Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Klawz wrote:But, if you're going to assume that ST physic = 40k physic, then you have to at least assume ST shield = 40k shield...

No, you don't. At the very least, they have entirely different levels of power.

BeRzErKeR wrote:

Klawz wrote:But, if you're going to assume that ST physic = 40k physic, then you have to at least assume ST shield = 40k shield...

No, you don't. At the very least, they have entirely different levels of power.

But how strong is a Warhound's shield? How strong in comparison to a ST shied is it?

Nosferatu: The only way a photon torpedo can be 'dial a yield' is to alter the amount of antimatter present in the warhead, cause no matter what you say, the amount of antimatter in the warhead will react with matter and release energy. This can not be controlled. And, please do not use made up units like 'isotons' as we have no idea what that is? HOw many tons are in an isoton? How many kilograms? Until you can answer questions like that about isotons you can not use it as an effective unit of measure.

Now, please note that Federation ships seems to NEVER do this warp strafing attack that you mention. They never engage each other at FTL speeds. They always exit warp travel and slow to sublight travel before engaging the enemy. The only time we have seen any kind of FTL combat to my knowledge is the Borg 'energy drain' weapon fired on the Enterprise in Q Who? ,and the Federation doesn't have that weapon, so that is a useless point. The fact is, Federation ships always slow to sublight speeds to engage their enemies. Even in the Battle of Maxia against an enemy lacking FTL sensors, the Stargaze dropped to sublight to fire its weapons. If it could fire its weapons on an enemy while travelling at FTL speeds, I can not find a good reason it would not have done so.

And besides, you have ignored my point about the strategic effectiveness of the PM. It is a long conceded point that the Imperial Fleet has many many more ships compared to the Federation. So until you can show how the PM will be useful in a pitched battle, we have to acknowledge that the PM will be an attack useful in one on one ship confrontations. In a pitched battle with hundreds of ships on each side, the Federation ships utilizing the PM would find themselves face to face with a crap ton of very very pissed off Imperial ships. The Federation fleet will be annhilated after launching their attack, and Starfleet will be all but annihilated after only a few battles.
A new point would be the skill of the crew necessary to carry it out. If it was a manuever that any ship in the Federation could use without an unusually experienced or trained crew, we would see it used a lot more often. The simple facts are that very few crews have the skill to utilize the attack, and we can't assume every ship can do the PM
Finally, you never responded to my point about the resilience of Imperial armor and shielding. Imperial void shielding has demonstrated effectiveness against weapons that can destroy entire continents, let alone shields, and even if the void shields were dropped and the photo torp was fired at the unshielded hulll, we have to not that vaporization is not guaranteed. The firepower needed to destroy a city made out of individual, relatively soft buildings is not equal to the power needed to destroy a five mile length of hardened adamantium and ceramite armor.

Also, please note that I was not the one make the point about Imperial ships jumping in, firing weapons and jumping out. I believe that was....Gorskar? Iono. You can go back and look it up if you'd like.

Also, I don't know who first came up with the idea of multiple phase shielded dreadnought style missiles, but here's my refutation. You have to build the bloody things. Sure, you can use decomissioned hulks, converted civilian vessels and damaged warships, but even then you have to take up dry dock space for the purpose of converting those hulls into the missiles. Not to mention the time it would take to build the number of phase cloaking devices required. Remember, those devices are banned by treaty and the Federation isn't the type of organization to break treaties. More importanly, the only time we saw the device it was a tempermental prototype. The Federation doesn't have factories pumping out phase cloaks, and there would be a lag time necessary to a) get the treaty nullified, and b) getting the phase cloaks into production. Quite simply, the missiles may destroy huge chunks of Imperial fleets, but ultimately it would be little better than the German Wunderwaffen. Too little, too late.

Klawz wrote:

BeRzErKeR wrote:

Klawz wrote:But, if you're going to assume that ST physic = 40k physic, then you have to at least assume ST shield = 40k shield...

No, you don't. At the very least, they have entirely different levels of power.

But how strong is a Warhound's shield? How strong in comparison to a ST shied is it?

if that is the case then ST warp must then too = 40k warp or vica versea

TyraelVladinhurst wrote:

Klawz wrote:

BeRzErKeR wrote:

Klawz wrote:But, if you're going to assume that ST physic = 40k physic, then you have to at least assume ST shield = 40k shield...

No, you don't. At the very least, they have entirely different levels of power.

But how strong is a Warhound's shield? How strong in comparison to a ST shied is it?

if that is the case then ST warp must then too = 40k warp or vica versea

In all honesty, there's a lot of difference between shielding and warp travel, and the Warp. Federation warp travel is, in principle, the creation of a bubble of real space around a vessel and then compression real space in front of the vessel, allowing the vessel to violate Einstein's relativity.

On the other hand, the Warp is an alternate dimension where a ship can't travel faster than light, but a distance covered in the Warp translates into a much larger distance traveled in real space.

When it comes to shield technology though, we honestly have no idea how either shield technology works, but...we know the amount of power each can absorb. For this discussion, that's what matters. We aren't arguing engineering or science of the series, but military conflict.

Currently, we have Federation shields being able to dissipate 3311 GW of energy before failing. (Source: Star Trek TNG Technical Manual). We have no idea how strong an Imperial shield is, but we know that it's able to dissipate the hit of a lance, which is rated at powerful enough to destroy entire continents.

look were it M31 the imperium WOULD win hands down seeing as the emperor would simply make the mechanicus make some new tech as they were not so closed minded back then. the imperium would not resort to psychic dominance. but as it is not they cannot hope to win seeing as their tech has fallen so far

ChrisWWII - will you stop using a made up term like "lance" then?

I am simply referencing the internal scale used by ST. Ignore it if you like...

Reference to dialable yield: "high energy burst level 6" TNG: Redemption.

