Klingons: Looking for a good fight Federation: try to talk their way out of a fight Romulan: hides from fight, then spends 30 years stalking you untill you walk down a blind alley.
The Romulan: When your entire species is Thrawn and read the art of war for fun- oh god! Oh no! They're decloaking! Anti orbit guns are engaging! They've broken through our defence parameter!
I had thought Romulans still used plasma torpedoes even in the TNG era. Speaking of commerce raiding, there is a mission in the Chekov's Lost Missions pack for Starfleet Academy where you escort a convoy. You eventually encounter what appears to be a Vulcan trader-explorer, but is later revealed to be a heavily armed and modified ship (a Q-ship) that is involved in commerce raiding. It is revealed that the Romulans are behind it.
donald rady Plasma torpedoes are referenced in DS9 when the Romulans Tried to Transport some of those onto Bajor’s moon, resulting in a standoff. Although we never see them on screen
I think they still used both by that time. Most hidden lore implies that photons were more favored on many Romulan ships by the turn of the 24th century or earlier. On-screen most of the DS9 battle shots look like green photon torpedoes. But we cant really know for sure.
“Not too good for me to see the the stars of home again....the Earth men will attack...they must, and when they do we will destroy them. Our gift to the homeland...another war.” Great job my friend!
Balance of Terror. The one time Romulans were shown to be an actual threat instead of a minor annoyance when the writers got tired of pimping Klingons.
Playing a Romulan in STO ingrains these tactics into you, in the game Rom ships use Singularity Cores that produce less power than warp cores = less shields, weapon power, etc. with the flip-side of having special abilities(micro jumps, decoys, barriers, boosted weapons, wave of plasma) and a devastating cloak with crits, basically I was always picking my targets, popping every buff I had and fired everything right after decloaking. Also every ship is equipped with at least a Romulan Battle Cloak (you can cloak mid-engagement) unlike some Klingon vessels equipped with a inferior cloak.
Cloak. Get within a few kilometers of the target. pop every buff you've got. open with the plasma fun ball of doom (which causes you to decloak) slam everything into your target. And recloak. Barring that, depend on your ship's evasiveness. Maybe it's different for larger ships but a T'varo is never going to survive a prolonged slugmatch against any opponent worth anything. Your evasiveness and first strike capability is what you will depend on. Then again I've got gear that buffs plasma torps for days. Several torpedo types, a few phase cannons, but really it's all about 'hi. My ship is made out of munitions and I'm going to give them /ALL/ to you. Have fun with that.' It really is a fun playstyle that might not suit everyone but is also highly rewarding.
Andrew Singleton Do you have the Hyperplasma torps from the Rom reputation? Those are real fun to use, they used to fairly viable and still kinda are (I sometimes see a torp boat sending these bad bois down range, but it’s rare). They are basically a high damage chain torpedo(single launch fires 3 torps and tha AoE is ridiculous). If you have a good science boi with gravity wells and tyken’s, these torps will cause some nice dps.
that works as long as the other guy havent ever played a rom before...cause the enemy will go full defensive and keep his high yield torps at the ready to launch as you re-cloak again :P
techstepman Oh yeah, in pvp this tactic is worth jack-shit as it mainly exploits the AI’s inability to handle cloaked ships, a good player would keep defensive or try to disturb your cloak with AoE abilities or keep hangar pets spread out to catch you the moment you decloak, god forbid you go against a omni build, those guys can just sit on one place with the anchored trait and wait for you to make a move and then just pop every buff imaginable and proverbially catch you with your pants down
Dominion fleet doctrine seems to boil down to "Bury The Enemy In Disposable Ships" since they can crank out ships and Jem'Hadar to crew them all they want, making even the big Dreadnoughts expendable to a degree and the crews manning them entirely expendable since you could just clone new ones in a week.
Got to say, the RSE is probably the most underrated Alpha Quadrant race. Their race-specific inventions indicate a unified strategic policy which is head and shoulders above all the others. Consider: 1)The cloaking device, which makes them essentially immune to sensors, allowing them to hide their flight plans from all other powers. They pop out of nowhere with a devastating attack and pop back into hiding while the enemy is distracted and blinded. 2) The Singularity core. Although it is nerfed to produce less power than dilithium-moderated warp cores, it nonetheless allows the ships to be dilithium-independent, granting all such-equipped ships basically unlimited range. All the crystals in the world won't profit you once you're out of deuterium and anti-deuterium. This also means that the RSE needs a lot fewer dilithium resources than any other power to keep their ships flying. 3) The trilithium weapon. This will shut down all fusion reactions within a star, causing an implosion as the gravity keeping the outer layers of the star pulled in to the center is no longer counteracted by the fusion heat puffing those layers outward. Any star against which a trilithium weapon is launched is doomed, as are any planets orbiting it. Now put these together. The Romulan Star Empire demands the capitulation of, let's say, Tellar Prime. The Tellarites refuse. Then, unknown to any sensor, a cloaked ship flies super-close to Tellar (the star), drops off a trilithium weapon, and warps away (the weapon could even be fitted to a warp-capable, cloaked torpedo or drone). Tellar implodes. Tellar Prime disintegrates. The Federation declares war on the RSE, after which every Federation system containing dilithium is bombarded with Trilithium weapons. Sol. Epislon Eridani. Betazed. Andor. Alpha Centauri. Any and every dilithium-equipped star system is wiped from the map, leaving the Romulans as the only power capable of sustained warp travel. The other powers knuckle under, or the same thing happens to Qo'nos, Cardassia, and Ferenginar. Romulus now rules the Alpha Quadrant, and any power that gets too uppity knows what will happen. In fact, the RSE doesn't even need a provocation; a change in the ruling faction in the Senate could bring a sneak attack against a still-collaborating world. The day may come when there is no more dilithium left in the Alpha Quadrant. Or even the Galaxy as a whole. Yet the Romulans are able to keep expanding, regardless. The Romulans have made themselves already masters of the Galaxy. Whenever they decide to push the button, it will be all over but the shouting.
