Star Trek The Birth of a Federation Military

[Battlegrinder]

As for what a federation battlefleet should look like, I think the first step is to establish what sort of threats it will be facing. I can envision 3:

1. Small, scattered bands of light raiders. Nothing capable of standing up to a serious warship toe to toe, but more than capable of overwhelming a small colony or cargo ship and making an escape before something can be scrambled in response.
2. Bigger, more serious threats, like Borg Cubes and enemy fleets that require hundreds of ships to stop.
3. Internal threats, namely penny pinching Picard types in government that don't want starfleet running around building a warfleet when they could be using those resources to build science ships and go poke at dangerous space anomalies for....reasons.

 

[Spartan303]

As for what a federation battlefleet should look like, I think the first step is to establish what sort of threats it will be facing. I can envision 3:

1. Small, scattered bands of light raiders. Nothing capable of standing up to a serious warship toe to toe, but more than capable of overwhelming a small colony or cargo ship and making an escape before something can be scrambled in response.
2. Bigger, more serious threats, like Borg Cubes and enemy fleets that require hundreds of ships to stop.
3. Internal threats, namely penny pinching Picard types in government that don't want starfleet running around building a warfleet when they could be using those resources to build science ships and go poke at dangerous space anomalies for....reasons.

How would you go about addressing these issues?

 

[Knowledgeispower]

Basically anything the Federation builds that's larger than a Defiant(and yes this includes the Saber) is already going to have decent science/medical facilities for their size which is probably a good thing considering how many dangerous space anomalies and the like that star trek contains. However one thing I shall insist all Starfleet personnel and dependents on any space borne installation or starship henceforth be issued spacesuits designed to be rapidly donned. Oh and shoot whoever keeps designing ships with their bridges at the highest part of the ship and makes consoles that explode and seats without seatbelts and consoles and stations without seats

 

[The Original Sixth]

I feel like that example is a bit of a motte and bailey, though. "This door should designed differently" is a very differant and less controversial claim than "this import set piece battle never happened".

Same could be said of numerous fictional medieval battles. I think the LotR series had some of the most competent set pieces when it came to combat--and a detailed look at the movie's keeps and fortresses shows shocking design flaws. Or Legend of Zelda, where fortress defenses are inaccurate; with crenulations being too small in some places. Or a lack of murder holes and portcullises. And it's not limited to either of those franchises. In fact, the vast majority do far, far worse than they do. Even the Witcher, which I mentioned can't get basic buildings right did get things like keeps and castles very accurate. Or hell, modern fighter or tank movies that get the actual combat wrong--and that was their whole purpose. Anti-fighter missiles that bob and weave with an engine roaring, even though most anti-air missiles expel their fuel within the acceleration phases and are generally gliding into their targets.

These are portrayals. You cannot expect even a large writing team to get everything correct. Because more than not, those people know nothing about the real world aspect. You are putting upon people, a superhuman burden that they cannot adequately carry.

I really cannot stress to you how common military incompetence is in fiction. Those who are involved in things like medieval history or are history experts attached to movie projects that involved fantasy or medieval stories are generally routinely ignored when they bring up discrepancies, because they are often ignored because "this looks cooler" or "this is cheaper".

Halo Nightfall had UNSC infantry weapons not able to be fired unless they were "powered up", which doesn't make any sense in the context of the wider setting and is never mentioned as an issue ever again......but the problem is, that element was essential to the plot of Nightfall, without it the entire film just wouldn't happen.

Not really what I'm going for. You're taking a story that is more or less nonsensical and applying it to the greater continuity. There are plenty of episodes where a transporter on a shuttle might have solved the issue that is generally ignored. Like Data's sacrifice in Nemesis.

Yes, that's true, but on the other hand a torpedo casing is only a few cm thick, vs a meter + for the ship. weapons 1/50 the power of the main gun should still be totally effective against a target 1/100th as sturdy.

Except that same armor can survive being heated to 12000 c and not melt or vaporize. It was at best, degraded. Phasers do their primary damage via NDF and through heat effects, being a combined laser/particle weapon deal. If the NDF doesn't take off against the actual casing due to its material and it can resist high heat, a 20 MW laser is NOT going to do much of any good against that.

The issue is that logic doesn't work out well when applied in context. Yes, the federation ground forces should be ill equipped and trained...but that means they'll evaporate in conflict with other, better troops, and those high profile failures would force Starfleet to adapt. After Wolf 359 they redesigned their fleet to be more capable of combat, if every serious infantry engagement they fought was a one sided slaughter, they would do the same for infantry.

