Different sizes for scouts. The larger ones have greater range, and are more capable of self defense.
What ships SHOULD they have used in the Dominion War?
- Thread starter Arpy
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To be honest, those classes of vessels you mentioned, written and done right, the one dimensional Dominion would've never had a chance. It would've been a one sided onslaught by the Federation.In my mind’s eye, I imagine battles including many other ships than those we saw. I’m a huge TNG fan and could see fleets of ships entirely from the “Galaxy Era” below, but here are a bunch of ships I could imagine in “remastered” Dominion War scenes (also shield bubbles):
Newer Era ships:
Sovereign
Prometheus
Akira
Saber
Luna
…and other ships of the Era that you’d imagine are around (e.g. something like, with some refinements, the fan-designed Ronin Class as the Miranda of its day)
Intermediate Era:
Defiant
Intrepid
California (support ship)
Pasteur (medical support ship)
Galaxy Era:
Galaxy
Nebula
New Orleans
Cheyenne
Saber, Mark I (fan)
USS Preble (fan)
Risa Express (okay not this so much, but I like how it’s the Sydney Class of its day, and this could be a troop transport for planetary invasions)
Earlier Era:
Ambassador (Probert)
Apollo (a version using Probert variant parts would be amazing)
In between eras ships too like:
Balmung (as this is a mashup of the Excelsior and Ambassador, one using Probert Ambassador parts here too would be amazing)
Kitchen Sink:
Excelsior (Lakota refit)
Centaur
Curry
Loki (Jackill fan design)
USS Alacrity (fan)
USS Terrell (fan)
Nothing older though. To me seeing Mirandas in the Dominion War is like seeing sailing ships in WWII. If there were any left in the navies of nations at the time, they weren’t engaged in fleet battles. The Excelsior Era ships were the throw-everything-left-at-them-including-the-kitchen-sink support ships in my fleets.
My description of Starfleet fighters of the traditional IRL type as a "shuttlecraft with attitude" was an observation on size as much as anything else.
Perhaps, but my point was that the above are smallish vessels that operate in the same medium as the capital ship in question, contrary to the "fighter" description.
Some are, some aren't.
US Navy in-shore or riverine patrol boats can be pretty small https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_VI_patrol_boat, as can USCG cutters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Protector-class_patrol_boat.
The larger hulls are often essentially reduced armament corvettes or frigates that are "patrol boats" by function or assignment rather than inherently as a design (for instance the USCG National Security Cutter is basically a frigate with the anti-air/anti-ship weapons removed, lighter guns and increased range).
Coastal type naval vessels translated into Starfleet would be things like system patrol craft. Ships that may not have warp drives, or have very limited range, like the Mars Defense Line craft that the Borg swatted on their way to Earth. They wouldn't be something you could take on an interstellar mission to retake a space station or planetary system. You might transport them with you to keep control of the system after the battle, but you wouldn't bring them into a major battle.
Which IMO very much describes most of the "fighters" we've seen in Star Trek (Cal Hudson and Matias/Kaltia's factions fly these), and the runabouts. Frankly I'd say it's reasonably likely that most Federation/Starfleet "fighters" that we see are either retrofitted drone craft (Hudson's models) or repurposed civilian couriers (Matias/Kalita's faction) and even if they're not, they're clearly not fit for extended operations (more than 24-48 hours) away from a carrier, tender or base, which is pretty much the definition of both a fighter and an in-shore patrol boat et al (off-shore patrol boats typically have a longer range and endurance measured in weeks rather than hours).
Not by preference but you might if you were in a hurry, particularly if the opposing force were fielding a large number of vessels of a similar tonnage.
Eh, it's a TV show. All the strengths and weaknesses are made up to meet the needs of the story. You could have had a fleet of Sovereigns or Zheng He's vs. a fleet of the same Dominion ships we saw, and everything would have been exactly the same.
That said, I'd also include a ton of similar diversity on the Dominion side. A wider variety of Dominion ships than they could afford at the time.
Maybe include a lot of support craft from Dominion member worlds.
Or, you know, maybe play up the idea that there's this intimidating uber fleet of advanced Jem Hadar ships, identical and oversized compared to normal galactic powers. ...maybe like what the Romulans did with their warbirds.
