The Constitution Refit: How to Ruin a Good Starship.
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- Опубліковано 20 кві 2022
- This week I take a closer look at the Legendary Constitution Class refit which saw the enterprise take on a new look for the big screen. however the changes were not merely aesthetic with the refit bringing a host of new design elements and features; Some good, some bad, and some Fatal!
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The Constitution class refit is the finest Starfleet ship ever made, looks wise.
Looks like she's doing warp 10 just by standing still.
So TRUE!!!!
Excelsior
@@treborkroy5280 I've never been a fan
@@JustinStrife Excelsior and Galaxy class are the nicest looking starfleet ships ever.
Corridors: _Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise_ had a nice diagram showing all the safety gear tucked behind Every panel. So those nice wide hallways were filled in with equipment and emergency stuff.
becasue he knows that there is no seperation of function LOL. The Warp Core and the PTs are ALL in the penecil thin neck! so you shoot that spot you get a VERY FUCKING BIG EXPLOSION very easily!
@@JeanLucCaptain The language was unnecessary
@@kenm3245 should he have said it in Klingon instead?
Don't know how top comment is relevant to corridors, but ok... 🤔
Are the hallways in the constitution class have exploding rocks in them?
I work in structural steel and mechanics, and I see this kind of thing all the time. It's just easier to tear the damn thing down and start new. Retrofits are ALWAYS going to bring all sorts of unexpected problems.
Wouldn't have worked very well in the story for TMP; the TOS design would have needed a lot of massaging anyway to look realistic on the big screen; it didn't have near enough detail and they'd also have to come up with some secondary plot line to explain that they'd scrapped it and built a new one, or it was destroyed somehow (which would have been jarring to the fans - "wait, WHAT??") when just an upgrade/refit easily explained why it looks different now.
Nimrod early warning aircraft....
I think the Constitution-class Refet is basically the same thing what happened to the Essex-class of he real world. The Essex-class was a World War II Aircraft Carrier design and was made to fit the smaller propeller propelled planes with some of the low powered early Jet fighters and bombers also being assigned after the War. But the flight deck design wasn't usable for the first supersonic aircraft and post Korean War Jets. And since it'd cost an untold amount of money and time to create new aircraft carriers, the Essex-class were given a new design with the angled deck and greater aircraft carrying capacity, basically piloting what would later be in the first Supercarriers such as the USS Enterprise and the Kitty Hawke-class of Supercarrier. Like how the Constitution-class Refit basically was a testbed for new phaser designs, new torpedoes, and most importantly the new warp core which would become standard for future designs like the Excelsior-class. So the Constitution-class gets an extended service life like the Essex-class and would be phased out more and more when more Excelsior-class ships (like the Essex-class did) became available.
I'd also like to add that the Essex-class after the refit had a lot of design flaws that the original didn't possess, but unlike the Constitution-class it wouldn't matter since it was a aircraft carrier and away from the frontline.
@@robertbarrows6687 Oh, those flaws did matter, just not in the way that we're all expecting. During Vietnam, the U.S. Navy had three disparate generations of carriers active in every ocean for a period of about 25 years, resulting in a cornucopia of logistical and operational nightmares, to say nothing of general discipline.
Carriers are always but one accident away from total disaster by nature of them being massive floating fuel and munitions depots, and they do not necessarily need an enemy shooting at them to expose this. (see also: The Forrestal)
There are reasons why the Enterprise and Kitty Hawk were not-so-affectionately referred to as "The Tuna-prize" and "Shitty Kitty" by the US sailors of that era.
@@atmosdwagon4656 Ah, didn't know that. Still do you think the comparison to the Constituion-class fits? Especially since it was first rolled out in the 2340s, the Essex being rolled out in the 1940s?
@@atmosdwagon4656 The Enterprise CVN-65 was almost lost to weapons going off on the flight deck like Forrestal
I personally prefer to compare it with Albany-class cruiser, which were ex-Baltimore-class refitted to house missile launchers and other equipment.
I showed my late Dad, an engineer, the blueprints to the TOS Enterprise. He (figuratively) ripped it apart, pointed out all the structural weaknesses and explained to me how it would fall apart trying to leave orbit. I later showed him the refit blueprints and he said it was much more structurally sound and he'd rather fly thru space in the refit than the old style 70's blueprints.
It's a TV show. I'm also an engineer but as a Star Trek fan, I know they have things called structural integrity systems which supposedly use tractor beam type technology to help brace, strengthen and help hold together parts of the physical structure of the ship. Why couldn't this be the case for this one so it could get away with the way it's designed?
Plus are you making assumptions upon the materials used? In Star Trek IV Scotty famously gave the recipe to make transparent aluminium. A lot of engineers and scientists had stifled giggles when this was said in the late 80’s when the movie was released. Now we have scientific and engineering breakthroughs that, guess what, describe the discovery and production of transparent aluminium. May not be absolutely the same as Scotty’s rendition. But it is close enough to be a major weight and spacial savings over other past materials. And this was done in a period of 40 years of being a laughable fictional idea to reality. Things like carbon fibre and other exotic composite materials can make the structurally unsound blueprints viable, even without the use of integrity fields or other such devices.
Me key theme of Star Trek design is technology unleashed. The idea that science has moved so far that what seem weaknesses to us are easily compensated for. How can we allow for future material strength, interial dampers and structural integrity fields?
I agree mattwho891. In space if there's an emergency, say, a battle or angry god-being or something, and your main power is knocked out and you only have so much in batteries and auxiliary or whatever, you will want every electron of remaining juice going to life support so you can hang on as long as possible for help to arrive. You don't want that going into holding every seam and panel of your ship together- only damaged parts that have to be sustained for some reason.
@@iamfritz that’s always bugged me about the show. As if air scrubbers and heaters could in any way be compared to a warp engine. You could probably run the life support for a thousand years on what the warp drive consumes in one second.
Me at the beginning of the video: "Okay let's see where he goes with this, I'm sure it's silly"
Me at the end of the video: "Actually man has a point"
Not really. He makes a lot of assumptions.
11:18 There is a radiation shield that comes down in the event of a serious incident to shield to crew. That shield is seen in Wrath of Khan. Since the horizontal and vertical reactor cores allow for proper protection during normal operation, the crew will not need to use the radiation suits all of the time, only during Yellow Alert or Red Alert situations. This design is prevalent for the next 75 years, since you never see Geordi Laforge or his staff wear a suit and you do see the radiation shield drop on the Enterprise - D on several occasions.
yeah but it's so slow that the crew still gets irradiated and there are still fatality's even with that shield so it's not that effective when you think about it or scotty wouldn't have had to watch his boy die from radiation poisoning silly goose🤣🤣
If you need a modern day example of technology upgrade with an old frame is the American aircraft carrier. The Nimitz class is a 50 year old design, 60 if you go back to the CVN-65 Enterprise and forestal classes of carriers, which was designed to be modular and to incorporate new tech when it comes available. Hell, the new Ford’s are predicted to be in service in till the next century and there are massive empty spaces that’s literally designed to incorporate future tech.
The B52 is also a good example, being what? 67 years old?
Honestly the repeated hitting on it being 30 years later took away from the message. Our newest, "best", current fighter plane was designed in 2001, and there are currently no plans to replace it with anything else.
YEs, but the main super structure hasn't changed though has it. When a Nimitz comes back into dry dock for upgrades, it suddenly doesn't get a longer keel, or wider beam, does it.
@@RichO1701e look at the Essex class carriers. Those ships were designed in the 30’s, built in WW2 then some were literally rebuilt longer and wider to accommodate jets and helicopters. They installed arresting wires and steam catapults in addition to everything else soooooo? Current carriers are built with a more future oriented outlook. When they pull those beasts into dry dock they tear about everything off so when she’s refloated it’s damn near a new ship with newer more modern tech. Kind of why it takes 2 to 3 years to do the over haul.
