Been watching your content for a few months now and I have to say, hands down, it's the BEST Trek content on YT. I've watched most of the others over the years ( I'm 40 🤦♂️) and there is no comparison to your content. Absolutely well done to you smeghead 👌 thank you ✌
The isolated nature of the Starfleet turrets seems like it's something solvable with a software patch. They can already send and receive messages updating that to create a coordinate interlink, or more sophisticated programming wouldn't be hard at all. Plus, I would assume that there is a manned Central Control that could be used to coordinate them. Which gives them some great redundancy. Manned Control centre coordinating the Defence clusters. Cluters communicate among themselves. Even if you destroy the Control centre, or jam the cluster's communications they can fall back on "dumb" targeting.
The OWPs are my favorite. An example of what the Cardassians could do once they had resources to work with. They were finally able to mass-produce the advanced weapons they had designed but couldn't do much else with. People often say they are OP and come out of no where, but for those who had paid attention, none of the systems were new, and had been featured before in Cardassian centered episodes.
I don't remember the Cardassians ever even mentioning plasma torpedoes in their arsenal before that episode. Ditto for disruptors that can carve up the biggest ships in the Allied fleets. Or impenetrable forcefields that can somehow laugh at concentrated fire?
@@erikjaroy8214 There was the "Dreadnought missile" ATR-4107 from VOY that just swatted the starship like it's paper. Supposed armed with "disruptors, quantum torpedoes, a thoron shock emitter, and a plasma wave" Never seen other Cardassian ships with such badass armaments so I guess we'll say lack of resources for this one.
i say the best defense is an active defense with layers. with enough mobility to concentrate firepower in the most tactically important area at the right time for the static defenses. good video
Relative to starships, star systems are indeed static so one needs to turtle as much as possible. Make them bleed for every inch. In regard to centralized-interlinked systems, I'd think it would be possible to have multiple redundant command centers if the system is developed enough, such as a homeworld system, so that if one CC is destroyed it won't completely paralyze the defense network. I wonder if Starfleet has any design plans for "mini" Nicoll-Dyson beams?
One problem I have with most Sci-Fi static defense systems is they all seem to be two-dimensional. Most of them can be bypassed by coming in off the plane of the ecliptic. This is not just a Star Trek trope, it applies to most of Sci-Fi. If you want to use defense in depth, you have to make multiple globes, and the farther out you get from the target, the more expensive this is going to be. It vastly increases the number of platforms you need.
We've learnt from WW1 that entrenched warfare favours the defenders. So there's that. I'd honestly love how the each faction's BattleNet, datalink system (Yes, that's actually what we call them IRL. Datalinks), or whatever you call them works.
The attackers often succeed in taking the first trench, the defender send in their wave of troops to take the trench back. What make trench warfare difficult wasn't taking the trench, it was holding it that was difficult part.
The main value of fortification is to slow down any attacks and give your fleet time to come to help, it forces fleet engagements to gain space control. If you have destroyed the enemy fleet you have time to slowly pick apart defenses, but fortifications massively reduce the effectiveness of raids
I've always believed given the small size the Chin'Toka detense platforms were obscenely overpowered and non-sensical. Even with not having their own power sources they still made no sense.
It made them unique tho. And it got me giddy when we saw them again over Cardassia 😀 Unique designs should have unique personalities and require unique responses. It making sense kinda becomes secondary in the narrative. 😆
@@Broockle But why bother even building ships at that point? Furthermore why not just slap an engineering section on them like the NX and convert them into drones since one or two tiny platforms are more powerful than a Romulan Warbird or Galaxy class? See what I mean about how silly it is?
I disagree. The weapon platforms have no engines. No life support. No warp drive. That means all the power can be dedicated to weapons and shields. The weapon platform doesn't have to worry about protecting a crew.
@@0utc4st1985 That happens in real life too. There is always a race between technologies, and advancement and counter-advancement not to mention the age-old debate between fortifications and mobile warfare. A small coastal submarine sank three armored cruisers in an afternoon. U-47 sank a costly battleship that carried 14 inch guns that could level a city block with three $10,000 torpedoes. Another example of a small fortification doing damage is the Norwegian 8-inch gun emplacement, only half-manned by conscripts, firing a 50 year-old gun that crippled in two shots a state-of-the-art, brand new German Heavy Cruiser. It is not far-fetched that the Weapons Platforms, who did most of their damage with torpedoes, could heavily damage capital ships. But, fortifications can only do one thing whereas ships have many uses.
@@0utc4st1985 What big exclusive said. And also the power generation was not on board. So it's all weapons on board with virtually infinite power. Kinda disgusting combo of you think about it.
Okay, this is a good one - and something that I think needs to be explored in more space/scifi fiction. More automated defense systems. Another issue I have with Star Trek - is the lack of traffic and satellites in the orbit of planets of spacefaring races that are visited by Starfleet or other races. You'd think the orbit of a planet would be very busy. I know it's nitpicky.
@@venomgeekmedia9886 Well by this time - removing older junk would be easy - as opposed to some of the hazards now. I just like the idea of a busy planer/station. Babylon 5 did a good job of making it look busy, and later seasons of DS9 did the same. And again, this is just a taste perspective. From a show making aspect it would be too much work for no real payoff except for nitpickers like me.
