Where Are The Constitution's Weapons?
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- Опубліковано 8 лют 2023
- Today i look into a question as old as trek itself. where the hell are the Enterprises weapons? Throughout the run of the Original Series we see the Enterprise employ Phasers and Photon Torpedos to fend off alien agressors. But at no point are we told how many weapons the Enterprise has or where exactly they are fired from.
Today i aim to solve this mystery with a little help from FASA and modern adaptations of this timeless ship.
Ressurected Starships Model: skfb.ly/6RxKu
"Thief in the Night" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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While ships in a class are generally identical, they aren't always... at least in real life. My own submarine had features that none of the other Sturgeon class submarines had. It is possible that Defiant's armament was different from the rest of her class or perhaps just different from the Enterprise.
yeah i was thinking that myself
I read someone say no ship is identical. In the same class their are always differences.
@@shanenolan5625 Except for the Inquiry class ships. XD
@@entropy11 😆
It seems to me that torpedo launchers would be a much easier weapon system to add or remove than a phaser bank. With phasers you have to tie it in to the main power system, and that could be really dangerous to rewire if it’s even possible. But torpedo launchers are relatively small, the weapons are guided and self-propelled, and you don’t need to use main power because all you’re doing is running the torpedo along a track and opening an airlock. So I could easily see Defiant’s rear launcher as a retrofit, or a new addition to the Constitution class design in a later flight of construction.
I agree on the idea of high-speed warp maneuvers in combat to gain position. This was backed up in a TOS episode where Kirk ordered Sulu to leave a solar system for "fighting" room.
. . . except for that stupid Voyager episode where the writers pulled the idea that ships at warp could not turn at all and had to stop and reorient to continue in a different direction out of their butt, because it was convenient for the plot that time.
in my head cannon theres a guy literally firing a weapon out a window wearing a space suit. no clue how hes aiming
Based on the later FX artists, they would have ignored any hardpoints anyway.
Disruptor Beams coming off the S-2 Graf/Warp Nacelles. coming out of the torpedo tube. Emitting from other things that are definitely not the weapons emplacement - like windows, sensors, deflectors, etc.
Ah the D7 so those could actually be coming from the underside of the nacelle where there are disruptor mounts. Or from the pylon so they aren't firing directly from the nacelles
D'Deridex also notorious for shooting out everything from its deflector disc, so much that sources retroactively changed it into a weapon port instead.
On screen dialogue definitively establishes that the Enterprise had at least SIX torpedo tubes, and forward, port, starboard, and midships phaser batteries. The Defiant is probably the most perfect expression of the TOS Connie we're going to get. And, yes, I can prove it with episode citations.
I could accept that. Given that the NX class has 6 saucer mounted tubes. Although how useful the port and starboard tubes would be most of the time. I'm not sure...
@@venomgeekmedia9886 they would have been very useful during the Xindi expedition. But it is a warship sort of trait.
@@venomgeekmedia9886 I didn;t mean to imply that there were port and starboard torpedo tubes.
A lot of wet navy surface warships have multiple torpedo tube per single launcher. I assume the multiple tube stated in the show could be part of the same launcher.
I prefer to assume that earlier generation torpedo tube can only launch one torpedo at a time, as opposed to TNG-era one that can fire multiple torpedo at once, like how Galaxy-class love to do. For the Constitution-class, on the other hands, the only way to launch multiple torpedoes is to have more tubes.
For some idea of what I was talking about, look for launcher for Mk.15 torpedo.
The constitution class USS Enterprise has a secret weapon....
Kirks giant brass balls!
The limited number of torpedoes gives a different insight into Balance Of Terror. Kirk is using torpedoes in a proximity detonation mode, but he had a limited supply, meaning he had to be more aggressive than he'd have preferred.
Yeah. And those definitely were torpedoes not phaser blasts. Because the writers hadn't come up with torpedoes yet
Your right. In BoT, Kirk supposedly ordered the originally-crewed "phaser stations" to fire in proximity-detonating bursts. However, exactly how tightly-focussed phaser beams can realistically be used in such a way was never explained in canon. At any rate, in later season episodes this same effect was thankfully ret-conned as firing photon torpedoes in spread patterns which made a great deal more sense...😉
@@charlestaylor253 Proximity Blast might just mean that all that Phaser energy is contained within a magnetic field and fired from the forward Phaser Banks more like a projectile than a beam. When the magnetic field dissipates, all that raw energy expands outward. Kirk needed to blanket a section of space that he knew the Romulan Bird of Prey was hiding in and would need to dish out ALOT to even have a chance of inflicting damage. Use of Phasers in this way was likely not standard procedure and ran the risk of causing system overloads with continual firing. Kirk used Phasers in this way twice. Once when engaging the Romulan Bird of Prey in Balance of Terror and again against a Klingon D7 (Or a scout ship) in Errand of Mercy. Direct hits from Proximity Phasers are immediately fatal as the Enterprise was able to quickly destroy the attacking D7. This was never used again for some reason (Likely because Photon Torpedoes were introduced in The Arena).