@@RichO1701e I also would point out that many ships in WW2 were outfitted with torpedo blisters or virtually rebuilt to fight the current enemy at the time. Hell the Wisconsin ripped through a destroyer, caving in the bow that they needed to replace the whole thing with the bow from the Kentucky, I believe, making her around 10 feet longer then her sister ships. So to answer your comment yes ships don’t become longer and wider in refits. All depending on the needs of the time and some times as a cost saving measure.
@@RichO1701e If you take a look at the refits of both the Essex class and Midway class aircraft carrier went through, you'll see that the second one for both class included major structural changes (integration of the angled deck with its sponson, new armored deck to support the landing of 30 tons planes, moving the axial plane elevators to the sides, etc...). Also, from the Nimitz class onwards, the ship are designed with a displacement reserve (about 5-6000 tons) for future systems and every time they need refueling of their core, called RCOH or Refueling and Complex Overhaul (once every 10 years) through holes have to be cut into their decks.
An other example is the japanese and italian refit of their WW1 battlecruiser (andrea doria, conte di cavour, kongo) during the 20s and 30s were they gain an average 30-40m hull length and new boilers. They were more of a reconstruction than an overhaul which fit with the Enterprise refit narrative.
Even with these flaws, the refit enterpise had a good 5-10 years of service, then enterpise-a had another 5-10 years. And only reason the refit enterpise had to be self-destructed was: she was already crippled from fight with Khan and there was only 4 people operating her.
The TOS Enterprise had a 5 year mission under Robert April, two 5 year missions under Pike and another 5 years mission under Kirk. That's 20 years.
@@KerbalSpaceCommand talking about the movie remake enterpises
@@patrickmurray3846 oh
the miranda class is better.
@@joeswanson733 it had the benifit of being a post Constitution/Refit design learning the lessons applied to the refit. Both it and the Excelsior design lasted well in to the TNG era... sort of like the B52 took lessons learned from older strategic bomber designs and is still trucking right along, even though she had a change of mission, while other, newer designs get retired.
Hell, I expect to see a B52NCC testing warp nacelles at this rate.
You have to keep in mind that the Refit era, is the era when they first built the Oberth out of explodium. It was engineering standard practice for the time.
The Excelsior was "The great experiment", because they decided to try a design that would not go boom so easily.
Yeah. However, 'Yesterday's Enterprise' proved that Starfleet still packed crew-killing rocks behind the all-too-easily overloading bridge consoles. Even on both the far later Ambassador and Galaxy-classes...😉
1: evidence suggests the Oberth is much older than the film era, it likely pre dates the TOS era by decades. Making its presence at 24th century battles even more absurd.
2: the Excelsior is an odd one, you would think they would have worked out the new warp drive before dedicating a whole new class of ship to it, why not start with a shuttle sized transwarp ship? If the tech doesn't scale down that far why not a bare bones experimental ship? Theres no need for a fully featured starship larger and more complex than anything before when you don't even know if the new drive actually works.
@@DrewLSsix I had never heard that about the Oberth. Where did you hear that?
There are a lot of different theories on the Excelsior. Some claim that it was overly complicated, and did not work, or did not world well enough to matter, and was refit to regular tech. I don't buy this explanation, as it does not align with the timeline of the ship going into production, nor does it align with the re-engineering of the warp scale. I prefer the explanation that it was a success, that and that it caused them to redo the warp scale entirely, leading to the end of ships like the Constitution that could not be updated to incorporate the tech. but allowing other designs such as the Oberth (Which cannon states where used as technology test beds), and the Miranda to be updated.
@@DrewLSsix Not really any evidence for older age than the registry number. And that was a carry over from the Encyclopedia by Franz Joseph having scout ships have three digit registries (the Hermes class) even though it was clearly a Constitution contemporary. If the Oberth was NCC-630 (as originally conjectured) then it fits in right after the Hermes registries.
The nacelles and some secondary hull features also show some similarities to the Excelsior general design, too.
someone in Starfleet thought itd be funny to have a "design the biggest warp core you can possibly design" contest
and then the Constitution refit went way too far with that
And then we wonder where Ruin Church got his wild ideas from for the JJ-verse...
The A was a new ship not a refit. It also had a Warp core that was a smaller version of the D Warp core. See star trek 6
@@mm-gl7sz the A might have been a "new" ship but it was certainly the Constitution "Refit" design
@@mm-gl7sz It was the "D"s Warp core. It was a redress of it. After The wrath of Khan the engine room and core was destroyed , or made into the "D's" core. do do budgets and time they took what they had and modified it.
@@wendigos_eat_people7177I'm not sure it was destroyed. It was heavily altered to become the TNG engine room.
Every warship has lots of weak points. The refit Enterprise is gourgeous.
It is but becuz the core goes through the neck I sure hope they used the federations strongest armor and alloys for the neck itself the torpedoes weren’t armed till launch but the ingredients are still there so I’m sure you could still detonate a unarmed torpedo
@@wargodsix This discussion is nonsense. The Enterprise as other Fereration ships hulls "are" constructed with a special alloy that is so strong that even when they enter the atmosphere most of the hull keeps intact as occurred in "Generations"..
The Enterprise is not a warship.
@@socipathicgaming5914 it has weapons it’s a warship just not classed as one
@@socipathicgaming5914 it’s classed as a heavy curiser which is technically a warship
To be fair, it doesn't really matter how far apart the warpcore and the torpedoes are. We are talking about antimatter here. If one of the two gets hit, the entire ship instantly vanishes in a bright flash of light.
This. Also why I thought it was hilarious that we see our heroes try to isolate the warp core behind forcefields and bulkheads in the event of a impending warp core breach. It won't matter. One, because the very thing powering that forcefield is what is going to blow up, but also, you can't find a forcefield or hull plate hard enough to stop that explosion from expanding outwards from the engineering section to the rest of the ship. It's not even going to slow it down. The very nature of what makes the warp core able to power the ship into faster than light speed means that any lack of containment causes the complete loss of the ship with all hands, without even time to evacuate.
The title is very brave. And that disclaimer at the beginning, I could tell you were (and justly) bracing for the comments section. I gotta admit I was gonna jump in there and also take my shots but... plenty share my unabashed love of the Connie Refit. Fair video. 👍
There is Herculanium, Unobtainium, Plot Armor, and other magic that can be utilized in fiction as long a some physical laws are observed.
Why are the Warp Pods out on Toothpicks?
Well you see they are highly radioactive and the Engine Struts are reinforced by a structural integrity field and the nassels must be placed a certain distance from each other to maximize their effective field around the ship. The Red Area at the front are to collect plasma from space.
I am going to go out on a limb and say that photon torpedoes are essentially like modern nukes. You can empty a machine gun into a nuke, hit it with a high powered laser, hit it with a conventional warhead, blow it up with C4 and it will not go off. Even if it is armed, and ready to detonate, the specific chain of events necessary to get nuclear detonation is very very precise and needs the detonation sequence to set it off. Now this was not the case with naval torpedoes, or even naval guns, but we figured out that storing such things in a perpetual state of pre-detonation was a really bad idea. I cannot imagine that in the future we would go back to an unstable, easily detonated type of ordinance. In those cases one would merely need to hit the powder magazine, or the torpedo storage, and the entire ship was destroyed. There are many instances where sub commanders, facing imminent accidental detonation of a torpedo, would make a wild swing in direction to try and trigger the safety disarm of said torpedo. If humanity can go back to mistakes it corrected hundreds of years in the past, it deserves to blow up.