At the _first_ battle of Chin'toka, *Starfleet made a big mistake,* after the Defiant managed to disable the control node of the defence platforms. The system was disabled, and then they just _destroyed all the helpless deactivated platforms._ They should have instead salvaged and commandeed the defence platforms - it's a war of attrition, and they've just captured a lot of very powerful enemy weapons. The satellites could have then been used to protect the system from any Dominion counter-attack, freeing up their own ships from guard duty. Plus there's the reverse engineering of a very effective new enemy weapons system. Still the Dominion made similar mistakes. After the first major use of the Breen energy dampner at the *second battle of Chin'toka,* the Dominion should have captured all the helpless ships instead of having a Turkey shoot. Transporters are very effective against unpowered ships, and half of them had been abandoned anyway with the crew using escape pods (that somehow still worked?).
I don't think the Dominion wanted to capture ships. They had plenty of captured enemy vessels in any event after 3 years of war. Their priority was to retake the system and to send a message.
It was disable when Mills O'Brien re-programed 2 turents firing down on the generations located on the asteroid not far from the planet, where Dominion, Cardasian and Breen armada were waiting for the the Federation, Klingon, Romulan fleets ☺
When is doubt, go *DAKKA!* Naturally, of course they never adopted it, or the rather ingenious modified version that could shoot through walls. I mean, sure, that modified version was invented by a serial killer...
13:06 It depends on the amount of collateral damage that you are willing to inflict. "DS9: The Die Is Cast" implies that a small fleet can cause immense damage. Where did the Verteron Arrays go according to you? Those sound mighty useful.
I don't think you've ever covered electronic warfare in the STU. We see it all the time with sensor ghosts mimicking weapons placements, sensor and communications jamming, mock warp signature imprinting on an enemy target, and the list goes on. I'd like to think that Sisko in Operation Return deployed his harassing fighters with some weapon sensor jamming cover from the powerful deflectors of his Galaxy Wings, giving them a better chance of survival.
Well by 2399 planetary shields are apparently part of second hand Romulan planetary defense systems, probably not capable of taking shots from a fleet of warships but probably keeps the occasional wandering pirate at bay.
So on other fortifications were the self replicating mines used anywhere else? I would imagine that if you can set up a minefield on the enterances to obvious routes into a system from the dominion then this would be very useful for the federation as they know where the safe corridors are. I would also imagine they are quite useful at dictating the range to the space fortifications which helps hold up the dominion invasion fleets until the allies are able to counter atttack in the dominion war. After all deactivating them one by one is great if you have time like over DS9 but seems invconvinient in a fleet action.
Some people question 1) The utility of fortifications, or ask why not simply strap engines to the OWPs and make them drones. Or, 2) how is it or why such a small system can destroy capital ships? What is the point of capital ships then? So, 1) OWPs can't conduct offensive warfare. They can't hold space, or conduct raids. They can't transport troops. They have a single use as a principal of warfare and that is Economy of Force. They hold space to allow the actual Cardassian Fleet to operate elsewhere. The attrit the enemy so in future operations the Cardassian Fleet faces better odds. Also, as a force in being, they can deter, or force the enemy to take them into account when targeting star systems as area denial weapons. But, they are of little use if they aren't contributing to the offensive success of the fleet elswhere. It is a small investment with big dividends if successful, or a costly error if they aren't used correctly. 2) There is always a race between technologies, and advancement and counter-advancement not to mention the age-old debate between fortifications and mobile warfare. On Earth, in the years between 1880 and 1945 there was startling advances in all fields of naval warfare and many incongruities. There are many examples of small ships or fortifications carrying a very heavy punch when their single purpose is to maximize the effectiveness of its primary weapon system. During WWI, a small coastal submarine, which was slow, cramped and could not tolerate heavy seas, sank three armored cruisers in an afternoon thanks to the torpedoes it carried (that took up 70% of the space in the boat). In 1940, U-47 sank a 2.4 million GBP (550 million GBP today) battleship that carried eight 14 inch guns, the terror of enemy fleets, able to sink a cruiser in one shot, level a city block, with just three $10,000 torpedoes. Another example of a small fortification doing damage is the Norwegian 8-inch gun emplacement in Oslo Fjord, only half-manned by conscripts, firing a 50 year-old gun that crippled, in two shots a state-of-the-art, brand new German Heavy Cruiser, which was then finished off by a 50 year-old torpedo manufactured by a nation that didn't even exist anymore. It is not far-fetched that the Orbital Weapons Platforms, that were absolutely state-of-the-art at that time, and who did most of their damage with torpedoes, could heavily damage capital ships.
I'd be very impressed if Star Trek or other SciFi depicted a kind of ship-deployed 'lens' that can collect the energy beams from other ships in formation to direct onto that ship's target- instead of facing the firepower of one ship while the others are out of range, you'll face the firepower of _all_ ships in that formation at once! Think dually supporting/charge-up Tesla Towers or triple aligned Prism Towers from Red Alert 3
Great video, though surprised there wasn't any discussion of the use of mind fields, either cloaked or uncloaked as viable method of fortification and defence when it comes to protecting ones territory.
Player 1 sets up dampening field to block energy weapons and force the enemy to use physical weapons Player 2 replicates guns and grenades GM: No, you're not allowed to do that because, erm, reasons. Player 2: Then I use orbital bombardment. Player 1: But you can't see my forces. Player 2: Not a problem. I tell my troops to duck and cover.
The funny thing is no one seems to have thought of setting up a particle weapon dampening field and using metal bullets... Sure soon everyone would copy it quickly but I think Earth that has plenty of designs in their ancient database could have gotten a leg up in some of those defensive battles in Federation territory...
Well yeah it depends if anyone still had the industrial base to make projectile weapons. Some of these races might have been using energy weapons for thousands of years.
At Star Trek tech levels, it might be more efficient to use energy weapons as you get more shots per kg of 'ammunition'. So if the M-16 cartridge masses 12 grams each and an energy weapon can get equal performance at 11 grams or less, then if you want to give your troops more ammunition you would use energy weapons.
