What Might a Dedicated Trek Warship Be Like?

[FalTorPan]

Most Star Trek spacecraft designs aren't dedicated warships. Most contemporary combat vehicles are little more than moving weapon platforms. If a Trek ship were similarly designed, then what might it look like? What might its capabilities be versus a "typical" Trek ship?

Let's not necessarily restrict this to Federation Starfleet designs.

Discuss!

 

[Romulan_spy]

I think a Fed warship would be similar to the Defiant in DS9: smaller, few luxuries, overpowered with strong weapons. In fact, you could probably "convert" most ships into dedicated warships. For example, take the Sovereign class, remove some of the large crew quarters and labs, and add a extra warp core, a couple extra shield generators, 1-2 extra torpedo lauchers, and some extra phaser strips.

 

[Forbin]

http://www.inpayne.com/models/dominion.html
http://www.inpayne.com/models/shaitan.html
http://www.inpayne.com/models/starcrafts_asmodeus.html

http://www.inpayne.com/models/masao1.html

http://www.inpayne.com/models/kitbash/trekpage_belisarius.html
http://www.inpayne.com/models/kitbash/trekpage_lion.html
http://www.inpayne.com/models/kitbash/trekpage_kirov.html
http://www.inpayne.com/models/kitbash/trekpage_saipan.html
http://www.inpayne.com/models/kitbash/trekpage_preble.html
http://www.inpayne.com/models/kitbash/trekpage_arminius.html

 

[Forbin]

Also, the Reliant strikes me as pretty much a pure warship, despite that it was exploring when we first met it. That rollbar with a pod dedicated to fore and aft torpedo launchers and super-powerful fore and aft phaser turrets wasn't exactly designed for cataloging gasseous anomolies.

 

[philbob]

Think of a Ambassador or Galaxy class sized Defiant... the warp naccelle would be brought as closely into the hull as is safe. the neck would be deleted and the saurcer and engineering hulls would be more closely intergrated. The majority of the windows would be deleted and the hanger bays would be less exposed and more fortified. The ships armerment would be far heavier and there would be alot more armor. all the miscallanous equitment would be fortified as well, the sensor and communications arrays, transporter and tractor beam emitters, and finaaly the umbillaicle and exteranal hatches(airlocks and cargo bay doors). All of this would be redesigned to be more utiltarian and damage resistanant. The ship would be more compartmentalized agian to resist damage the bridge would be buried deep in the hull. beacuse of the smaller profile if the same shield generators are being used they will be more effective because of a smaller area they have to cover, more then likly if its a designed as a warship from the start it would have a much more advanced shield generator....more to come

 

[C.E. Evans]

Personally, I think the Defiant, Akira, and Prometheus classes are dedicated warships in the sense that tactical engagements seem to be their primary function. But yes, all Starfleet ships seem to be able to carry out a wide variety of other missions too.

A Starfleet vessel designed solely for combat and nothing else might abandon the whole saucer section/dual hull concept and really be nothing more than one single giant weapons array about the size of an Excelsior-class. It wouldn't be a very pretty ship and have little or nothing in the way of aesthetics in its design. Warp nacelles may be enclosed structures within the main body of the ship and the entire hull may be encased in some sort of ablative or otherwise reflective armor plating. And rather than have a bridge, it could have a centrally located combat center and--

Damn it, I just more or less described the new Battlestar Galactica...

 

[Malleus]

^^^ Quit advertising there, Forbin!

[Seriously, though, while the Belisarius is the best of the bunch, I can't seem to get hooked to your other kitbashes. ]

Regarding the Masao (AKA "souped-up Saladin"), I wonder why nobody bothered to modify SFB models to have that kind of [additional] shuttlebay on the saucer like that, since that was cool.

 

[Wingsley]

Consider this:

The deadliest Federation starship we've ever seen was Sisko's Defiant. Defiant established a precedent in TREK, that in order to be a Federation war-starship, size and complexity of design is not required. The Defiant is a one-piece hull, with warp drive, hangar deck and weapons built-into a simple, ablative armor shell. Making the Defiant a small, super-armored single-hull vessel means it would be easier to build, maintain, and hangar/store than a Prometheus.

Now, consider this: the Federation is going to be concerned about responsibility and accountability. They don't want another Captain Tracey and the Exeter disaster. The Defiant is a super-powerful offensive weapon, in addition to its defensive capabilities. Starfleet would therefore be under careful orders to design a limited-production war-starship to be one that can be operated by a small crew of the most trusted personnel. Sisko & company distinguished themselves, so Starfleet gave Sisko the Defiant.

As for the TOS era, "The Ultimate Computer" showed us that the Enterprise could inflict staggering damage on a task force of four of her sisterships. The M-5 war games indicate to me that Federation starships as a rule have awesome military potential. That's why the Prime Directive and Starfleet Regulations are drummed into the heads of every Academy cadet.

One final thought: a single Borg cube beat a combined task force of (presumably) 40 Federation starships. But if that same Borg ship had tangled with 60 Defiant-class vessels that had been kept in cold storage somewhere, maybe the Battle of Wolf 359 would've been won by Starfleet.