*We will not tolerate espionage* !!!!! And starfleet used tachyon detection net at the border they would immediately detect a cloaked ship The dominion war really highlighted the failings in ships of intimidation the D’dedarex VS ships designed To actually fight the Valdore After most of their fleet was destroyed they really addressed this problem in the valdore
In an all out hot war with the Federation, the Romulans would have two unexpected disadvantages. Full blood Betazoids can detect cloaked ships (Troi is only half) and fire on them, and what if a Betazoid weapons officer read the mind of the enemies chief engineer? And the other is that Starfleet does have cloaking technology, it's just that they're not _allowed_ to use it (their illegal experiments with phasing cloaks worked far better than the Romulans attempts). In Beta canon, every Starfleet ship has the replicator pattern for cloaking devices encrypted in their database, and it can be accessed by a fleet wide order from a Admiral or higher. Then all Starfleet ships could upgrade in flight and at that point their other advantages would tip the scales. A tougher cloaked Federation starship with a telepath able to read the minds of cloaked Romulan vessels… And the Federation, and especially the Dominion have effective cloak detectors, it's just that they're visible themselves like a searchlight beam.
Romulan cloaks are part of a long-range policy of Imperial conquest of the Galaxy (see my other comment), and no phase-cloak advantage can outweigh that policy, unless the Federation is willing to send their ships sundiving as minesweepers.
Have always wondered what would happen if it came down to Dominion vs Borg... I don't think anyone's ever done a tactical analysis of both, and what would happen if the full force of both were to engage in war. Borg couldn't simply assimilate the Founders because they're shape-shifters, and the Dominion Warriors will just kill themselves upon attempt to assimilate. However, Borg ships are utterly formidable, and the Dominion would have a very tough time with them. Would *LOVE* a video on this.
Yes Indeed while the Klingons war strategy would be mostly hit and run raids and their cruisers would be more for fleet engagements as well as seige warfare. I think that the Romulans war strategy would be more of setting up their opponents for a turkey shoot. Meaning turning certain region into hot zones while having a fleet of cloaked warbirds in the safe zones. Once enough Federation ships build up in the safe zones and have their guard down then the Romulans will decloak and attack destroy every last Federation starship in the safe zones. That people in my opinion is the Romulans war strategy.
That is interesting and could explain why Federation ships go for more distribution of weapons across the ship hull instead of focusing at certain points. Allows them to have the ability to fire at any angle when surrounded with enough firepower to destroy ships. Or at least weaken them before the Federation ship turns on the enemy to unleash their torpedoes.
@@raw6668 Actually I think that the only reason why the Romulans haven't attacked the Federation is because they know that there's a high chance that they could lose. A war with the Federation would null and void the treaty of Algernon meaning Starfleet can finally equip their vessels with cloaking devices. This is why I think if the Romulans was to attack the Federation they need to hit ship yards, research facilities, and industrial targets to prevent Starfleet from rebuilding.
@@MackeyDeez I did not say the Romulans would avoid attacking the Federation due to starship design. I was just theorizing on Federation design, why it like that, and what it means for Federation tactics. It makes sense for an organization that places a defensive tactic against enemies that attack at any angle.
Regarding the "slugfest" weakness - Warbirds are huge with big weapons, but don't seem to hold up against faster and more maneuverable ships like Jem'Hadar fighters. That being said, once the Romulans arrived on the scene in the last year of the Dominion War they said "Let them continue to send their fleets against us and we'll continue to destroy them one at a time!" It appears they were content with being static targets and either slugging it out or ambushing whole enemy fleets.When they decided to attack they captured a lot of territory quickly.
Headless Chicken i don’t really understand your question. I’m guessing your saying Star Fleet had been caught off guard in fleet actions before. Well in that case I’d like to remind you that there is no section 31. I believe your thinking about Star fleet intelligence. Since an organization that doesn’t exist can’t just pass intel to the regular forces. If a organization like 31 did exist I’m sure they would deal with things in a more surgical manner than fleet actions
The organization known to some people as Section 31 is less of an organization and more of a loose network of independent agents operating without oversight and chain of command to achieve goals that probably not legal within Federation. Their strength is in their complete anonymity, and their M.O. are well suited to influence event on large scale, such as assasinating the head of state of a rivaling power or placing an agent at high ranking position within other government to influence their decision to be more beneficial to Federation interest. Their M.O., however, barely give them advantage when it come to gathering intel on a smaller scale, such as specification of standard-pattern disruptor array on the Romulan B-type warbird, or the doctrine of a Cardassian battlegroup. Such information are gathered by shifting through tons of mostly irrelevant informations to get a few useful one, which necessitates a large number of information analysts. (they are reasons why both CIA and KGB have tons of people basically do nothing but read tons of newspapers during the Cold War.)
