Notes on Star Trek space combat

[Picard]

- in "Valiant", Valiant's helm officer notes that Jem'Hadar battleship is trying to jam their sensors; that confirms existence of jamming, and explains short-range combat in all major battles. Also is noted existence of jamming countermeasures.

- shields have subspace component (Star Trek Generations, shield display); it is known that high-energy subspace fields can jam sensors (TNG: "The Wounded"). We have no way of knowing, however, wether masses of ships simply have enough powerful subspace emissions to jam opposing fleet's sensors without actually using dedicated jamming equipment, but possibility exists.

- Borg cube has mass and volume of a small fleet, and it can be assumed it has same power reserves too. Thus it should also be able to jam a small fleet, explaining low ranges in all Borg combat examples.

- hard maneuvering can affect artificial gravity on ships (second battle of DS9)

- as ramming detonates warp core, and possibly torpedoes that are readied to fire, it may be possible for a battlebug to penetrate shields and destroy enemy cruiser in one strike, with conformal shields at least. (first battle of Chin'Toka)

- shields seem to be less able to stop fire incoming from several different directions

[Jasonb]

- in "Valiant", Valiant's helm officer notes that Jem'Hadar battleship is trying to jam their sensors; that confirms existence of jamming, and explains short-range combat in all major battles. Also is noted existence of jamming countermeasures.

- shields have subspace component (Star Trek Generations, shield display); it is known that high-energy subspace fields can jam sensors (TNG: "The Wounded"). We have no way of knowing, however, wether masses of ships simply have enough powerful subspace emissions to jam opposing fleet's sensors without actually using dedicated jamming equipment, but possibility exists.

- Borg cube has mass and volume of a small fleet, and it can be assumed it has same power reserves too. Thus it should also be able to jam a small fleet, explaining low ranges in all Borg combat examples.

- hard maneuvering can affect artificial gravity on ships (second battle of DS9)

- as ramming detonates warp core, and possibly torpedoes that are readied to fire, it may be possible for a battlebug to penetrate shields and destroy enemy cruiser in one strike, with conformal shields at least. (first battle of Chin'Toka)

- shields seem to be less able to stop fire incoming from several different directions

On minor problem it took two Jem Harder bug ships destroy Klingon big warships when drive death. So that hardly suggestion Klingon hard warp-core problem more bug ship tough little ships.

[359]

The thing that has always bothered me about DS9 battles is the complete lack of any shields being in use.


But just in the instance of the rammings I think it was an extension of the Jem'Hadar fighter's ability to pass through shields. We know that in their first encounter the Odyssey's shields prove useless against the phased poloron beams that the Jem'Hadar use, and we know that the Allies's shields were eventually adapted to be resistant to this weapon. But in the first encounter (DS9: "The Jem'Hadar") during the first pass on the Odyssey, while they still have their shields up, we see a Jem'Hadar ship pass directly under the saucer of the Odyssey. To do this the ship would have needed to pass through the active shields.

I think the best explanation of the ramming incidents in DS9: "Tears of the Profits" is that they had not adapted their shields to stop the fighters from going through them, only their weapons.

[Mike DiCenso]

. But in the first encounter (DS9: "The Jem'Hadar") during the first pass on the Odyssey, while they still have their shields up, we see a Jem'Hadar ship pass directly under the saucer of the Odyssey. To do this the ship would have needed to pass through the active shields.

Actually Captain Keogh ordered power from the shields be diverted to the phasers in order to inflict more damage on the enemy:

KEOGH: We've run through the full spectrum, but none of the frequencies were effective. Divert shield power to weapons. We'll give O'Brien five more minutes.

So no shields were in place when the Jem'Hadar attack ship crashed and detonated against the Odyssey.
-Mike

[359]

I apologize for the confusion, I was not referring to the ramming scene. I was talking about the scene of the first attack run, before he orders power diverted from the shields to weapons.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzARkU5l2JE
00:49 to 00:54

If you watch both of the Jem'Hadar fighters in the first attack sequence, one of them flies directly beneath the saucer while the shields are still up (the one ending on the left at 0:53 in clip above).