Not necessarily. It means they'll take high losses until they adapt to their situation. Or the situation is not dangerous enough to force an adaption. The same goes for current EU military programs right now; the vast majority of those nations have laughably weak areas in their military because they exist within an environment where that tool is not needed. The moment the environment changes, you see rapid shifts in what those nations do. Look to World War I and World War II in regards to how quickly nations adapt their military tactics and skills. Or in some cases (Austria), don't.

Wolf 359 had Starfleet refocus on more military capable starships. The Dominion War would have forced a similar culling for their ground forces, which were challenged by a peer power for the first time in living memory.

 

[Battlegrinder]

How would you go about addressing these issues?

Well, as I see it you don't need a lot of punch to take down the odd pirate, you just need to be able to get there in time, which means being fast, and you need to be close enough to get there, which means numbers. But you'll also want them tough, if you're losing a bunch of ships that gives the "let's go the mygeen death cloud with a stick and see what it does" types ammo. So you'll want a force of small, fast ships, built in bulk so you can get as many as you can out there. So something like a Saber class or militarized Nova (I'd prefer the latter, as it's the more traditionally federation design of the two). It would still have enough punch to engage peer threats, but as compared to something like the defiant that's heavily optimized for sublight manners and firepower, this one is but for FTL speed and durability first, with firepower a secondary concern.

However, both those ships aren't really intended for long term operations, they have high speed but limited operational endurance, and you can't just base them out of starbases because if ships located at starbases were close enough to handle anti-piracy duties, then there wouldn't be pirates. So instead, you'll want so sort of mothership they can return to to rest, resupply, rearm, and repair. MY first thought was a galaxy class, but those are really expensive, and even if you're assigning a dozen or so Nova to each one, they're kinda overall. So I'd suggest a variant on a slightly smaller ship, like a Nebula, outfitted just for heavy combat and fleet support.

The Nebula is also there to address point 3. The vast majority of the time the fleet is just going to be running around fighting pirates, so there's inevitably going to be pressure to scrap the larger warfleet operations and just focus on pirates, so the dedicated warships needed for role 2 can be retasked to go poke at space things with a stick. So it's important that those heavier ships be tied in the patrol and pirate fighting and can't be eliminated. But they're also heavily armed, for fleet battles. If you can manage to assign each one a few escorts, something cheap like a steamrunner, great, but that will depend on those steamrunners seeing use, if you don't have to have them back up the Nova's to take out pirate bases and the like on a regular basis, you might lose them.

In those rare circumstances where a major fleet battle is coming, this federation military force can't handle it solo, you're just not going to get the funding to build hundred and hundreds of ship of the line. You might have a hundred or so of the Nebulas, maybe some escorts, and then like 500 Novas, but the Novas aren't really intended for this, they're basically BoP style raiders at heart, built to take out the same and win. You'll be worn down to nothing in a short time if you try to fight solo. So instead, what you do with this force is use it as the tip of the spear/force multiplier in a mixed starfleet force, rather than trying to fight the war yourself.

 

[Battlegrinder]

These are portrayals. You cannot expect even a large writing team to get everything correct. Because more than not, those people know nothing about the real world aspect. You are putting upon people, a superhuman burden that they cannot adequately carry.

I think you might not be grasping my position here. Can you please restate in your own words what you think I'm saying or demanding?

Not really what I'm going for.

Then I'm not sure. There's plenty of one-off issues here and there, but nothing that strikes me as a systemic problem.

Except that same armor can survive being heated to 12000 c and not melt or vaporize. It was at best, degraded. Phasers do their primary damage via NDF and through heat effects, being a combined laser/particle weapon deal. If the NDF doesn't take off against the actual casing due to its material and it can resist high heat, a 20 MW laser is NOT going to do much of any good against that.

I'm not sure how you're squaring the "it's just a portrayal made by people more interested in drama than details" thing with your "the hull heat temperature from Arsenal of Freedom is absolutely definitively 100% solid and definitanty a "real" thing and not just a number they tossed out to sound cool" thing? I don't think I've ever seen anyone calc how hot the ship would actually get during reentry to validate that number.

As for your point, there are materials that can resist hand phaser fire, like some of the hull panels on DS9. But do you really think if the Enterprise D was firing on that same panel with it's secondary arrays, that the beam would just bounce off? We're still talking about a few centimeters of lightweight material, the scenario you're describe doesn't sound plausible.