The explosive yield (of the type-6 torpedo) can be set to ten different levels. Level 1 is just a fireworks display, level 5 is the standard yield of one kilogram antimatter charge and level 10 violates strategic arms limitation treaties.

Reference to Torpedos fired at warp speed:

The propulsion system of the torpedoes is a warp sustainer engine. The engine coils of the torpedo grab and hold a hand-off field from the launcher tube's sequential field induction coils. A miniature matter/antimatter fuel cell adds power to the hand-off field. When launched in warp flight, torpedo will continue to travel at warp, when launched at sublight, torpedo will travel at a high sublight speed, but will not cross the warp threshold. (pg. 129)

So Trek ships ALWAYS drop to sublight? Wrong. ther have been a number of instances where they have fired on ships in warp - or been fired on. However it is more difficult to fire between two ships at warp (at least until the warp bubbles merge) but it IS possible - just not as efficient. You just keep missing the obvious - ST tactics against other warp drive ships will be different to ST tactics against an enemy that is not only slower in real space but cannot jump to >light speed anywhere nearly as quickly AND cannot see you unless you decide to drop out of warp....can you not see that certain tactics that are less viable in the Trek only universe are suddenly more viable now?

[BTW Stop talking in absolutes, it doesnt help your argument]

In addition - why shouldnt the ship drop to sublight against the Ferengi ship? At sublight you can use phasers as well as torpedos, improving your odds. However that was a lone ship which didnt know where the stargazer was - against an IoM fleet you would not drop to sublight - you would fire the torpedoes from warp (as has been proven above) and kee on trucking.

You have yet to show a single, credible reason why a ship which can fire at warp WOULD drop out of warp to engage an IoM fleet, therefore any argument predicated on such an event is flawed to begin with.

As to me "ignoring" you on the strategic relevance of the PM - I havent. I have answered you EXPLICITLY a number of times. Demonstrate why they would *need* to drop out of warp to hit your ship, and then you can talk about the hundreds of ships in an IoM fleet - until then they are not only irrelevant, they increase the odds of you hitting something many times over.

Your "point" about shields is irrelevant AND was answered abvout page 2 when someone else brought it up - canon, void shields do NOT protect ships against matter based weapons, like torpedos. Why do you think noone has bothered talking about phasers?

Your "yield" questions have been answered and refuted as well - I dont need to destroy the entire ship in one hit,l and I dont need to destroy it all. If you destroy the plasma storage vessels which house the reactants, or even breach the shielding, the ship will eat itself and be dead in space, or at worst it will explode. See the Brokenback, 5th souldrinkiers novel, and so many others it isnt funny. You do NOT need to vaporise the vessel, just cripple it - destroy the engines the vessel is now useless.

Level of training needed fgor the PM: you can program the ships computer to do it. Hell, you dont even need to do a true PM - just bombard the nice, fat , slow moving IoM ship from warp, with your FTl sensors that can pinpoint all the nice high priority targets with ease, before passing this info to your intelligent, highliy manouverable torpedo. That also travels at >c.

Can you agree you concede on the "dumb ballistic warheads" tactic being useless? Found anythihng canon about 40k Psykers detecting lifesigns on vessels moving at >c AND being able to acurately plot their course?

Can you concede that, in battle there is no KNOWN reason why the trek ships would have to drop to sublight? I have demonstrated capability time and time again, if you can concede that point your tactical thinking may generate something more useful than "1000s of IoM ships!!" that the IoM can do. I am interested as there must be something, however unless you can first see you enemy effectively combatting them seems to be tricky.

ChrisWWII wrote:Nosferatu: The only way a photon torpedo can be 'dial a yield' is to alter the amount of antimatter present in the warhead, cause no matter what you say, the amount of antimatter in the warhead will react with matter and release energy. This can not be controlled. And, please do not use made up units like 'isotons' as we have no idea what that is? HOw many tons are in an isoton? How many kilograms? Until you can answer questions like that about isotons you can not use it as an effective unit of measure.

In Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual a figure of 1,5kg of antimatter is given as the maximum warhead material of a photon torpedo. (pg. 129) Using standard physics calculations a direct 1:1 explosion would equal to about 64 megatons. Warhead materials are however premixed to achieves the level of destructive force of an antimatter pod rupture containing 100 cubic meters of antideuterium. (pg. 69) Antimatter is stored as liquid or slush on starships. (pg. 68) Density of mere liquid antideuterium is around 160 kg per cubic meter. According to this comparison the high annihilation rate energy release would be comparable to about 690 gigatons.
Furthermore it is not clear if the 1,5 kg should be compared to the 200 isoton figure given on-screen, or the 25 isoton figure given in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual.
From http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Isoton

ChrisWWII wrote:
Now, please note that Federation ships seems to NEVER do this warp strafing attack that you mention. They never engage each other at FTL speeds. They always exit warp travel and slow to sublight travel before engaging the enemy. The only time we have seen any kind of FTL combat to my knowledge is the Borg 'energy drain' weapon fired on the Enterprise in Q Who? ,and the Federation doesn't have that weapon, so that is a useless point. The fact is, Federation ships always slow to sublight speeds to engage their enemies. Even in the Battle of Maxia against an enemy lacking FTL sensors, the Stargaze dropped to sublight to fire its weapons. If it could fire its weapons on an enemy while travelling at FTL speeds, I can not find a good reason it would not have done so.

In the series and movies, starships frequently attack each other while at warp, and only drop to impulse once the warp field is destabilized or the warp drive is damaged.