Great job identifying the philosophical core of the Romulan military mindset as well as its pitfalls. You go beyond the tactical and into the operational and strategic realms that most people gloss over. Where I differ from you a bit, though, is seeming lack of Romulan capacity to fight heavy engagements. The Romulan capital ships like the D'deridex do have the profile for force-on-force engagements. However, the Romulans would clearly rather not fight like that as a reflection of their paranoia: powerful and aggressive but also overly cautious. They subscribe to Sun Tzu's ideas of winning the battle before you even start fighting and using deception to hobble your enemies. This, however, limits them strategically as conditions are rarely that good, especially if you think everyone is out to get you and you need forces in reserve to hedge against that. Fear is the Romulans' greatest weapon, but also their greatest weakness. I would very much like to see your take on the Cardassians and the Dominion. Not the Borg, though, as there is no tactics involved really. However, as much as I'd like to see a Starfleet version of this, I do kind of dread it as it is really difficult to analyze the fleet doctrines of an organization that can't even be honest with itself as a military. It'd be great if you could go to even a grand strategic level. The Klingons and the Romulans seem to me are forced to keep conquering as their political and economic structures collapse with peace. Unlike Starfleet and the Federation, they (or at least their respective empires) need justifications to exist in their own eyes, be it the vehicle of primal aggression for the Klingons or the instrument of rampant paranoia for the Romulans. Moreover, they seem (at least to me) to demonstrate limited ability to develop their territory/assets with a sufficient return on investments. Effectively speaking, they must conquer to survive. Peace would destroy them via internal decay as demonstrated for the Klingons by the Praxis incident, the many Klingon civil wars, and the immediate pre-Dominion War conflicts and for the Romulan by the reunification movement and the Shinzon affair.
One small flaw on static target doctrine, they can use a similar tactic Dominion used by making it look vulnerable before decloaking and unleashing a barrage, but that's if they thought of that (esp since they're supposed to be masters of deception but caught with pants down on Founders homeworld by Dominion and a nearby nebula).
great video i myself have talked about romulan tactics and strategies in my 'wings of Romulus' series. i must ask though, where does the d'deridex fit in as it is very clearly a 'slug it out' battleship. also im not sure attacking the static targets would work. in such an event the romulans would likely enact a scorched earth policy. and with the cloaking device their fleets could remain undetected and at large to threaten your own supply lines.
Dderidex reminds me a little bit of a big Russian ballistic missile submarine. Could be used as a surprise first strike weapon or as a command battleship in a slugfest. The original reason for the gap between the wings is interesting. Something I'd like to cover but you can also discover in one of Trekyards' interviews, and I agree with it. Dderidex is certainly meant to terrorize, to know a huge warbird could be stalking you, or waiting to take out a colony before anyone could do a thing about it!
@@resurrectedstarships yeah i mean the D'deridex is essentially the romulan version of a nuclear deterrent, being bigger and notionally stronger than any of its contemporaries. and as Andrew Probert say's 'carry a lot of bad guy stuff' . posing a huge threat to civilian populations. bearing in mind that the artificial quantum singularity give's the d'deridex infinite range; like a nuclear submarine. it would be safe to say that in the early 2360s before countermeasures were developed every major federation world probably had a cloaked warbird in orbit just waiting for the first strike order.
In the mean time till they get the nuke order. They are recording everything going on the planet like its a " Nature Show" Like, " This is a standerize Japan high school and here are the locals work ethic to get good grads. " Their adults are making great effort to build androids to help with the care of their aging population. And over here on the same planet , there are groups of people who "Believe" that the entire universe is only 6,000 years old.
Interesting vids and i agree with most of your points. The romulan and klingon ships use cloaking devices to sneak in to an advantageous position to attack their target from but even with shields up most ships in star trek could be destroyed quite quickly. If a romulan d type warbird for example fires first at a shielded galaxy class from a well chosen angle it would likely blow it apart or cripple it straight away. It would atleast leave the target vessel damaged enough to be easily defeated if it survives the initial assault and tries to put up a fight. The disruptor cannons on d type (d deridex) warbirds can be fired as beam or cannon fire as cannon fire is better for punching through enemy shields and beam fire is easier to direct and adjust and can more efficiently damage internal targets by being maintained. Romulans still use plasma torpedoes in the next gen era and i believe they use photonic torpedoes as well. In nemesis it looked like the new valdor romulan ships used disruptors in cannon mode and they also showed them firing disruptor bolts backwards at the scimitar which is interesting. The enterprise managing any hits at all was a bit silly. The first salvo of phaser fire went in lots of directions but at zero elevation so to manage a hit was daft. I like nemesis though.
for a pre cloaking decice ships would just be Vulcan ships with an inbetween step being ships which mask scans when Archer on the NX enterprise the ship already has a cloak and a scan masking device.
I’ve always believed that the Romulans got the short end of the stick in Trek. Here’s a group of Vulcans who have embraced war like their forefathers. Vulcans have never been conquered. Balance of Terror portrays them as honorable veterans who skilled in the arts of war. Yet TNG reduced them to mere sideshows who have nothing once a sneak attack fails and become pathetic when they lose their flagships. RIP Romulans of old. How the mighty have fallen.
The Romulan's are chess players. They plan everything out in advance and are willing to carefully take their time. It means in the long run they can be dangerous, but they tend to have issues reacting on the fly.
“Control is the only thing that matters. Methods are not important. Efficiency is what counts in the end. Exploit what you conquer, for in the struggle for survival, every resource is critical. History is written by the victors.”