The 24 century could even create a network type system of automated turrets. But all systems can be linked to an orbital command station for better tactical command. But in the event of the stations destruction or the communication systems are James the autonomous mode is activated so not much happens but at most a 20 to 30% efficiency droop off
By chance could you do a episode on the name; Farragut? Coincidentally, my favourite ship is the USS Farragut Nebula Class. But being a fan of the class and such, I can't help notice that the name Farragut.. IS EVERYWHERE.. I even saw a glimpse of the USS Farragut on a SNW Ship Charter. Which begs the question.. How old is this name? and are they the Farragut's A,B,C etc? For such a name to appear in almost every Series of Trek there seems to be a lot of uncertainty around it (or at least from what I've searched)
I'm gonna make a video about ships that are identical in Star Trek and possibly why. So obviously I would love for you to make a video about this subject and compare notes.
I would think these defense systems have their own sensors and their AI capable enough to properly prioritize targets. Of course, for the sake of the plot, a particular system may be old and has not been upgraded. LOL
Question on Dampening Fields. Could you set them up to disable a certain type of energy weapon? Example: Say your Starfleet and you don't want mister Jem'hadar to use his Polaron Weapons on the ground. Is this plausible?
In theory yes. But in reality if your blocking certain frequencies then you'll just adjust to the same frequency as them. So the only sure fire method is to jam all particle weapons.
The main thing I took away from this is that it's stupid to have stationary weapons platforms in the Star Trek universe. There should be tugs warping in and disgorging photon armed drones during the initial attack. Turrets should swarm their targets. There should be ten times as many fake drones. And for gods sake don't just have one big ole central control thing. Even the emperor had two towers to show all the star destroyers how to fly up. One was even mobile. If it wasn't for the horses the rebellion or whatever would have died. Wait, what was I talking about?
I'm gonna break this into the main comment, and multiple self-replies, just to keep it in manageable chunks, and because UA-cam doesn't like gigantic comments. So, the "Defensive Onion" concept is sound enough. And some of your observations regarding Star Trek explicitly are, unfortunately, valid. But overall, there are still some problems here. Big ones. See below.
First...you're sticking to closely to Star Trek. You all (and I really mean all fans in general) need to stop that. Every sci-fi franchise out there is...honestly...shit. They can be fun, and sometimes thought/emotion provoking, but conceptually, they're all fucking retarded, and their writers are borderline incompetent. Even the classics. Heinlein is regarded as a "great" in some circles, and the fact is he was a goddamned idiot most of the time. Asimov was smart, but not at all a good writer in any way. Herbert was... I'll be honest, I don't know what his deal was, but it wasn't good. You need to learn to look at what a given sci-fi story is, and then, where it irrationally disagrees with reality, disregard it. Where it's valid speculation, sure, go along with it and try to pad it out and see what happens. But where it just blatantly and ignorantly skips over a pretty fundamental component of reality? Then you disregard what's written instead...canon and the "rule of cool" be damned. For example, orbits in general. Yeah, most sci-fi has some quasi-magical bullshit tech that lets ships and stations completely ignore orbital mechanics. Or rather, some equally bullshit tech that compensates for orbital mechanics so perfectly that they can maneuver however they wish without regard for orbital mechanics or anything else. DeltaV...who gives a fuck? Eccentricity and inclination...so fucking what? Wanna be in a low-orbit but still be synchronous...fucking go for it. It's retarded and I hate it...but whatever. Regardless of that, if whatever doohickey piece of bad-writing trash device makes that kind of stupid shit possible happens to fail...well, then the rules are back on and that fucker is going down (or out, depending on what bullshittery it was up to at the time). So, ostensibly, the best way to take out orbital defenses in Star Trek, would be to disrupt whatever technology makes those dipshit orbits possible in the first place. Then...wait. Eventually everything will deorbit and burn up/crash...or fly off into the void forever. Naturally, the counter to this is to just make sure everything is in a proper orbit for its mass and the body it's orbiting. Then, it doesn't matter if that device fails. It's still a useful device to have, and gives other advantages, but now you're not DEPENDENT on it. It's as simple as that...just use proper fucking orbits for things.
The next problem is weapon ranges. They're a joke. Space is huge. Nothing will ever be shooting at each other from within physical view. Ever. The closest they'll ever get, is maybe 100,000km away. Through the exploitation of orbital mechanics, they might get much closer, maybe a few dozen kilometers...for about a minute, tops. That said, a lot of damage could potentially be done in that minute, especially if you've got the element of surprise. So, not necessarily invalid. But the fact is, any weapon with less than probably a 500k kilometer range, is almost worthless. You'd be far better off with a weapon that takes 10 shots to kill a ship at half a million km out, than one shot at a few thousand km out. Assuming a rate of fire we typically see in Star Trek, it's a no-brainer to take the weapon with the better range, even though it's weaker. You'll get those 10 shots off long before they get that close. You can probably kill three or four ships by the time they get to normal Star Trek ranges. The corollary to that is, obviously, ships can most likely do the same. But this is where the advantage of exploiting orbits comes in. You can put a Starbase in a properly synchronous orbit, and that alone will cover half the planet's SoI (Sphere of Influence). An additional two or three sufficiently powerful defensive platforms in synchronous orbits (probably polar synchronous orbits) would mean that every single cubic kilometer of space within a million kilometers of that planet, is covered with deadly force. Including the ability of all stations to cover one another at all times. At such high orbits, maintaining LoS is pretty trivially simple. Enemy fleet can really only target one station at a time, the stations can target any ship in the fleet, together, or separately. Defender's advantage, period.