Here's a couple more Jem'Hadar ships to the three existing ones, including the massive Battleship seen in "The Valiant" and the invasion of Cardassia Prime. Right there you have five Jem'Hadar ships. Imagine a troop transport, maybe a medical ship to produce White and pop out Vorta clones...
Along with Son'a support ships (three different varieties in INS), different Karemma supply ships, Dosi transports, Hunter scouts, and ships from other Dominion members we haven't yet met.
A mini-Defiant...that one.
The ProtoType Defiant would make a better "Mini-Defiant" =D
That is the design of ship used in the Star Trek:Armada and Star Trek: Armada II video games as the scout, but it calls for 1 officer and a crew of 5-10, I believe. Either the ship Data flies alone is typically crewed by more people, his is smaller but very similar to those in the game, or the ship has labs and bunks in the aft section like a runabout and is crewed by several people in wartime but can be controlled by one person easily. I like the third option.
Don't forget that he's "Data".
He can do the computer processing of several crew members by plugging in or controlling really fast.
Agreed. My thought is that the Starfleet team on the planet brought this tiny ship to use by their detachment, holding a few people who could sleep in bunks but who are now in the holographic duck blind, but that Data is alone on the ship when he steals it. If Starfleet took Venture class ships to war, there would be 5-10 crew aboard, but, as in the game, those ships could look around and maybe shoot once or twice, but then would have to run away fast!
Imagine how advantageous it would be for every away team to have a "Mass Produced" version of Data.
I don't know if the Federation had on option of what they should use for the war. It is more like they pushed out anything that could go to warp and fire a phaser. They had a quality deficiency and probably a quantity deficiency at the start. The Dominion swarmed the Alpha Quadrant adding to the depleted Cardassian fleet. The mine field stemmed that tide, limiting the Dominion to whatever they could build locally.
But Starfleet and the Klingons had mostly older starships in their fleets. Sure they were building newer starships after the Borg appeared and the Romulas returned, but that is less than ten years of new ships, even by the end of the war. Add to that the heavy losses of starships at Wolf 359, the Klingon Civil War, the Klingon-Cardassian War along with the Second Klingon War with the Federation, and the Battle of Sector 001 against the Borg just before the Dominion War started. Starfleet and the Klingon Defense Forces were a mess. Even then they managed to put up a losing fight of it for the first six months of the Dominion War until they turned the tide when they retook Deep Space Nine, resulting in more of a stalemate until the Romulans entered the war.
But Starfleet and the Klingons had mostly older starships in their fleets. Sure they were building newer starships after the Borg appeared and the Romulas returned, but that is less than ten years of new ships, even by the end of the war. Add to that the heavy losses of starships at Wolf 359, the Klingon Civil War, the Klingon-Cardassian War along with the Second Klingon War with the Federation, and the Battle of Sector 001 against the Borg just before the Dominion War started. Starfleet and the Klingon Defense Forces were a mess. Even then they managed to put up a losing fight of it for the first six months of the Dominion War until they turned the tide when they retook Deep Space Nine, resulting in more of a stalemate until the Romulans entered the war.
Maybe the “frankenships” were cheap and quick to produce and were churned out as fodder while newer ships were left to protect Federation interests away from the front. That is, one Ambassador Class ship per sector where before there would have been 5 Excelsiors or Mirandas. Those were all sent to the front as they’d have a better shot, being 5 targets to the Ambassador’s one, and an Ambassador is plenty to keep the peace and explore and whatnot away from the front(s).
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Possibly a lot of hastily rebuilt ships from parts due to the War with the Klingons. The Klingons are rather brutal, and Starfleet might have had a lot of starships limp back to bases in less than ideal conditions. The "frankenships" also might have been a way to not only salvage some of these ships, but also in cobbling them together they might have been able to upgrade the warp cores and some other key systems since they have the ships completely apart. While they are not the best ships, they could fight, which isn't a Federation ship goal, but when you got nothing else.
I’m still of the opinion that the Frankenstein ships were actual legitimate classes and not hobbled together from parts of other ships. There are issues with scale, but nothing that egregious. The only real problem I have is with the TMP Constitution nacelles used on the Elkins, which are anachronistic and hard to explain away. However, that ship was not shown on screen, so it’s a moot point.