I don't think cloak is strategically valuable. Many times in star trek ships warp in from out of sensor range to aide an ally. While sometimes they can be seen coming it seems there are many opportunities to hide ships nearby. Even cloaked ships hide in nebula to improve their invisibility. The main issue seems to be the willingness of the romulans to sacrifice their own officers, and the officers willingness to sacrifice themselves, which none of the federation races can match
Even in STO I love my plasma base weapons. Even if I am a Federation Engineer Captain. Just seeing those Plasma Fires on the enemy ship makes me know. They aren't cold in space anymore.....please don't send me to counseling. It isn't some sick twisted psychopathic thought process. I am Federation. Needs of others comes first!
And for all of these perks you list, the Romulan Fleet never wins. Every time we see it in action, it either loses badly or comes out a dubious draw. Often it has superior numbers and still loses. The Klingons in an alternate timeline, blow their wings off. The Dominion eats Warbirds for lunch and even the Remans, a Romulan slave race, blows apart two of the newest ships. Romulans build big, fat targets that are the slowest of the main powers, are the most sluggish in a fight and have the weapons on par with the weak Cardassian kit. The issue here is that the Romulans are not a conventional combat fleet. Their designs and strengths are set up for planetary bombardment and invasion. They are very much like Star Wars Imperial fleets, rather sucky in ship to ship but really shine in planetary bombardment.
You didn't mention how their military is reliant on the tal shiar. Inspite of the citizens and the military's fear/ hatred of the organization. The Romulans would never strike unless they had tal shiar agents at work in the area. The tal shiar would have been gathering intelligence, and have stoking any unrest to distract their target.
Resurrected Starships awww I avoided using the term glass canon because I know he uses it. I need a thesaurus for talking a big game but not delivering. The romulans are the Canadian liberal party of Star Trek races
@Brandon G , you for got to add the cost of CGI in the early 1990's was high, so now really great on screen battles. But their was one good dog fight in the ep" Tin Man." There were some good shows and there were so really bad ones. Like when Esn.Rao and Lt.Laforge got "phase cloaked " They made the Romulans look like cheap nosfurtu vampires and their command staff two bit back stabbers. You hear the Klingons talk smack about the Romulans, but you don't hear about counter raids on pointy ears.
Secretly the Vucans and Romulans have always been in alliance with each other. It is the way to keep tabs on the shorter lived races. How do you tell the two apart ? Tell a real raunchy joke about a few Klingons, the ones who do not roll their eyes or give a snickering laugh are well discipline Romulan. Keep a strait face and call yourself a Vulcan trader ? Well that is one tall funny looking Ferengi ! A dull strait face Romulan with no sense of humor but really good in science , send them to train on Vulcan . A Vulcan that is a good war gamer with a temper, well you know where they get the best career at in which navy. If the Vulcans need someone tapped, or distract the Klingons for awhile or get a group of worlds to work together and the klingons don't scare them ?
@@krispalermo8133 The fight in Tinman was a sucker punch from behind and runaway, not dog fight. Also don't forget that their Tal Shiar is infiltrated by the domnion, section 31 and spocks underground. A slave clone they made overthrew their government. Spock and Kirk tricked them with a made up vulcan ability which they are related to... I guess that shows that deception truly is their greatest gift. They act so much tougher than they really are.
Klingons: Looking for a good fight
Federation: try to talk their way out of a fight
Romulan: hides from fight, then spends 30 years stalking you untill you walk down a blind alley.
Winning is winning.... there are no cheats in war.
The Romulan: When your entire species is Thrawn and read the art of war for fun- oh god! Oh no!
They're decloaking! Anti orbit guns are engaging! They've broken through our defence parameter!
I had thought Romulans still used plasma torpedoes even in the TNG era. Speaking of commerce raiding, there is a mission in the Chekov's Lost Missions pack for Starfleet Academy where you escort a convoy. You eventually encounter what appears to be a Vulcan trader-explorer, but is later revealed to be a heavily armed and modified ship (a Q-ship) that is involved in commerce raiding. It is revealed that the Romulans are behind it.
donald rady Plasma torpedoes are referenced in DS9 when the Romulans Tried to Transport some of those onto Bajor’s moon, resulting in a standoff. Although we never see them on screen
I think they still used both by that time. Most hidden lore implies that photons were more favored on many Romulan ships by the turn of the 24th century or earlier. On-screen most of the DS9 battle shots look like green photon torpedoes. But we cant really know for sure.
They most certainly did. They're mentioned at the first battle if Chin'toka in DS9
I'd like to hear about the Andorians Fleet Doctrine.
“Not too good for me to see the the stars of home again....the Earth men will attack...they must, and when they do we will destroy them. Our gift to the homeland...another war.” Great job my friend!
S.C. Super Heavy nice!
Balance of Terror. The one time Romulans were shown to be an actual threat instead of a minor annoyance when the writers got tired of pimping Klingons.
Brilliant!, I'd love to hear Cardassian Fleet doctrine next.
Romulan ship designs are gorgeous.
Playing a Romulan in STO ingrains these tactics into you, in the game Rom ships use Singularity Cores that produce less power than warp cores = less shields, weapon power, etc. with the flip-side of having special abilities(micro jumps, decoys, barriers, boosted weapons, wave of plasma) and a devastating cloak with crits, basically I was always picking my targets, popping every buff I had and fired everything right after decloaking. Also every ship is equipped with at least a Romulan Battle Cloak (you can cloak mid-engagement) unlike some Klingon vessels equipped with a inferior cloak.