As for those defensive stations, it is, in this scenario, far better to go bigger, and fewer. Say, something along the lines of a station with a reactor on par with that of the Defiant. Possibly multiple conventional fusion reactors just for simplicity and redundancy, but adding up to the same amount of power. A power system like that would be able to power shields rivaling even the best cruisers, as well as multiple weapon systems of a similar class. Combined with proper structural engineering, and the Defiant's ablative armor, they'd be all but impervious to anything but the most concentrated enemy fire. Design them in a tetrahedral layout (4-sided die, or 3-sided pyramid, for anyone unfamiliar), and you can have perfect weapon's coverage regardless of the orientation of the platform, as well as an improvement to the armor's performance and the structural integrity of the platform. A spherical phaser bank or array in the center of each edge, and a torpedo launcher at each vertex. That's 6 phasers and 4 torpedo launchers, all with about a 720 degree spherical firing arc. With the adjustments to range mentioned previously, that's an absolute monstrosity in conjunction with a couple of other identical platforms, AND a Starbase.
With regard to sensors and intel interlink systems, you're half right. The sensors and such are important. But really, the only necessary communications are in calling for reinforcements. Every platform should have the capacity to assess and designate targets on its own, regardless of what the rest are doing. And their profiling should be such that they'll "accidentally" work together exactly as they should. In your example, you mentioned that without an interlink, turret group B wouldn't know to attack the already damaged ship from turret group A, and thus the ship would escape. That's not a lack of communication, that's just bad targeting in the first place. Turret group B should keep a running tally of all ships it can attack within range, and prioritize those it has the best chance of killing before the turrets are destroyed. OR target those enemies with the best chance of destroying the turrets, if the turrets still have the capacity to destroy that target first. Essentially...kill the most dangerous opponent first if you're able. Or failing that...kill the thing you can kill before you're destroyed. They don't need to communicate to do that. They only need to know innately how fast their sibling turrets can do the work, how fast they themselves can do the work, and which enemy fits best within that targeting paradigm. Then they just calculate and go from there. Assuming the programming is done correctly at all, they should all appear to cooperate, even if they're isolated. Like super-deadly lemmings.
When it comes to defending a planet itself...to be perfectly honest, there's no real point. Planets are grossly overvalued in sci-fi. Who the fuck is going to live trapped on a planet when you can live on a nice, cushy station with all the same benefits, but BETTER? Moreover, planets are terrible ways to get resources. Everything is hard to get at. Most of the time you'll wreck the climate doing so, no matter your future tech. Then there's getting it all up out of the gravity well, which sure, there's anti-grav tech, but that eats power so it's really not that much of a boon. Especially when you could've gotten absolutely every bit from moons and asteroids for none of the trouble and a fraction of the cost. And faster, also. But, assuming a bunch of weirdos still want to live on planets for some stupid reason and waste time and energy doing so... Planetary weapons are pretty much mandatory, likely deployed at the poles of the planet, on top of quite tall towers. The towers don't make that much of a difference, but every little bit helps. Depending on the complexity and expense, three more could be arranged equidistant along the planet's equator, allowing for total coverage. Shield those facilities and major population centers/planetary operations from orbital bombardment, and any assaulting fleet should have a really rough day. Throw in the arrangement of orbital platforms mentioned before, and it's really just not worth it to attack such a planet at all.
I think stations like these are best used like ciws protection high value asset but not the be all and end all. I never liked the fact because of plot armour the federation never fell. Yes they have a tech advantage in many areas but they don't have limitless manpower, they train their officers that combat Is a minor province and as we Saw with the fall of betazed they don't modernize key planetary defences... They Just wing it until the enemy wears out with stupid decisions, or plot armour when sisko got the prophets to disappear that Dominion fleet...
best modern/current example of a good or rather EXCELLENT defence can be found right here in 2023. IT is Russian and it has resisted every effort to crack it for 2 months non stop. Layered defence of mines, dragons tetth and tank trap/ditches and obstacles with mutual supporting positions of roughly company size able to call on heavy artillery and air support. Each of these guards a important choke-point usually a road the NatoCranains have to use to attack. Also a central mobile reserve to push back any breaches or footholds.
Been watching your content for a few months now and I have to say, hands down, it's the BEST Trek content on YT. I've watched most of the others over the years ( I'm 40 🤦♂️) and there is no comparison to your content. Absolutely well done to you smeghead 👌 thank you ✌
Venom tell the star trek stories we want hear!
The lore is quite in depth but I have seen other channels that do similar things.
Agreed
The isolated nature of the Starfleet turrets seems like it's something solvable with a software patch.
They can already send and receive messages updating that to create a coordinate interlink, or more sophisticated programming wouldn't be hard at all.
Plus, I would assume that there is a manned Central Control that could be used to coordinate them.
Which gives them some great redundancy.
Manned Control centre coordinating the Defence clusters.
Cluters communicate among themselves.
Even if you destroy the Control centre, or jam the cluster's communications they can fall back on "dumb" targeting.
They are abel to programm Hologramms with a few lines that would fool most ... there "dumb" mod should be god like.
The OWPs are my favorite. An example of what the Cardassians could do once they had resources to work with. They were finally able to mass-produce the advanced weapons they had designed but couldn't do much else with. People often say they are OP and come out of no where, but for those who had paid attention, none of the systems were new, and had been featured before in Cardassian centered episodes.
I don't remember the Cardassians ever even mentioning plasma torpedoes in their arsenal before that episode. Ditto for disruptors that can carve up the biggest ships in the Allied fleets. Or impenetrable forcefields that can somehow laugh at concentrated fire?
