Edit: I forgot, Sisko says "target the lead ships."
Mike DiCenso wrote:Yes, among others. Given the vast cloud of Klingon ships surrounding the station, and that you could multiple layers of them, why do you think that all the torpedo and phaser shots where ment for them? Watch the torpedo POV scenes of the battle again, and note carefully that there are ships many kilometers behind the ones being destroyed in a good number of those, like the big K'tinga death scene. So do you really think they're still missing, or are they hitting ships much further away?
-Mike
I have the episode right in front of me.
I'm sympathetic to your supposition since I'm pro-Trek, but I simply don't see the evidence for it. And simple threat prioritization demands that Sisko should first neutralize the ships that pose the most immediate threat to his station and his crew. Consider the first sequence we see. Multiple torpedoes fired at several BoPs, only two of which are destroyed. An incoming Vor'Cha seems more to blunder into a torpedo than to be actively targeted by it.
Screencap:
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13 torpedoes are fired in this sequence, three of which hit, two for kills.
Consider the first POV sequence, right after Sisko order "weapons stations fire at will." We see a phaser and one of the torpedoes strike two separate BoPs, and two torpedoes strike the Vor'Cha. Right as the sequence starts, four torpedoes veer off to the right. and we just barely see the starboard engine of a K'Tinga, but the ship isn't hit.
Screencap:
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Where are those four torpedoes going?
The second POV sequence has better accuracy, as all of those torpedoes hit, three on the K'Tinga and one on a BoP.
But then we see the Negh'Var and accompanying Vor'Chas, right
before Gowron orders "Yod we Kaw." Three phaser beams pass, one behind the Negh'Var's formation, one strikes the left Vor'Cha, and one misses the lower-right Vor'Cha. Nine torpedoes are fired, six of which miss altogether. One hits the left Vor'Cha where the phaser beam struck it and destroys it, one hits the Negh'Var on the belly, and one hits the lower-right Vor'Cha on the prow. And I don't see any beams coming out of the nothing into which those other six torpedoes are flying.
Screencaps:
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Now consider the misses of the Negh'Var right
after Gowron's "Yod we Kaw" order. Three torpedoes and a phaser beam miss
every ship we can see. Here you have the Klingon flagship, the most powerful vessel they have, clearly assuming an attack posture. Why would Sisko waste precious seconds to fire at some far-off ship when the vessel that presents the most immediate threat is executing an attack maneuver
right in front of them? I'm sorry, that just doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
Screencaps:
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The only sort of verbal confirmation we get of more ships being destroyed than we can see is when Sisko orders phasers fired. Four explosions are seen in the sequence, and Kira reports eight ships destroyed and several others heavily damaged. Around 25 phaser beams are fired in the sequence, so you'd have to interpret "several" pretty generously in relation to the number of confirmed kills to make all of those beams hits.
Kor_Dahar_Master wrote:I do not remember seeing any near misses during the fight like you woukld expect, in fact the only shots we do not see immediately hit seem to be being fired into the middle of nowhere, this tells me they are being shot at ships we cannot see either past visual range like the ones heading to the defiant worf personally targeted or so they can turn and hit ships on the other side of the station.
We saw torps loop around and track like that during the fight in Voy:message in a bottle and in the movie The Undiscovered Country.
Again, why would Sisko go after distant ships instead of attacking the ones which are right there, and which clearly present the greater threat, seeing as how we don't see disruptor beams coming out of that middle of nowhere torpedoes are being fired into.
And as for the examples you cited, the Prometheus fires a single torpedo during the encounter with the Romulan warbirds, which makes a really lazy curve to one of the Defiants. It is in fact the only torpedo fired by ANY ship during that episode.
The torpedoes Worf targeted at ships heading after the Defiant is from "Call to Arms," not "Way of the Warrior." The Defiant was finishing off the minefield at the time. We can certainly start a discussion about accuracy for that episode, if you like. Accuracy for this one is pretty poor.
And Spock and McCoy had to modify the torpedo that killed Chang to be able to track his ship under cloak.