Cloak. Get within a few kilometers of the target. pop every buff you've got. open with the plasma fun ball of doom (which causes you to decloak) slam everything into your target. And recloak. Barring that, depend on your ship's evasiveness. Maybe it's different for larger ships but a T'varo is never going to survive a prolonged slugmatch against any opponent worth anything. Your evasiveness and first strike capability is what you will depend on.
Then again I've got gear that buffs plasma torps for days. Several torpedo types, a few phase cannons, but really it's all about 'hi. My ship is made out of munitions and I'm going to give them /ALL/ to you. Have fun with that.'
It really is a fun playstyle that might not suit everyone but is also highly rewarding.
@@singletona082 it's a challenging but very rewarding play style
Andrew Singleton Do you have the Hyperplasma torps from the Rom reputation? Those are real fun to use, they used to fairly viable and still kinda are (I sometimes see a torp boat sending these bad bois down range, but it’s rare). They are basically a high damage chain torpedo(single launch fires 3 torps and tha AoE is ridiculous). If you have a good science boi with gravity wells and tyken’s, these torps will cause some nice dps.
that works as long as the other guy havent ever played a rom before...cause the enemy will go full defensive and keep his high yield torps at the ready to launch as you re-cloak again :P
techstepman Oh yeah, in pvp this tactic is worth jack-shit as it mainly exploits the AI’s inability to handle cloaked ships, a good player would keep defensive or try to disturb your cloak with AoE abilities or keep hangar pets spread out to catch you the moment you decloak, god forbid you go against a omni build, those guys can just sit on one place with the anchored trait and wait for you to make a move and then just pop every buff imaginable and proverbially catch you with your pants down
You definitely gotta do Dominion tactics and strategy sometime
Dominion fleet doctrine seems to boil down to "Bury The Enemy In Disposable Ships" since they can crank out ships and Jem'Hadar to crew them all they want, making even the big Dreadnoughts expendable to a degree and the crews manning them entirely expendable since you could just clone new ones in a week.
@@weldonwin So you go after the Ketracel white facilities they use to control the JemHadar.
Got to say, the RSE is probably the most underrated Alpha Quadrant race. Their race-specific inventions indicate a unified strategic policy which is head and shoulders above all the others. Consider:
1)The cloaking device, which makes them essentially immune to sensors, allowing them to hide their flight plans from all other powers. They pop out of nowhere with a devastating attack and pop back into hiding while the enemy is distracted and blinded.
2) The Singularity core. Although it is nerfed to produce less power than dilithium-moderated warp cores, it nonetheless allows the ships to be dilithium-independent, granting all such-equipped ships basically unlimited range. All the crystals in the world won't profit you once you're out of deuterium and anti-deuterium. This also means that the RSE needs a lot fewer dilithium resources than any other power to keep their ships flying.
3) The trilithium weapon. This will shut down all fusion reactions within a star, causing an implosion as the gravity keeping the outer layers of the star pulled in to the center is no longer counteracted by the fusion heat puffing those layers outward. Any star against which a trilithium weapon is launched is doomed, as are any planets orbiting it.
Now put these together. The Romulan Star Empire demands the capitulation of, let's say, Tellar Prime. The Tellarites refuse. Then, unknown to any sensor, a cloaked ship flies super-close to Tellar (the star), drops off a trilithium weapon, and warps away (the weapon could even be fitted to a warp-capable, cloaked torpedo or drone). Tellar implodes. Tellar Prime disintegrates. The Federation declares war on the RSE, after which every Federation system containing dilithium is bombarded with Trilithium weapons. Sol. Epislon Eridani. Betazed. Andor. Alpha Centauri. Any and every dilithium-equipped star system is wiped from the map, leaving the Romulans as the only power capable of sustained warp travel. The other powers knuckle under, or the same thing happens to Qo'nos, Cardassia, and Ferenginar. Romulus now rules the Alpha Quadrant, and any power that gets too uppity knows what will happen. In fact, the RSE doesn't even need a provocation; a change in the ruling faction in the Senate could bring a sneak attack against a still-collaborating world. The day may come when there is no more dilithium left in the Alpha Quadrant. Or even the Galaxy as a whole. Yet the Romulans are able to keep expanding, regardless. The Romulans have made themselves already masters of the Galaxy. Whenever they decide to push the button, it will be all over but the shouting.
*We will not tolerate espionage* !!!!!
And starfleet used tachyon detection net at the border they would immediately detect a cloaked ship
The dominion war really highlighted the failings in ships of intimidation the D’dedarex VS ships designed
To actually fight the Valdore
After most of their fleet was destroyed they really addressed this problem in the valdore
Thanks for using the quote from Birth of the Federation! To me it sums up the Romulans perfectly!
In an all out hot war with the Federation, the Romulans would have two unexpected disadvantages.
Full blood Betazoids can detect cloaked ships (Troi is only half) and fire on them, and what if a Betazoid weapons officer read the mind of the enemies chief engineer?
And the other is that Starfleet does have cloaking technology, it's just that they're not _allowed_ to use it (their illegal experiments with phasing cloaks worked far better than the Romulans attempts).
In Beta canon, every Starfleet ship has the replicator pattern for cloaking devices encrypted in their database, and it can be accessed by a fleet wide order from a Admiral or higher.
Then all Starfleet ships could upgrade in flight and at that point their other advantages would tip the scales.