@@erikjaroy8214 There was the "Dreadnought missile" ATR-4107 from VOY that just swatted the starship like it's paper. Supposed armed with "disruptors, quantum torpedoes, a thoron shock emitter, and a plasma wave"
Never seen other Cardassian ships with such badass armaments so I guess we'll say lack of resources for this one.
@crownprincesebastianjohano7069
I'm agree with you the one thing between Cardassian and their goal is a resource.
Because of poor make them weak.
Thanks!
Thanks
i say the best defense is an active defense with layers. with enough mobility to concentrate firepower in the most tactically important area at the right time for the static defenses. good video
Relative to starships, star systems are indeed static so one needs to turtle as much as possible. Make them bleed for every inch.
In regard to centralized-interlinked systems, I'd think it would be possible to have multiple redundant command centers if the system is developed enough, such as a homeworld system, so that if one CC is destroyed it won't completely paralyze the defense network.
I wonder if Starfleet has any design plans for "mini" Nicoll-Dyson beams?
Lolol I was just checking your channel for a new video and there was nothing.... then this popped up! Awesomeness
One problem I have with most Sci-Fi static defense systems is they all seem to be two-dimensional. Most of them can be bypassed by coming in off the plane of the ecliptic. This is not just a Star Trek trope, it applies to most of Sci-Fi. If you want to use defense in depth, you have to make multiple globes, and the farther out you get from the target, the more expensive this is going to be. It vastly increases the number of platforms you need.
Love the Armada defense stations.
We've learnt from WW1 that entrenched warfare favours the defenders. So there's that. I'd honestly love how the each faction's BattleNet, datalink system (Yes, that's actually what we call them IRL. Datalinks), or whatever you call them works.
The attackers often succeed in taking the first trench, the defender send in their wave of troops to take the trench back.
What make trench warfare difficult wasn't taking the trench, it was holding it that was difficult part.
i love your dominion war videos about the various battles that was fought by all sides it gives more context to events on ds9
Find my self addicted to this channel love it bro keep up the good work 👍
you deserve to be up there among the most popular Trek channels, brilliant content!
Nice video. Great topic. But I do wish you talked about the role of mines in space battles and their roles in a defense grid.
The main value of fortification is to slow down any attacks and give your fleet time to come to help, it forces fleet engagements to gain space control. If you have destroyed the enemy fleet you have time to slowly pick apart defenses, but fortifications massively reduce the effectiveness of raids
Great information.
Masterfully compiled and delivered! Can you imagine what AI systems development for defense tactics will resemble by the time of the DW?
interesting video. love the channel. looking forward to the one about that absolutely ridiculous dominion shipyard design.
I've always believed given the small size the Chin'Toka detense platforms were obscenely overpowered and non-sensical. Even with not having their own power sources they still made no sense.
It made them unique tho. And it got me giddy when we saw them again over Cardassia 😀
Unique designs should have unique personalities and require unique responses.
It making sense kinda becomes secondary in the narrative. 😆
@@Broockle But why bother even building ships at that point? Furthermore why not just slap an engineering section on them like the NX and convert them into drones since one or two tiny platforms are more powerful than a Romulan Warbird or Galaxy class? See what I mean about how silly it is?
I disagree. The weapon platforms have no engines. No life support. No warp drive. That means all the power can be dedicated to weapons and shields. The weapon platform doesn't have to worry about protecting a crew.
@@0utc4st1985 That happens in real life too. There is always a race between technologies, and advancement and counter-advancement not to mention the age-old debate between fortifications and mobile warfare. A small coastal submarine sank three armored cruisers in an afternoon. U-47 sank a costly battleship that carried 14 inch guns that could level a city block with three $10,000 torpedoes. Another example of a small fortification doing damage is the Norwegian 8-inch gun emplacement, only half-manned by conscripts, firing a 50 year-old gun that crippled in two shots a state-of-the-art, brand new German Heavy Cruiser. It is not far-fetched that the Weapons Platforms, who did most of their damage with torpedoes, could heavily damage capital ships. But, fortifications can only do one thing whereas ships have many uses.
@@0utc4st1985
What big exclusive said.
And also the power generation was not on board. So it's all weapons on board with virtually infinite power.
Kinda disgusting combo of you think about it.
Awesome.
Okay, this is a good one - and something that I think needs to be explored in more space/scifi fiction. More automated defense systems.
Another issue I have with Star Trek - is the lack of traffic and satellites in the orbit of planets of spacefaring races that are visited by Starfleet or other races.
You'd think the orbit of a planet would be very busy. I know it's nitpicky.
Agreed although not too busy we don't want too much space junk.
@@venomgeekmedia9886 Well by this time - removing older junk would be easy - as opposed to some of the hazards now. I just like the idea of a busy planer/station.
Babylon 5 did a good job of making it look busy, and later seasons of DS9 did the same. And again, this is just a taste perspective. From a show making aspect it would be too much work for no real payoff except for nitpickers like me.
Commenting to please the algo. Great video!
8:20 for Cardassian 👍
At the _first_ battle of Chin'toka, *Starfleet made a big mistake,* after the Defiant managed to disable the control node of the defence platforms.
The system was disabled, and then they just _destroyed all the helpless deactivated platforms._
They should have instead salvaged and commandeed the defence platforms - it's a war of attrition, and they've just captured a lot of very powerful enemy weapons.
The satellites could have then been used to protect the system from any Dominion counter-attack, freeing up their own ships from guard duty.
Plus there's the reverse engineering of a very effective new enemy weapons system.
Still the Dominion made similar mistakes. After the first major use of the Breen energy dampner at the *second battle of Chin'toka,* the Dominion should have captured all the helpless ships instead of having a Turkey shoot.
