vulcanridr
Lieutenant
I am in your Enterprise, haxoring your tubes...
Posts: 64
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Post by vulcanridr on Feb 9, 2010 21:54:02 GMT -5
April didn't complete a 5 year mission. Option 1Pike took her back in for overhaul at least twice, neither more than 4.9 years apart. Say, every 3 years for an overhaul. 3 shorter missions, in 10 years. Kirk was the first to take her out and not return for overhaul. Well, it depends on how one defines "overhaul." There were several episodes where the Enterprise was in for repairs, Court Martial (and possibly The Menagerie), springs to mind. In my mind, that would include upgrades to systems, though probably not a we-can-rebuild-her-better-stronger-faster overhaul, like they did to the Enterprise. And in TSFS, Admiral Morrow said, "Jim, the Enterprise is 20 years old. We feel her time is past." They obviously got over this pretty quickly, but 20 years for the capital investment in a starship? Considering that we have B-52 bombers that are 50 years old, and in the Navy, the closest analog to Starfleet, USS Enterprise turns 50 this year, and USS Nimitz is 37. To me, the shelf life of the ships in the fleet seems pretty short, especially when later series' still have what appear to be modified and upgraded ships, specifically the Excelsior and Miranda class ships that reappeared in later series set hundreds of years later...
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vulcanridr
Lieutenant
I am in your Enterprise, haxoring your tubes...
Posts: 64
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Post by vulcanridr on Feb 9, 2010 22:32:41 GMT -5
I figured there were a ton of Starfleet vessels out there, but Starfleet would occasionally single out a few and tell them "Get lost, find something cool. Come back in 5 years and tell us about it." The problem is that, while Starfleet might have had a decent number of scout/destroyer/lesser ships, it was established early on that there were only about a dozen "Heavy Cruiser" ships like Enterprise. Plus, we know that the attrition rate for those ships was pretty high (Constellation, Intrepid, and others that were destroyed during TOS) so it's highly unlikely that too many Enterprise-like starships survived a 5-year mission. There were, what, five out of 15 (depending on how you count) Constitution class ships that were destroyed: Constellation (NCC-1017) - Destroyed by doomsday machine. Defiant (NCC-1764) - Lost in rift/sent to alternate universe (The Tholian Web) Excalibur (NCC-1664) - Destroyed by USS Enterprise (The Ultimate Computer) Exeter - (NCC-1672) - Abandoned (recovered?) over Omega IV (the Omega Glory) Intrepid (NCC-1631) - Destroyed by space amoeba (The Immunity Syndrome) You should also take a look at the wikipedia article at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_class_starship Its got a very good writeup on the Constitution-class ships, including differentiating between canon and non-canon information. As for subs, you are probably thinking about ballistic missile boats (SSBNs) deployment. I believe they are 6 months or so, but they have two separate crews ("blue" crew and "gold" crew) so that they are not sitting in port for prolonged periods.
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Post by blackbat242 on Feb 14, 2010 23:45:23 GMT -5
I view that "only 12" statement as referring specifically to Constitution-class ships... at that time the newest (after their pre-Kirk modernization), biggest, and most capable of all the ships in Starfleet. Also, they were fully-equipped exploration/science vessels in addition to being top-line warships!
There would be older, less-capable heavy cruisers, and lots of light cruisers, frigates, destroyers, etc... enough to provide for all the other duties required of Starfleet, but these would all be single-purpose specialist ships, not the "do-everything" up-to-date flagships that Enterprise & her sisters were (and were kept by periodic modernizations, like the one that nearly doubled their crew size between the first and second pilots*).
*supposedly, the new transporter technology was developed into the replicator systems that produced clothing, duplicated local money, created finished food dishes in seconds anywhere in the ship (Tomorrow is Yesterday), etc. This meant they no longer had to carry bulk food & other supplies, and could have fresh air & water forever... as long as their anti-matter & reactor fuel supplies lasted.
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