Its amazing how Khan knew the changes to the Connie in Star Trek II and the fact he hit the Enterprise in the sweet spot the torpedo lunchers and no big boom
most likely the refits had more of the primitive version of ablative armor, especially the entire neck, pylons, a band behind and around the deflector area protecting the antimatter pods painted in green , and the green running across main engineering. Khan struck main engineering while the shields were down. The ship should have exploded, but it didn't . There is more to Enterprises hull plating in her vulnerable areas than meets the eye. We never seen an enemy try to deliberately target the neck or pylons in the movies or other literature, only the saucer or secondary hull gets hit a lot. Refits seem to be tough little ships .
@@wendigos_eat_people7177 When Kirk ordered yellow alert, Saavik reported force fields activated (animation showed what areas of the ship they covered- and included the engineering space). Force fields are a 2ndary defense: weaker than shields but better than nothing. This is what saved the Enterprise.
@@wendigos_eat_people7177 "Ablative armor" doesn't mean anything. It's just armor. Ablative armor just means "Armor that breaks away."
She's clearly armored around the stardrive section along the "strong back" and the neck. Why people think these spots are "weaker" than the rest has always baffled me. This is the future, with space-age materials. They're designed to handle the stresses of deep space, anomalies, and yes, combat.
Why wouldn't he know the changes? He had access to Starfleet information when he took the Reliant.
@@theamused8705Not to mention, he had Chekov who probably knew the ship’s weaknesses.
I was an engineer on this ship, I am just happy for a shorter commute to work. That turbo lift ride on the OG enterprise took forever and I always had to ride with my coworkers. I will take some radiation in my hallway closet bed any day....
This really fits into my head-canon that the Klingons had the Connie-refit pegged correctly as a “battlecruiser”. As you say the refit would have tremendously increased firepower and speed but at the cost of not reacting particularly well to actually being shot at.
I can also see this mid-life refit taking her to more of a “frontier quick response” role, which would explain fewer crew amenities due to shorter duration missions. In this role she might intercept light raiding forces and pretty much handle anything that can’t immediately take her shields down, and use her speed to avoid a prolonged slugging match. Really I’ve always thought of the refit as a “glass cannon” relying on shields to survive the first blow and her firepower to end things before a second exchange.
The TOS movies back this up: Reliant knew “exactly where to hit them” as the weak points you mentioned. The Bird of Prey only succeeds because of the disabled shields, when the shields are up in V and VI the Enterprise can take hits from a BOP all day (and only the cloak let the battle last that long). Meanwhile, Chekov points out that a single salvo from a K’T’Inga without shields would disable them.
I'll throw this in with everything; a long time ago when I was a kid I used to build models. I've built the OG enterprise, refit enterprise, voyager, bird of prey and defiant.
OG enterprise has serious design issues. Yes, I agree that it looks cool and had great proportions..but it became very obvious while putting it together that it was a terrible design in real life. The refit was better but still has terribly bad weak points on the neck, and the saucer is so damned unwieldy in comparison to the neck that it killed any part of me that likes to belive that the constitution class is serious in any way
Voyager was a fatty that made much more sense. The center of gravity was right under the main deflector and the obvious weak points were gone.
Defiant was odd because so much of its mass was outwards in the nacelles.
Honestly the bird of prey made more sense than any of them just how more sturdy it felt. That thing wants to go fast and kick ass.
Anyways, 2¢ from the peanut gallery.
structural integrity fields and inertial dampeners render all of your points invalid.
@@Thin447Line Which make the ship a deathtrap as soon as main power is offline. Can't rely on power-dependent systems for structural design flaws.
@@Thin447Line Counterpoint: if the ship has a structurally-sound design to begin with, you don't *need* the structural integrity field, which means more power for your weapons/shields/sensors/technobabble of the week.
@@babylon218 Gravimetric inverse tachyon emitters that have a phased resonance to cronoton particles in the subspace domain. Don't forget to charge them with the main deflector dish mmmkay?
@@babylon218 Um, you DO need a Structural Integrity Field because even at sub-light speeds, there's enough gee-force to turn the crew to jelly when the ship accelerates.
As far as the interior spaces being more confined in the motion picture era, that could be because of heighted tensions with the Klingon Empire, demonstrated by the deployment of the K'Tinga class Battlecruiser. Star Fleet tends to alternate between eras more focused on exploration and those
focused on imminant military threats to the Federation. In the TOS era we see this as Star Fleet goes to a more robust ship design in the Motion Picture
and later towards a more naval based uniform design and observance of military customs and traditions from TWOK onwards through Undiscovered Country.
We actually see this cycle again in the years after STVI. By TNG there's been relative peace for decades and vessels like the Enterprise D now have families aboard. Then come the Borg and the Dominion. This swings Starfleet back to a more militaristic form where it remains as of Picard
It’s an absolutely gorgeous ship with the multicolored aztecing.
The T.O.S. Connie was practically MAGICAL. Build ships with its layout, but with the most cutting-edge materials and components, and, it could probably have kicked ax even in the Dominion War.
@@indetigersscifireview4360 I remember that it took about 4 hits from the 'Nomad' hybrid probe, EACH of which was supposed to be as powerful as 90 photon torpedoes.
Movie refit took a V'ger torpedo. Nothing else survived a single shot.
ship doing warp 7 strafing passes on sub light ship formations would change a lot
I’ve always loved the refit, but “Shoot at the blue line”... 😂 so true.
Perhaps it's why Batman has a big (yellow) emblem on his chest so bad guys shoot at it. It's also armored to the hilt.
You’ve put together some valid points against the Conny Refit, but it gave us the most gorgeous looking starship in SciFi, not just in Trek. Such a beautiful evolution of the TV model.
not gonna argue its looks. she's a stunner ;)
The "E" model is my favorite Enterprise...
Right after the original TOS pre-refit bag of bones the Scotty held together with duct tape and good intentions.
Not sure if anyone else mentioned this, but I'm going to. I can't remember where I read it, but that "Blue Line" is actually a heavily armored section because of the warp core. The same can be said for the blue (or green depending on which Enterprise) hardbacks on the topside of the engineering hull, it's similar to the armor belts of old battleships. There are even blue/green lines running up the back of the warp pylons, supposedly to protect the warp conduits.
congratulations, they've made an enemy vessel's priority target abundantly clear.
Basically, after the refit it looks less like a model someone's cobbled together with a couple of smarties tubes for engines. Big improvement
The fact that we never see a Constitution style refit happen again means that Starfleet LEARNED from it's mistake. Yes, they can be taught!
*does a Greta Thunberg 'HOW DARE YOU' meme* LOL
Well it was a refit. A stop gap solution until they designed their new main cruiser.
We did see it again. The Constitution Refit is at the Battle of Wolf 359.
@@TheBigExclusive We never saw the whole ship. Could have been anything.
Well, we know of at least 3 refits.. 1701, 1701 A, and the unidentified connie at wolf 359. Apparently that one wasnt hit in the neck or it would have been vaporized.
1701s core should have detonated upon impact with Genesis, or perhaps went up during reentry. 1701A is safe as a museum at this time.
I'd always felt like the Constitution Refit class really was just a stopgap solution. Starfleet already had Mirandas in service, taking over survey and patrol duties, Oberths coming online to take over exploratory and science missions, and Excelsiors on the immediate horizon to handle combat and enforcement duties. Starfleet knew that there would be an entirely new generation of ships taking over, and rather than idle a bunch of crew people while the new fleet came together, they expended a few resources to upgrade their aging mainline ships into something that could serve as training and auxiliary vessels. The Constitutions that we do see are basically training and diplomatic ships, just tools to acquaint new officers and crews with the technology and protocols of the new fleet makeup for the immediate future.