Photon Torpedoes don't seem to explode like a proximity explosive (They can be configured to do so but on average they are more like shaped charges that divert all destructive energy to the point of impact). Plus in the episode The Changeling, the Enterprise is able to absorb the equivalent of 360 Photon Torpedoes with it's shields... It's very likely that Shields are incredibly effective against Photon Torpedoes of the era. This would change with the TMP era with the introduction of newer far more destructive models of Photon Torpedo.
This is an excellent analysis. In TOS, Starfleet's ships were frequently alone, facing other lone ships. Industry in the Federation and neighbouring empires did not have the capacity to build large fleets that we see later on. Hence why maneuverability was enough. In later years, we have more large fleet engagements, necessitating the need for round coverage.
Yeah a industrial revelation that actually begins with TOS and really takes off in TMP.
@@venomgeekmedia9886 It seems like the Ares class was perhaps the first to be armed in the fashion of TMP ships. After the 4 years war, the need for this type of vessel may have declined but this trend would reverse after TOS.
There must have been several large engagements in the Earth Romulan war, my guess is at least three if not more. There may have been an engagement between the Klingons and Romulans in 2240, this may have involved small fleets. The Federation Klingon war in 2242-2245 may have involved reasonably large fleets, and included at least two battles, Battle of Donatu Five in 2242 and Victory at Axanar ~2245. I suspect there were other engagements between these two dates as well. But apart from this all the engagements in the TOS scripts are as you describe, small affairs involving 1-2 ships each.
i think it was less industrial production then the fact all the fights we see are on the extreme edges of federation/kligon/romulan space. Connie is afterall a long-range exploratory cruiser. there would be a proper defence fleet with more of the lies of Ares making up its bulk.
A thing to remember is that these are star SHIPS, not fighters. They would be engaging at much longer ranges, rather like WW2 battleships, despite what we see on the later shows (I blame Wrath of Khan for this tendency to see ships maneuvering close in like fighters). This means they wouldn't NEED weapons facing all over the place, particularly aft.
In my head-canon for both Star Wars and Star Trek, each ship is capable of emitting a certain amount of tactical sensor static. Therefore, the capital ships have to get closer to each other in combat. They would have to rely more on visual (video) sensors and cameras. It also helps explain so many missed shots.
@@louisalectube Well, in Star Wars, they're fighting at relativistic speeds. In Star Trek, combat takes place at warp speeds (at least, it did in the original series). At speeds like that, visual targeting would be useless, not least because of the distances involved.
@@STNeish Yes and no. In many Trek shows and movies the characters see ship combat at warp speed on their viewscreens, including shots, torpedoes and maneuvers. An easy head-canon explanation could be that any ships in combat at warp speed are inside each other's warp fields, plus computer enhancements to the viewscreen. In a more realistic version of Star Trek, yes, visual scanning at warp would be useless. Warp fields are subspace energy, which is extra-dimensional, which could be said to break the rules of physics in our universe. So, pew pew at warp speed 8-P I was talking about all the combat in real space (when they're only hundreds of meter/yards away from each other, yet missing shots).
@@louisalectube Unlikely, as the interactions of the warp fields would disrupt, or at least disturb each other. Also, for the fields to interact as you suggest, they would need to be ENORMOUS.
For reference, watch The Ultimate Computer. You'll see both Enterprise and the Lexington's fleet are maneuvering at warp while fighting.
Of course, when Wrath of Khan came along, they would have been fighting at impulse speed. After that, we see ships fighting each other much like this, because it's more cinematic, and audiences like to see both the attacker and defender in frame. In the Original Series, there was only one ship visible (at least, until the special editions spoiled things).
@@louisalectube Star wars uses ECM as well as the fact at certain ranges your damage output isn't enough to down shields and deal damage accurately. We see this in action in the clone wars, when 3 venators are destroyed at extreme ranges by the droid ion super ship. The first ship is killed in seconds by the volume of fire. But the second ship lasts longer and more shots miss. The this ship is able to launch escape pods because the constant barrage had lost accuracy enough it took longer to kill. With the shields up, the constant fire would have lost ability to effectively kill the third ship, maybe the second.
The Enterprise NX-01 had its phasers located inside the hull with hatches that opened and allowed the phaser emitters to extend out and swivel to point to the direction of the target. The torpedoes were launched through hatches that opened right before being launched.
Chances are that the original series Enterprise USS1701 had the same features.
Quite possibly although the hatches are visible on the nx01 as they were on the connie
On the model there’s a tiny little gun on the bottom of the sensor dome. It’s near invisible because of the camera work in the 60s
Bingo. It’s on the 1/350 scale model
I wonder if that is the tractor beam.
I swear I saw a diagram where it said it was the phaser turret.
Another thing to consider is the necessity of 360 degree 3 dimensional phaser coverage in the TMP era over the forward facing firing arcs of TOS era ships, with the proliferation of Romulan Cloaking Technology present throughout the quadrant. In TOS most Klingon ships didn't have cloaking devices so star fleet ships can maneuver to chose the engagement. Fast forward to TMP era and nearly every Klingon and Romulan warship had a cloaking device that could attack with little warning from any direction or angel, so Star Fleet ships had to be able to bring at least one of their weapons in any direction whatsoever, to engage any hostile ship wheresoever.