Not necessarily. It means they'll take high losses until they adapt to their situation. Or the situation is not dangerous enough to force an adaption. The same goes for current EU military programs right now; the vast majority of those nations have laughably weak areas in their military because they exist within an environment where that tool is not needed. The moment the environment changes, you see rapid shifts in what those nations do. Look to World War I and World War II in regards to how quickly nations adapt their military tactics and skills. Or in some cases (Austria), don't.

Wolf 359 had Starfleet refocus on more military capable starships. The Dominion War would have forced a similar culling for their ground forces, which were challenged by a peer power for the first time in living memory.

And yet after several years of fighting in the dominion war and against the Klingons, they had somehow held their ground against both and in response to the fighting, they....deployed a slightly more ergonomic phaser rifle.

 

[Bear Ribs]

I'm not sure we can take it as a given that pirates are light raiders and poorly equipped. The pirates we've seen in Trek are usually as well equipped as the Federation itself. Picard lost the Stargazer to pirates, and Ferengi pirates later captured the Enterprise D in the episode Rascals and were barely thwarted by a transporter accident. The Sisters of Duras had Klingon Naval ships available to them. Orion pirates were a definite threat to the Enterprise in TOS and ENT. It's not clear if the Orions are still able to go toe to toe with the Federation by DS9 as though they're mentioned many times, we never see the Orion Syndicate in action on-screen. Baran's ship in Gambit has some sort of advanced hull plating that can defeat Federation sensors (this surprised the Ent crew) and he's got enough firepower to take on the Enterprise twice as well. Even the Maquis, a ragtag group if there ever was one, are well-enough equipped that the Cardassians were unable to beat them and had to enlist first the Federation and finally the Dominion to finish the Maquis.

In general Trek era pirates seem to be every bit a match for alpha quadrant powers, at least on a ship-to-ship basis.

 

[Doomsought]

How would you go about addressing these issues?

Defense in depth:

First you'd have a low cost garrison force that that is used to defend colonies. Ships of this force will be designed to be cheap as possible while still also being effect. Mostly fighters can gunboats. The goal of these ships should be to destroy pirates and delay more effective combatants. Many of the personell manning these craft will be militia rather than regulars.

The second part of the military will be have the fast reaction forces. Mostly made up of cruisers that are essentially militarized versions of Starfleet exploration ships. The fast reaction forces will be split up into patrols and a number of garrisons strategically placed so that to have one or two elements within a few hours of anywhere in Federation territory. While the light garrison forces will be most of the fleet by numbers, the fast reaction force will make up the majority of the fleet by mass.

The third part will be the battle fleets. These will be made up of battleships and monitors (like the defiant), and will garrison important locations like major shipyards and wormhole junctions.

During times of total war, the starfleet exploration corp will take over patrol and scouting duties so that the more heavily armored cruisers from the patrols of the fast reaction fleets can be re-assigned to the battle fleets.

 

[Battlegrinder]

I'm not sure we can take it as a given that pirates are light raiders and poorly equipped. The pirates we've seen in Trek are usually as well equipped as the Federation itself. Picard lost the Stargazer to pirates, and Ferengi pirates later captured the Enterprise D in the episode Rascals and were barely thwarted by a transporter accident. The Sisters of Duras had Klingon Naval ships available to them. Orion pirates were a definite threat to the Enterprise in TOS and ENT. It's not clear if the Orions are still able to go toe to toe with the Federation by DS9 as though they're mentioned many times, we never see the Orion Syndicate in action on-screen. Baran's ship in Gambit has some sort of advanced hull plating that can defeat Federation sensors (this surprised the Ent crew) and he's got enough firepower to take on the Enterprise twice as well. Even the Maquis, a ragtag group if there ever was one, are well-enough equipped that the Cardassians were unable to beat them and had to enlist first the Federation and finally the Dominion to finish the Maquis.

In general Trek era pirates seem to be every bit a match for alpha quadrant powers, at least on a ship-to-ship basis.

