TOS Federation Battlefleet and size

[Coalition]

After all, how many aircraft carriers does the US Navy have? 12 isn't an unrealistic number for the time. Especially since one assumes it was supported by the Miranda class, as well as the non cannon frigate and destroyer classes.

The United States has ~300 million people, and 12 current carriers, plus 1 under construction. Of those carriers, I will only count the 8 carriers younger than me, plus the George Bush that was under construction, for a total of 9 carriers.

Now for Star Trek. A modern carrier is about the same length as the original Enterprise, and both are modern vessels for their technology base, meaning similar populations should be able to support their respective ships. Aka 300 million people in Star Trek should be able to support 9 Constitution class starships.

SuperSaiyaMan12 pointed out there were 30 member planets. I am assuming only 1 billion beings per, for a total fo ~30 billion beings. Those people should be able to support a fleet of 900 Constitution-class sized ships.

So when Kirk mentions that there are only 12 ships like the Enterprise, I'd see those 12 ships in a similar light as the George Bush Nimitz-class carrier currently under construction. There are other ships similar to the Constitution in size that have lower technology, and ships that have identical technology, but are smaller. But the Constitution class ships are the most advanced and largest ships available that are just now coming out of the dockyards. Smaller ships with the same technology are likely already out and in service (smaller ships can be built faster, meaning they get the bugs worked out and into mass production faster).

For the next few years, they will be the largest and most advanced vessels in Starfleet; until the next designs start coming out. This is unless you go with Steve's History of the Federation and how it went bad.

As a comparison, converting the United States Navy to Starfleet would be along the following lines (based on here):
1100 Constitution sized vessels (warships in the 100,000 ton range)
8200 Cruiser/Destroyer vessels (warships in the 10,000 ton range)
3300 Frigates (vessels in the 3000-4000 ton range)
1100 troop transports
200 troop asssault command platforms
1300 Orbital docking structures (used to maintain supply coordination and storage when supporting a planetary assault)
1200 Surface docking structures (as orbital, but for groundside use)
6100 'submarine' (long-endurance raider vessels)
1400 strategic platforms (space going version of ballistic missile subs)
400 Tactical platforms (warp missile bombardment platforms)
1400 minesweeper vessels (to protect fleets for enemy drone weapons)
800 patrol boats (used near the 30 industrialized worlds and 1000 colonies on rotating schedules)
200 Hospital ships
400 salvage/tug vessels
200 platform support ships
400 ammunition transport ships
500 combat equipment transports
400 fast transports
3600 military owned transport ships (dry cargo, containerized transport, regular cargo, and vehicle transport)
1500 refueling ships
400 Deep Space tugs
400 Survey ships

So 12,600 direct combat ships (of which only 1100 would be considered large combatants), 10,400 indirect combat (raiders, missile support, and troop assault) ships, and 10,500 support ships (all others).

This is assuming only 1 billion people on each of the 30 homeworlds listed, and assuming the 1000 colony worlds are performing similarly to other nations on Earth today in terms of paying support to the Homeworlds.

[Lazar]

But I'm not sure that we can extrapolate the fleet needs of an interstellar federation just by scaling up population to ship ratios from the present day United States. The individual member planets might maintain their own defense fleets for local matters, and the fact that there's only one Starfleet Academy would seem to argue against a really big fleet. As a comparison, we can assume that Starfleet must have been roughly comparable in size to the Klingon fleet during the 23rd century, and the Klingons would probably have had a much lower population, and a much higher level of militarization, being (as far as we know) a one species empire.

[Sionnach Glic]

Keep in mind that it'd be a lot more expensive and difficult to build a starship the size of a Nimitz than an actual Nimitz. If the Connie was just a recently commisioned class, I see no problem in assuming there's only a handful of them.

[Teaos]

True it would be harder, but the tech they have to do it with is better. If anything it might be easier to build with the level of automation they have. Also the resources they have available to them through astroid mining ect would be mind blowing.

In general I agree with you. The fleets of all the powers should be much much larger than we see.

If anything your numbers are low, we once calculated the pop of the federation and came up with a number greater than 1 Trillion, anywhere up to 10 trillion.

[Coalition]

Keep in mind that it'd be a lot more expensive and difficult to build a starship the size of a Nimitz than an actual Nimitz. If the Connie was just a recently commisioned class, I see no problem in assuming there's only a handful of them.

Yeah, I was making it easy once I found that the Consitution was about the same length as a Nimitz carrier. Both of them are large advanced vessels for their respective societies, requiring the limits of design and industry to produce.

Still, out of that ~30,000 ship fleet, only about 1100 ships are large enough for straight up combat. Another ~11,000 are going to be little more than Raiders or small defense boats, good vs pirates, not so much vs large combatants. Assuming you can just add together their masses, they would effectively be another ~1100 combat 'ships'. So those 1100 actual combat ships represent about half of Starfleet's firepower. Given the range between the large ships (100 kilotons) vs the next largest (10 kilotons), I'd bet that the actual number is much less than 1100, with half (wild guess) of the tonnage diverted to 25 kiloton ships (for a total of 2200 Frigates), with one quarter (another guess) the tonnage allocated to 60 kiloton ships (for a total of 458 ships of that mass). This only leaves 275 actual Constellation sized ships. Those ships would represent ~one eighth of the Federation's combat capability, based only on tonnage. Given that smaller ships are faster to build and refit, they will likely represent less.

Most of those larger ships are going to be deployed to the various borders, with only a few left over for internal exploration/problem solving/meeting alien babes. The defense fleets could be counted as part of the above total, or you could consider them as the equivalent of the Coast Guard, for a total of another 26,300 ships, of which 10,500 would be armed.