Transporters are very effective against unpowered ships, and half of them had been abandoned anyway with the crew using escape pods (that somehow still worked?).
I don't think the Dominion wanted to capture ships. They had plenty of captured enemy vessels in any event after 3 years of war. Their priority was to retake the system and to send a message.
Escape pods are designed to operate when the ship is down. Probably having a chemical engine for the initial boost.
"I shall watch this video." - Rogal Dorn probably
It was disable when Mills O'Brien re-programed 2 turents firing down on the generations located on the asteroid not far from the planet, where Dominion, Cardasian and Breen armada were waiting for the the Federation, Klingon, Romulan fleets ☺
Unfortunately, the Federation said "dampening field? Meet slugthrower."
When is doubt, go *DAKKA!* Naturally, of course they never adopted it, or the rather ingenious modified version that could shoot through walls. I mean, sure, that modified version was invented by a serial killer...
"Here, it's the M4."
13:06 It depends on the amount of collateral damage that you are willing to inflict. "DS9: The Die Is Cast" implies that a small fleet can cause immense damage.
Where did the Verteron Arrays go according to you? Those sound mighty useful.
NIce info video.
How could the small Dominion fleet (consisting also of Breen ships) attack Earth, despite the warp detection grid ?
3:55 Wow, they were still using Akyazis!
Desperation yeah. In the early war they filled the role of a true attack ship instead of the more costly defiant.
I don't think you've ever covered electronic warfare in the STU. We see it all the time with sensor ghosts mimicking weapons placements, sensor and communications jamming, mock warp signature imprinting on an enemy target, and the list goes on. I'd like to think that Sisko in Operation Return deployed his harassing fighters with some weapon sensor jamming cover from the powerful deflectors of his Galaxy Wings, giving them a better chance of survival.
Well by 2399 planetary shields are apparently part of second hand Romulan planetary defense systems, probably not capable of taking shots from a fleet of warships but probably keeps the occasional wandering pirate at bay.
Defense! Defense! Let’s go big D!
So on other fortifications were the self replicating mines used anywhere else? I would imagine that if you can set up a minefield on the enterances to obvious routes into a system from the dominion then this would be very useful for the federation as they know where the safe corridors are. I would also imagine they are quite useful at dictating the range to the space fortifications which helps hold up the dominion invasion fleets until the allies are able to counter atttack in the dominion war. After all deactivating them one by one is great if you have time like over DS9 but seems invconvinient in a fleet action.
Some people question 1) The utility of fortifications, or ask why not simply strap engines to the OWPs and make them drones. Or, 2) how is it or why such a small system can destroy capital ships? What is the point of capital ships then? So, 1) OWPs can't conduct offensive warfare. They can't hold space, or conduct raids. They can't transport troops. They have a single use as a principal of warfare and that is Economy of Force. They hold space to allow the actual Cardassian Fleet to operate elsewhere. The attrit the enemy so in future operations the Cardassian Fleet faces better odds. Also, as a force in being, they can deter, or force the enemy to take them into account when targeting star systems as area denial weapons. But, they are of little use if they aren't contributing to the offensive success of the fleet elswhere. It is a small investment with big dividends if successful, or a costly error if they aren't used correctly.
2) There is always a race between technologies, and advancement and counter-advancement not to mention the age-old debate between fortifications and mobile warfare. On Earth, in the years between 1880 and 1945 there was startling advances in all fields of naval warfare and many incongruities. There are many examples of small ships or fortifications carrying a very heavy punch when their single purpose is to maximize the effectiveness of its primary weapon system. During WWI, a small coastal submarine, which was slow, cramped and could not tolerate heavy seas, sank three armored cruisers in an afternoon thanks to the torpedoes it carried (that took up 70% of the space in the boat). In 1940, U-47 sank a 2.4 million GBP (550 million GBP today) battleship that carried eight 14 inch guns, the terror of enemy fleets, able to sink a cruiser in one shot, level a city block, with just three $10,000 torpedoes. Another example of a small fortification doing damage is the Norwegian 8-inch gun emplacement in Oslo Fjord, only half-manned by conscripts, firing a 50 year-old gun that crippled, in two shots a state-of-the-art, brand new German Heavy Cruiser, which was then finished off by a 50 year-old torpedo manufactured by a nation that didn't even exist anymore. It is not far-fetched that the Orbital Weapons Platforms, that were absolutely state-of-the-art at that time, and who did most of their damage with torpedoes, could heavily damage capital ships.
I'd be very impressed if Star Trek or other SciFi depicted a kind of ship-deployed 'lens' that can collect the energy beams from other ships in formation to direct onto that ship's target- instead of facing the firepower of one ship while the others are out of range, you'll face the firepower of _all_ ships in that formation at once!
Think dually supporting/charge-up Tesla Towers or triple aligned Prism Towers from Red Alert 3
It should be said that Cardasian turrets where also meant to be manned and the ones at Chin Toka where brand new versions of that design
Great video, though surprised there wasn't any discussion of the use of mind fields, either cloaked or uncloaked as viable method of fortification and defence when it comes to protecting ones territory.
Player 1 sets up dampening field to block energy weapons and force the enemy to use physical weapons
Player 2 replicates guns and grenades
GM: No, you're not allowed to do that because, erm, reasons.
Player 2: Then I use orbital bombardment.
Player 1: But you can't see my forces.
Player 2: Not a problem. I tell my troops to duck and cover.