ChrisWWII wrote:
And besides, you have ignored my point about the strategic effectiveness of the PM. It is a long conceded point that the Imperial Fleet has many many more ships compared to the Federation. So until you can show how the PM will be useful in a pitched battle, we have to acknowledge that the PM will be an attack useful in one on one ship confrontations. In a pitched battle with hundreds of ships on each side, the Federation ships utilizing the PM would find themselves face to face with a crap ton of very very pissed off Imperial ships. The Federation fleet will be annhilated after launching their attack, and Starfleet will be all but annihilated after only a few battles.
A new point would be the skill of the crew necessary to carry it out. If it was a manuever that any ship in the Federation could use without an unusually experienced or trained crew, we would see it used a lot more often. The simple facts are that very few crews have the skill to utilize the attack, and we can't assume every ship can do the PM
Finally, you never responded to my point about the resilience of Imperial armor and shielding. Imperial void shielding has demonstrated effectiveness against weapons that can destroy entire continents, let alone shields, and even if the void shields were dropped and the photo torp was fired at the unshielded hulll, we have to not that vaporization is not guaranteed. The firepower needed to destroy a city made out of individual, relatively soft buildings is not equal to the power needed to destroy a five mile length of hardened adamantium and ceramite armor.

Regarding Imperial armor and shielding, the only quote I can find about the streangth of adamantium is
Adamantium is perhaps the strongest material used by the Imperium, impenetrable to most commonplace weapons. It is the material composing the Imperial Palace's Eternity Gate1, and is often used in conjunction with plasteel and ceramite, such as in the structure of Terminator Armour.
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Adamantium (supposedly from 3rd ed BRB (but it's big so I haven't checked it myself).
This gives us very little other than telling us it is one of the strongest materials the IoM uses.
In comparison, Fedreation starships (at least the later classes) were built with a Tritanium alloy.
Tritanium is an ore that is known to be 21.4 times as hard as diamond.Tritanium alloy was a widely-used construction material. The bulkheads of Federation starships, specifically of the Galaxy-class and Intrepid-class, were composed of tritanium.
http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Tritanium
Here we at least have a measure for the strength of the unprocessed ore, with the unknown factor being how effective it becomes when processed, and how much it is reinforced by structural integrity fields.

When it comes to shields, we know that federation shields have weaknesses (Jem'Hadar weapons initially ignored federation shields, but the same shields were
adapted to remain effective). Federation shields can also be modified to give the starship the ability to enter the corona of a star using Metaphasic shields
http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Metaphasic_shield (how much of a modification is needed for this is unclear, but it was done while in space on the Enterprise).
In general the strength of a shield relative to a weapon is hard to calculate because of all the factors involved, but one example of shield strength is
A Constitution-class starship's shields could take the equivalent of 90 photon torpedoes at once. (TOS: "The Changeling")
(but remember these are kirk era shields, and kirk era photon torpedoes)
http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Shields

Void shields: The shields use Warp technology to displace ranged attacks. It is unclear whether Void Shields neutralize the projectile, transport it to the Warp, or exactly how the shielding is accomplished. http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Void_Shield.
This is even harder to work with than star trek shields (since there is less information on how they work).

For people dragging captured demons in to the mix, this makes it unlikely they can ignore federation shields as easily.

Any objects, unless fired at or striking the shield with phenomenal power, simply bounce off or are halted in mid-air. Organic materials, liquids or simply energy with harmful potential (e.g. a laser) are stopped or dissipated. Explosive munitions will detonate on contact. Any object caught in the field when activated is simply sliced in half. For instance, a human body caught in the beam will be sliced in half as if viewed in cross-section and munitions caught in this way are destroyed explosively. This makes the void field deadly, if impractical in attack rather than defensive situations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equipment_of_the_Imperium#Void_shields
These shields seem to be effective against most forms of attack, so Starfleet would have to find a way to penetrate them either with brute force, or by bypassing them in some way

keezus wrote:

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:Therefore I severely doubt that Photon Torpedos, even launched from Warp Speed, would have all that much of an effect. They simply do not have the required power to do the damage you are suggesting.

A photorp is an antimatter weapon. It doesn't matter what your hull composition is, considering that once the containment field is penetrated, the antimatter and the matter of the target's hull will mutually annihilate and give off energy. This reaction doesn't care what kind of matter the hull is made of.

In my view, the trouble is that there really isn't any clear indication of how void shields function, nor what they stop. I am fairly certain that they wouldn't stop something equipped with an interphasic cloak, but you'd definitely need higher yields than standard photorps to compete with IoM armored hulls. I think that the "Dreadnought" Cardassian weapon from the Voyager episode of the same name would be fairly effective (possibly one-shotting an IoM ship), if it were able to bypass the void shields, being that it travels up to Warp 9, is self guiding, shielded, can defend itself from enemy fighters with its disruptor banks and has a one ton antimatter payload. With such weapons in existence, it seems foolhardy to me to actually send SHIPS to engage the IoM.

Remember in BFG void shileds DON'T stop torpedoes or bombers or ramming. Torps would be nice and effective.

Accersitus - thanks for posting that, I didnt want to copy quite so much from MA

However see Frazzleds post - the comment about stopping projectiles seems to only work on titans and smaller, as void shields do nothing to torps/dreadclaws etc in BFG.

Now, while this may be a "game mechanic" it IS canon and so, like the narrative reasons for transporter failure are ignored in this assesment.

ChrisWWII wrote:Also, I don't know who first came up with the idea of multiple phase shielded dreadnought style missiles, but here's my refutation. You have to build the bloody things. Sure, you can use decomissioned hulks, converted civilian vessels and damaged warships, but even then you have to take up dry dock space for the purpose of converting those hulls into the missiles. Not to mention the time it would take to build the number of phase cloaking devices required. Remember, those devices are banned by treaty and the Federation isn't the type of organization to break treaties. More importanly, the only time we saw the device it was a tempermental prototype. The Federation doesn't have factories pumping out phase cloaks, and there would be a lag time necessary to a) get the treaty nullified, and b) getting the phase cloaks into production. Quite simply, the missiles may destroy huge chunks of Imperial fleets, but ultimately it would be little better than the German Wunderwaffen. Too little, too late.