Never mind the whole “torpedoes go boom and warp core go boom” argument, it’s still bad design to put a vital ship system directly next to an obvious battle target. Enemies wouldn’t have to decide between targeting weapons and targeting engines/power plant if they can take out both at once. Good ship design has to include isolated systems and redundancy, wherever possible.
Yet that wasn't a problem with the refit in all the battles we see them engage in in the movies. Redundancies and isolated systems don't have to be miles apart from one another. Clearly such systems were in use on the refit when it went against Vger, the Reliant, and two BOPs.
The scene in ds9 where mirror Bashir is taking torpedoes through the engine room on the mirror defiant would make perfect sense here
i always thought that scene was more Bashir coming to the engine room to yell at O'Brien, rather than taking th torpedoes through the engine room.
11:30 they wear the suits in case there's an accident. The column has its own shielding. Engineers in all sorts of ships and vehicles are always wearing protective gear.Also it was a training cruise, so Scotty was probably training the cadets to work with their emergency gear on.
Brilliant episode mate! You make some absolutely amazing content and I can't express enough how amazing you are at your art.
Reason #5: With the warp core running from the top of the saucer section to the bottom of the secondary hull, the ability to separate the saucer section is at the very least made MUCH more difficult than Scotty having to reverse the polarity of his tool.
There's an emergency shut off valve at the saucer joint. See blueprints.
There is zero evidence that is the case. The warp core STILL had to feed the saucer section in TOS. There would still have to be flow from engineering up through the neck into the primary hull. Nothing changed except it was made less convoluted.
@@OpenMawProductions What exactly did the saucer section need power from the warp core for? The Impulse Drive was in the saucer section for the purpose of moving the saucer away from the Drive Section in such an emergency.
We see the refit go through several nasty battles with other ships and not once did they have any worry about the warp core going supernova on them at any time. At one point, in TWOK Scotty said the "Main Energizer is out!" This is the closest we likely get to having that sort of problem. This after multiple hits with phasers from another Federation Starship, arguably in terms of relative size, at point blank range.
Compare this with the Galaxy class where if you tickle an ensign in front of the warp core it goes off, or in one case, a brush against the port nacelle by the USS Bozeman sends the E-D into a freaking spin till it goes boom!
You could blame that on bad writing, but also on bad engineering.
Overall, despite the gripes in this video, the engineers involved with the Refit Connie clearly had their ducks in a row.
@@tr4480 That's exactly what I was thinking when I watched the Enterprise-D take on the Duras sisters at the end of Generations. The Enterprise-D gets hit 12ish+ times by a combination of Disruptors and torpedoes from an outdated hunk of junk that should have been scrapped years ago and at the end has a Warp Core breach and is destroyed.
In contrast, the Enterprise (No bloody A, B, C or D) spent the entirety of Wrath of Khan getting the shit kicked out of it by, at the absolute very least, a peer star ship, though considering Enterprise had been regulated to training duties and Reliant was actively going on missions and Spock outright stated that Reliant could both 'Out run us and out gun us' I'm inclined to believe that the Reliant was if not necessarily a better ship then she was at least a newer ship. And the closest the Enterprise came to a Warp Core breach was when Scotty had to take the mains offline due to battle damage.
I guess the old adage holds true even in the utopia of Star Trek, 'They just don't build'em like they used to'.
Photon Torpedo's don't have their antimatter charge until just before they launch so they won't explode if they are just stored in the neck without antimatter.
And assuming the use antimatter/deuterium for propulsion, having the torpedo tubes adjacent to a matter/antimatter reactor actually makes more sense.
Yes, we have all heard the order to have the photon torpedoes armed. Theoretically they are relatively inert until they are armed. You could use nuclear weapons as an analogy. You can blow up an unarmed nuclear warhead without the fear of the nuclear reaction occurring.
The designer didn’t envision them as physical casings but actual energy...he called them “globs of scary.”
She can only hold 4 charged torpedoes at one time in a tube. The only question is which exit they will shoot from, starboard or port.
Thanks now I can never unsee the warp core
Basically what I got out this video is that Starfleet basically built a new ship with leaving very little of the original Enterprise leftover
I love the refit connie. In my head canon, its my ship that goes places and sees all the things. It never occured to me that a clean shot through the neck could annihilate the entire ship. We certainly dont see this happening in Beyond, but that was a different universe entirely.
I need more connie videos.
Well because they based the internals off the TOS Connie so the core of the jjprise is further back.
@@venomgeekmedia9886 It should be pointed out that ship we see in Discovery and SNW may actually not be Constitution. As some people did notice they upsized Enterprise so it would not look tiny in comparison to Crossfield. And before someone say anything, in Beta canon Federation did have even larger ships like Proxima, Atlas or Yamato. So Disco ships actually fit sizes of TMP Era ships like Ulysses, Arc Royal or Lexington. Anyway Retconie has actually size of Excelsior and if we think about it has similar shape of the saucer. So it is possible that Pike transferred on new ship and it was renamed as his old one. What is common practice in Star Trek, before they adopt later system, probably when large number of ships was recommissioned temporarily after Klingon war. But we would see if creators actually go this way?
I can''t believe you missed one of the most important parts of the Enterprise's refit. They packed TONS of armor into the design... the entire ship is just insurmountably armored. Even the Photon Torpedo launchers are armored to the point that direct hits that should detonate the entire ship are easily shrugged off... how did you miss all this armor? It's all over the place. There's so much armor on the Enterprise refit, no other ship can destroy it, the only way to destroy the Enterprise refit is to self-destruct the damn thing... and even then, one has to question if you really blew it up. What armor am I talking about, you may ask???
Duh... plot armor.
you had me right till the end
In principle I feel like I should down-vote.... however.... this was hilarious! 😂😂
I've seen a lot of data sheets giving the refit a new class name. I have always liked this and accepted it into my head cannon. For me the refit is the Enterprise Class.
16:50 One weird sin I always had a problem with in almost every generation of Federation Starship is the "broad camera" they use when communicating with "potentially" enemy ships. Right behind the captain typically is weapons and damage control. "hi, how are you, we are transmitting the exact tactical readiness of our ship to you in the background, feel free to exploit this...."
The computer system is probably sophisticated enough to fuzz that stuff out
It seems to me that whatever problems the new vertical warp core created for the Constitution Class, they were still far more stable and structurally sound than the later Galaxy Class. There is no way a Galaxy Class ship could have taken so many unshielded phaser shots directly to main engineering as the OG Enterprise did from Khan's sneak attack without blowing up. Galaxy Class ships seemed to suffer warp core breaches if someone sneezed in the general vicinity of the warp core. Even having its shields up wasn't enough to stop the warp core from blowing up, as in Yesterday's Enterprise the ship was in the midst of a warp core breach well before its shields failed. I wonder if there was a change in Starfleet philosophy between the TOS movies and TNG, whereby in older ships the engines were designed to shutdown in response to damage, thereby limiting the power the ship could draw but preventing the ship from blowing itself up whenever there was damage to the engines, but later ships were designed to keep the warp cores functioning as long as possible so the ship could fight longer, but at the increased risk of the warp core blowing up the ship if it suffered any damage whatsoever. Because it really seems like Galaxy Class ships are in far more danger from their own engines than the Constitution Refits even though looking at the schematics it should be otherwise.
Weapon power increases faster than the durability of materials. If you look at Wrath of Khan, the ships can see a Miranda Class can take several hits and stay functioning, while in Deep Space 9, a modern weapon shoots right through the ship.
In the original series, drawing too much power out of the warp cores destroys the dilithium crystal, you have no other choice than to shut down the core, because keeping to use it is impossible, no matter what. In the Next Generation era, the warp core will not destroy the crystal anymore, so it can get overtaxed to a point that was impossible with older warp cores.