You're overstating things a bit there. Picard lost the stargazer because he was sucker punched by a ferengi warship, and later lost the enterprise because they were corced into it, the ship itself wasn't overpowered. Likewise with Baran's ship, which required inside access to the Enterprise-D's command codes to "disable" it, otherwise they'd never have stood a chance. Bringing up the Maquis is actually a pretty good example of what non-state forces can manage in ST, which is....very little. The cardassians couldn't wipe out the insurgency, no. But they weren't get outmatched ship to ship by the Maquis either, in Caretaker we see very clearly that Maquis SOP when they encounter cardassian warships is "run and hide". The only time the Maquis managed to fight the federation toe to toe was with Eddington, who again had inside knowledge and IIRC some remote override codes, advntages normal pirates wouldn't have.

 

[Aldarion]

Proportionally more powerful, perhaps. But that doesn't mean they'd be immune to weapon fire, it means they would maybe be as strong as, say, a shuttle or other larger ship, while being much smaller. This is why it doesn't matter if they knew the shield frequency in workforce or not, it would have made burning through the shields easier but by no means a requirement.

Torpedoes do glow however, which suggests something unusual about them.

The beam, yes. The beam emitter, no. They can only traverse as fast as the emitter system can move.

Emitter system does not move at all. It is fixed in place. Only the beam moves around, in a manner similar to those of electronically scanned radar arrays (though physics principles would obviously be different, as phasers are particle weapons and not EM waves).

EDIT: You can also see this from the fact that phasers have a widebeam setting, which would be impossible if beam emitter was a physically scanned array:

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/images/9/94/Energy_beam%2C_remastered.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20120129090336&path-prefix=en

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e6/c3/5d/e6c35d6ed12293594cafd939bf64d6f8.jpg

Granted, it does not seem to be used often - but that is almost certainly because we see ship weapons used in a ship-to-ship combat, where widebeam setting is pretty useless.

I know personal shields exist but presumably they have some limitations that prevent everybody who isn't the Borg from using them all the time. I haven't seen anything along the lines of a motorcycle to jeep-sized shield generator that would, presumably, provide far better protection and cover a whole squad.

I do not think emitter covering a squad would be practical. First, it would prevent or seriously hamper movement. But more importantly, unless all squad members had weapons at the same frequency, firing weapons from within the shield would be impossible.

And yeah, I think issue with personal emitters might be logistics.

 

[Knowledgeispower]

I will note that the hull design that eventually became the Nova was one of the design concepts for the Defiant

 

[Battlegrinder]

I will note that the hull design that eventually became the Nova was one of the design concepts for the Defiant

OOU, yes, though it's actually even earlier than that, there was a proto-Nova design floating around in the TNG technical manual.

 

[Bear Ribs]

You're overstating things a bit there. Picard lost the stargazer because he was sucker punched by a ferengi warship, and later lost the enterprise because they were corced into it, the ship itself wasn't overpowered. Likewise with Baran's ship, which required inside access to the Enterprise-D's command codes to "disable" it, otherwise they'd never have stood a chance. Bringing up the Maquis is actually a pretty good example of what non-state forces can manage in ST, which is....very little. The cardassians couldn't wipe out the insurgency, no. But they weren't get outmatched ship to ship by the Maquis either, in Caretaker we see very clearly that Maquis SOP when they encounter cardassian warships is "run and hide". The only time the Maquis managed to fight the federation toe to toe was with Eddington, who again had inside knowledge and IIRC some remote override codes, advntages normal pirates wouldn't have.

You have your facts rather backwards. Picard sucker-punched the Ferengi with "The Picard Maneuver" and that's the only way he survived, and he still lost the Stargazer. The Ferengi pirates in "The Last Outpost" have their ship called "An impressive design." by Picard and their tech is stated to be equal to the Federation's own by Data in the same episode, hardly what would be used to describe some ragtag light raider than can never win without an unfair advantage.

Baran had no trickery or help their first battle, he used inside access in their second fight but the first go-round he felt perfectly fine firing on a Galaxy class. His confidence was clearly warranted given he was able to live to tell the tale. Who's overstating things now?

Caretaker was well after the Maquis was broken by the Jem'Hadar and Chakotay's broken down ship was all that was left, hardly a reasonable measure of a group considering they'd been fighting the Federation, the Cardassians, and the Dominion by that point. We see their reactions to the Cardassians before that in the clip I already posted upthread, and it results in two dead Cardassian ships (armed with Galor-class disruptors so equal to their battleships) and zero losses for the Maquis raiders.

I also notice you just kind of ignored half the list of well-equipped pirates.