But yeah, once you get the population larger, there will be (much) more ships available. I was only including the Homeworlds, assuming the colonies would be functioning similar to other countries today on Earth, providing taxes and resources to the various Homeworlds, so their population would not 'count' towards fleet sizes. Still, I only assumed 1 Billion per HW, so if the average is closer to 6 Billion, then you get to multiply the fleet strength by 6.

[Teaos]

I dont think you should really base it off population so much as industrial might.

Look at India Vs USA, India has lots more people yet the states could destory them.

The combined industiral might of 30 Homeworlds all with advanced tech would be able to support tens of thousands of ships by your math.

[Coalition]

I dont think you should really base it off population so much as industrial might.

Look at India Vs USA, India has lots more people yet the states could destory them.

The combined industiral might of 30 Homeworlds all with advanced tech would be able to support tens of thousands of ships by your math.

Federation: Highly industrialized
United States: Highly industrialized
Don't forget, those advanced homeworlds will be attempting to produce advanced starships, and for back of napkin calcs, that should even out.

Fleet size:
Battle Fleet: 12,600 ships
Raider Fleet: 10,400 ships
Support Fleet: 10,500 ships
Coast Guard: 26,300 ships

I am getting a total of 59,800 ships. That is tens of thousands of ships, and my numbers are on the low side. You could have the 30 Homeworlds easily supporting tens of thousands of ships in the Battle Fleet alone, and a total fleet numbering hundreds of thousands of ships.

[katefan]

I see what you are saying, but I do not know if the Federation would be dedicated towards maintaining such a large fleet. The Federation's resources may have been focused more on colonization, the construction of transport ships rather than combat vessels. And we see massive installations like the K-7 space station and who knows how many star ships one of those equals in terms of tonnage. Instead of ships Starfleet relied more on stationary bases like the ones along the Romulan Neutral zone, which would be much cheaper and require fewer personnel.

[Teaos]

I think you are vastly underestimating the industrial might and raw resources available to the Federation.

They must have huge automation, replicators, easy access to any raw material you need since mining astroids is infinity easier than mining anything else.

[Deepcrush]

I dont think you should really base it off population so much as industrial might.

Look at India Vs USA, India has lots more people yet the states could destory them.

The combined industiral might of 30 Homeworlds all with advanced tech would be able to support tens of thousands of ships by your math.

Federation: Highly industrialized
United States: Highly industrialized
Don't forget, those advanced homeworlds will be attempting to produce advanced starships, and for back of napkin calcs, that should even out.

Fleet size:
Battle Fleet: 12,600 ships
Raider Fleet: 10,400 ships
Support Fleet: 10,500 ships
Coast Guard: 26,300 ships

I am getting a total of 59,800 ships. That is tens of thousands of ships, and my numbers are on the low side. You could have the 30 Homeworlds easily supporting tens of thousands of ships in the Battle Fleet alone, and a total fleet numbering hundreds of thousands of ships.

So where are you getting these numbers? Are you talking about a UFP Coast Guard, the guys on the water??? Raider fleets???

[Tsukiyumi]

I think he's saying that's how many they could operate, ideally.

Of course, I could be wrong.

[Mark]

Keep in mind that it'd be a lot more expensive and difficult to build a starship the size of a Nimitz than an actual Nimitz. If the Connie was just a recently commisioned class, I see no problem in assuming there's only a handful of them.

Or, if there was only one shipyard capable of building them.

[Graham Kennedy]

Scaling up from the present day can give you some idea, but there's a ton of factors that could push a number in one direction or another. Just off the top of my head :

Replicators. TOS may or may not have had them, it's unclear. If they did, then the productive capacity of a 1 Billion person planet may be anything from several times to several hundred times greater than the productive capacity of a scaled up America.

Materials production. On the other hand, Nimitz class carriers are made of iron and steel. Starships are made of materials we don't know of, and have no idea about the manufacture of. How much industrial capacity is soaked up in producing a metric ton of duranium or tritanium as compared to a metric ton of steel? For all we know the former requires 500 times the effort of the latter.

Exotic components. There may be components of a starship which are complex, difficult and time consuming to produce. For instance Rick Sternback suggested that producing a warp coil is a lengthy process which involved heating the coil to high temperature and then letting it cool over a very long period in a very controlled way before adding another layer to it and repeating, over and over again. For all we know shield systems, weapon systems, and any number of other systems may be just as difficult. Such exotic components could create huge bottlenecks in Starship production.

Dedication. The US devotes something like 20% of its government spending to the military (I'm probably remembering that number wrong, but whatever). What percentage is devoted to Starfleet? Throughout history the fraction has varied hugely from nation to nation - there was a time when the Royal Navy consumed 65% if the British government's entire expenditure, for instance. But for all we know Starfleet consumes 10% of the Federation's industrial capacity or budget... or 1%... or 0.1% for that matter.

Political Factors. It's not unknown in history for international treaties to limit the size of military forces in one way or another. For all we know Starfleet's size and the type of vessel it produces could be limited by treaty agreements with any number of other powers.

[Praeothmin]

I think comparing the Federation's military spendings to that of modern Us is wrong.
The Federation has always been a lot more oriented towards peace then the US has, and I'm pretty sure a greater part of their budget would be allocated towards providing the minimum needed to live well to its citizens, and its total military budget will probably be lesser, proportionally, then the US.

There's a greater proportion of poor people in the US then in the Federation, meaning that their economy is more socialist then Capitalist.

[Mikey]

Their political system isn't really socialist, but their economic system certainly leans toward communism.

However, Graham is right - off the top of my head I can come up with one very clear material limiting factor - dilithium. Dilithium appears to have to be highly processed (per the appearance of a dilithium "cracking" station) as well as completely, incontrovertibly necessary for FTL operation.