I think we'll have to disagree on the response speed here, as response speed is always dictated by the amount of peril that one is in. The UFP became increasingly ruthless during the Dominion War, as the stakes were increased - this of course included fabrication of evidence to force the Romulans into the war and attempted genocide of the Founders by contagion. While the upper echelons would profess ignorance about it - I can not see them waffling on such minor issues such as "treaties" if they are facing immenent annihilation.

On another point most of this discussion has focused around offense vs offense. Using the self replicating cloaked minefield technology seen in DS9 - there doesn't seem to be any reason why they couldn't defensively mine entire key systems. As a passive weapon, despite their relatively low yield, due to the immense size of IoM ships, I'm pretty sure that travelling through such a field would be crippling if not lethal.

Just checking, since I don't think anyone has mentioned it yet: Wouldn't a torpedo travelling at Warp 9 have a silly amount of kinetic energy? If that is the case, couldn't the UFP just mass-produce torpedo casings, fill them with something extremely dense and fire them while travelling at Warp speed? I guess it'd depend on the void shields tho'...

Warp doesnt actually give you any KE at all - you arent the thing moving, the universe is. You exist warp with the same relative velocity you left at.

Its how warp gets arround the c limitation, just not useful for this situation!

Nosferatu: There is a major difference between using a term like lance, and using a term like isoton. A lance is a weapon, and needs to be referred to in the in-universe term. An isoton is a unit of measure that MUST be quanitified before it can be used.
Well then, if a torpedo has a warp sustainer engine then it will STAY in a warp field, and pass harmlessly through any ship in real space. All examples of FTL combat in Star Trek occur between two ships travelling at warp speeds, and as such the multiple warp bubbles can exit and merge other warp bubbles. When it comes to Imperial ships traveling in another dimension, the warp bubble would not be able to hit Imperial vessels at warp.

And, to the DS9 minefield, you have to see that the density of the minefield isn't all that great, and could easily be bullrushed by an invading Imperial fleet without suffering major damage, not to mention the fact that the reason the minefield was even considered in the first place is the fact that the Federation had a chokepoint to mine in the first place. If they could have deployed such a self replicating minefield around major planets and systems during the Dominion War, they would have. There must be some kind of off screen logistical problem inherent with the minefield and it is not a wonderweapon.

Frazzled: There is a major diff though between Federation torpedoes and Imperial torpedoes. An Imperial topedoe is a relatively slow weapon fired at extreme range, while a Fed phototorp is a fast weapon fired at standard combat range. I believe a Federation photon torpedo would be more similar to the missiles included in Imperial weapons batteries, and would be intercepted by void shields.

Accersitus: Individual ships may fire nuisance shots at other individual ships while both are at warp, but in any large scale battle, the Federation drops to sublight before engaging the enemy fleet. Additionally, when book and TM guides contradict onscreen actions, we must take the onscreen action as the truth. That is Paramount's policy on canon.


=sigh= Nosferatu, I have already proven to you that Federation FTL sensors are not viable for combat operations. Also, remember Imperial ships won't be sitting still, they'll try and put their armored prows between them and the Federation fleet, and not expose their rear sections to the Feds. Besides, who even knows how precise Federation torpedoes are? We've seen how often they miss targets, so how do we know they can program a torpedo to hit in ONE exact point to do damage?

And I have refuted the torpedo point If it's at warp, it can't hurt anything in real space. And if the ship can do more damage in real space, why would they choose to limit their amount of firepower against the greatest threat the Federation has had to face? They would want maximum firepower, and would drop to real space to deal that damage.

I repeat. I did NOT make the point about ballistic weapons bombardment. That was someone else. Do not ask me to concede a point that is not my own. The same goes to the psyker point.
No I do not concede that they wouldn't drop to subspace. in every single battle of significant strategic size the Federation has ever fought they have dropped out of warp and into subspace. I call Occam's Razr. YOU have claimed that against a non-warp driven civilization the Federation would use different tactics. As this claim differs from all on screen actions, you must furnish evidence to support that claim. g

grats you won this agrument agianst everyone. : D

ChrisWWII wrote:Nosferatu: There is a major difference between using a term like lance, and using a term like isoton. A lance is a weapon, and needs to be referred to in the in-universe term. An isoton is a unit of measure that MUST be quanitified before it can be used.
Well then, if a torpedo has a warp sustainer engine then it will STAY in a warp field, and pass harmlessly through any ship in real space. All examples of FTL combat in Star Trek occur between two ships travelling at warp speeds, and as such the multiple warp bubbles can exit and merge other warp bubbles. When it comes to Imperial ships traveling in another dimension, the warp bubble would not be able to hit Imperial vessels at warp.

not correct. As I noted in the original series, the Enterprise, in real space, was strafed repeatedly by a Klingon D7 making warp speed passes.

ChrisWWII wrote:And, to the DS9 minefield, you have to see that the density of the minefield isn't all that great, and could easily be bullrushed by an invading Imperial fleet without suffering major damage, not to mention the fact that the reason the minefield was even considered in the first place is the fact that the Federation had a chokepoint to mine in the first place. If they could have deployed such a self replicating minefield around major planets and systems during the Dominion War, they would have. There must be some kind of off screen logistical problem inherent with the minefield and it is not a wonderweapon.

That's all well and good, but can you give some actual backing to your agruements?

1. "Some sort of off screen logistical problem" is purely speculation on your part - I'll give you the ST writers are consistently inconsistent in keeping track of reusable innovations - however, I can not agree with the logistical limitations arguement, as this technology was initially deployed by a space station with limited resources. A self replicating minefield by its very nature is infinitely scalable, given materials, and sufficient time - should able to populate any amount of space. Time would be reduced if the initial mines were placed at regular intervals.