I think the advocate for replication and the advocate of bombardment are two different people
The funny thing is no one seems to have thought of setting up a particle weapon dampening field and using metal bullets... Sure soon everyone would copy it quickly but I think Earth that has plenty of designs in their ancient database could have gotten a leg up in some of those defensive battles in Federation territory...
Well yeah it depends if anyone still had the industrial base to make projectile weapons. Some of these races might have been using energy weapons for thousands of years.
At Star Trek tech levels, it might be more efficient to use energy weapons as you get more shots per kg of 'ammunition'. So if the M-16 cartridge masses 12 grams each and an energy weapon can get equal performance at 11 grams or less, then if you want to give your troops more ammunition you would use energy weapons.
The 24 century could even create a network type system of automated turrets. But all systems can be linked to an orbital command station for better tactical command.
But in the event of the stations destruction or the communication systems are James the autonomous mode is activated so not much happens but at most a 20 to 30% efficiency droop off
By chance could you do a episode on the name; Farragut? Coincidentally, my favourite ship is the USS Farragut Nebula Class. But being a fan of the class and such, I can't help notice that the name Farragut.. IS EVERYWHERE.. I even saw a glimpse of the USS Farragut on a SNW Ship Charter. Which begs the question.. How old is this name? and are they the Farragut's A,B,C etc? For such a name to appear in almost every Series of Trek there seems to be a lot of uncertainty around it (or at least from what I've searched)
I'm gonna make a video about ships that are identical in Star Trek and possibly why. So obviously I would love for you to make a video about this subject and compare notes.
I would think these defense systems have their own sensors and their AI capable enough to properly prioritize targets.
Of course, for the sake of the plot, a particular system may be old and has not been upgraded. LOL
Went from Battle of chintaka in DS9 to the graveyard of chintaka in Picard season 3 which by far was the best Star Trek since DS9
How about more Videos on Ground Forces of the Dominion War???
Well there's planetfall...
Question on Dampening Fields. Could you set them up to disable a certain type of energy weapon? Example: Say your Starfleet and you don't want mister Jem'hadar to use his Polaron Weapons on the ground. Is this plausible?
In theory yes. But in reality if your blocking certain frequencies then you'll just adjust to the same frequency as them. So the only sure fire method is to jam all particle weapons.
I remember the game star trek conquest they have neat designs on the platforms breen just look like a ball of scrap
I am surprised Star Fleet targeting systems isn't as intelligent as the ones we have today 😳
Don't be there.
You can't move.
...unless...
*stellar thruster technology acquired*
I feel like "affected" and "penetrated" should really switch places..
So basically the Cardassian platforms are kinda like Halo ODPs...
Hm couldn’t a Dyson swarm be able to power system bubble shield.
The main thing I took away from this is that it's stupid to have stationary weapons platforms in the Star Trek universe. There should be tugs warping in and disgorging photon armed drones during the initial attack. Turrets should swarm their targets. There should be ten times as many fake drones. And for gods sake don't just have one big ole central control thing. Even the emperor had two towers to show all the star destroyers how to fly up. One was even mobile. If it wasn't for the horses the rebellion or whatever would have died. Wait, what was I talking about?
Unless the Daleks move the system for you
I guess ogres aren't the only ones that are described as onions with layers.
why there is no planet defence system on the ground like a huge ass gun that knock anything down if it come close to the planet
I'm gonna break this into the main comment, and multiple self-replies, just to keep it in manageable chunks, and because UA-cam doesn't like gigantic comments.
So, the "Defensive Onion" concept is sound enough. And some of your observations regarding Star Trek explicitly are, unfortunately, valid. But overall, there are still some problems here. Big ones. See below.
First...you're sticking to closely to Star Trek. You all (and I really mean all fans in general) need to stop that. Every sci-fi franchise out there is...honestly...shit. They can be fun, and sometimes thought/emotion provoking, but conceptually, they're all fucking retarded, and their writers are borderline incompetent. Even the classics. Heinlein is regarded as a "great" in some circles, and the fact is he was a goddamned idiot most of the time. Asimov was smart, but not at all a good writer in any way. Herbert was... I'll be honest, I don't know what his deal was, but it wasn't good. You need to learn to look at what a given sci-fi story is, and then, where it irrationally disagrees with reality, disregard it. Where it's valid speculation, sure, go along with it and try to pad it out and see what happens. But where it just blatantly and ignorantly skips over a pretty fundamental component of reality? Then you disregard what's written instead...canon and the "rule of cool" be damned.
For example, orbits in general. Yeah, most sci-fi has some quasi-magical bullshit tech that lets ships and stations completely ignore orbital mechanics. Or rather, some equally bullshit tech that compensates for orbital mechanics so perfectly that they can maneuver however they wish without regard for orbital mechanics or anything else. DeltaV...who gives a fuck? Eccentricity and inclination...so fucking what? Wanna be in a low-orbit but still be synchronous...fucking go for it. It's retarded and I hate it...but whatever. Regardless of that, if whatever doohickey piece of bad-writing trash device makes that kind of stupid shit possible happens to fail...well, then the rules are back on and that fucker is going down (or out, depending on what bullshittery it was up to at the time).
So, ostensibly, the best way to take out orbital defenses in Star Trek, would be to disrupt whatever technology makes those dipshit orbits possible in the first place. Then...wait. Eventually everything will deorbit and burn up/crash...or fly off into the void forever.
Naturally, the counter to this is to just make sure everything is in a proper orbit for its mass and the body it's orbiting. Then, it doesn't matter if that device fails. It's still a useful device to have, and gives other advantages, but now you're not DEPENDENT on it. It's as simple as that...just use proper fucking orbits for things.