And when the warp core wasn't about to breach, the holodeck was trying to take over the ship. It's amazing that the Galaxy Class lasted as long as it did.
@@conroypawgmail The Enterprise had the early beta version of holodecks. Yet somehow, the Voyager's Holodecks managed to be far less safe.
TBF, the Galaxy class was an unparalleled flagship, in most instances. Rarely would it have faced many unshielded shots from the average ship. Also, half the time they managed to fix the warp core breach. They probably just declare it early now.
Definitely a Federation bean counters decision. Trying to extract too much value out of a current design. Saving money. But in the end they probably spent more money having to redesign and refit the Constitution Class, than they would have if they simply replaced it after 15 or 20 years of service.
You end up spending more money having to refit, and reconfigure new tech and other accommodations into old designs than you do by coming up with new current designs every other decade.
The U.S. military is constantly running into this problem.
The only reason the B-52 is still in service today, after almost 70 years now.
Is because America has had the luxury of not being opposed by nations with a comparable airforce.
The instant we have to fight a matched airforce, the workhorse B52 bomb trucks are gonna fall outta the sky on fire faster the you can say S400.
@mandellorian the S400 was a reference of something fast to say.
Not what those B-52's are gonna be engaged by. Your fighter screen will get engaged by a comparable force of Flankers and Fulcrums, while the B52's get engaged by Foxhounds and or Foxtbats.
@@Markbell73 "The economics of the future are somewhat different. You see, money doesn't exist in the 24th century"
@@RichO1701e money may not exist. But time, resources, effort, and energy definitely do.
There will always be economics. It cannot be avoided. Everything has a cost.
Reminds me of Boeing with the 737. Its short landing gear limited the size of engines they could fit underneath the wings in the newer versions, so for the 737 MAX they put the engines further forward which altered the center of gravity and required computer assistance to compensate, which led to a number of crashes when that computer failed and necessitated a complete redesign. All because they kept wanting to retrofit a 1960's airframe that was never meant for today's high-bypass engines (unlike the Airbus A320 which first flew in 1987 and sat much higher off the ground).
Excellent analysis! Never thought about these details but when I watch TMP and TWOK next this will be in my mind for sure.
Got a 2 Hour drive ahead of me, thanks for giving me something to listen to on the way
Ship didn't go boom when Khan raked the port side of the torpedo room and he was hitting them with their shields down. I'm assuming the walls between the torpedo room and warp core are armoured in some way, still I get your point, I would have moved the torpedo room slightly further forward or located a pod on either side of the secondary hull similar to Excelsiors.
Because the "Warp Core" isn't the entire vertical stack. The Vertical stack above the M/AM intermix chamber [the core] is either a massive plasma conduit or the Deuterium Feed stack, depending on the model of M/AM reactor configuration. In TWOK, technically is was a massive plasma conduit going up to the Impulse Crystal, similar to the one going aft to the bifurcated feeds to the Warp Nacelles. The M/AM reactor was actually either in engineering [the next deck down] or one [or more] deck below the T junction, depending on which schematic you look at. We never actually SEE the M/AM reactor till the 1701A when it takes on the more familiar appearance to the Galaxy class M/AM stack
In fact, some schematics put the M/AM reactor a couple decks above to right above the AM storage bottles on the bottom deck, and everything we see in TMP and TWOK are plasma conduits, not the actual intermix chamber... which means all that radiation hazard is all the way down at the bottom of the ship...
There are a lot of assumptions you're making here, but I'll stick to your #1 problem. The assumption you're making is that a hit to the torpedo room (assuming shields are down and there's no hull polarization) the torpedoes would go off. Modern US submarine torpedoes cannot be detonated via an explosion, so why would the torpedoes of the Enterprise do so? Torpedoes are some of the safest weapons to handle. The warp core being in the neck being a problem is also an idea that only thrives if the neck isn't reinforced... which is a pretty big assumption.
I do tend to not want to jump right to the assumption 'Starfleet must be incompetent' every time someone spots a possible flaw. I mean, in the real world, oversights and compromises happen, but there's usually a reason for things in big naval projects.
im sure they were well aware if the risks. and decided on balance the trade-off was worth it. but don't be to quick to rule out military incompetence: i come for a country that issued its troops with a fancy new rifle that didn't like sand, only to then go to war in a desert...
@@venomgeekmedia9886 I suppose when it comes to things like an issue rifle, you can have it cheap, top performance, or forgiving, pick two.
@@venomgeekmedia9886 Also, how many decks are we on now, by the cutaways? First 21 decks (for the refit) now 23 or more? And it's really hard for me to get used to the thought of the saucer rim starting on deck 5, not 6.
I think some also observed that the Mirror Darkly MSD display may be oversized, to fit with a 947 ft length?
I absolutely love the design of the refit, looks far more advanced to the Constitution class 😎
No boom today, boom tomorrow, there’s always a boom tomorrow.
12:15 That location allows for greater energy generation as you mentioned, but also in the event of warp core failure the entire shaft can be jettisoned through the bottom of the ship. 14:50 That will only happen if the ship loses its deflector shields. Khan got his shots in when her shields were down.
This might help explain why the Miranda Class served well into the era of the Dominion War, and the Constitution Class was no where to be found.
they pulled a few out of mouthballs to fight the borg.....did not go well
In reality it was because the Reliant model was very easy to handle and film and the Enterprise was a 11 foot pain in the rear that special effects teams hated.
@@MoriShep to be fair judging any one class by its ability to defeat the borg is not exactly fair
Well there were only 12 Connies built and several were destroyed so...
Star Fleet obviously decided not to replace the destroyed Constitution Class vessels with more Constitution Class vessels. I'm actually curious to see how many Miranda Class vessels and their variants were produced.
Refit makes sense, as long as the refit is cheaper then a new development. But changing the saucer size, engineering size, complete interior layout (that's the critical point, as when it would stay more or less identical and they only weld some more ship to the frame you could talk from add ons, but they literally changed the whole framing), neck, pylons and nacelles (were those ones should actually just be plug and play) your actually building a new ship.
You forgot one part: the emergency saucer separation is now a death trap . Doing that will cause "big boom" since the separation is underneath the saucer and the core reaches till the top of the saucer
That image of the warp core and torpedo tubes is AWESOME and helps to really see how BAD of an idea it was
Vertical and nod spiral should makes no difference. Just change the gravitational polarity!
WW II Imperial Japanese cruisers tended to blow up when hit because they carried a lot of torpedo launchers on their decks.
Also, Japanese torpedoes were MASSIVE, since they had these huge long range Longlance torpedoes that were powered by oxygen enriched fuel
Us torps didnt blow up because of faulty magnetic detonators and lack of test fires
So on the Torpedo thing, I've heard/read somewhere that they actually "charge" the torpedoes with antimatter from the warp core as part of the arming process just before they're launched.
So, you've heard from it........
So I've heard. But then why would there be so much space between the magazine and the torpedo launcher?
@@venomgeekmedia9886 Because - as you pointed out - the Constitution Refit's internals are full of Fail and Stupid.
And honestly it may have just been somebody's fan theory for how Photon Torpedoes work rather than anything official. If I remembered where I'd seen it I'd have included a link or at least named it.
@@venomgeekmedia9886 maybe the launcher itself just takes up that much space. Then again, the Miranda’s launcher is about as far removed from the core as is possible.
If I had to guess, it's because that storing anti-matter munitions right next to the warp core (another anti-matter based reaction) would pose a long term risk of munitions activation or degradation, akin to how real world warship munitions kept their components both separate from the ship's power plants/machining spaces.