 

[Wingsley]

Forbin said:
Also, the Reliant strikes me as pretty much a pure warship, despite that it was exploring when we first met it. That rollbar with a pod dedicated to fore and aft torpedo launchers and super-powerful fore and aft phaser turrets wasn't exactly designed for cataloging gasseous anomolies.

Looking back on the various uses and configurations for Miranda-class vessels, I would assume that weapons pods could be added or removed, depending on the ship's assignment. Reliant was going to be used as a launching platform for the Genesis Device, so equipping Reliant with the fancy torpedo bay made sense. When the Saratoga encountered the Whalesong Probe, she was patrolling the Neutral Zone. Again, the torpedo bay was appropriate. In the 24th century, Mirandas seemed to be falling back to home guard duties, such as supply (the Lantree) so funky pods weren't needed.

 

[hellsgate]

You've also forgotten about the Valiant-Class concept by Jim Martin & (my personal favorite) the Xenon-Class reconfiguration of the Defiant.

Source:
http://www.guiastartrek.com.ar/informesver.php?archivo=ht_defiant

 

[Malleus]

^^^ The Xenon-class (and I think it's safe to say it's its own class, and I've got pics :thumbsup: ) has more utility than the Defiant, with that weapons module dead-smack atop the bridge module (thus providing protection).

 

[USS KG5]

Wingsley said:
One final thought: a single Borg cube beat a combined task force of (presumably) 40 Federation starships. But if that same Borg ship had tangled with 60 Defiant-class vessels that had been kept in cold storage somewhere, maybe the Battle of Wolf 359 would've been won by Starfleet.

Well the reason they lost was that Starfleet's tactical information was all in the Borg's hands thanks to assimilating Picard. They also did not have the technology to adapt their weapons so they were continually effective against the Borg throughout the battle.

In First Contact the Borg fight the more advanced Starfleet and they lose.

 

[FalTorPan]

Wingsley said:
Consider this:

The deadliest Federation starship we've ever seen was Sisko's Defiant. Defiant established a precedent in TREK, that in order to be a Federation war-starship, size and complexity of design is not required.

Since the Defiant was explicitly designed to battle the Borg, I wonder if its design differs from what would be an optimal design for "general" space combat -- such as Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, Borg, and as-yet-undiscovered threats.

 

[SangWe]

FalTorPan said:
Since the Defiant was explicitly designed to battle the Borg, I wonder if its design differs from what would be an optimal design for "general" space combat -- such as Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, Borg, and as-yet-undiscovered threats.

Most likely not. Though without the Borg they may have not gone with the pulse phaser cannons. The whole point of which was to change the phase of the weapon quickly every few shots giving the Borg much less time to repair under adapted shields. It also spreads the damage over a wider area increasing the chances of destroying vital hard to repair systems.

(Despite the Federation's initial estimate of a cube remaining functional until nearly 80% of it is destroyed, Voyager and First Contact have shown that the Borg Cube does have weak points that can cripple or kill it if hit.)

 

[Patrickivan]

Like a Nebula Class.

 

[philbob]

again the engiens would be more fortifed and brought closer to the hull as well as the mission pod

 

[Patrickivan]

Or they could just use their shields.

 

[Timo]

If the warship is to be "dedicated" to something, as in, some of its capabilities are going to be removed because this somehow makes it better at what it does, then logically Starfleet should pare down the ships to the utmost. There would be no "generic warship" because that by definition would be inferior to a "dedicated" vessel that has fewer capabilities.

So we would be seeing dedicated capital ship killers, dedicated small craft hunters, dedicated commerce raiders, dedicated space station attack ships, dedicated planetary bombardment ships, ships dedicated for use against Klingons, ships dedicated for use against the Breen, ships dedicated for use at impulse speeds or against cloaked vessels...

In most navies of today or yesterday, we don't see quite this much diversity because it would be hellishly expensive to build. But suppose money is not a factor for Starfleet. Shouldn't they go for this kind of logic? Too bad that while we do see a great number of designs, they all seem to play more or less the same role.

Alternately it may be that the more bells and whistles a ship has, the better it is at everything it does. Possibly a warship with laboratories and kindergartens would fare better in battle than a warship without (quicker at finding out the enemy's weak spots, has a more rested crew). Even the Defiant's deadliness might stem from the fact that she is crammed full of highest possible tech, not from the fact that she would somehow be a "barebones" vessel.

My take on a dedicated Trek warship would probably be some sort of an austere, expendable platform that has enough oomph to take down an enemy capital ship in one suicidal sortie. Klingons would love to fly one into battle; Feds would probably automate theirs. General purpose starships could handle those battles where self-survival is of interest: fleet battles and planetary sieges would be decided on the mass expenditure of suicide ships against the enemy's far more precious capital units.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Forbin]

That's a little TOO dedicated!

 

[Vance]

That much role-dedicated would be suicidal. In conflict, the ship with the most options in any given situation (or the ability to face a variety of situations) is FAR more preferable than a ship capable of one - and only one - sort of mission.