DS9:"The Jem'Hadar":
Kira: Here they come.

[the Jem'Hadar's first attack on the Odyssey. This is the time period I am talking about.]

Officer: I'm getting casualty reports from decks four, five, eight and seventeen. We also have a plasma leak in our port nacelle.
Keogh: Deploy damage control teams.
Officer: Aye, sir.
Keogh: Keogh to runabouts.
Kira: Go ahead.
Keogh: They're using some kind of phased polaron beam to penetrate our shields.

Dax: Have you tried altering your harmonics to compensate?

[Keogh now orders power diverted.]
Keogh: We've run through the full spectrum, but none of the frequencies were effective. Divert shield power to weapons. We'll give O'Brien five more minutes.

[Picard]

Yes, but fighters were obviously not able to crash into Odyssey, meaning it might have been using conformal shields at the time.

On minor problem it took two Jem Harder bug ships destroy Klingon big warships when drive death. So that hardly suggestion Klingon hard warp-core problem more bug ship tough little ships.

WHO WAS TALKING ABOUT KLINGON WARP CORES? I WAS TALKING ABOUT JEM'HADAR BATTLEBUG WARP CORES DETONATING, YOU BRAINLESS T***!

[359]

Yes, but fighters were obviously not able to crash into Odyssey, meaning it might have been using conformal shields at the time.

It would not make sense that the Jem'Hadar would ram the Odyssey outright, then they could have done it at any time after they dropped their shields. It was only done as a "so there!" move after the Odyssey started retreating to prove how far they would go. Their plan was to beat the Odyssey in combat to prove they could, and then destroy her in an extreme act to prove their commitment.

Also I do not think we have ever seen conformal shields on a Federation ship until Nemisis with the Enterprise-E. The Defiant (DS9:"Paradise Lost","Shattered Mirrior"), Lakota (DS9:"Paradise Lost", and Enterprise-E (ST: First Contact) have all demonstrated the 'bubble' shield design, and as far as I know the confromal shields have not been seen on Federation ships until ST: Nemisis.

On minor problem it took two Jem Harder bug ships destroy Klingon big warships when drive death. So that hardly suggestion Klingon hard warp-core problem more bug ship tough little ships.

WHO WAS TALKING ABOUT KLINGON WARP CORES? I WAS TALKING ABOUT JEM'HADAR BATTLEBUG WARP CORES DETONATING, YOU BRAINLESS T***!

I don't think the all-caps are necessary, it could be easily misunderstood as 'The ramming ship will detonate the warp core and torpedoes of the ship which is hit.' which may be true as well.

Jasonb has a point in what he brings up, but not the one he stated. In most of the ramming in DS9:"Tears of the Profits" the Jem'Hadar fighters explode on impact, except when ramming the second Klingon cruiser. The first fighter just plows through the neck section and then explodes against the pod on top of the primary hull.

[Mike DiCenso]

If you watch both of the Jem'Hadar fighters in the first attack sequence, one of them flies directly beneath the saucer while the shields are still up (the one ending on the left at 0:53 in clip above).

I see what you're talking about, though it's really hard to tell how close it is to the saucer, since this is a 2-D image and there is little in the way of clues to give us how close in the JH attack ships are, and unfortunately Trekcore does not have a screencap of the attack ship when it flies in at 0:51 and appears to level off just below Odyssey's stardrive keel before starting a hard banking maneuver that takes it around and out the saucer's starboard side by 0:53. The way the attack ship does a banking maneuver before strafing the saucer suggests that it would have impacted with shields had it not done so.