2. "The density of the minefield isn't all that great" - what kind of density are you expecting? In the DS9 episode, it looked like they had a mine at least every 1/4 km or so (if not denser, to stop the very small Jem'Hedar ships from navigating it). It would appear that the self-replicating aspect also limits the range at which new mines are deposited. The IoM ships are enormous. Even if the mines were spread out, an Imperial cruiser, at 7+ km long and 2+kms high would hit an enormous number trying to bullrush through. While there's the issue of the IoM's super dense armor - matter of any sort will mutually annihilate when in contact with antimatter, so I'm not sure that kind of cumulative damage could be considered minor.

Frazzled wrote:
Remember in BFG void shileds DON'T stop torpedoes or bombers or ramming. Torps would be nice and effective.

But they DO stop weapons battery fire, which includes kinetic projectiles.

My opinion (not backed up by any canon) is that void shields stop anything moving above a given speed. Since weapons batteries include lasers, plasma cannon, macro cannon, and missile launchers, and they're all apparently roughly the same, that suggests to me that all those projectiles are moving at the speed of light, or most of it.

Imperial torpedoes, by contrast, move close to the same speed that ships do. That suggests to me that things moving at lower speeds can slip through void shields.

If that's so (if anyone else can propose a different explanation, by all means do so), Federation torpedoes would be fairly ineffective against Imperial ships. Someone mentioned earlier that a Constitution's shields could absorb 90 photon torpedoes at once. Assuming those are the standard yield setting (25 isotons), that works out to 2250 isotons of energy being dispersed with no ill effects, and we know Imperial void shields are an order of magnitude stronger than that.

nosferatu1001 wrote:Warp doesnt actually give you any KE at all - you arent the thing moving, the universe is. You exist warp with the same relative velocity you left at.

Its how warp gets arround the c limitation, just not useful for this situation!

But wouldn't that mean that instead of the torpedo hitting the ship at Warp 9, the ship hits the Torpedo at Warp 9, thus still making a huge hole in the hull?

keezus wrote:

ChrisWWII wrote:And, to the DS9 minefield, you have to see that the density of the minefield isn't all that great, and could easily be bullrushed by an invading Imperial fleet without suffering major damage, not to mention the fact that the reason the minefield was even considered in the first place is the fact that the Federation had a chokepoint to mine in the first place. If they could have deployed such a self replicating minefield around major planets and systems during the Dominion War, they would have. There must be some kind of off screen logistical problem inherent with the minefield and it is not a wonderweapon.

That's all well and good, but can you give some actual backing to your agruements?

1. "Some sort of off screen logistical problem" is purely speculation on your part - I'll give you the ST writers are consistently inconsistent in keeping track of reusable innovations - however, I can not agree with the logistical limitations arguement, as this technology was initially deployed by a space station with limited resources. A self replicating minefield by its very nature is infinitely scalable, given materials, and sufficient time - should able to populate any amount of space. Time would be reduced if the initial mines were placed at regular intervals.

2. "The density of the minefield isn't all that great" - what kind of density are you expecting? In the DS9 episode, it looked like they had a mine at least every 1/4 km or so (if not denser, to stop the very small Jem'Hedar ships from navigating it). It would appear that the self-replicating aspect also limits the range at which new mines are deposited. The IoM ships are enormous. Even if the mines were spread out, an Imperial cruiser, at 7+ km long and 2+kms high would hit an enormous number trying to bullrush through. While there's the issue of the IoM's super dense armor - matter of any sort will mutually annihilate when in contact with antimatter, so I'm not sure that kind of cumulative damage could be considered minor.

1. My reasoning behind the off screen logistical problem is that if a single space station with limited resources could deploy a minefield to block off the wormhole, and the blockage seemed succesful, why did the Federation not deploy such a minefield around all their worlds? We know during the Dominion war, Federation commanders where frightened about the Dominion assault key Federation worlds like Vulcan and even Earth. If they were capable of deploying the mine field to block off their systems, why would they not do so? It seems those minefields would give them a great advantage in a defensive battle. All we know is that they did not do so. There has to be some kind of reason that they did not do so, and as far as I can see there are two possibilities: 1) The minefield is not effective when deployed to defend an entire planetary system, or 2) There is some kind of logistical problem preventing the deployment of a minefield on that scale. Either of these reasons would void the deployment of the minefield as a defensive measure.

2. I'm currently trying to find the analysis done on stardestroyer.net that supports that assumption, and once I find it I will happily link it to you. But assuming your analysis of one mine ever 1/4 of a km is correct, we see that they deployed only one layer of mines, so there would be no further mines to exploit damage to the armor done by the first pass. Not to mention, the Imperial ships wouldn't be backing through the minefield. They'd be charging through with their heavily armored prows, which are described as being hundreds of meters thick. Even a single mine detonation would not penetrate this armor.

Frazzled:

Alright, I didn't see that point, but even then.....why don't we see this in large scale fleet battles? It seems to me if one fleet can strafe another with impunity the casualty conscience UFP would do this instead of fighting costly battles like they've been forced to. There must be some kind of limitation that makes the employment of warp strafing ineffective in large scale fleet battles, otherwise we would see it done much more often.

Too long did not listen..


Seriously guys, wall posts just get skipped, this is STARTREK vs 40K!
Don't rip each others asshairs out over it

ChrisWWII wrote:Nosferatu: There is a major difference between using a term like lance, and using a term like isoton. A lance is a weapon, and needs to be referred to in the in-universe term. An isoton is a unit of measure that MUST be quanitified before it can be used.

And it has been - if you would read the links. Or the many times it has been quantified in thjis thread.

