Originally posted by toadmage
I was thinking that grapplers are part of the shuttle bay , with other grapplers added to other part of the ship hull .
Grappler cannon array is armed with two grapples . The grapple has a thick cable feed out behind it . The range of a 1 to 3 km depending on the size of the ship .
The grappler strike the side of the target to release several hook that dig in . The main drawback to using a grappler , you are never sure how good hold you have until you start pulling on the target .
A couple of points here:
1. I thought that, in one episode, the Enterprise attempted to grapple a shuttlepod trapped in the crevasse of a an asteroid or planetoid (first season) from orbit. I may be wrong on that, but I'm sure that the range was much more than 3,000 meters.
2. In the same episode, when the grip of the grapplers slipped, the units slid along the surface of the shuttlepod's hull. That effect leads me to believe that the grapplers maintain their grip by powerful electromagnets, not mechanical hooks. If it were the latter, I would have expected the outer hull of the shuttlepod to tear as the grappler shipped.
Davy Jones
"Frightened? My dear, you are looking at a man who has laughed in the face of death, sneered at doom, and chuckled at catastrophe! I was petrified."
-- The Wizard of Oz