That's an excellent observation and a great pivot point for Starfleet military doctrine (which Disco undermines from minute one).
The UA-cam comment system is clear as muck, I'm replying to Marked Ashamed's comment about the TMP era tactical rethink as a response to the proliferation of cloaking technology after Balance Of Terror.
@@brendancaulfield970 The UA-cam comments have been acting up recently.
I've had a lot of comments disappear and sometimes reappear for some unknown reason.
Oh, and just because someone is going to mention it: yes, Enterprise undermined this idea too with the Romulan and Suliban cloaking devices. I have similar grievances with Enterprise, but Disco didn't have to go and double down on them.
I love the ToS torpedo sound effects
Originally the photon torpedoes were just energy or as Probert told me “globs of scary.”
The interesting thing about the TMP armament is that it has a very limited field of fire.
It would actually make more sense to broadside a target. In terms of a spacecraft, that would men flipping the ship so that the entire top or bottom was facing the target. Then all phaser banks on the top or bottom could fire directly on the target.
Torpedo tunes would be most useful when a target is in front of the ship, but then only the forward phaser banks would be able to fire, and have only a 90 degree field due to the hull being in the way.
I think it would be fun to have seen Kirk order a broadside and have all the phasers on the top or bottom firing on a larger.
I also like the fannish idea that the TOS phasers and torpedoes have gunports. They open when phasers or torpedoes are needed, but are otherwise closed. They're very small gunports and only visible at close range, which is why we never see them.
I think Defiant was an outlier. Memory Alpha has a quote from one of the people who worked on that episode, and he said that they had envisioned the Defiant as a much more recently built ship, with really bad luck considering how quickly it met a bad fate. If she was a newer ship, she may have possessed an intermediate armament between the TOS Constitution and the TMP Constitution. She has an aft torpedo launcher. She also has four aft phasers, two fired in the episode from above the shuttle bay, and two below it in the Main System Display. Defiant also appears to have had six forward phasers - 2 dorsal (seen in the Main System Display), the two we see fire from the "chin" of the ventral saucer surface, and then the two way down where the turret is found on the Enterprise on the Main System Display. Also, look at the Impulse Engines - they glow blue instead of red, possibly indicating a much higher energy output. My supposition is thus that Defiant was an early attempt to make the transition from warp combat to a ship capable of slugging it out at impulse (like we see with the Constitution Refit), using more powerful impulse engines to achieve superior speed and maneuverability at sublight speeds.
There is a subject for a video here which is what the Mirror Universe did to the Defiant over her later service.
I like to think the torpedo launcher spins around as needed
Nice of you to flesh this out. I played the FASA Star Trek RPG. They did a great job fleshing out the TOS universe, but did it in a game-balance way for playing the game. You looked a bit deeper in the lore in a more objective way.
I've seen a couple good takes on this.
my favorite is a minor retcon to add ball emitters and a torpedo room to the pre-tos connie (See Alvision100 for a really good take on this) with the justification of the studio model just wasn't detailed enough.
This jives with the SNW refit1 enterprise having the expected 6 twin ball emitters+2 singles.
13:21 Who would have thought TOS had jump scares. Thanks Venom :P
I think that the combat doctrine of high-warp manuvers would stay in effect even after the Enterprise was refitted with additional phasers. Those extra phaser mounts would give it even more flexibility. The only way I could see sub light combat is "Ship of the Line" Scenario. In fleet actions where ships are assigned to cover for each other.
I like this approach and the general conclusions. Well done!
Great insights! Great music, too! Subscribed.
the torpedo sound effect gave me a heart attack.
About Connie torpedo launchers: in TOS It Is mentioned in balance of terror they have 6 torpedo launchers.
In my headcanon constitution class launchers are placed the same way of NX class ones.
I think it is also important to consider that Gene's vision for space combat evolved over time. In the beginning, it is massively implied that these weapons are so scarily powerful (this was made in the nuclear age mind you) that even the best screening against them would last only a couple of direct hits and a ship without screening would be destroyed or flooded with deadly radiation in one or two hits (they are also crazy adaptable, ranging from the equivalent of phaser depth-charges to knocking a town unconscious). With the movie era he had more time to devote to each single story and could show a much slower progression of compounding damages, to heighten tension.
So in the TOS era you didn't need many of these weapons from a story-telling angle, who needs to bother when avoiding hits in the first place and informational superiority matter much more than the amount of weapons you can bring to bear? In the motion picture era, we could argue in-universe, shielding was making leaps and bounds that weaponry was not keeping pace with, and thus you needed more weaponry and more powerful ones. We also see that even weak phasers like the ones on the Reliant caused crippling damage on the Enterprise as soon as shields were down.
Then later hulls become much more resilient and we get the very long engagements we see in TNG or DS9, and ships like Voyager and Defiant tanking many hits with just their hull. Far from Roddenberry's original vision, but it's entertaining in a different way.
