particular tactical condition.

But she was disabled by the Kelvin.

I'm confused

 

[Timo]

Which one is more powerful?

In terms of destructive power, I presume...

Both were shown to deal great damage to, and assumed capable of completely destroy, the Enterprise.

I rather doubt the Narada would have been capable of that. She made short work of unshielded starships, but when Pike had shields up, they made a significant difference: the Enterprise took very light casualties compared with the likewise shielded Kelvin, still retained the ability to fire back (the Kelvin lost that ability twice in the first battle, although was very quick to recover), and still retained the ability to go to warp if need be.

In turn, there is no indication that the Narada would have had any means of defending herself. Neither of the captains of the Kelvin fired at Nero's ship - both only fired at his missiles. Pike would not have been that timid. And the shields of the Narada were apparently a joke - they didn't even stop Kirk and Spock from beaming aboard (and yes, they were up, as Chekov later makes note of them going down). All that the giant mining rig has to her defense was her sheer bulk. Although there was plenty of it!

In comparison, the Vengeance decisively took out Kirk's weapons, eliminated his ability to go to warp or even move around at impulse, and demonstrated immunity to Kirk's weapons (Marcus had too little crew to conduct effective repairs with, yet never lost any functions until Scotty's sabotage). Which is only to be expected, as this ship would be designed specifically with Enterprise-level opponents in mind, whereas the Narada apparently was never designed to go to battle of any sort...

In STID the Enterprise seemed to be more damaged and more quickly.

Even more so than the poor Kelvin... And that was before Marcus brought his big guns to play!

In ST2009 the Narada quickly destroyed several ships (similar to the Enterprise) but that could be a particular tactical condition.

Heck, it could even be another application of the red matter he had aboard - a series of space mines to do hurting well beyond the abilities of the actual ship!

But the dialogue heavily suggests that those destroyed ships did not have their shields raised, as it took a shouting match on the bridge to get Pike to raise his. And we know that the mightiest will fall if their shields aren't up.

But she was disabled by the Kelvin.

Whose shields were up. Or at least her crew was convinced that they were up, and dumbfounded that the ship was still taking damage as if unshielded.

And at that point, Nero was confused, not knowing where and when he was and who he was fighting, and not really prepared to fight anybody but Spock and his tiny vessel. When defeating the cadet ships over Vulcan, he had had a quarter of a century to prepare!

I don't see a big discrepancy there, really. The Narada was a powerful mining rig, but not much of a warship. But Nero was cunning and ruthless, and waged information warfare (torturing people for important codes, sending false messages, jamming communications and other connections). He didn't need a badass ship.

Marcus OTOH needed that very thing, for his war against the Klingons. And he got what he wanted.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Hartzilla2007]

If the Vengeance has the long rang stealth torpedoes equipped it can take out the Narada outside of the Narada's weapon's range.

 

[Timo]

Also, the Narada seems to move very slowly from Vulcan to Earth - the badly wounded Enterprise catches her despite initially running in the wrong direction under Spock's command.

There is very little indication that the Narada could move faster, and no good rationale for deliberately delaying. Sure, we could argue that

- the Narada got from the Neutral Zone to Vulcan in just a couple of hours; but the Romulan Neutral Zone is close to Vulcan in the TNG universe.
- the Narada got from a Klingon prison planet to the Neutral Zone in just an hour; but the whole claim of the Narada having been anywhere near the Klingons sounds like disinformation anyway.
- the Narada chased after Spock's ship, which was "their fastest"; but Spock wasn't trying to escape, he was trying to goad Nero to pursue. And the Vulcan ship may not have been very fast in absolute terms anyway, as "their" in this context might mean "the only folks who agreed to help Spock save Romulus, which isn't very many and might be limited to the Sarek household if that".
- the Narada waited until Nero had tortured Earth's defense codes out of Pike; but that need not have taken much time at all. For all we know, Nero quickly realized that Pike's capture meant all the codes were changed anyway (not being a soldier, he might not understand that from the get-go). Or then he knew exactly what he wanted, some innocuous backdoor into Earth systems where he could insert a 24th century invasive program, and got that. And let's not forget that Romulans are Vulcans; Nero or one of his crew could simply have mind-melded the information out of Pike in no time flat.

We also know little about the tactical sensor capabilities of the Narada. I doubt they would be the match of even a modest 23rd century warship, as Nero didn't really see the Enterprise approaching in either of the engagements with that ship.

In contrast, the Vengeance is so fast she utterly surprises Kirk, and has sensors good enough for locating the supposedly vewy, vewy quiet hero vessel in Klingon border and then chasing her through high warp.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[saddestmoon]

USS Vengeance all the way!!!!