The next problem is weapon ranges. They're a joke. Space is huge. Nothing will ever be shooting at each other from within physical view. Ever. The closest they'll ever get, is maybe 100,000km away. Through the exploitation of orbital mechanics, they might get much closer, maybe a few dozen kilometers...for about a minute, tops. That said, a lot of damage could potentially be done in that minute, especially if you've got the element of surprise. So, not necessarily invalid.
But the fact is, any weapon with less than probably a 500k kilometer range, is almost worthless. You'd be far better off with a weapon that takes 10 shots to kill a ship at half a million km out, than one shot at a few thousand km out. Assuming a rate of fire we typically see in Star Trek, it's a no-brainer to take the weapon with the better range, even though it's weaker. You'll get those 10 shots off long before they get that close. You can probably kill three or four ships by the time they get to normal Star Trek ranges.
The corollary to that is, obviously, ships can most likely do the same. But this is where the advantage of exploiting orbits comes in. You can put a Starbase in a properly synchronous orbit, and that alone will cover half the planet's SoI (Sphere of Influence). An additional two or three sufficiently powerful defensive platforms in synchronous orbits (probably polar synchronous orbits) would mean that every single cubic kilometer of space within a million kilometers of that planet, is covered with deadly force. Including the ability of all stations to cover one another at all times. At such high orbits, maintaining LoS is pretty trivially simple.
Enemy fleet can really only target one station at a time, the stations can target any ship in the fleet, together, or separately. Defender's advantage, period.
As for those defensive stations, it is, in this scenario, far better to go bigger, and fewer. Say, something along the lines of a station with a reactor on par with that of the Defiant. Possibly multiple conventional fusion reactors just for simplicity and redundancy, but adding up to the same amount of power.
A power system like that would be able to power shields rivaling even the best cruisers, as well as multiple weapon systems of a similar class. Combined with proper structural engineering, and the Defiant's ablative armor, they'd be all but impervious to anything but the most concentrated enemy fire.
Design them in a tetrahedral layout (4-sided die, or 3-sided pyramid, for anyone unfamiliar), and you can have perfect weapon's coverage regardless of the orientation of the platform, as well as an improvement to the armor's performance and the structural integrity of the platform. A spherical phaser bank or array in the center of each edge, and a torpedo launcher at each vertex. That's 6 phasers and 4 torpedo launchers, all with about a 720 degree spherical firing arc. With the adjustments to range mentioned previously, that's an absolute monstrosity in conjunction with a couple of other identical platforms, AND a Starbase.
With regard to sensors and intel interlink systems, you're half right.
The sensors and such are important. But really, the only necessary communications are in calling for reinforcements. Every platform should have the capacity to assess and designate targets on its own, regardless of what the rest are doing. And their profiling should be such that they'll "accidentally" work together exactly as they should.
In your example, you mentioned that without an interlink, turret group B wouldn't know to attack the already damaged ship from turret group A, and thus the ship would escape.
That's not a lack of communication, that's just bad targeting in the first place. Turret group B should keep a running tally of all ships it can attack within range, and prioritize those it has the best chance of killing before the turrets are destroyed. OR target those enemies with the best chance of destroying the turrets, if the turrets still have the capacity to destroy that target first.
Essentially...kill the most dangerous opponent first if you're able. Or failing that...kill the thing you can kill before you're destroyed.
They don't need to communicate to do that. They only need to know innately how fast their sibling turrets can do the work, how fast they themselves can do the work, and which enemy fits best within that targeting paradigm. Then they just calculate and go from there. Assuming the programming is done correctly at all, they should all appear to cooperate, even if they're isolated. Like super-deadly lemmings.
When it comes to defending a planet itself...to be perfectly honest, there's no real point. Planets are grossly overvalued in sci-fi. Who the fuck is going to live trapped on a planet when you can live on a nice, cushy station with all the same benefits, but BETTER?
Moreover, planets are terrible ways to get resources. Everything is hard to get at. Most of the time you'll wreck the climate doing so, no matter your future tech. Then there's getting it all up out of the gravity well, which sure, there's anti-grav tech, but that eats power so it's really not that much of a boon. Especially when you could've gotten absolutely every bit from moons and asteroids for none of the trouble and a fraction of the cost. And faster, also.
But, assuming a bunch of weirdos still want to live on planets for some stupid reason and waste time and energy doing so...
Planetary weapons are pretty much mandatory, likely deployed at the poles of the planet, on top of quite tall towers. The towers don't make that much of a difference, but every little bit helps. Depending on the complexity and expense, three more could be arranged equidistant along the planet's equator, allowing for total coverage. Shield those facilities and major population centers/planetary operations from orbital bombardment, and any assaulting fleet should have a really rough day.
Throw in the arrangement of orbital platforms mentioned before, and it's really just not worth it to attack such a planet at all.
I think stations like these are best used like ciws protection high value asset but not the be all and end all.
I never liked the fact because of plot armour the federation never fell.
Yes they have a tech advantage in many areas but they don't have limitless manpower, they train their officers that combat Is a minor province and as we Saw with the fall of betazed they don't modernize key planetary defences...
They Just wing it until the enemy wears out with stupid decisions, or plot armour when sisko got the prophets to disappear that Dominion fleet...
Another example of Federation arrogance and complacency, good job
best modern/current example of a good or rather EXCELLENT defence can be found right here in 2023. IT is Russian and it has resisted every effort to crack it for 2 months non stop.
Layered defence of mines, dragons tetth and tank trap/ditches and obstacles with mutual supporting positions of roughly company size able to call on heavy artillery and air support.
Each of these guards a important choke-point usually a road the NatoCranains have to use to attack. Also a central mobile reserve to push back any breaches or footholds.