Having only the 6 dorsal phasers and not the 2 ventral phasers be heavy phasers seems a little top heavy, both in number and power.
It would make more sense for all the phasers to be of a similar caliber if the number stays the same.
This issue thankfully doesn't seem to be present with the placement of the 18 phaser turrets on the Connie refit.
Beyond that, the layout you suggested makes sense.
Yeah you see a similar issue with the D7 to ktinga. On the underside you have the torpedoes so it balances out.
Good job mate!! Much enjoyed
The Reliant had aft torpedoes.
Khan: "Aft Torpedo! Fire!"
The Reliant when Khan took over was of the refit era. Venom is talking about ships *before* the refit. Don’t think they had Reliant like ships before the refit. Again, the Reliant is of refit era, and he’s talking about *before* the refit.
Excellent Video!
There's also the fact to consider that most beta cannon sources would place the Defiant in the Block 3 or flight 3 construction run of the Constitution class so that alone would allow for variation of in the weapons fit. While my personal version of the Block 3 lacks aft torpedoes There is room in the engineering hull to include one ventral of the hanger and astern of the fabrication center and repair shops. 48 is a standard patrol load and 96 is a wartime complement but part of those are in storage and would need to be added to the magazine between battles.
Yeah different blocks would have different armaments
@@venomgeekmedia9886 when I did my constitution-class starship pack for Armada 2 included 12 different variants covering from 2245 to 2380. The Block 3 ships where by far the largest single order of hulls by Starfleet at 117 vessels. Due to the time frame these ships where ordered they ended up spread over 5 different blocks of construction with he last ships entering service in the late 2330s
P.S. The CONSTELLATION was from "The Doomsday Machine", NOT "The Ultimate Computer".
(And I should know, because they're my 2 favorite episodes.)
I've always liked FASA's take on on ST in their ST Tactical Combat Simulator. Both the refit and the Connie had a total of 6 phasers on the saucer and granted it was a 2D setup but it was pretty close to how the series and movies appeared. (If you went off the model kit, Connie and Enterprise actually had 12 phasers on the saucer-- You had 6 on the Ventral and another 6 on the Dorsal sides. On the other hand, if you had only 6 total phasers, and they were funneled to 12 emitters.....) There are serious issues with these designs
Torpedo compliment;
I’d say for each ship…
Constitution class - between 15-20.
D-7 - between 20-30.
Blimey that's quite austere compared to what most say.
Here’s a much simpler answer. The visual effects artists at Paramount didn’t have the technical know-how to depict multiple weapons placements in the 1960s, nor did they have the budget. But TMP, they had the budget and FX to depict it as Roddenberry intended.
Now, here’s my in-universe explanation. During TOS, Enterprise only had the energy capacity to support one main Phase Battery. Later variant had more capacity and could support more batteries.
We have to remember visual effects made tremendous leaps between the time TOS ended in 1969, and TMP in 1979. And almost all those innovations are thanks to Star Wars in 1977, which created the era of the modern sci-fi space battle.
I honestly prefer the FASA interpretation - there are 3 banks top/bottom on the saucer, like in the movie version, plus a few others. It irritated me that we only saw one firing angle because that seemed to imply you could just hover above the ship and avoid its phasers.
In the TNG era, you don't actually need to carry a ton of torpedoes, just enough for a single engagement and you can replicate more on the fly.
Looking at the Eaglemoss magazine that came with the discovery version of the Enterprise, it appears to have 2 aft torpedo tubes between the impulse engines with an airlock between the tubes.
According to the Franz Joseph Starfleet technical Manuel the phaser banks are on the primary hull 2banks port and starboard and 2banks forward before the lower sensor dome and the photon torpedoes were facing forward half way down from the bridge those 2 tiny little looking windows in the front, any ways a very nicely well done job and very informatively explained and executed in every way possibly provided to you indeed👌.
Yeah although we never see them used in that fashion. So again the devil is in the details
@venomgeekmedia9886 Yes and unfortunately Roddenberry didn't want it to look like a warship he wanted it to look purely like an exploration vessel that's why they weren't put on the original 11ft. Model,and then on top of that they had a very strict budget while filming so that's why you only see the phasers and photon torpedoes coming out from the under side of the primary hull just before in front of the sensor dome ?.
Maybe they replaced the bowling alley on the Defiant with an aft photon torpedo launcher 🙃
They kept the bowling alley but use the ball return as the launcher.
World war 2, the ship is set up like a WW2 cruiser with a deck made specifically for armaments, and the lower half acts like a phaser turret, while the deck below the bridge acts like the turrets for the upper half
and also the aft torpedo launcher is below the impulse engines, granted that was added for a mirror darkly instead of an aft phaser array like the refit had
but its pretty much a federation version of a corvette, a fast light attack cruiser
This has bothered me since I first watched Star Trek as a kid. Also, the SFX people on the original series would often show what appeared to be photon torpedoes firing when the Enterprise was allegedly firing phasers.
Pulsed phasers!