ChrisWWII wrote:Well then, if a torpedo has a warp sustainer engine then it will STAY in a warp field, and pass harmlessly through any ship in real space. All examples of FTL combat in Star Trek occur between two ships travelling at warp speeds, and as such the multiple warp bubbles can exit and merge other warp bubbles. When it comes to Imperial ships traveling in another dimension, the warp bubble would not be able to hit Imperial vessels at warp.

Uh, no. Wrong. First, you make the erroneous assumption that warp travel puts you in another dimension (it doesnt, what do you think deflector dishes are for? Not just sublight travel), and 2) you assume it cannot simply disengage the field (which it is sustaining with its own power remember) before hitting the vessel.

So no, it would hit. QED.

I have also never stated it could hit ships travelling in the Immaterium - however the federation doesnt need to, as the imperium have to come out of the warp to engage ships in real space. Nice strawman though, quite pretty if a little feeble.

ChrisWWII wrote:Frazzled: There is a major diff though between Federation torpedoes and Imperial torpedoes. An Imperial topedoe is a relatively slow weapon fired at extreme range, while a Fed phototorp is a fast weapon fired at standard combat range. I believe a Federation photon torpedo would be more similar to the missiles included in Imperial weapons batteries, and would be intercepted by void shields.

"You believe" does not constitute proof.

ChrisWWII wrote:Accersitus: Individual ships may fire nuisance shots at other individual ships while both are at warp, but in any large scale battle, the Federation drops to sublight before engaging the enemy fleet. Additionally, when book and TM guides contradict onscreen actions, we must take the onscreen action as the truth. That is Paramount's policy on canon.

They do not contradict, they add.

You are taking the premise "you have never seen a space battle conducted at warp" (which is wrong...) and extending it to "it is impossible to conduct battles at warp" - which is unsupportable. especialy as the first statement is wrong.

So when both books and the tv series show one thing, does that mean it isnt canon now?

ChrisWWII wrote:=sigh= Nosferatu, I have already proven to you that Federation FTL sensors are not viable for combat operations.

SIGH Chris, no, no you havenmt

You have "proven" that a Ship travelling at warp can attack a ship without FT light sensors.

Brilliant, you have proven my point. Again. Sorry you';re not getting this.

ChrisWWII wrote:Also, remember Imperial ships won't be sitting still, they'll try and put their armored prows between them and the Federation fleet,

Would that be the fleet they cannot see, the fleet that can move faster than they can see even IF they could see them to begin with and the fleet that is more manouverable than them by orders of magnitude?

Yeah. Right. Remember: fed sensors can detect which starsystem a ship is in from a distance of 10s of light years. Have you any idea how large a volume of space that is, and how little volume a star system takes up in comparison? Now take it down to light SECOND range.

Sorry, you have yet to demonstrate at all that IoM ships can manouver quickly, and you clearly dont understand what "relative speed" means. yes, they arent standing still. However they cannot change their relative position qucikly enough to significantly change their position. Meaning it can be plotted, a volume of space they can possibly be in calculated, and torpeedos aimed there. They can continue to send instructions while in flight to augment the torpedos already better than IoM sensors.

If you reckon they can do so, please provide hard stats on turning speeds etc. Would be good to see some.

ChrisWWII wrote:
and not expose their rear sections to the Feds. Besides, who even knows how precise Federation torpedoes are? We've seen how often they miss targets, so how do we know they can program a torpedo to hit in ONE exact point to do damage?

Again, you make a mistake: you have seen how often they miss targets that are a) significantly smaller than a IoM ship and b) that have FAR higher manouverability than an IoM ship. You then try to compare an apple to a full sized galley, and claim any kind of comparitor.

We know they can hit ONE EXACT spot to do damage as they do it all the damn time in the tv series. Hell even Khan could *precisely* hit the enterprise with a torpedo. [and phasers as well] - with 100 year old tech. From a less advanced ship.

ChrisWWII wrote:
And I have refuted the torpedo point If it's at warp, it can't hurt anything in real space.

Incorrect, see above. You do understand how warp drive "works", dont you? If not I can understand your problems...

ChrisWWII wrote: And if the ship can do more damage in real space, why would they choose to limit their amount of firepower against the greatest threat the Federation has had to face?

I assume that you arent seriously being as inane here as this sounds.

You have demonstrated that sheer force of numbers would obliterate a fed ship in real space. You then ask why wouldnt the feds drop out of warp, into real space. I think, if you look *really really* hard you may have your answer.

ChrisWWII wrote:They would want maximum firepower, and would drop to real space to deal that damage.

No, theyre not imbeciles, and have some grasp of tactics.

ChrisWWII wrote:I repeat. I did NOT make the point about ballistic weapons bombardment. That was someone else.

YUou supported it and came up with increasingly bizzare methods to try to make it work. And then went silent when every single one of them was shown to be more full of holes than the average ST episode.

ChrisWWII wrote:Do not ask me to concede a point that is not my own. The same goes to the psyker point.

When you support a post I can certainly ask you to concede it.

ChrisWWII wrote:No I do not concede that they wouldn't drop to subspace. in every single battle of significant strategic size the Federation has ever fought they have dropped out of warp and into subspace. I call Occam's Razr. YOU have claimed that against a non-warp driven civilization the Federation would use different tactics. As this claim differs from all on screen actions, you must furnish evidence to support that claim.

So I have to supply evidence that an attack for which the IoM has no defence wouldnt be used, and instead they would simply march headlong into the imperial fleet?

Sorry, but no. You have ignored the D7 strafe which removes your *entire arguments validity* in one go (thanks frazzled, if you can remember the episode I will look up the timecode for Chris) AND you assume a gross level of stupidity that is way out of character - in essence you are misusing occams razor.

The simplest solution is that they would maximise their tactical superiority: a place where they can hit with impunity without suffering any return damage, vs certain death. Which is the SIMPLER tactical solution?