 

[Battlegrinder]

You have your facts rather backwards. Picard sucker-punched the Ferengi with "The Picard Maneuver" and that's the only way he survived, and he still lost the Stargazer. The Ferengi pirates in "The Last Outpost" have their ship called "An impressive design." by Picard and their tech is stated to be equal to the Federation's own by Data in the same episode, hardly what would be used to describe some ragtag light raider than can never win without an unfair advantage.

PICARD: We were traveling at warp two through the Maxia Zeta star system when this unidentified starship suddenly appeared and fired on us, point-blank range.
RIKER: Where did it come from?
PICARD: It must have been lying in some deep moon crater. First attack damaged the shields. In the confusion, they hit us a second time.

That sure sounds like they got sucker punched to me.

Baran had no trickery or help their first battle, he used inside access in their second fight but the first go-round he felt perfectly fine firing on a Galaxy class. His confidence was clearly warranted given he was able to live to tell the tale. Who's overstating things now?

DATA: Damage report.
GIUSTI: Minor hit on the port deflector. No damage. They're running, sir. Their speed is warp eight point seven and holding. I think they're at their maximum.

He took a potshot, did nothing, then ran away. So yes, you're overstating things.

Caretaker was well after the Maquis was broken by the Jem'Hadar and Chakotay's broken down ship was all that was left, hardly a reasonable measure of a group considering they'd been fighting the Federation, the Cardassians, and the Dominion by that point. We see their reactions to the Cardassians before that in the clip I already posted upthread, and it results in two dead Cardassian ships (armed with Galor-class disruptors so equal to their battleships) and zero losses for the Maquis raiders.

That's totally wrong. Caretaker takes place in 2371, The dominion didn't wipe them out for another year. As for the clip, yeah, they took out a shuttlecraft with another shuttlecraft, that doesn't prove they could take out a warship with a much smaller, weaker one.

I also notice you just kind of ignored half the list of well-equipped pirates.

Your other examples were the Duras sisters, who were not pirates when they had access to top of the line hardware, and when they were pirates, had only an obsolete BOP, and the Orions, which was centuries before this point (and failed to mention other examples, such as the nassican pirates from Fortunate Son that even the NX outclassed considerably).

 

[Sailor.X]

This is everything wrong with star trek post TNG you people would have seen us blasted to retroactive floatsam by the Q so long as we did it while wearing tac vests.

Q can't really do much because they aren't the only god tier beings around. And I would say the Organians are more powerful than the Q. And they don't hate humanity. They more than likely keep the Q in check. But to the other part of your point. What do you think the mentality of Starfleet was during TOS. They were an actual military and acted like it during the 5 year mission era.

 

[Battlegrinder]

Q can't really do much because they aren't the only god tier beings around. And I would say the Organians are more powerful than the Q. And they don't hate humanity. They more than likely keep the Q in check. But to the other part of your point. What do you think the mentality of Starfleet was during TOS. They were an actual military and acted like it during the 5 year mission era.

The Organians were mostly likely making a massive bluff regarding their power to stop conflict between the federation and the Klingons, given that such a conflict has broken out multiple times (Season 3 DS9, Yesterday's Enterprise, STO, etc), and they have never once acted on their threat to forcibly end that conflict.

 

[Knowledgeispower]

Honestly in my opinion the real problem with Starfleet is that it became an organization whose job no longer was to the defend the Federation and its interests first and do everything else second. Well that and it was never given the resources required to do it's job based off how large the Federation was let alone doing any exploration. Everything else is secondary to those two problems.

 

[absenceofmalice]

Q can't really do much because they aren't the only god tier beings around. And I would say the Organians are more powerful than the Q. And they don't hate humanity. They more than likely keep the Q in check. But to the other part of your point. What do you think the mentality of Starfleet was during TOS. They were an actual military and acted like it during the 5 year mission era.

Bruh the Q came within a half second of rewriting a billion years of galactic history to annihilate every scantling of humanity down to its earliest cellular evolutionary ancestors and the only thing that stopped them from doing so was the peak of that gay enlightenment explorer philosopher shit you people want to disparage.


"TNG never happened and nothing in it was important"
-Every DS9er to have ever lived

 

[Knowledgeispower]

You know I still don't get why Q decided humanity needed judgement as compared to say oh I don't know the Founders or Borg who are worse by any metric by orders of magnitude

 

[Battlegrinder]

"TNG never happened and nothing in it was important"
-Every DS9er to have ever lived

I don't think that "Only quote Shakespeare and do science stuff and never prepare for any sort of armed conflict or else the space God will wipe out your species" was the intended message of TNG.