Hypothetical Starfleet ship roles

[Deepcrush]

I was about to say. Calling it "better then their hand weapons" isn't much of a goal. Thats like winning more wars then the French. Not really hard so much as just expected.

[Praeothmin]

As I mentioned, it's not a question of hitting the windows for them to be a liability to the protection of the ship. The structure of a hull section with a window will be weaker than one without a window, simply because of the effect on the material of having a part gone and a window in place.

I've already agreed with this, what I'm wondering is how much weaker it will be.
And although weaker overall, again, it doesn't mean that having more armor wouldn't make the wall strudier then a similar wall without the armor.

And yes, eventually, by saturating the area with fire, you may eventually hit windows, but how likely is this?
Look at Generations, when the BoP was shooting through the E-D's shields.
They weren't shooting specifically at windows, were they?
They were shooting at the engineering hull, shooting at the bridge area, but not locations as precise as a window.

But, as I said, I do agree that the hull with more windows will be structurally weaker then one without windows.
But again, without knowing they "welding" methods, the hardness of their windows, we cannot know how much weaker it will be.
Is twice as weak, or only 10% weaker?
We simply don't know.

[Mikey]

Fairy snuff. But I think the point is that even 0.05% weaker is still weaker, and "no windows" trumps "windows" - or, more germane, "few windows" trumps "many windows."

Yes, no matter howmany windows there are, armor>no armor; but what we're getting at is that armor + windows < armor and no windows.

[Praeothmin]

Agreed...

[Deepcrush]

Finally done with that it seems.

[Praeothmin]

Finally done with that it seems.

Well, yes and no.
We agree that "armor + windows" is weaker then "armor + no windows".

But we still don't agree on the reason why the Sov wasn't used in the DS9 fleet battles we've seen.
I still don't believe it's because they were "lacking armor" or were "too weak" (gross oversimplification, I know, I just don't want to repost all the arguments in a recap)...

[m52nickerson]

Anyone consider what would happen if an enemy blew out a window. Yes you would decompress that room to which the window belongs and what. Other then some redshirt being upset because he lost his Klingon action figure set, not much. Other then the bridge what other vulnerable sections are right under a large federation ships surface, excluding the ones that have to be there? We don't see large picture windows in Engineering now do we.

[Nickswitz]

Yeah, but torpedoes don't just take out an outer layer, they go through a couple sections when they hit, so it would usually break through a whole room, and then take out part of the corridor therefore decompressing the corridor, and that's really bad.

[Deepcrush]

Anyone consider what would happen if an enemy blew out a window. Yes you would decompress that room to which the window belongs and what. Other then some redshirt being upset because he lost his Klingon action figure set, not much.

That room! You would decompress that room with a phaser rifle. If you took a hit from a PT or a type X phaser. The blast would cut through the inner hull. Whole sections would be fire traps for their crewmen.

Other then the bridge what other vulnerable sections are right under a large federation ships surface, excluding the ones that have to be there? We don't see large picture windows in Engineering now do we.

The bridge, Ten forward, the crew quarters, all are weak points.

[Deepcrush]

Yeah, but torpedoes don't just take out an outer layer, they go through a couple sections when they hit, so it would usually break through a whole room, and then take out part of the corridor therefore decompressing the corridor, and that's really bad.

That's only after the warhead goes off and tears a big section of the ship apart. But yeah, still very bad.

[Nickswitz]

That's only after the warhead goes off and tears a big section of the ship apart. But yeah, still very bad.

Yeah, but is this true of any piece of hull, I mean is it really the window that matters, obviously the windows are weaker than the hull, but doesn't the same thing happen when a torp hits any section of hull, regardless of windows?

[Captain Seafort]

Yeah, but torpedoes don't just take out an outer layer, they go through a couple sections when they hit, so it would usually break through a whole room, and then take out part of the corridor therefore decompressing the corridor, and that's really bad.

Well said. Ultimately, any weapon that breaches the outer hull risks this.

[Nickswitz]

Well said. Ultimately, any weapon that breaches the outer hull risks this.

Most starships don't sink in space
but yeah, that's basically what happens.

[Captain Seafort]

Yeah, but is this true of any piece of hull, I mean is it really the window that matters, obviously the windows are weaker than the hull, but doesn't the same thing happen when a torp hits any section of hull, regardless of windows?

Not quite. Against an armoured belt a torpedo or energy weapon, while it's likely to punch holes in the ship, would have to get through the belt first, reducing its effect on the ship's interior. Against windows it would get through much quicker, which would extend the effects of the explosion much deeper into the ship.

[Captain Seafort]

Most starships don't sink in space

They do, however, blow up.