Re: A more military Starfleet
Originally posted by qerlin
Haven't gone into Spacedock yet to work some of this stuff out, but here's some of our campaign stuff...
Starfleet's in the midst of an internecine fight between the older 'exploration-oriented, paramilitary-style' Starfleet vs. the Dominion War era new guys who are more 'military & hawkish'. The fallout of this fighting is as follows (for our campaign...)
1. Rapid Response is more prestigeous and grabbing bigger amounts of the budget (such as exists).
2. A more militant view on starship classification:
Escorts: Saber (come on, the Defiants blow the doors off these things...)
Light Fighter: we have a couple of classes out there.
Heavy Fighter: Peregrine
Destroyer: Defiant
Scout Gig: Talon
Light Scout: Nova
Heavy Scout: Rigel
Light Cruiser: Intrepid
Light Frigate: Cheyenne
Heavy Frigate: Steamrunner
Assault Cruiser/Light Carrier: Akira
Heavy Carrier: Nebula-conversions, Nimitz class (imagine the amount of fighters you could carry if you hollowed a lot of that hull out...)
Battleship: Sovereign (a LOT of admirals arguing over this one -- 'it's an exploration cruiser!'; 'it's a battleship'.)
Explorers: Galaxy and Nebula
3. Modernization program has seen the end of the following classes:
Miranda and variants (replaced by Intrepid)
Oberth (replaced by Nova)
New Orleans (replaced by Steamrunner)
Norway (in our campaign she had serious troubles with her nacelle design...)
Constellations still being used as trainers.
4. New classes of assault shuttles are being designed for the enlarged RRT mission.
5. More military-style discipline.
6. Dependent authorized status mostly for explorers now; less emphasis on the family with the crew.
Discuss amongst yourselfves. I'll give you a topic: Starfleet is neither a star nor a fleet. Discuss...
querlin,
I partially agree with some of your ideas and suggestions, but I would also disagree with you on many of them. So I will give you my opinion on them.
Re: A more Hawkish Federation in general and Star Fleet in particular, extremely likely, so not only would be an increase in funding for the RRT's but also for the other Special Operations Units, e.g. the Rangers as well as for the Ground Force, but there would an increase in funding for more Tactical Ships in particular as well as more Planetary Defence Weapon Systems and Forces, both by the Federation as well as by the member governments, mostly in order to rebuild the existing forces and defences as well as to improve them.
Keep the existing Ship Class Designations and most of the existing classes, specially the Ships developed post-2330. All the remaing pre-2330 Ships and most of the War Built Ships such as the Yaeger (modified Intrepid class) and Curry (heavily modified Excelsior class), would be phased out of service within five - ten years as soon as they could be replaced by new built ships, both new and existing designs.
Ships that would be kept in service and upgraded out of your list, along with my favourite classes: -
Fighter: Peregrine
Escorts: Defiant & Capella
Light Scout: Talon
Heavy Scout: Nova
Light Cruiser: Saber
Light Explorer: Intrepid
Light Frigate: Cheyenne
Frigate: New Orleans (No way would I take them out of service, because of their heavy torpdeo armanent).
Cruiser: Zodiac & Niagara class
Explorer class: Andromeda & Galaxy class.
Heavy Frigate: Badbury, El-Dorado & Steamrunner (although I do not like the Steamrunner class).
Heavy Cruiser: Akira, Nebula & Sequoia class;
Heavy Explorer: Sovereign class.
As for new Ships and classes they could bring into service after the Dominion War, these are my suggestions:
A Size 10 or 11 Battleship;
A Size 10 or 11 Carrier (both fighters and assault ships);
A Size 8 or 9 Strike Cruiser (Same number of fighters as an Akira, but also carrying Troops, both Special Forces and Ground Forces);
A new size 7 or 8 Explorer, but with upgraded tactical systems and possibly carrying up to 20 Fighters as well as a platoon of Special Forces, both RRT's and Rangers.
New Cruiser and Frigate classes as well.
One way that they would upgrade the Tactical Systems would be fit the new classes with High-Yield Torpedo Tubes as well as Phaser Cannons. The main Phaser Arrays would be Type XII or above. (TYpe XII on size 7 & 8 ships, Type XIII to XV on size 9-11 Ships).
Ship crew sizes would be a lot smaller due to lack of skilled crew available and due to advances in technology they would need less crew anyway, but Star Fleet would almost certainly experiment with AI systems and robots as partial replacements for Human/Alien Personal. Also, it would very unlikely for a long while after the war that they would allow non-serving families and dependants aboard Ships, even Explorers for a long time after the war.
Any Comments?
"Those Klingons are up to something, I can feel it in my bones"
Cmmdr JT Wayland
Strategic Operations Officer, Starbase 415, Dragomer Sector, Klingon Border, 2372