A tougher cloaked Federation starship with a telepath able to read the minds of cloaked Romulan vessels…
And the Federation, and especially the Dominion have effective cloak detectors, it's just that they're visible themselves like a searchlight beam.
Romulan cloaks are part of a long-range policy of Imperial conquest of the Galaxy (see my other comment), and no phase-cloak advantage can outweigh that policy, unless the Federation is willing to send their ships sundiving as minesweepers.
Have always wondered what would happen if it came down to Dominion vs Borg... I don't think anyone's ever done a tactical analysis of both, and what would happen if the full force of both were to engage in war. Borg couldn't simply assimilate the Founders because they're shape-shifters, and the Dominion Warriors will just kill themselves upon attempt to assimilate. However, Borg ships are utterly formidable, and the Dominion would have a very tough time with them. Would *LOVE* a video on this.
Yes Indeed while the Klingons war strategy would be mostly hit and run raids and their cruisers would be more for fleet engagements as well as seige warfare. I think that the Romulans war strategy would be more of setting up their opponents for a turkey shoot. Meaning turning certain region into hot zones while having a fleet of cloaked warbirds in the safe zones. Once enough Federation ships build up in the safe zones and have their guard down then the Romulans will decloak and attack destroy every last Federation starship in the safe zones. That people in my opinion is the Romulans war strategy.
That is interesting and could explain why Federation ships go for more distribution of weapons across the ship hull instead of focusing at certain points. Allows them to have the ability to fire at any angle when surrounded with enough firepower to destroy ships. Or at least weaken them before the Federation ship turns on the enemy to unleash their torpedoes.
@@raw6668 Actually I think that the only reason why the Romulans haven't attacked the Federation is because they know that there's a high chance that they could lose. A war with the Federation would null and void the treaty of Algernon meaning Starfleet can finally equip their vessels with cloaking devices. This is why I think if the Romulans was to attack the Federation they need to hit ship yards, research facilities, and industrial targets to prevent Starfleet from rebuilding.
@@MackeyDeez I did not say the Romulans would avoid attacking the Federation due to starship design. I was just theorizing on Federation design, why it like that, and what it means for Federation tactics. It makes sense for an organization that places a defensive tactic against enemies that attack at any angle.
Regarding the "slugfest" weakness - Warbirds are huge with big weapons, but don't seem to hold up against faster and more maneuverable ships like Jem'Hadar fighters. That being said, once the Romulans arrived on the scene in the last year of the Dominion War they said "Let them continue to send their fleets against us and we'll continue to destroy them one at a time!" It appears they were content with being static targets and either slugging it out or ambushing whole enemy fleets.When they decided to attack they captured a lot of territory quickly.
I love those FASA designs. Great video!
Romulans also seem to have the intelligence advantage of knowing more about their enemy then how much the enemy knows about them.
Pfha section 31 would like to have a word
@@brooklyn560
And in the numerous battles we've seen Starfleet take part in, just how much did they know was actually accurate?
I always felt, both technologically and the intelligence the Romulans and Federation gathered on each other basically evened out.
Headless Chicken i don’t really understand your question. I’m guessing your saying Star Fleet had been caught off guard in fleet actions before. Well in that case I’d like to remind you that there is no section 31. I believe your thinking about Star fleet intelligence. Since an organization that doesn’t exist can’t just pass intel to the regular forces. If a organization like 31 did exist I’m sure they would deal with things in a more surgical manner than fleet actions
The organization known to some people as Section 31 is less of an organization and more of a loose network of independent agents operating without oversight and chain of command to achieve goals that probably not legal within Federation. Their strength is in their complete anonymity, and their M.O. are well suited to influence event on large scale, such as assasinating the head of state of a rivaling power or placing an agent at high ranking position within other government to influence their decision to be more beneficial to Federation interest.
Their M.O., however, barely give them advantage when it come to gathering intel on a smaller scale, such as specification of standard-pattern disruptor array on the Romulan B-type warbird, or the doctrine of a Cardassian battlegroup. Such information are gathered by shifting through tons of mostly irrelevant informations to get a few useful one, which necessitates a large number of information analysts. (they are reasons why both CIA and KGB have tons of people basically do nothing but read tons of newspapers during the Cold War.)
That was cool. My dad used to watch Star trek but it was never really my thing, so it is cool to get to learn about the different groups.
0:24 hahaha you really do love that ship!
Great job identifying the philosophical core of the Romulan military mindset as well as its pitfalls. You go beyond the tactical and into the operational and strategic realms that most people gloss over. Where I differ from you a bit, though, is seeming lack of Romulan capacity to fight heavy engagements. The Romulan capital ships like the D'deridex do have the profile for force-on-force engagements. However, the Romulans would clearly rather not fight like that as a reflection of their paranoia: powerful and aggressive but also overly cautious. They subscribe to Sun Tzu's ideas of winning the battle before you even start fighting and using deception to hobble your enemies. This, however, limits them strategically as conditions are rarely that good, especially if you think everyone is out to get you and you need forces in reserve to hedge against that. Fear is the Romulans' greatest weapon, but also their greatest weakness.
I would very much like to see your take on the Cardassians and the Dominion. Not the Borg, though, as there is no tactics involved really. However, as much as I'd like to see a Starfleet version of this, I do kind of dread it as it is really difficult to analyze the fleet doctrines of an organization that can't even be honest with itself as a military.