(at least, after WW1. Read up on the Battle of Jutland for the single most object lesson in munition storage and handling ever seen in naval warfare history)
If the torpedoes have to receive injections of anti-matter from the warp core just prior to launch, that actually does explain why the the Enterprise didn't immediately explode during the Battle of the Mutara Nebula in Wrath of Khan when Khan directly hit that location with his phaser ambush.
Best part about the refit and Reliant....lack of glowing Bussard Collectors. Just looks more realistic.
Upon seeing the title, I was about to scoff in your general direction lol! You made some really good points, one that you may not have noticed in TMP, when the isolation doors in Engineering came down, it automatically cut the plasma feed to the nacelles - I don't think that is something that you would want in a battle, in case you need to make a hasty jump to warp. The one big design gripe that I have always had with all Starfleet ships (keep in mind, I am a HUGE Trek fan), is the location of the main bridge. Talk about a giant bullseye! IMHO, the best place to put the bridge is deep in the heart of the saucer, this would make it a much safer location. Take for example, the location of the bridge in one of Roddenberry's other TV shows: Andromeda, the bridge was deep in the heart of the Andromeda Ascendant's hull. Just my two cents 🙂. Thanks for posting this!
This explains how Khan was able to disable the Enterprise so easily.
So I guess Master of Orion 2's system of endless refits isn't particularly realistic.
At some point a gut job isn't enough. Just imagine using old cord phone casings for current cellphones. Or those old square TVs for new ones. Just need to start with a new build from start.
+1 for MOO2 reference! =D
I knew something was fishy with CreaTol races retrofitting ion cannons over massed Fusion Beams.
Easy you say? Khan hit the Enterprise with full phasers at point-blank range with no Shields the Enterprise was still there
Khan had 2 advantages: full access the Enterprise technical specs, and hitting the ship with her shields down. That's why he was able to cripple her so badly.
Decent video. I was just wondering if you have ever heard of a little publication called Mr Scott's guide to the Enterprise. It's all about the refit, and I think it's a pretty good book. In fact I think it might even help with some of the design flaws. And the reasoning for them. I don't know if you want you can check it out.
Loved that book as a kid! Wish I still knew where mine was.
@@bwc1976 I actually have that very book in PDF form on my phone. So I can look at it whenever I want.
One interesting thing about the Constitution Refit is, the Starfleet removes most of the crew living and entertainment facilities in the Engineering Hull(espercially that giant full-scale bowling alley and swimming pool), also reduced the volume of deuterium tanks, to make rooms for larger hangar and cargo bay. This may indicate that the modification from Constitution to Constitution Refit is not only a renovation of onboard equipment and avionics, but also a change in design positioning: from a deep space exploration cruiser, focusing on independent operation, capable of supporting a 400-men small society in deep space by its own, to a patrol ship capable of carrying a large volume of payload and shuttlecrafts, more inclined to patrol inside Federation airspace.
BTW, it seems like that hugh, shiny blue vertical tube is actually not the "core".... It's just the ship's main plasma power transfer conduit. The actual warp core reactor is well beneath all the decks, almost at the center of the Engineering Hull.
@@jeffery7281 Makes some sense for the older, TOS design, say. But that's not how all future sources and shows treated the core, usually. Certainly it's implied the actual reactions occur there (although antimatter storage is still down toward the bottom)
I have a theory. Starfleet wasn't ready to field the Excelsior, but the Klingons and Romulans are fielding really powerful ships that easily beats the Fed flagships. Scotty was put in charge of bringing the Enterprise up-to-date but it took longer than expected. It was still a great ship because the shields on the constitution refit also benefited greatly from the new warp core.
Remember it took many more years before the Excelsior was retrofitted with normal warp drives and finally put into service by Star Trek VI under Capt Sulu. In the meantime, other Constitution class ships were refitted but without Scotty, it took even longer. That's how we got the Enterprise-A, a renamed USS Yorktown.
I have the feeling that if an enemy weapon hit hard enough to penetrate to the photon torpedo bay, it would probably take out the warp core as well. I don't think the proximity makes any difference. And the main deflector is right there. It's probably one of the most heavily shielded areas of the ship. They had to make the warp core fit somehow.
I honestly think that the Constitution was going to be replaced by the Constellation class, but the warp core needed to power that ship at that time was simply too long or not powerful enough to run those four nacelles. . So they decided after inspecting the original Connies that they would refit those instead because they could at least make the warp core fit properly. SO not all was lost.
Later after the Excelcior class's eventual success and initial production, they needed a supplementary cruiser that could keep up with it for high warp fleet deployments because MIranda's and remaining connie refits would not be able to keep up. The Constellation class project was then reborn. That's my take at least.
That's just the navigational deflector, it doesn't have any additional shielding. But you are right about the constellation. The main issue the constellation has is fuel consumption.
@@venomgeekmedia9886 I disagree. We've heard Picard order the crew to raise shields AND deflectors. so I think it DOES have something to do with it.
They should have run the core sideways through the hull (like before) and just shifted the gravity plating by 90 degrees. Actually, come to think of it, not entirely sure how direction (vertical or horizontal) would affect plasma or a matter/antimatter anyway.
@@Swiftbow It doesn't. A "vertical" warp core can be placed in any direction. It's just what trek fans call the new warp drive as opposed to the old Archer style.
@@poseidon5003 That's my point. If it can go any direction, why the hell did they run it up through the neck instead of lengthwise through the secondary hull? Just poor planning?
Honestly I hate how most SciFI series have their ships go from perfect to more perfect. You rarely hear about ships that have failed. I want to see something like I had thought of once. Where a star ship is rushed into service and turns out to be an absolute flop and dropped from service or have lists and lists of abandoned projects for new ship designs.
Stargate SG1 X301,X302 and X303.
Research the U.S.S. Tritium at Memory Beta. Yes, it's now considered Beta Canon and first appeared in the 1980 book: 'Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology' by Fred and Marta Goldstein. However, that book, (along with the legendary FASA series which was based on it), was considered Prime Universe Canon by most Trekkers throughout most of the 1980's until FASA's license was revoked by Roddenberry and Paramount in 1989...😒
In the real world, the US Navy bought a bunch of ""LCS" class ships that were supposed to be stealthy smart and all advanced and stuff. Within 5-10 years they were all retired, gutted, re-engineered inside and re-0commissioned as an entirely re-purposed class of vessels because the systems just didn't work.
The Stargazer basically fits the bill of what you're describing. By all accounts it was a failure.
In many fanon circles the Daedalus class was also a failure. The first solid attempt at a federation starship and it wasn't what anyone hoped for it to be.
Refit improvements 1)Pylons have more cooling surface area, even leading edge openings.
2)
The vertical warp core can now be ejected, much better than blowing up the ship. Those colour plates are strongbacks, armor that keeps it safe. Even khan couldn't get through it
Combat isn't visual, sensors are heavily used to shoot at ship vulnerability. These the most armored area that you went on so long about being vulnerable 😄
(Khan did get through it. We very clearly see phaser fire coming into the engine room.)
@@OpenMawProductions And yet clearly safety features activated immediately, likely shutting down the warp core without destroying the ship, unlike TNG where if anyone so much as sneezes in the direction of the warp core on the E-D it goes super critical. For all intense purposes the mainpower plant of the refit, despite the complaints in this video as to its location and placement, seems to have incorporated alot more safety features and redundancies.
Seems like the complaints in the video all seem pretty paper thin, and are outweighed by the compliments.
