| Subject: Re: Imperial fleet Vs Federation fleet |
Author:
Warspite
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Date Posted: 08:41:17 09/30/02 Mon
Author Host/IP: ipd54b193d.free.wxs.nl/213.75.25.61
In reply to:
capn hayes
's message, "Re: Imperial fleet Vs Federation fleet" on 03:29:52 09/30/02 Mon
>>>Do you mean no FTL combat (ie warp strafing)?
>>>
>>>Is the Galaxy class ship, a flight one ship
>>>(Enterprise D), or a flight 2 (war Galaxy as in DS9)
>>>or flight 3 (Galaxy X as in 'All good things')?
>>
>>FTL is permitted.
>>Flight 1 galaxy.
>I don't think warp strafing is possible in the sense
>that the ships are capable of targeting ships
>sub-light objects while traveling at velocites
>significantly exceeding the speed of light, for two
>main reasons.
Okay, let's do this all again.
>Reason one, based on the ranges given
>for starship weapons in Star Trek they would close the
>distance far to rapidly once an enemy ship was within
>weapons range at even warp two (10c).
Okay, strike 1. The range you are refering to have to be the ones from the TM correct? Well, we have seen those ranges to be wrong on screen. The range for a photon torpedo (the weapon of choice for warp strafing) is stated in the TM to be 4,050,000km. However, in the Voyager episode "Flashback" we see Klingon ships fire torpedoes at high warp speeds at the USS Excelsior which is traveling at its top speed. The torpedoes are fired from beyond visual range, and appear from behind the Excelsior, rapidly
overhauling her. They go from being out of sight (the launching ship is too far away to be seen), to striking the ship in around 2 seconds.
Now I'm not sure what the top speed of the Excelsior was (Sulu had ordered maximum warp), but I doubt that it was less than warp 8 (that was the top speed of the old
Enterprise), and the torpedoes should have been traveling even faster to have caught up. They also came in from an angle, so the speed should have been greater again. However, lets not get carried away, so let's assume that the torpedoes were only traveling at warp 8. Warp 8 is 1024 times the speed of light, so let's be generous again, and round it down to just 1000c to makes things simple and give
us a very generous lower limit.
We know that at 1000c, the torpedo travel about 300,000,000km a second, and therefore would have covered about 600,000,000km in the two seconds of flight that
we see. Of course, since the torpedoes came from an unseen ship, they could have been traveling much further than that. However, we cannot know how far more, so let's be very conservative, and just count what we actually saw.
The confirmed effective (all three torpedoes DID hit) range is therefore at least 600 million km when fired from warp. Much greater than the stated 4.05 million km range in the DS9:TM.
I know what you're thinking. "Those were Klingon torpedoes, not Federation ones".
Now personally I doubt that the Klingons have that much of an advantage over the Federation (especially since the events occurred decades before the latest Star Trek episodes are set). However just in case, what we need is an example of modern Federation torpedoes.
Luckily we have one.
In Voyager:Dreadnought, we see the USS Voyager fire mark VI photons at the Dreadnought missile (it is clearly stated that the torps are mark VI, so no alien modifications
here). The stated speed of Dreadnought (they state it twice so there is NO argument on this one either) is warp nine (ie 1516c). The flight time is about 1.5 seconds, so even if we are generous and say that the torp was only traveling as fast as Dreadnought, AND we round it down to just 1500c, the distance traveled by the torp will still be 675,000,000km. Even if we were even more generous and say that there was just 1 second of flight time (minimum needed for arming), the distance would still be 450,000,000km. In this example the all torps hit, so this must be effective
range too!
This pretty much confirms the range as seen in Flashback, and shows that a Federation starship can fire from far enough away, to make the arming time a non issue.
Reason two the
>known examples of warp strafing were in TOS, and while
>I'm not saying it didn't happen, I will say that it
>seems after careful speculation on the part of the
>producers and creators of Star Trek they realized the
>mistakes made 30+ years ago. Also realizing that the
>scenes did not make technical sense. They changed the
>rules so to speak.
I'm afraid this debate doesn't work like that. You cannot decide arbitraily, that something doesn't make sense, and therefore didn't really happen. If it happened on screen, and has not be specifically revoked, then it did happen, END OF STORY!. There is no debate about whether warp strafing is possible, and it doesn't matter how much you say it doesn't make sense. IT IS A FACT! However, that doesn't mean that warp strafing is possible (or even desirable) under all circumstances. Maybe gravity affects it badly. Maybe asteroid fields affect it. It is debatable whether it could be used in a given circumstance, but it is not debatable whether it exists.
>It wouldn't be the first time. They
>have also redrawn the Warp scale which the now use on
>TOS prequel series "ENTERPRISE". This now makes TOS
>speeds like warp 11 and warp 14.1 inconsistent with
>the rest of the Trek universe.
Apples and Oranges. The change to the scale does make sense, and fits in with what has been stated by the producers of the show. This is an entirely different situation to the warp strafing example, where it has never been specifically revoked in the show, and the producers have never said they were wrong or have changed the ST universe.
>While most of these
>"little" in inconsistencies are explained away by die
>hard fans of Star Trek with conjecture, they should be
>over ruled by what has been established in [TNG] era
>shows which as far as most are concerned have s
>broader database that the orginal 79 episodes which
>didn't have as sophisticated an audience as today.
TNG (and later episodes) only overrule earlier shows where there is specific counter evidence. An example of this would be Cohrane's first flight. The story we hear of it originally, is overruled by what we see in ST:First Contact. A specific later event overrules an earlier account. However, that is not the same thing as saying something like, "Well we only saw the 'Guardian of Forever' in one TOS show, therefore after reflection, the creators have probably decided that it cannot really exist". That sort or arguing is flawed at best, and would rapidly lead to the breakdown of our accepted framework of debate. After all, what would stop me saying..."Well we only saw the Death Star destroy a planet once. Therefore after reflection, the creators have probably decided that it could not be done." See the problem?
>Besides the common sense aspect that it would
>virtually impossiple at even warp factor 2, to target
>a torpedo with only .28 seconds to lock on and fire!
A fatally flawed argument. Firstly, why do you assume that the ship has to be in range of weapons to lock on their targeting system? Even today, sensors normally outrange the weapon. There should be nothing to stop the targeting system being locked on well before the weapon system comes into range. Secondly, given that the ship has FTL computers and sensors, there should be nothing to prevent thr tactical officer pre-programming the fire pattern, and leaving it to the ships computer to trigger the actual launch. Thirdly, you are using the 4 million km range from the TM, but that is wrong. If you consider the ship can fire from at least 450,000,000km (evidence suggests at least 675,000,000km). The firing problem becomes far less. Of course, there is nothing to stop you doing the attack at warp one, which would give the tactical officer 2,250 seconds, but the torpedo would still arrive at the target doing 525,000km A SECOND!
>Phasers if it were even feesable to propagate a phaser
>stream beyond the ships warp field. Which would seem
>to suffer the same difficulties as a transporter
>stream. This would explain why warp combat can occur
>between two or more ships at the same warp velocity,
>and they can even fire phasers at each other with no
>dificulties. But firing at a sublight target even
>without the problems mentioned above, at a mere warp 2
>with phasers you'd have a tenth of a second once your
>in range to target and fire, fugeddaboutit!
A Red Herring. Phasers would not (and were not) used in the previous warp strafing examples. Torpedoes would be used.
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