It'd be great if you could go to even a grand strategic level. The Klingons and the Romulans seem to me are forced to keep conquering as their political and economic structures collapse with peace. Unlike Starfleet and the Federation, they (or at least their respective empires) need justifications to exist in their own eyes, be it the vehicle of primal aggression for the Klingons or the instrument of rampant paranoia for the Romulans. Moreover, they seem (at least to me) to demonstrate limited ability to develop their territory/assets with a sufficient return on investments. Effectively speaking, they must conquer to survive. Peace would destroy them via internal decay as demonstrated for the Klingons by the Praxis incident, the many Klingon civil wars, and the immediate pre-Dominion War conflicts and for the Romulan by the reunification movement and the Shinzon affair.
Romulan space truckers have it the best imagine not being seen , and not needing your weapons , or shields charged as your truck Romulan wine.
I think you have a winner with this series, I look forward to the next one.
One small flaw on static target doctrine, they can use a similar tactic Dominion used by making it look vulnerable before decloaking and unleashing a barrage, but that's if they thought of that (esp since they're supposed to be masters of deception but caught with pants down on Founders homeworld by Dominion and a nearby nebula).
Another Great video i enjoyed it very much i look forward 2 seeing your nxt video
Please do Zentradi( SDF Macross) fleet tactics.
I second this, would be interesting.
@@ripchapley6878 it would mostly be a study of Bretai.
Excellent work.
I'd love to see this series continued. :)
Please do more thank you
Awesome! Absolutely, more like this, please!
I value your work.
Just found this video! How did I not see it? I am trying to catch up but Ive been following your channel for years.
You do forget that the T'varo Class ships were equipped with Cloaking devices as per Star Trek Enterprise 'Minefield'
great video i myself have talked about romulan tactics and strategies in my 'wings of Romulus' series. i must ask though, where does the d'deridex fit in as it is very clearly a 'slug it out' battleship. also im not sure attacking the static targets would work. in such an event the romulans would likely enact a scorched earth policy. and with the cloaking device their fleets could remain undetected and at large to threaten your own supply lines.
Dderidex reminds me a little bit of a big Russian ballistic missile submarine. Could be used as a surprise first strike weapon or as a command battleship in a slugfest. The original reason for the gap between the wings is interesting. Something I'd like to cover but you can also discover in one of Trekyards' interviews, and I agree with it. Dderidex is certainly meant to terrorize, to know a huge warbird could be stalking you, or waiting to take out a colony before anyone could do a thing about it!
@@resurrectedstarships yeah i mean the D'deridex is essentially the romulan version of a nuclear deterrent, being bigger and notionally stronger than any of its contemporaries. and as Andrew Probert say's 'carry a lot of bad guy stuff' . posing a huge threat to civilian populations. bearing in mind that the artificial quantum singularity give's the d'deridex infinite range; like a nuclear submarine. it would be safe to say that in the early 2360s before countermeasures were developed every major federation world probably had a cloaked warbird in orbit just waiting for the first strike order.
In the mean time till they get the nuke order. They are recording everything going on the planet like its a " Nature Show"
Like, " This is a standerize Japan high school and here are the locals work ethic to get good grads. " Their adults are making great effort to build androids to help with the care of their aging population.
And over here on the same planet , there are groups of people who "Believe" that the entire universe is only 6,000 years old.
@@krispalermo8133 and who say's intelligence gathering is boring. thats probably why the romulans never invaded, humanity is just too weird.
There is something to be said for killing the enemy before they can kill you back. Their stealth capabilities give them yet more tactical options.
Interesting vids and i agree with most of your points. The romulan and klingon ships use cloaking devices to sneak in to an advantageous position to attack their target from but even with shields up most ships in star trek could be destroyed quite quickly. If a romulan d type warbird for example fires first at a shielded galaxy class from a well chosen angle it would likely blow it apart or cripple it straight away. It would atleast leave the target vessel damaged enough to be easily defeated if it survives the initial assault and tries to put up a fight. The disruptor cannons on d type (d deridex) warbirds can be fired as beam or cannon fire as cannon fire is better for punching through enemy shields and beam fire is easier to direct and adjust and can more efficiently damage internal targets by being maintained. Romulans still use plasma torpedoes in the next gen era and i believe they use photonic torpedoes as well. In nemesis it looked like the new valdor romulan ships used disruptors in cannon mode and they also showed them firing disruptor bolts backwards at the scimitar which is interesting. The enterprise managing any hits at all was a bit silly. The first salvo of phaser fire went in lots of directions but at zero elevation so to manage a hit was daft. I like nemesis though.
Loved those old FASA Romulan ships
for a pre cloaking decice ships would just be Vulcan ships with an inbetween step being ships which mask scans when Archer on the NX enterprise the ship already has a cloak and a scan masking device.
I’ve always believed that the Romulans got the short end of the stick in Trek. Here’s a group of Vulcans who have embraced war like their forefathers. Vulcans have never been conquered. Balance of Terror portrays them as honorable veterans who skilled in the arts of war. Yet TNG reduced them to mere sideshows who have nothing once a sneak attack fails and become pathetic when they lose their flagships. RIP Romulans of old. How the mighty have fallen.
Great video can you do one on the Borg sometime.
Ships from Birth of the Federation. Long time, no see ;-)
Love the little intro romulan quote from BoTF as well
Great video!
The Romulan's are chess players. They plan everything out in advance and are willing to carefully take their time. It means in the long run they can be dangerous, but they tend to have issues reacting on the fly.