Booyazzle-dazzle!!!!!!

 

[BillJ]

Not sure there's an honest answer here.

The Vengeance is a brand new starship, the Narada had been captured out of time for 25 years, when each encounters the Enterprise. We also have to acknowledge that Nero wasn't a military commander.

 

[Cyke101]

Going by previous Trek as well, there are a couple examples that show that you can only upgrade/equip/outfit a ship to fighting status to a certain point. The E-D fought a ship that was so armed to the teeth that a single phaser blast started a chain reaction that resulted in the payload exploding and destroying the ship. Kira and Dukat also put a cannon on a civilian frigate, and a Bird of Prey shrugged off a blast at its most vulnerable point. Even though that's in another universe, Trek writers seem to point towards the idea that balancing a non-fighting craft with advanced weapons doesn't necessarily make it viable or equal to a similar craft.

I'd guess -- and that's only a guess -- that the Vengeance can probably withstand a few of the Narada's torpedoes, simply because the ship was made from lessons learned. Likewise, we never saw any other weapon from the Narada but those torpedoes. No energy weapons or offensive weaponry that can strike faster than the torpedoes, or anything for that matter.

 

[Kemaiku]

Vengeance would wreck the Narada so fast the Romulan Empire would surrender, apologise for the war and join the Federation tomorrow.

But thanks Spock, leaving the Federation without the Enterprise or the Vengeance to protect it for however long the former was out of action.

 

[Timo]

Kira and Dukat also put a cannon on a civilian frigate, and a Bird of Prey shrugged off a blast at its most vulnerable point.

To nitpick, it was the original weapon of the Cardassian transport that had no effect on the Klingon warship. The jury-rigging was a classic case, often done in the real world as well: a potent "coastal defense" gun was bolted onto the transport, and a single shot crippled the Klingons, just as if the gun were still surface-mounted. But as ITRW, the shot "bent the deck plates" of the weak civilian ship and could not have been repeated.

Apparently, offense is easily incorporated into civilian platforms. Defense, much less easily!

I'd guess -- and that's only a guess -- that the Vengeance can probably withstand a few of the Narada's torpedoes, simply because the ship was made from lessons learned

But so, supposedly, was Pike's Enterprise. I guess size and tradeoffs matter more than modernity in that respect, for much the same reasons battleships can resist cannon shells better than large cruisers. Heck, the analogy might be more extensive than at first seems: perhaps stronger shield generators are automatically heavier, just like physical armor.

Likewise, we never saw any other weapon from the Narada but those torpedoes.

Tellingly, Nero emphatically associates those torpedoes with the word "EVERYTHING!!!".

And that's another limitation right there: not only is the mining rig capable of firing nothing but torpedoes (and that drilling beam, but not against ships, it seems) - the rig can only fire about twenty of the torpedoes at once, before requiring lengthy reloading or even manufacturing of further ammo.

Given the size and mission of the rig, I would find it very surprising if it didn't sport, say, fifty of those as such tiny drill bits on the shelf (even if the cosmic-length cable is a bulkier item and might not have all that much spare length available), and possibly thousands if not tens of thousands of readymade torpedoes, all for the original mining purposes. So Nero running out of spares or ammo per se doesn't sound plausible. But there could be significant bottlenecks in deployment...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[DaddlerTheDalek]

The Vengeance was a Khan approved warship & The Narada was a Borg technology pimped mining vessel. I honestly don't know wich ship was stronger.

 

[Timo]

That "Borg tech pimping" is inconsistent with everything we see and hear in the movie, though.

Romulans would not put Borg technology into a mining rig before the loss of Romulus. Yet after the loss of Romulus, they would have minutes to do this at very best!

The Narada was swept to the past while chasing Spock, who had just created a timehole (explicitly just minutes after the loss of Romulus) and was returning home to sulk in his supposedly fast ship. The sweeping happened because the ships fell into said timehole. There was no time (or space) for any detours there - it all happened in one location, within a single confrontation. The comic that claims otherwise is in conflict with the movie in that respect, and in several others.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kemaiku]

Yup, she's Star Trek's Red Dwarf.

She's big, slow, armed to the teeth with metal and stone breaking missiles, annnnnd not much else.

Vengeance is pretty fast for her size, with that speed, armament, and heavy shielding, she'd win against anything we know, even the Galaxy class given how small it's firing arcs are and how slow it is.

And being taken out by a bird of prey...