There are these small twin ports where the phaser shoots out from underneath the saucer section, usually in the foward direction or sometimes downwards. No aft phasers or turrets.
Thank you
Awesome videos
I'm debunking what you're saying about the torpedo tubes. According to Franz Joseph' technical manual, the torpedo tubes are in the saucer. The three circles in a sense where the "bow" of the Constitution Class are. In the refit, I go by Mr Scott's guide to the Enterprise.
This is a good point and I would love to get a detailed answer on this as well. If we only look at the TOS scripts in the episode Arena, The Alternative Factor, and a host of other episodes there is a quote about Phaser Banks - so there must be more than one Phaser Bank, at least two. The best quote is from “For The World Is Hollow”, KIRK: Prepare phaser banks one and two, Mister Sulu. This could imply there are only 2 phaser banks. In Balance of Terror the enterprise only fires phaser one and phaser two, there is no phaser three.
Of course the first mention of photon torpedo is the 19th production order episode Arena, so the quote from Balance of Terror by itself could refer to photon torpedoes, as in this episode the phasers can explode. But we do have a much later reference which implies we only have two banks of phasers.
As for ammo, Scott implies he can launch a few dozen photon torpedoes in A Taste of Armageddon, so it must have at least 24 photon torpedoes, if not more. In The Changeling Kirk talks about a Photon torpedo two. In Journey to Babel Kirk fires torpedoes two, four and six. In Elaan of Troyius the enterprise fires six photon torpedoes, with only one hitting. It seems when the target is fast its hard to hit.
I suspect the enterprise has at least size photon torpedo tubes and maybe more, although I think six is the number. I am uncertain about rearward firing torpedoes; I think the conclusion in this video is correct. The ships turn to face the enemy and fire weapons before veering off. You can see this in several episodes, but The Ultimate Computer gives you the best view.
In terms of the distances, Elaan of Troyius gives you some solid distances. Based on this phasers seem to have a range of about 20,000km, photon torpedoes 30,000km to 50,000km. Photon torpedoes have poor accuracy when firing against a rapidly moving ship at distance. Some form of engagement is possible beyond these ranges, but at 500,000km no phaser or photon torpedo fire is viable.
I have created a video on what I think space combat is like in the TOS star Trek universe, but I have not posted it yet and will do so in nine days. But this post pretty much sums up what the video covers so there is no need to view it.
I have a vague memory of the designer of the Motion Picture enterprise, Andrew Probert, talking about how in that design the Enterprise had complete 360 degree coverage with its phasers and how it was an exciting new thing for him and Roddenberry. So I certainly agree that the refits phaser array was supposed to be different and superiour. I really do not remember where I read or heard it though.
As Darin Wagner says below, loadouts among ships in a class can vary, BUT I tend to agree with Star Fleet Battles and the Star Fleet Technical Manual that it's based on. At least for THIS ship. 3 banks of 2 phasers, 2 forward, 2 port/forward, 2 starboard/forward with 2 banks 2 each photon torpedoes firing forward. They really tried to be a STARSHIP SIMULATOR rather than a game and the game got away from them, but that's what I believe.
Defiant could have had a different mission profile than Enterprise. Also maybe she was just built later and they decided it was a necessary addition to have an aft torpedo system so every Connie after a certain point was built that way and Enterprise, being one of the first (or the first if you've read Final Frontier) didn't have some of the later amenities. As the oldest Connie she'd be the perfect choice for the refit project given that she was the most out-of-date at that point.
I always expected the TMP refit took the same space frame and design and upgraded the equipment. Basically the SNW Enterprise is basically the TMP Enterprise with the old nacelles and no fixed torpedo launcher on the neck. The TOS enterprise is the SNW Enterprise, you just need to squint a little more.
I have a similar problem with STE: you can clearly see the NX-01's torpedo tubes, but when it comes to the phase cannons there's no defined emplacements. Apparently they have turrets that pop up like 80's headlights, but I've only seen those in extreme close ups, and from the wide shots the beams come out from seemingly random intervals all across the hull. I drove myself half crazy trying to figure it before I finally accepted that NOBODY knows heck about how many cannons the NX class has.
There is a rail system the grapple launcher and phase turrets move along and they can pop out of various ports. which is at least "an explanation" where as the USS Voyager just shot out of what ever hole she felt like at the time including the work bee Garages and the Tractor beam emittor.
We don't much agree which is clearly based on the way we value various sources. Still I really enjoyed what you had to say.
I might make my own version that's more heavily armed for a heavy firefight. And we need a clear definition of how much Armaments does the Kelvin Timeline Enterprise and Constitution-class has since they're bigger than a Galaxy or a Sovereign.
I've always thought of them as turrets like on a battleship
It has always bugged me that they made "Photon torpedoes" into things you put in a tube. In the show i took them to be a "blob" of energy rather than the "beam" that the Phasers were. It's in the name.
Photon name comes from what's left after they explode
the official Paramount blueprints from the 60's shows tops are on deck 2 right under the bridge .. the phasers are on the lower side of the Primary Hull
TOS episodes clearly show all phasers and torpedoes being fired from the ventral port. It also very clearly shows both weapon types being fired at warp speed. How can the weapons be used at warp speed? this is never explained, but they obviously are.