So should shields be there? Well TNG shows the E-D with shield bubbles of varying widths. Usually we see that the shields when viewed from the side in cross-section are ellipsoidal, not spherical with the Z axis (up and down through the center) shorter that the X and Y axis (length and width). The largest seen here from TNG's "Datalore" when the Crystalline Entity tries to ram the E-D but gets bounced by the shields:



Here in "The Hunted" when Rogar Danar's shuttle impacts into the E-D's shields we see a much smaller cross section:



Just barely 20-30 meters below the stardrive section on the E-D and with barely appears wider than the 470 meter saucer section. Assuming the Odyssey had shields set in the latter configuration, then the JH attack ship would have some room still to skim and just miss the shields.
-Mike

[Mike DiCenso]

WHO WAS TALKING ABOUT KLINGON WARP CORES? I WAS TALKING ABOUT JEM'HADAR BATTLEBUG WARP CORES DETONATING, YOU BRAINLESS T***!

I have to step out of the thread a moment here in my capacity as a forum mod to warn you not to engage in this kind of behavior. It's completely uncalled for, especially since 359 is being quite reasonable about things and a simple clarification was all that was needed here.

You been pretty well behaved on this forum in the time you've been here, so I'll let it slide, but please watch the tone or you will be given a full warning.

Thank you.
-Mike

[359]

I created a scale 3d model of the Odyssey and one of the Jem'Hadar fighters to see if in any of the frames the ship passed through the shields (ellipsoidal). This one seemed the most likely so I scaled the fighter to the Odyssey (109m and 642m) and positioned them until they matched the image from DS9:"The Jem'Hadar". I created the smallest possible ellipsoid that would encompass the Odyssey. This is the result, the fighter is well within the shields.

(I do not know how to place images so I attached them below)

(I just noticed I have the fighter facing the wrong direction)

[Mike DiCenso]

Compare the cross-section of your first image with the nearly identical view of Rogar's shuttle hitting the shields in the Trekcore image you provided. The shield surface area you created is still a good 20 percent larger than the one seen flaring in "The Hunted".

The flight path of the attack ship also doesn't look right, either, as when seen in the video, it does a hard bank, and then curves out and away from the Odyssey.
-Mike

[359]

With the cross section of the shields, I really can't make them any smaller, if I do the nacelles protrude out the back as well as several points on the side of the saucer. If I were to let that happen I could probably shrink the vertical axis of the ellipsoid some, but beyond that they just would not fit. Even if the shields were reduced in height, the position of the fighter would make it still within the shields.

I think the difference between my image and the one from TNG:"The Hunted" is that I am showing all of the shields at once compared to just a section of the forward shields shown in the episode. Also the perspective and camera position are slightly different.


As for the flight path, I didn't plot the whole path (I considered doing that instead). I just took one frame from the show (below) and created an overlay in the 3d space to work off of. From there I scaled the models to each other, positioned them, rotated them until they matched and then adjusted the distance from the camera until they perfectly, or near perfectly, fit their image. I then created a sphere and scaled it on different axis until it covered all of the Odyssey.

Just now I overlaid the two in Photoshop and they match up, some rotations are of by about 2 degrees, but the sizes are good so it shouldn't effect their position. (below) The lighting difference makes it somewhat hard to see as well as the different deflector dish. I would estimate the renderings are good to within 5 to 10 meters.

[359]

Here, I decreased the shield height by 20% and here is the result, if I were to decrease the overall size by 20% many more problem areas would crop up. Those are the aft and ventral sides of the nacelle pylons.

[Khas]

WHO WAS TALKING ABOUT KLINGON WARP CORES? I WAS TALKING ABOUT JEM'HADAR BATTLEBUG WARP CORES DETONATING, YOU BRAINLESS T***!

I have to step out of the thread a moment here in my capacity as a forum mod to warn you not to engage in this kind of behavior. It's completely uncalled for, especially since 359 is being quite reasonable about things and a simple clarification was all that was needed here.

You been pretty well behaved on this forum in the time you've been here, so I'll let it slide, but please watch the tone or you will be given a full warning.

Thank you.
-Mike

Uh, Mike, Picard was yelling at Jason, not 359.

[Mike DiCenso]

My apologies on that misunderstanding, then. But even still, regardless of who it is directed at, Picard's response is still uncalled for.
-Mike