As an engineer myself, what the ship seems to be missing is the correct scale. The best way to start is to look at the saucer section outer edge. There are 5 light and dark gray stripes. Each strip should represent a deck. That would mean that there are 5 decks and not all are designed for personnel. Don't forget that there is a ton of equipment that needs to be there for piping, air handling, pressure, floor gravity decking plates, thousands of miles of fiber optics (or whatever they use in the future), massive computer systems DCS, PLC, and new concepts. Point being, the scale should be about doubled to account for everything needed to keep people alive and to complete a mission.
The Constitution refit always bothered me, since it seemed like less of a refit and more like a complete rebuild. I mean, is there really anything of the old ship left? At this point they may as well have just built a whole new ship. It does actually put me in mind of post WW2 modernization programs, where naval warships were refitted to accept new systems and weapons and in some cases, required almost completely rebuilding the ship, certainly requiring extensive structural changes.
There's a great video floating around UA-cam analyzing just how much of the original Enterprise the is in the refit. Short answer - not much! But, we have to remember THIS IS FICTION! Both versions of the Enterprise (3 now with the "new" Discovery version) are beautiful from a design standpoint. But are impractical in the real world - the neck itself is comically too thin and is a huge weakness.
According to me Scott's guide to the Enterprise by the time targeted finished only a few original bulkheads in the saucer are left.
It's like the ship of theseus, Starfleet had so many scrap parts they could have built TOS Enterprise after the destruction of the refit in search for Spock.
if in universe i probably would've just scrapped the connies than go for taht kind of extensive refit.
The original designer MATT JEFFERIES had the ship just getting new engines (nacelles) and a new bridge. He called them QUICK CHANGE UNITS. That’s all he did for refit while working on LITTLE HOUSE.
Photon torpedo go boom! Warp core go boom! Hilarious 😂😂😂 that alone made my night! Excellent video overall 👍
Starfleet Drwaing Board Guys: She's supposed to have a Vertical Warp Core.
Scotty loccking over the "refit" plans: Eye and if my Grandmother had wheels she'd be a wagon.
To be fair, the vertical warp core was only vulnerable when Kirk didn’t raise shields as he should have when Kahn attacked. A precision strike disabled the ship by damaging the core, BUT the odds of someone knowing where to hit and getting close enough for a point blank shot with shields down should have been impossible. Likewise, the bluish color of the hull along the warp core might be thicker/enhanced armor to better protect the core in the event of shield failure.
So basically, all the flaws of the Constitution Refit are, don't put explosive weaponry and a warp near each other and 90-degree rotations of critical system components is ill advised.
The Neck and the Nacelle Pylons are the TRUE weak spot in the ship and as the dialogue states in the Documentary as narrated by John Eaves “an entire design team went to work” figuring out what would happen if Khan’s attack had continued and they determined that the neck would have been blown apart along with the Nacelle struts for they are the weakest points in the ship. Thus concentrating weapons fire in these areas on both the Original Constitution-class and the Refit would have effectively broken the ship and outright destroy them.
Here’s 100% proof of this right in the Documentary right here: ua-cam.com/video/oyUmNruBeWo/v-deo.html
Matt Jeffries admitted that the reason you don't see any weapon emplacements on the TOS enterprise is that he forgot to add them on.
After it was blown up in III, they made a whole new one that was garbage in V.
Still way better than what was given in 2009.
I mean it was fitting for ST5 garbage ship garbage film.
My favourite engineering design despite the flaws. Speculated by (I think) one of the later art guys who worked on TNG era to be incapable of breaching due to the entire thing being lined with dilithium, which makes sense given that the "main energiser" took several direct hits and was then essentially bisected by the emergency bulkhead. With that said, some suggest that what we all think is the core is in fact the primary EPS and the core itself hasn't been seen, with the injectors and reaction chamber being at the lowest point.
The Constitution class refit is a really beautiful looking Starship
I absolutely love the channel Halfscreen , his videos are very detailed.
Larry Niven and Jerry Poranelle wrote a novel on earth invaded by intelligences from Alfa Centuri. They came at sub light speed over seventy years.
They picked up earth tv. And saw ‘impractical space ships’.
In Sci Fi works we see some ‘realistic’ space ships and battles. But for some reason on screen we can’t get any ‘hard’ sci fi.
I would love to see Mote in Gods eye as a movie, or Songs of a distant Earth. I THINK Rendezvous with Rama would be stunning on the big screen
"Angry Typing, Angry TYPING!"
Honestly, not bad, not bad at all. Enjoyed the show my man.
Listening to this, I hope that the torpedo magazine and warp core were heavily armored. That might be why the Enterprise didn't explode when Reliant hit the torpedo pod. It could also explain what the hull around the warp core is differently colored.
The thing is, we would see this design philosophy continue of a more forward-positioned warp core with plasma conduits connecting it to the engines in the rear. Really, given the design of starfleet ships, a horizontal warp core is more sensible because it aligns the core with the largest dimension of the ship and especially the engineering section (its length).
The supposed reason for the Enterprise being “refit” (a misnomer as really they stripped the ship down to the keel and rebuilt it) was because it was the only Constitution class to survive all of its missions. They didn’t want to scrap the ship as would typically be done when a ship has that many years of service. That said, newer designs like the Galaxy class were intended to undergo massive refits every 20 years with a 100 year prospective service lifetime.
Starfleet optimism must have taken a dive given all the problems the galaxy class faced during its short time in operation.
The change in warp core design I believe is mirrored in real world application of carburetors of performance engines. Not to be confused with fuel injection which is a totally different design. Basically, the carb introduces the fuel to air then the air/fuel components mix and are cumbusted once this mixture is introduced to the cylinders. To get the best air/fuel mixture, you need a longer passageway (intake manifold) to allow the optimal atomization hence "tunnel rams" were designed. They basically are the tall towers you see on engines today that the carburetor sits on. I've ready, but cannot verify that this is cannon, that the longer the intermix shaft of the core is, the more powerful said core is because of the this. Reinforces the position of why the Constitution class refit is more powerful than the Miranda class as the core of the Miranda is 4 decks tall where the Constitution is 13 decks tall. The vulnerability of the refit is answered by your own statement of the darker hull sections where the engineering components are. Have seen schematics where the dark section along the spine of the engineering hull was referred to as the "strong back". My view is that these darker sections of hull are of a material much greater in strength than the majority of the hull. I've even heard these section are a precursor to that later well known ablative armor of the Defiant. Another real world example would be the torpedo belts of battleships. A tremendous band of thick armor protecting the boilers,hull and magazines that is specifically positioned right where torpedoes would hit. Reinforcing these parts of the vessel make perfect sense as it would protect the valuable warp core components.
As others have posted, the photon torpedo is stored inert. The torpedo is "primed" just before firing therefore the intermix shaft extending near the storage magazine poses no more of a threat than having the intermix shaft near a cargo hold.
I do agree that the connecting dorsal could and should be wider but thats another debate.
I absolutely love your videos
And that's why the Enterprise was the ONLY ship to receive that keel-up redesign.
Suddenly envisioning Jeremy Clarkson on the Bridge yelling "More Power!"
Cheers mate hope your feeling better
Dr McCoy would agree with you. ‘Well Bones, do the new medical facilities meet with your approval?” “No, they do not!” Dr McCoy replies. ST:TMP (1979) That’s just after they had flown past Jupiter! Earlier, McCoy remarked that they had probably re-designed the whole sick bay after he was just beamed aboard!
I agree , very well done my friend.
There are several levels of containment fields that can be erected around a Federation starship's warp core. It can also be beamed into outer-space.
Ah, magic with energy manipulation, in other words. Instead of real, physical structure.
They can jettison a warp core, but I don't think they've ever beamed one.