Phasers would presumably fire at FTL speeds. Engagements could occur at Warp speeds. For one simple example, I would choose TMP. Kirk clearly felt he could engage something from warp speed with phasers.
How much does the improvement of photon torpedoes play into it? We go from the weaker blue, to the thicker and more powerful orange/red ones. Connie refit moved it down because they needed the bigger auto-loading magazine?
Quite possibly. I think it has more to do with magnetic acceleration of the projectiles. The TMP torpedo tubes are longer so allow greater acceleration
I remember a bunch of Star Trek computer games in the 80s assumed a compliment of six torpedoes. Really had to ration them.
Super Thanks!!!
The D7 does have aft launchers. They use aft torpedos when executing evasive maneuvers with V’ger.
That's the ktinga the later upgrade.
love this
Event the constitution refit from the movies seemed to lack aft torpedoes as well.
Well I don't recall if it's confirmed it the defiant comes from our universe or just a similar one that made a Connie slightly different.
It's possible that when ships are under construction if a captain is assigned to it the captain is able to have some minor alterations to the ship like an extra torpedo launcher or more sensor modules etc in anticipation for the 5yr missions
The intent is clearly that it's the same ship that disappeared in The Tholian Web, displaced in time and sent to the mirror universe. If you compare the two episodes, the placement of the corpses on the bridge is exactly the same.
It does make me wonder if the Enterprise had failed to rescue Kirk, would he have turned up in the 2150's mirror universe too?
@@brendancaulfield970 ah thanks for the info been awhile since I've watched TOS 👍
An interesting enquiry
Yeah I usually went off the Starfleet battles schematics
Great video. The exact armament and location of weapons can seem a neglected factor in many common ships.
Forgive me if this has already been covered in the channel, I'm still working my way through the excellent but large amount of content... But has the Vor'cha Class been covered in detail?
The Enterprise having a powerful arnament up front to start also makes sense from an idea of progression of a battle crusier which the Constitution class is of its era. They start with a forward facing turret and wing turets based on all front fire less armour then before and are fast enough to chase down other cruisers. You then within 10 years move into an era with bigger guns along the centerline and higher armour even in the battlecruisers with lots more battleships and battlecruisers. You then get to a point where they effectively merging. Within the context of this the Enterprise getting a refit with greater phaser and shield power with a more efficient engine plus more torpedoes is a bit similar to what the Royal Navy was doing with its later World War 1 era capital ships to make them useful in World War 2.
They came out of the dome on the central ventral.REALLY it should be the dots on the dorsal & ventral part of the saucer.
Reasonable argument or theory...
Coincidentally I was watching TOS right through right now, and I remember in one episode 6 phaser batteries were mentioned.
There's no reason a ship can't just point its prow torpedo launchers in any direction while still moving in its vector of momentum.
Orginaly like the phaser the photon torpedo was meant to be an energy based weapon. Photon is basically the source of light.
They're where the SFX guys decide to put them.
Which is usually in a place where they shouldn't be. I can't tell if that's laziness, negligence, malice, or trolling on their part.
Or maybe star trek ships are made of guns.
The real trouble is there aren't details that tell us weather those placements are right or wrong
It's not true that no one has said where the Enterprise's weapons are. In the 1975 Starfleet Technical Manual she has three phaser banks, four on the upper side of her saucer (two on each side of her bridge module) and two on the forward side of that, um, teat on her saucer's lower side. Her photon torpedo tubes are at the bottom of her bridge module, two in the center, side by side.
All that said, her weapon placement leaves much to be desired and is clearly dictated more by "That looks pretty" than "That's where they need to be." The phasers, especially, aren't sited to give them a 360-degree field of fire in the horizontal plane, much less up or down.
It needs to be said that many if not most of the technical aspects of Star Trek are totally arbitrary if not post-hoc rationalizations.
I would expect some rear torpedo coverage, even if it’s a single, slow firing tube. The NX had rear tubes, and it’s a hundred odd years older, and even on a maneuverable ship having rear torpedoes can be helpful. More boom won’t hurt. Or the defiant was special.
GO FASA. Enjoy there take on Star Trek. Specially the triangle.
I didn't like that the Constitution refit had no aft torpedoes---but if it has no aft torpedoes, then I suppose the original version might not have them, either...
OK so let's be honest here, we all have our own fictional made-up Star Trek ship... Or is that just me? idk.
Anyway I'm a huge fan of the original enterprise. For me it's a combination of the simple design and the clean artwork of it.
