Mike DiCenso wrote:The only thing that helps your supposition is the scene with the Neg'Var manueuvering about to fire with the torpedoes and phasers flying past. Everything else goes more for my supposition, especially when the dialog and it's proper context is observed. They order weapons fired in a particular sequence, we see only some of the hits because Kira's dialog clearly indicates that other hits are occuring. There is no getting around that. Therefore in the following scenes of hits and what you claim are misses, we can assume that like the prior similar scenes, there are additional hits occuring off-screen.
Are you prepared to defend every torpedo and phaser beam fired in this battle as a hit. Not even a kill, just a hit?
And in discussing proper context, it is also necessary to ask what happens to torpedoes that miss their targets. The answer is that they do indeed continue on like "unguided cannonballs." We have quite a few examples of this. We see it in First Contact, Insurrection, and Nemesis. Torpedoes fired miss their targets, and they don't enter into any kind of holding pattern searching for new ones. They just keep going. Now granted, Data set the FC torpedoes to miss, so you can disregard those, and they couldn't see the Scimitar anyway, but those Nemesis torpedoes still just kept going. The torpedo that misses a Son'A battleship in the Briar Patch just keeps going. It doesn't loop around to hit it.
A few other examples I can think of include TNG "Genesis," where the torpedo that misses its asteroid just keeps going, and Picard and Data have to retrieve it with a shuttle. Granted, Worf made alterations to its targeting systems, but its behavior post-missing is consistent with the other examples. In "Hope and Fear," Voyager fires four torpedoes at the Dauntless, only one of which hits, and that single hit was sufficient to drop the vessel's shields. If only one was required, why fire four, especially if the torpedoes could be counted on to maneuver back around to hit the Dauntless?
Now, when we see torpedoes pulling drastic maneuvers of the kind necessary to hit ships on the other side of the station, they do so fairly rapidly after leaving the tubes.
ST6 and TNG "In Theory" come to mind. But these WOTW torpedoes just keep going like so many others. The "In Theory" torpedo makes an almost 90-degree, multikilometer turn in about two seconds. These WOTW torpedoes go straight for several seconds without giving even the slightest indication of making major maneuvers.
Now, I'm going to make a few statements based on directly observable evidence in order to establish a rubric we can use to calculate exactly how many torpedoes are fired relative to the number of ships we see destroyed. Going through the episode, the most ships I've been able to count in any scene showing the fleet is 51 in this scene:
http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/ ... r2_467.jpg
Deep Space Nine has tripartite symmetry among its three sectors and hemispherical symmetry across its equator, with the exception of the fusion reactor being in place of OPS underneath. This means that every launcher we see has two more duplicates above and three below.
Each small fin has two:
http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/ ... r2_592.jpg There are six fins for a total of twelve.
Each docking arm has one above the main port, and if the symmetry holds, another below it:
http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/ ... r2_588.jpg That makes six more.
The Habitat Ring has three of these:
http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/ ... r2_590.jpg If the symmetry holds, it has six.
That makes 24, all told. Now, how many torpedoes were fired total, and by each one? The initial sequence consists of 23 torpedoes, fired from one fin and one of the docking arm launchers. Tripling that to account for all the launchers that could be firing in this sequence gives us 69. When Sisko orders "fire at will" we see another 20 launched, which gives us 60 altogether. The final sequence, firing at the Negh'var, shows 11 torpedoes launched, for a total of 33 all around. Now note: This is only accounting for the top launchers, and already we have 162 fired. Double that to account for bottom launchers, we get 324. That does NOT take into account the even-numbered launchers, which we didn't see fire. Assuming its about the same, that would give us another 60 or so torpedoes for the top, doubling to 120 for the bottom, for a total of around 444 torpedoes.
Now note this, because it is critical. We CANNOT multiply the number of Klingon ships in the same way because we have a relatively fixed figure for the fleet and for the number we see destroyed. The most I've been able to count is 51, which fits well with Kira's "several dozen Klingon ships including the Negh'Var" line, right after the Defiant arrives from rescuing the Detapa Council. The fleet is around 4 dozen ships. Now, throughout the entire battle, we see 9 ships destroyed. Allowing for Kira's "eight Klingon ships destroyed line," since we see four destroyed in the sequence (I'm counting two BoPs and two explosions from which ships cannot be seen limping away) that allows us to double the number of confirmed kills to 18. Now, allowing for Kira's "several more heavily damaged line," let's say five or six, and doubling just for the hell of it, that gives us another 10 or 12 out-of-action, for a total of 28-30, a little over half the fleet, which fits well with Martok's "we can still win" line, given that the station had already suffered, quoting Sisko's log at the end, "heavy damage."
Now, even the most conservative estimate of fired torpedoes, those we can see being launched, is 54. 54 to destroy or damage a liberal estimate of 30 ships is pretty standard, and supports your position. But now subtract 8 ships that were destroyed by the phaser salvos, and remember that two BoPs were popped by single torpedoes in the initial salvo, we have 52 torpedoes to destroy or damage 20 ships, assuming they are all hits. That's 2.7 torpedoes per ship. Still pretty standard. But, logically inferring a greater number of torpedoes fired to account for the station's layout gives us well into the hundreds of torpedoes fired to kill
STILL JUST 20 SHIPS, since we have logical limiters (Kira's line, visible evidence) on the number of Klingon ships. 162 gives us about 8 per ship. 324 gives 16. 444 gives 22 per ship, again assuming they are all hits.
Mike DiCenso wrote:So this is another exampe of torpedoes explicitlybeing capable of maneuvering. Also another example from DS9's "Valiant":
That torpedoes have the ability to maneuver has never been in question. What is in question is whether the torpedoes fired in WOTW behave like so many others that miss their targets and just keep going. I see nothing to indicate they don't.
Mike DiCenso wrote:This is interesting dialog since now we know that a torpedo has guidence systems that can be removed to make more room inside them for bigger warheads or specialized ones. This goes a long way towards maybe telling us why torpedoes don't maneuver all the time as they may be launched just chock full of matter and antimatter to increase range and punch on a target. Conversely, even a torpedo with guidance that can avoid maneuvering will probably fly in the straightest line possible to the target in order to conserve precious on-board reactants.
All of this makes sense, and also helps to support my supposition that Sisko could afford to miss. The fact that two undamaged BoPs in the initial phases of the battle, before any shots had been fired, are destroyed by single torpedoes suggests that punch, not targeting, was more important, and even the most liberal estimate of torpedoes I could logically divine, 444, doesn't come anywhere near 5000. Sisko could afford to miss.