Excalibur class

posted on January 7th, 2013, 11:03 pm

Several Galaxy class vessels were in that episode, but apparently (I don't have it to hand, so I can't verify myself) one was able to be identified as the USS Challenger.

i already covered that, it was "identified" because one of the galaxy class ships reused the assets of the challenger from timeless. this was probably done for quickness, cost and because they didn't think anybody would bother pausing the episode to look at the hull markings.

we've seen a lot more Galaxy class ships on-screen than the three that have been destroyed

the most we've ever seen on screen at the same time is around 10. which fits with estimates for the production run. i'd think anywhere between 8 and 16 is an estimate for the entire class. i only mentioned named ones that have been destroyed. if we assume that the death rate among unnamed ships is similar to the death rate among named ships, around half of all the class would be destroyed.

named ships are less likely to be destroyed as they hold value and unnamed ships are disposable, but more likely to be destroyed as they are used as plot points. so on the whole it balances itself out between named and unnamed.

The term Dreadnought as a Starfleet classification has been in soft-canon before TMP; the original Star Fleet Technical Manual by Franz Joseph contained external views of a ship of that type, subsequently used on a computer screen in Star Trek III. Its use in Trek licensed works has always differed somewhat from the historical usage -- USS Excelsior is probably the closest Trek analogue to being the watershed moment of design that the HMS Dreadnought was -- but maintains that sense of a powerful vessel.

i do not accept tech manual. especially one from that long ago.

i don't think starfleet have ever built a dread.

posted on January 7th, 2013, 11:11 pm

According to MA, some spoken comm-chatter in TMP mentioned a Dreadnought. I haven't seen the movie in a while, but the spoken line apparently was "Dreadnought USS Entente Calling...NCC two one two zero".

The TOS/TMP-era Starfleet at least seem willing to use Dreadnoughts.

posted on January 7th, 2013, 11:28 pm

According to MA, some spoken comm-chatter in TMP mentioned a Dreadnought. I haven't seen the movie in a while, but the spoken line apparently was "Dreadnought USS Entente Calling...NCC two one two zero".

The TOS/TMP-era Starfleet at least seem willing to use Dreadnoughts.

i already mentioned that as well. it's certainly canon, but it's weird in so many ways. i wonder who wrote the script for the chatter. ships very rarely mention their purpose when talking to other ships. picard never said "explorer uss enterprise calling transport uss oldship" or whatever. still they don't mention what their classification of dreadnought is, they may only consider size when classifying the entente as a dreadnought.

i stand by my position that the word dreadnought is pretty much a fan thing.

posted on January 8th, 2013, 11:09 am

I personally prefer the KA style definition of Dreadnought. Basically, they take the 1920s and 30s definition of it.

As mentioned, the HMS Dreadnought lent her name to a series of "All Big Gun" (i.e unified calibre main armament) Battleships. The resulting arms race actually made Dreadnought somewhat old hat by the outbreak of the First World War (only 8 years later, that's how rapidly things advanced) and by the end of the First World War the newest breed of Battleships far outstripped Dreadnought and her kin. (And had it not been for the Washington Naval Treaty, even bigger designs would have been built, such as the monster N3 Class)

So, by the 1930s, a "Dreadnought" referred to a specific type of older Battleship. It's like saying a "Cadillac" to refer to a big gaz guzzling 1950s car. There were far more makes than that, it just became a generic term.

Hence why Dreadnoughts are actually a class lower than Battleships in KA; they are older designs (or newly built "Fast Battleships" as they were known in WWII) that are not as big or powerful as a modern Battleship.

So there we go On a side note, I also prefer "Dreadnought" to "Dreadnaught" , and I believe the first is the Oxford-English dictionary approved spelling anyway.

posted on January 9th, 2013, 8:04 pm

AAAAGH, OFF TOPIC!


I want the Excalibur as an optional warp-in!

posted on January 9th, 2013, 9:41 pm

Not gonna happen..NEXT!

posted on January 10th, 2013, 4:11 am

AAAAGH, OFF TOPIC!


I want the Excalibur as an optional warp-in!

I'm sure I'm wanted, so it doesn't work on me

We could ask a mod to split off the dreadnought discussion though -- I was quite enjoying that.

posted on January 10th, 2013, 5:46 am

The Galaxy I am a bit stumped on

I like to think of the Galaxy as a Battleship/Pre-Dreadnought. Those ships can take a pounding, and dish it back out, before cracking.

dreadnoughts became the standard for battleships. can the same be said about the dominion dread? the resources that must have been used for it would have been extreme. i don't think the dominion dread became a standard

Probably not. Though, at the speed the Dominion can make their ships, I wouldn't be surprised if they had about 50+ in their ranks.

Speaking of which, does anyone think their engineers cut corners when building their ships?