So when I was creating my fictional Starship I took a lot of inspiration from the original enterprise. As a kid watching TOS I always thought it was interesting the enterprise only seemed to have weapons mounted in one spot. And I would argue that it kind of makes sense. that is, it makes sense that enormous fast moving spaceships that are realistically fighting at absurd ranges don't need to have guns on every side. it's like the evolution of the battleship early dreadnoughts thought they would be getting in close and having to brawl it out with all multiple targets. But obviously that changed. most WW2 battleships focused on long range accuracy and thus didn't need guns on every side. I think of Star Trek ships similarly. "If you don't have a gun arc on it, then rotate the ship"
ultimately this means that with my fictional design there is only one phaser turret and its mounted on the ventral side of the saucer. And when you look at it it actually has a greater firing arc than you would think, the ship can easily fire aft just by rotating slightly to port or starboard and shooting past its own "neck"
as for torpedoes there's one tube in the same place as the phasers and one facing aft.
My fictional ship is set after Voyager, so if someone were to ask me why SF started using turrets again instead of phaser strips, and why they only equipped A Starship with one, my lore excuse would probably be that the phasers are "Lance phasers" or some kind of similar extremely powerful but bulky phaser design. Again like battleship guns, WW1 battleships had a lot of small guns on all sides. WW2 battleships had a few big guns that could rotate.
Not saying one design is better than the other, just that I prefer big guns that can rotate.
Thanks!
Glad you like it.
actually disagree with the torpedo room location not being very safe, its protected by the forward saucer section from frontal fire, its protected by the top saucer section from top fire no matter what direction, and protected from fire directly behind by the primary hull to saucer hull.
Its far harder to hit then the saucer/hull connector torpedo location starfleet often uses going forward.
It's such a pity that more care wasn't taken in updating these designs for modern Trek. If you've never seen it, there's a loving reimagining of the TOS Enterprise by an artist called Vektor that keeps the overall proportions, window placements, and colour scheme the same, but refines all the details beautifully. Do an image search for Vektor TOS Enterprise and you'll see what I mean. If they had gone that way, I would be happy accepting the canonisation of weapon ports etc on the pre refit Connie, but as it stands, Disco designs have to live in their own separate continuity in my head. The egotism of it all is galling.
My main issue with the SNW enterprise is more the Hull colour it's way too dark, especially compared to the original.
@@venomgeekmedia9886 I'm surprised that's the biggest bugaboo for you - I dislike it myself, but the thing that made me write the comment was your graphic superimposing the TOS versions of the Connie and the D7 with their ludicrously miscaled Disco versions. Not even the relative scale between the two is preserved. Colour scheme is arguably just paint job/lighting/hull plate material.
If I were the art director for something as treasured as Star Trek, and were treading on such hallowed ground as the very *foundation* of the franchise, even knowing nothing about it going in (which wasn't the case), I'd have been a lot more circumspect and curatorial in my approach. Colour within the lines, refine and improve, replace the bathwater around the baby.
@@venomgeekmedia9886 here's Vektor's (aka Jason Lee) version: i.imgur.com/WLGdhrF.jpg
@@brendancaulfield970 yeah the issue is that the DISCO D7 was scaled relative to discovery, not the enterprise. you can say that they are at least respecting some areas of the TOS aesthetic/ but its still an imperfect representation
@@venomgeekmedia9886 agreed: better, but still not good enough. That sums up my feelings on Strange New Worlds' aesthetic and mechanics too, incidentally.
It could be argued that this issue really stems from Enterprise depicting the Starfleet of the preceding century as far too futuristic.
I thought the bottom dome was the source of the photons/phasers and steerable too.
At 7:30, and other time points in the video, you go through great emphasis on where the weapons emit; and with the photon torpedoes, how many the ship carries. All this is utterly unnecessary: in Stephen E. Whitfield's The Making of Star Trek (New York: Ballantine, 1968), he explains that Gene Roddenberry expressly established that these weapons were pure energy--no physical fixtures, elements, components, etc., such as torpedo casings. (I do not have a copy of the book, so I cannot recall verbatim what he said, nor what page(s) holds that citation. I remember it for the distinctiveness and the keen efficiency of the idea.
I Have a question Who Would Win The Cylons From Battle Star Galactica Or The Tye Fighters From Star Wars and Where in the Time Line Would The Rebels of Star Wars ,and The Galactica Crew Be in Star Trek and Who Has The Baddest Weapons of all.
so basically early cold war style dogfights just at warp speed which makes sense as that is how air-combat was done in th 50's when TOS cameout.
the US F-60 shooting star was armed with 6 50 cals and the Mig-15 has a 22mm cannon and 2 machine guns. no missiles.
Also its worth talking about that "depth charge" barrage in Balance of terror. Can you explain that using this model?
I like to think that After TOS with the Advent of both the Romulans and Klingons having Cloaks Starfleet moved towards the good all round firing arcs that we see on the Majority of Starfleet ships going forward, Like Excelsior and later.
Another thing is that there may be differences between the different Connies, as time goes on you incorporate advancements into a design and later refit the older vessels up to the latest standard.
One of the really old Original Jefferies arts of the Enterprise (Old enough to call it "Starship class") lists the Ventral Phasers as the "Main Phaser."
In A Taste of Armageddon Scotty reckons they had at least a couple Dozen Torpedoes and that seems to be only a small amount of their complement.