Archer on the NX-01 was the first to encounter a Romulan Bird of Prey which had a cloaking device, not Kirk.
Except if the writers of that episode had half a brain they would have respected the episode balance of terror, made a 20 min vid about this.
@@resurrectedstarships cant fault you on that. Just pointing out that it was retconned.
Do the dominion next.
What is Ferengi fleet doctrine, strategy, and tactics. That would make for a good video.
Please do Thrawn vs the Romulans 🙏
MCRN fleet doctrine
More please 😁
Dig the botf-citation! :)
I thought you said owls, lepers and jaguars. I had to go back and listen again.
This tactic is usually the way you want to fight any war. Ambush not fighting.
What were they using in Enterprise if they were not using cloaks?
They were using cloaks, he goofed.
Do it!
Nice.
is it possible to compare Homeworld ships in some way? I see their linear evolution halfway to things you have compared. How would they stack up.
2:00 Somebody likes Birth of the Federation :)
Great thanks, love the cloaking effect on the t10
Really interestin info :0
Romulans are truly a very dangerous foe
I sure miss being a Romulan.
how about the tactics of cardassians of star trek?
“Control is the only thing that matters. Methods are not important. Efficiency is what counts in the end. Exploit what you conquer, for in the struggle for survival, every resource is critical. History is written by the victors.”
Nice
How about breaking down real battles and wars from history? How about the battle in the movie 7 SAMURAI?
Is there gonna be Starfleet fleet tactic?
You forgot wisdom as well. they are related to the Vulcans. which means they live a lot longer then say humans or even Klingons
I don't think cloak is strategically valuable. Many times in star trek ships warp in from out of sensor range to aide an ally. While sometimes they can be seen coming it seems there are many opportunities to hide ships nearby. Even cloaked ships hide in nebula to improve their invisibility. The main issue seems to be the willingness of the romulans to sacrifice their own officers, and the officers willingness to sacrifice themselves, which none of the federation races can match
Romulans are cool.
Actually, Romulans rather liken themselves unto bird of preys.
Even in STO I love my plasma base weapons. Even if I am a Federation Engineer Captain. Just seeing those Plasma Fires on the enemy ship makes me know. They aren't cold in space anymore.....please don't send me to counseling. It isn't some sick twisted psychopathic thought process. I am Federation. Needs of others comes first!
And for all of these perks you list, the Romulan Fleet never wins. Every time we see it in action, it either loses badly or comes out a dubious draw. Often it has superior numbers and still loses. The Klingons in an alternate timeline, blow their wings off. The Dominion eats Warbirds for lunch and even the Remans, a Romulan slave race, blows apart two of the newest ships.
Romulans build big, fat targets that are the slowest of the main powers, are the most sluggish in a fight and have the weapons on par with the weak Cardassian kit.
The issue here is that the Romulans are not a conventional combat fleet. Their designs and strengths are set up for planetary bombardment and invasion. They are very much like Star Wars Imperial fleets, rather sucky in ship to ship but really shine in planetary bombardment.
They had clouk in archer's time
If the Romulans were the Leopards, the humans are the Tigers and Lions of the Galaxy
You didn't mention how their military is reliant on the tal shiar. Inspite of the citizens and the military's fear/ hatred of the organization. The Romulans would never strike unless they had tal shiar agents at work in the area.
The tal shiar would have been gathering intelligence, and have stoking any unrest to distract their target.
I think the Romulans are the paper tigers of Star Trek all they do is lose and get manipulated.
You watch way too much lore reloaded, may the deprogramming begin! :) jk, lore is cool.
Resurrected Starships awww I avoided using the term glass canon because I know he uses it. I need a thesaurus for talking a big game but not delivering. The romulans are the Canadian liberal party of Star Trek races
@Brandon G , you for got to add the cost of CGI in the early 1990's was high, so now really great on screen battles. But their was one good dog fight in the ep" Tin Man."
There were some good shows and there were so really bad ones. Like when Esn.Rao and Lt.Laforge got "phase cloaked " They made the Romulans look like cheap nosfurtu vampires and their command staff two bit back stabbers.
You hear the Klingons talk smack about the Romulans, but you don't hear about counter raids on pointy ears.
Secretly the Vucans and Romulans have always been in alliance with each other. It is the way to keep tabs on the shorter lived races. How do you tell the two apart ? Tell a real raunchy joke about a few Klingons, the ones who do not roll their eyes or give a snickering laugh
are well discipline Romulan.
Keep a strait face and call yourself a Vulcan trader ? Well that is one tall funny looking Ferengi !
A dull strait face Romulan with no sense of humor but really good in science , send them to train on Vulcan . A Vulcan that is a good war gamer with a temper, well you know where they get the best career at in which navy.
If the Vulcans need someone tapped, or distract the Klingons for awhile or get a group of worlds to work together and the klingons don't scare them ?
@@krispalermo8133 The fight in Tinman was a sucker punch from behind and runaway, not dog fight. Also don't forget that their Tal Shiar is infiltrated by the domnion, section 31 and spocks underground. A slave clone they made overthrew their government. Spock and Kirk tricked them with a made up vulcan ability which they are related to...
I guess that shows that deception truly is their greatest gift. They act so much tougher than they really are.
Need to add silver to the green. #NotAllSlytherins
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You are God.
Jolan Tru
someone could try their hands with GUNDAM ships and strategies
Very America tactics