Okay, the Federation wins. Maybe. If they rolled a and siezed the initiative. if they don't, they will be crushed in one massive go, as the IoM steamrolls them. Here's a question, how would the UFP know the IoM doesn't have FTL sensors?

Right now I honestly don't have time to fully reply to your post, Nosferatu, but once I get home I will type up a full reply. However, if you look a couple posts above you, you'll see that I did respond to frazzled's argument. Additionally, I NEVER supported the ballistics argument. I never even acknowledged it. It's not my argument, and if you want a discussion about ask the person who came up with it.

Edit: What the hell, screw being a good intern, I'll just make the response know.

Alright, I read the link to Memory Alpha, and it specifically says there is no conversion from isoton to real world metrics. We don't know what an isoton IS. Is it 1000 tons? A million? What? I don't know, and I doubt you do either. If you do have a proper metric conversion from isotons to real world tons, please enlighten me. Right now, the only conversion we have is that a photon torp has a yield of 25 isotons, and the description of a photon warhead results in 64 megatons. However, other uses of isotons contradict this, so we have no idea what an isoton really is.

I never said that warp travel puts you in another dimension, I merely acknowledged that in the series it seems that ships do not interact with objects outside their warp bubble. Any interactions we've observed occurring involve objects leaving the warp bubble, and entering real space. I was not trying to make a strawman, I was just basing off my previous argument, and I will concede that Federation torpedoes have the capability to drop out of warp speeds. However, I will not concede that the use of this tactic is a viable strategy. If it was, then we would see Federation ships flying about in warp, dropping torpedoes to hit enemy ships or installations and crippling them. This is definitely a course of action the Federation would pursue IF it could pursue it.

I know, 'I believe' is not proof. I was explaining to frazzled that the fact that an Imperial torpedo passes through void shields does not equal a Federation photon torpedo passing through void shields as there are major canonical differences between the two weapons. I was also pointing out that Imperial weapons batteries include missile launchers, and those missiles are intercepted by void shields. The nature of a photon torpedo seems to tie more closely to those weapons than to an Imperial torpedo, and as such there exists a major possibility that a photo torp will be intercepted by Imperial shields.

I admit we have seen ships both traveling at warp firing at each other using weapons like photon torpedoes. However, we have not seen large scale battles being fought at warp. There is a major difference between a Klingon BoP strafing the Enterprise at warp speeds and entire fleets engaging each other at warp. All major space battles we've observed in Star Trek have occured at sublight speeds. I dont believe I ever called it impossible to conduct battles at warp. I just believe the fact that the Federation chooses to drop to sublight to engage in pitched battle suggests that there is some kind of issue in conducting FTL only battles.

If you recall, I pointed out that in TNG:The Battle, the Enterprise (which has FTL sensors) did not use them to counter the PM by locking onto the Stargazer to track its movement. Instead, they had to reconfigure their sensors to track the compression of deep space gasses in order to track the Stargazer. This implies some major problems in using FTL sensors in battle, and thus ST FTL sensors are not necessarily combat effective.

Yes, I concede that IoM ships are not as manuverable as Fed ships. But why do you assume a Federation fleet can fly around at warp speeds firing torpedoes without question when we have never seen the Federation utilize this tactic? I agree with you. Picard and other Federation officers are not idiots, and are rather good tacticians. Why would they ignore a tactic that would allow them to reduce casualties? The obvious answer is that they don't use the tactic because it's simply not available to them. Federation ships have to drop out of warp, perhaps PM to point blank range, and do all the damage they can before they are overun by superior Imperial numbers and firepower.

Yes, I know they regularly miss small targets, and I'm pretty sure the miss rate will drop dramatically when faced with an Imperial battleship. However, your argument was that the Federation could precisely hit the engine block of an Imperial vessel which is a much smaller target. Aditionally, please remember that Khan caught Kirk ridiculously off guard. The Imperials would not be caught half as off guard as Kirk was.

I get the scifi concept of warp drive. The warp drive enables a vessel to violate the c speed limit by compressing space in front of the vessel and expanding it behind, essentially moving the universe around the ship instead of the ship itself. I have also conceded your point about the ability of Federation ships to fire out of their warp bubble, but I still hold fast that there must be something that makes doing so ineffective, as we have never seen the Federation preform such a manuver even when it would grant them a great advantage.

Nosferatu, please show me an example of fleet level FTL combat in Star Trek. I admit there has been ship on ship FTL combat, but never fleet level FTL combat. Until you can explain why that happens, and why the Federation would be able to use Fleet level FTL combat against the Imperium, we have to assume that a Federation fleet has no choice but to drop to sublight speeds to engage in a fleet battle.

BeRzErKeR wrote:

Frazzled wrote:
Remember in BFG void shileds DON'T stop torpedoes or bombers or ramming. Torps would be nice and effective.

But they DO stop weapons battery fire, which includes kinetic projectiles.

My opinion (not backed up by any canon) is that void shields stop anything moving above a given speed. Since weapons batteries include lasers, plasma cannon, macro cannon, and missile launchers, and they're all apparently roughly the same, that suggests to me that all those projectiles are moving at the speed of light, or most of it.

Imperial torpedoes, by contrast, move close to the same speed that ships do. That suggests to me that things moving at lower speeds can slip through void shields.

If that's so (if anyone else can propose a different explanation, by all means do so), Federation torpedoes would be fairly ineffective against Imperial ships. Someone mentioned earlier that a Constitution's shields could absorb 90 photon torpedoes at once. Assuming those are the standard yield setting (25 isotons), that works out to 2250 isotons of energy being dispersed with no ill effects, and we know Imperial void shields are an order of magnitude stronger than that.