The 2270s (TMP) Enterprise had a complement of 144 Torpedoes. Assuming the complement was increased when they moved the launchers into their own space, I'd say the 2260's Connie probably still had in excess of 60 Torpedoes, maybe 72? Those things are pretty small.
That would mean the TMP Connie had double the Torpedo Complement that the TOS connie had.
I'm not even going to get into the whole "Six torpedo Launchers" thing.
Yeah I'd buy that to an extent. You can no longer count on having initiative I'm combat
When it comes to capacity. It's really a question of safety how much of a powder keg do you want to make your ship. The bigger the magazine the bigger target it is
One set of two phaser banks fore, port and starboard. Two more under the main deflector on the bottom. Two more above the shuttle bay, I'm the rear. Three photon torpedo launchers in the very front of the saucer.
Those 3 lights on the front of the saucer are sensors
@@venomgeekmedia9886 They were whatever was needed. The OG tech manual had them as launchers, other sources as sensors. That was the problem with Trek. It was whatever they needed at the time.
So, the original Enterprise is a centre battery ship?
It's an interesting idea.
I guess earlier ships could be casemate ironclad equivalents.
Well as far as the smaller torpedo compliment goes I beleive that in TOS it was supposed to reflect USA Naval doctrine beginning during the "era of good feelings" US Navy ships were not as manuverable as French ships and carried less guns than British ships and had smalker marine contingents than most of the great empires of the time. The one thing US Navy ships specialized in was the sheer variety of shot the ships carried allowing a commander to adapt to most any situation whilst exploring or in combat.
I know the channel owner dislikes Enterprise though in several episodes archers head of security/tactical officer mentions the tedious work of adjusting torpedo yields and finding ways to manipulate phase pistol energy outputs. I wonder if the other races by TOS times were able to do the same. If not than it wouldn't matter if you had fewer torpedos than your enemy because they would be stuck with heavy or light ordinance, as torpedos are projectiles the mass would play a pivatol role in fire rate as one can only convert matter into energy at fixed rates. So by having variable yield torpedos the constitution class could remain competitive and be able to adapt to any situation without the need of large volumes for magazines. Which would free up space for larger shuttle bays or more sensor equipment etc. As even by the TOS era syarfleets main mission was exploration not warfare. My explenation for the Federation possibly having this advantage would be the neccesity to combine very different systems from the various member species would give starfleet personel expertise in warp plasma management and anti-matter manipulation/exploitation. Also as a younger space faring civilazation would have less industrial capacity than older civilazations as well as limited access to possible strategic resources meaning losing ships in the starfleet would be weigh more heavily than the older civilazations with established infrastructure and much larger territories from which to draw resources. This would kead to a doctrine much more focused on survivability and adaptability than specialized fleet roles.
Makes one wonder if the torpedoes in the TOS Connies have the same type of circular autoloaders that some weapon systems use nowadays...
Possibly a carousel type system is also used on battleships
@@venomgeekmedia9886 that was the word that escaped me that day hehe.
if the NX class represents the older stage of weapons doctrine and the TMP refit the later one. Then the forward focused TOS enterprise would be a bit of an anomaly. Perhaps after the klingon war in discovery (in which the most successful ship was the highly maneuverable Discovery) Starfleet pivoted towards a more manouvre based doctrine. Enterprise and the other contemporary ships get refits to increase manoverability and forward firepower in exchange for all around coverage.
Well in enterprise combat took place at close range. Long range combat was largely decided to missile.
It seems like a bad idea to put your main weapon directly, like right under the deck plating, beneath the main bridge, in a world where targeting weapons emplacements is the norm.
most sources i find say Torpedoes are on Deck 2/3 Phasers 3 on Deck 5 and 3 on deck 8 each phaser is dual emitter
i'd caution against using the SNW Enterprise for confirmations of anything. It's just not compatible with the Prime Canon. (Yes i know but seeing how Picard and Lower Decks confirm the visual continuity of the Prime Timeline 99 percent of the time we have no choice but to thankfully lump the Discovery-verse in it's own universe.) The pylon-holes aside she's a very nice redesign (i certainly would pick her over the JJPrise) but not the TOS Constitution.
Frink: Yes, over here, n'hey, n'hey. In Episode BF12, you were battling barbarians while riding a winged Appaloosa, yet in the very next scene, my dear, you're clearly atop a winged Arabian! Please to explain it!
Lucy Lawless: Uh, yeah, well, whenever you notice something like that... a wizard did it.
Frink: I see, alright, yes, but in episode AG04-
Lawless: Wizard!
While I love Fasa, I would consider the Star Fleet Technical Manual far more definitive. I would then consider Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise to be be the most canon for the refit Enterprise.
The TOS enterprise was made on a shoestring budget so 1+1=111.....
According to Ronald d Moore when he made BSG remake in 2003 he deliberately kept the tech vague and unexplained on how it exactly worked. Star trek's problem is different series and episodes don't always make sense and conflict depending on why and who wrote the script for the season. The star trek actors for years have been flanked by questions that they can't answer or know anything about when it comes to star trek tech. Moore did kept things vauge for a good reason, it does what it needs to do, thats it.