 

[Timo]

Small arcs of fire? There are no known dead spots for her phaser coverage, and no known "hierarchy" of emitter firepower that would make certain areas covered by emitter X "less well covered" than those covered by emitter Y. True, she doesn't employ deployable combat drones, but a "multi-vectoring attack mode" doesn't really add that much to full spherical coverage...

And slow? We never saw the Vengeance pull off any sublight maneuvers of note. In contrast, the E-D often turned on a dime, say, when backing away from danger. As for warp speeds, there are so many pacing-hastening cuts in the action of the newest two movies that we really can't tell much about transit times between major locations, and there isn't another way to judge.

Does the Vengeance have good coverage if one discounts the drones? We didn't see aft-firing phasers (or whatever those curvy-curly bolts were supposed to be) in action. We did see mechanically steerable launchers for what appeared in dialogue terms to be "aft torpedoes"; this sounds awfully clumsy compared with the fixed tubes of the E-D.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kemaiku]

And yet she was creamed by a Bird of Prey in not one but several timelines, crippled any number of times in the show and her core was so unstable she exploded how many times?

Vengeance had 72 super photon torpedoes, warhead intact detonate inside her engineering section, something that in any other show or movie would have resulted in total vapourisation.

She shrugged it off and still nearly took out the Enterprise and Starfleet itself. The Enterprise D was a lumbering oaf.

 

[Timo]

And yet she was creamed by a Bird of Prey in not one but several timelines, crippled any number of times in the show and her core was so unstable she exploded how many times?

We'd need to see the Vengeance pitted against a Klingon BoP to get a good comparison. Supposedly, Marcus ordered the dreadnought built because he feared Klingons!

Vengeance had 72 super photon torpedoes, warhead intact detonate inside her engineering section, something that in any other show or movie would have resulted in total vapourisation.

We have never had an onboard torpedo explosion to worry about in otherTrek, so the nuTrek event might not mean much. And "warhead intact"? Doesn't sound likely when the torpedoes were engineered to be tactical duds (no fuel aboard when assigned a mission of sniping from extreme range) and to safely harbor Khan's dearest. Plus the supposed expert Marcus née Wallace claimed there'd be an Earth-shattering kaboom, but when she fumbled the defusing job, there was none.

For all we know, Spock not only took out the corpsicles but also put in surprise gifts. Not the most powerful ones in Starfleet arsenal, because he didn't have those at hand (his assigned primary armament consisted of these duds) - but he would have been able to rig up some sort of explosives anyway.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[137th Gebirg]

Not sure there's an honest answer here.

The Vengeance is a brand new starship, the Narada had been captured out of time for 25 years, when each encounters the Enterprise. We also have to acknowledge that Nero wasn't a military commander.

Removing the strategic abilities of the respective commanders and boiling it down to raw destructive power, I would have to hand the medal to the Narada. Even without having canonically mentioned a Borg-inspired tech, at full strength, and even after having been captured and inactive for 25 years, she single-handedly wiped out 47 Klingon ships upon escaping Rura Penthe, following up with the destruction of an entire armada of Starfleet capital ships at the Laurentian system without breaking a sweat. In truth, it probably would have finished the Enterprise if the red matter hadn't popped inside its hull when Spock's Jellyfish ship collided with it.

Sure the Vengeance might be faster, but if the apocryphal notion that the Narada's hull and weapons are 24th century Borg-augmented technology is a part of its real back-story, there's really no logical way the Vengeance could stand up to it. It would, agreeably, last longer than probably any other ship in service at the time, including Enterprise, but I'm thinking it would eventually fall. Autonomous torpedo balls and all...

 

[USS Firefly]

The destruction of the E-D had nothing to do with the strength of the ship, but with the inability of the first officer.

 

[F. King Daniel]

The Vengeance was designed with loads of weapons which never made it to the screen. The Official Starships Collection magazine talks about "neutron torpedoes" and shows pop-up rails of launchers. I'd have loved to see them in action, they're described not unlike the Narada's cluster-missiles.

 

[BillJ]

The destruction of the E-D had nothing to do with the strength of the ship, but with the inability of the first officer.

I'd say it had more to do with the incompetence of the Chief Medical Officer who missed the presence of transmitter devices in LaForge's VISOR.

 

[F. King Daniel]

That "Borg tech pimping" is inconsistent with everything we see and hear in the movie, though.

Romulans would not put Borg technology into a mining rig before the loss of Romulus. Yet after the loss of Romulus, they would have minutes to do this at very best!

The mind-meld scene was heavily re-edited. The comic reflects the original plan, where Romulus was destroyed prior to Spock even launched. In any case, the fractured mind-meld visuals give plenty of wiggle room.