So all the Federation needs to do is make their torpedoes break before hitting the Shields of the Imperial ships, it seems a little crude for a solution in Star Trek,
but I'm sure they could add some nice tech-speak for the breaking procedure. Since the federation torpedoes are not reliant on kinetic energy, their destructive
potential would most likely not be impaired.
In the 6th star trek movie, making it break before the shields should be simpler, or at least not more difficult.

And the 90 photon torpedo figure is from Star Trek The Original Series, so it is based on older star trek shields, and older star trek torpedoes, just for clarification.
(I think I noted this in the original mention, at least that is what the kirk era mention was all about)

Accersitus: It's not as easy as it sounds. To slow down in space the photon torp would need some kind of retro firing thruster, and would have to begin this long enough before impact to pass through the shields. Sure, the Federation could do it eventually, but the problem I see is that in ST6, the only modification made was changing what the photon torp homed in on. CHanging the entire flight characteristics of the weapon is an entirely different matter.

TyraelVladinhurst wrote:look were it M31 the imperium WOULD win hands down seeing as the emperor would simply make the mechanicus make some new tech as they were not so closed minded back then. the imperium would not resort to psychic dominance. but as it is not they cannot hope to win seeing as their tech has fallen so far

Of course they can hope to win. Nosferatu himself stated that should the Imperium begin the offensive, they would be devastating.

I personally believe that the battle would be a great deal closer than some people believe.
Nosferatu, I believe you made the comparison of a modern fighter jet versus a 13th century galleon? I think that's a massively exaggerated and unfair comparison. A far better one would perhaps be a modern small combat ship versus a World War II Aircraft Carrier.
Nitpicking, perhaps, but even so, you accused someone else (ChrisWWII, was it?) of overuse of absolutes, when you yourself seem to use exaggeration a little too much. Otherwise, you've put some interesting points across, so I guess I can live with it.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

nosferatu1001 wrote:Warp doesnt actually give you any KE at all - you arent the thing moving, the universe is. You exist warp with the same relative velocity you left at.

Its how warp gets arround the c limitation, just not useful for this situation!

But wouldn't that mean that instead of the torpedo hitting the ship at Warp 9, the ship hits the Torpedo at Warp 9, thus still making a huge hole in the hull?

The propulsion system of the torpedoes is a warp sustainer engine. The engine coils of the torpedo grab and hold a hand-off field from the launcher tube's sequential field induction coils. A miniature matter/antimatter fuel cell adds power to the hand-off field. When launched in warp flight, torpedo will continue to travel at warp, when launched at sublight, torpedo will travel at a high sublight speed, but will not cross the warp threshold.
http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Photon_torpedo

The warp field, also known as a subspace field, is a subspace displacement which warps space around the vessel, allowing it to "ride" on a distortion and travel faster than the speed of light.
http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Warp_field
I'm guessing a torpedo launched at warp has to drop out of warp to be able to hit an object not at warp speed (since space is warped around the vessel/torpedo),
and in warp speed to warp speed confrontations the torpedo most likely uses the targets warp field, thus being in the same spacial displacement.

Accersitus wrote:

So all the Federation needs to do is make their torpedoes break before hitting the Shields of the Imperial ships, it seems a little crude for a solution in Star Trek,
but I'm sure they could add some nice tech-speak for the breaking procedure. Since the federation torpedoes are not reliant on kinetic energy, their destructive
potential would most likely not be impaired.
In the 6th star trek movie,

Spoiler:

they program a torpedo to home in on the exhaust of a cloaked klingon bird of prey that can fire while cloaked

making it break before the shields should be simpler, or at least not more difficult.

And the 90 photon torpedo figure is from Star Trek The Original Series, so it is based on older star trek shields, and older star trek torpedoes, just for clarification.
(I think I noted this in the original mention, at least that is what the kirk era mention was all about)

Braking a torpedo in mid-flight would be, ah, difficult. Not saying it couldn't be done, but it certainly wouldn't be a quick and easy fix. At the very least, it would require building an entirely different torpedo, so the change wouldn't really kick in for quite a while, since lots of ships wouldn't go in for restocking for some time.

And I noted that the figures were old, but they're the only numbers for torpedo power relative to shield strength that I've seen. In the absence of newer figures, they're canon. Has the relative strength of torpedoes and shields changed noticeably in newer series?

ChrisWWII wrote:Accersitus: It's not as easy as it sounds. To slow down in space the photon torp would need some kind of retro firing thruster, and would have to begin this long enough before impact to pass through the shields. Sure, the Federation could do it eventually, but the problem I see is that in ST6, the only modification made was changing what the photon torp homed in on. CHanging the entire flight characteristics of the weapon is an entirely different matter.

They might need a modified torpedo, but brakes/reverse firing engines doesn't sound like the hardest upgrade in star trek.

Edit3: A simple way to do this, would be to fire the torpedo at warp (but at a slow speed relative to the starship), thus when the torpedo dropped out of warp to hit the target it would
move slowly enough to penetrate the shields.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

BeRzErKeR wrote:
And I noted that the figures were old, but they're the only numbers for torpedo power relative to shield strength that I've seen. In the absence of newer figures, they're canon. Has the relative strength of torpedoes and shields changed noticeably in newer series?

The figures seem to have changed, since the more powerful torpedo mentioned earlier in the post was made (by the federation) after the episode that provided the figure of 90 photon torpedoes.
I'll have to re-watch the episode to see if they are mentioning federation torpedoes, or the photon torpedoes of some other race(in which case it could be the more powerful ones, but this is not likely))

Edit: The newer torpedoes are however noted as having a payload of only 1.5kg (maybe implying the older torpedoes have a greater payload), but the old torpedoes are also less efficient excluding them
from the possibility of being in the higher ranges of the possible isoton scale. ( 64 megatons to 690 gigatons )
This comparison is even harder to use since we know little of how federation shields developed in the same time.
Edit2: clarified that the old torpedoes are the less efficient.