The refit is classic like a yacht , it's lines are beautiful. It was not designed to be a military war ship as other ships were. It's neck SHOULD have been broadened to 3 times it's size as well as it's blue green armor plating over critical systems, however, given that the design changes were not made public it would not be known WHERE these new features were moved to, in the neck, as the old design had them all more spread out and better shielded the enemy would target the old spots in an attack. Khan had a starfleet vessel and may have studied the new designs if they were in the ships records. So that was a flaw. As for the plasma conduit, it is heavily magnetized by nature, providing some additional shielding to ionized radiation, ion beams, electron beams, though not lasers but the glass containment would be less susceptible to lasers and phasers anyway. And as another commenter stated, the torpedoes not primed with antimater before loading for launch and are not so explosive as before the refit but not so volatile as a large charge would be as in the old torpedoes.
Halfscreens videos are great too! I love how there is ALSO the neck-airlock on the torpedo room deck.
14:00 The addition of the photon torpedo bay adds a strong back to the connection between the neck and engineering hull- makes that connection much stronger, making it a good idea. And look at the blueprints and layouts of modern warships, tanks, fighter planes. All sorts of explosives are stored next to all sorts of precious goods. You only have so much space to pack a lot of stuff in, and compromises are always made.
the first thing to appreciate is that Star Fleet apparently did not stick to their 5 year plan. 5 years isn't that long in the life of even current vessels. The dramatic change in engineering technology would have been readily apparent. Thus any refit would have taken it into account. By either a drastic change of hull form or a radically modified core design. Perhaps neither being wholely efficient. In my humble opinion the refit was intended for more of an exploration/research role than a combat one. Where such a deficiency wouldn't be considered a huge problem.
it's that the constitution class was obsolete.
@@joeswanson733 hence after refit, it became the Enterprise class. Not Constitution. The only ship that is truly obsolete is one that can't be retrofitted with new equipment.
You have to factor in how old these ships were when they were refit. They were thoroughly obsolete. The refit bought them another 10 years of life or so, but rapidly changing technology (the Excelsior was a huge leap forward in starship design) simply left them behind. They did the best they could with these old hulls, but there were limits to what could be done.
9:25 the Enterprise couldn't use phasers at warp is because during the Wormhole incident a reaction imbalance triggered a safety system shutting off power to phasers to increase containment. Decker explains that afterwards. With the warp core in the standard Connie refit it was Engineering to saucer in hight but later fixes change it to a modified Miranda core which decreased warp core size but allowed stable eps conduits to be used in place of direct warp core boosting. The Enterprise A has the Miranda reactor installed as opposed to the original refit style.
couldnt phasers fired in warp speed because the beam was not faster than light speed?
@@cirno9356 no in TMP's case it was a power safety cutoff.
I watched this prepared to go to metaphorical war in the comments because I didn't grow up with the TOS Connie. I grew up with the TMP Connie Refit. The Refit will always hold a special place in my heart and I would argue for it for the sake of arguing once upon a time.
I'm glad I took the moment to really *listen* though. Because... yeah. You're right. With all this evidence laid out, the Refit is an engineering nightmare.
I still love it though.
I must address problem #2. The Warp Core does not put out radiation during nominal operation. Its just just pumping out rads to all those around it. The hazard gear is protection for potential emergency, not basic everyday exposure, otherwise everyone would be wearing helmets too. We did see hazard gear in early TOS, but they only had budget for a few extras, and then could no longer afford it afterward (though that's a production reason).
#3 As for the vulnerability off the warp transfer conduit, and simply "shooting the vessel amidships" to disable her... that all depends entirely on taking down her shields first. The original ship was just as vulnerable to a single hit. Lets not forget, it only took two unshielded phaser strikes on the USS Excalibur to completely disable her and kill most of her crew. And since this stronger Warp Core also helps facilitate far stronger shields, the issue no longer arises. It takes a set of extremely unlikely circumstances (or poor judgment on the part of a Captain) in order to catch a ship with her shields down.
#4... yeah, bad design on the part of the production team. There is also a corridor that goes off from Main Engineering that does not fit within the structure of the ship. It would take you literally through the deflector dish and a good 10 meters outside the ship LOL
But "one clean hit" is a moot point. One clean hit with a Photon Torpedo ANYWHERE on an unshielded ship would destroy it. This is why the arguments some make against the thin neck and pylons is asinine. Even if the ship were a sphere, with essential functions at its core, it would still falter to a torpedo or two if the shields were down. This is the thing most people forget, thanks to Wrath of Khan not only nerfing weapons badly, but presenting battle as armored hull vs. armored hull... the way it was never meant to be.
Even though the Miranda's torpedoes are kept separate... if they explode, they would still destroy the ship. They are antimatter warheads, not conventional explosives (again... I'm looking at you with disapproving stares, Wrath of Khan). The only real reason they are kept where they are is so they could clear the bridge when fired. "Even if they blow up that pod, it doesn't necessarily mean..." actually, yes it does. That exploding pod should have blown so big that even the Enterprise would have felt it.
Seriously... the poor excuse for Photon Torpedoes in that film do about the same damage as a sidewinder missile from a modern F-18 fighter jet.... THAT is the biggest design flaw, if you ask me. Weapons that barely deserve the name.
If Photon Torpedos were still... y'know... PHOTON TORPEDOES, then it does not matter what ship you are flying. If your shields are down, you're screwed. But clearly the writers of the time didn't have any clue how to make an exciting action scene without showing explosions and scars on the hull.
The Refit Connie is perfect.
1) Phasers - were resolved between TMP and TWOK, bc the warp drive was out and they still fired.
2) There’s nothing wrong with the core being in the neck. It’s not like 23rd Century engineers would be stupid.
3) Radiation isn’t a problem. It’s contained in each section. See the room Spock died in and how they were less than 10 ft away. They only had to wear radiation gear in an emergency.
Again - if they are next to each other, it’s because they can be with 23rd Century tech.
4) The primary defense for Starfleet has always been shields. A Vulcan can quote you the regulations regarding shields if needed. Also, hulls aren’t tinfoil. Khan disabled the war drive, because he knew exactly where to shoot.
5) It doesn’t matter that the photon torpedoes are next to the engines. They’ve got to go somewhere, and no matter where that is, it will explode the ship if it’s hit, in the same manner the engines would in a core breach if they were hit.
So why not put the two next to each other and make only one critical place to protect?
“If it doesn’t look like a sound design, that’s because we’re thinking with Lizard Brain” - Doug Drexlet
Great analysis 😊
My guess is that the refit that Starfleet did on the Constitution-class was actually meant to field test new technologies intended for use in the Excelsior-class. This is why they turned the Enterprise into a cadet training ship so soon after refitting it. Starfleet *knew* about the design flaws, except that they would *not* be flaws when implemented on the Excelsior. Like how the vertical warp core and photon torpedo launchers were *much* better protected inside the thicker "neck" and engineering section on the Excelsior-class as contrasted to the swan-like neck and narrow cylindrical engineering section of the Constitution-class. Starfleet saw the exact same problems called out in this video and realized that the Constitutions had reached the end of their service lives. That's why we didn't see them in service anymore during the 24th century.
Only one point. The real USS Enterprise (USN) was in service for around 50 years and under went refit(s). Keeping the bones of the ship is a lot cheaper than a full replacement.
Yes, but the main super structure hasn't changed though has it. When a Nimitz comes back into dry dock for upgrades, it suddenly doesn't get a longer keel, or wider beam, does it.
15:24 It survived because the engineers built that section of the ship to withstand a lot of damage because of where the internal systems are located. Also at the time of the incident, the warp drive was offline, which likely meant no fuel or antimatter was going up or down. The neck, like the warp nacelle pylons, likely had to be built to very high standards considering what they do, in the case of the former, the neck connects the primary to the secondary/engineering hull, and the latter connect the that hull to the warp nacelles.
The refit still holds up 45 years later.