Pulling Punches? Re-Analyzing The Cardassian Border Wars.
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- Опубликовано: 10 фев 2025
- Today we take a fresh look at one of my oldest projects on the channel: The Cardassian Border Wars. with the series now half a decade old and new information and research having been done. I question some of the assumptions i made when writing this series. in the course of doing so re-examining one of the most popular narratives; That Starfleet was 'pulling its punches' fighting the cardassians with one arm behind their back.
by taking a more wholistic view of this period of federation history i hope to counter this narrative, and offer a alternative vision of this conflict and its place in history.
This is such a satisfying argument. The alternative is Lore Reloaded’s contention that Golden Era Starfleet have forgotten how to make war at all and can’t bring themselves to kill the enemy and win. And the timing change to 5-10 years before TNG is perfect, especially considering Janeway is a veteran of those wars too.
I used to enjoy Lore's content. Unfortunately, he kept getting to cynical, even for me. And the way he keeps harping on Tuvix, arguing that one life outweighs two others, is kinda disturbing.
@ Sometimes I feel that way, but to me Lore has always been valuable AS a contrarian, transparently incendiary voice who still loves Star Trek as much as we do. Lore is the kind of person who criticizes Star Trek episodes because he loves Star Trek enough to care, not the opposite.
@JohnNathanShopper perhaps. But there's critique and then there's being needlessly cynical.
@@nicholaswalsh4462That’s fair. I dunno, I still enjoyed his later stuff. To each their own.
This reminds me of the Boer War in South Africa, where Britain tried beating a local rebellion "on the cheap." They never committed enough to win decisively, but put in enough to not lose, and that was more expensive than expected. Winston Churchill was really salty about it... and he fought in it.
First, I disagree with the notion that the Excelsior was an easy 1-1 battle for the Cardassians. Excelsior remained a front line vessel right through the Dominion war, and was key to the success of the Galaxy wings. Second, the Federation absolutely had a qualitative edge, and was pulling punches. They did not go from being technological peers, to the Federation being generations ahead of the Cardassians in 5 years. Both TNG and DS9 made it quite clear that Cardassians where well behind the Federation, and even the Klingons.
I do agree with your analysis about the Federation spreading itself thin, and in my opinion, never stepping up to go all in to win the war. Instead, they treated the border war like a mid 20th century "police action", from the cold war, where they sent troops to die, but never ramped up their society to a war footing. The result, as you illustrate with the Italy/Austria analogy, is one side fully committed to the war, and the Federation treating it as a distraction, even trying to down play it. That is definitely pulling punches.
But they didn't. In TNG we see one battle between Starfleet and the Cardassians and it is a battleship vs a destroyer. Hardly representative. In DS9 we saw plenty of examples of the Cardassians holding their own and that Galors could go toe-to-toe with ships in the same class. Galors were one-shoting ships and groups of even Galor Type IIs could easily take out Nebula Class ships. We also saw plenty of competitive Cardassian weaponry and tech. They may have been 20 years behind the Feds but not 'generations.' 20 years not a lot BTW. Prior generation weapons are plenty effective.
@@crownprincesebastianjohano7069 In DS9, Cardassians did not reach parity until the Dominion stepped in, which improved their ships significantly. In TNG, the Nebula absolutely smoked the Galor that was pursuing it, even after Enterprise had given them the prefix codes to the Galor, to lower their shields.
@@crownprincesebastianjohano7069 You need to rewatch season one of DS9 again. O'Brien clearly states that the station is well behind modern technology. To the point where they were only doing a partial conversion because the systems were substandard down to the core and that a full refit to Starfleet standards would have required years and a refit of every single computer system. They basically would have had to gut the station and install new systems from the ground up to undo the substandard technology on DS9. Did you not notice that the refit of that station NEVER actually finished. They were incimentally refiting that station continually.
While "Excelsiors" and "Mirandas" were in service for a very long time we have to also consider that we have no idea at what level any Excelsior on screen actually is. Except for the Ent B version we don't see many visual clues at to the "mark" of an Excelsior and in no way ships in service for that long haven't gone through refits or rebuilds.
The "Lakota" variant was dangerous enough to give the Defiant pause and she was blowing through JemHadar fighters like they were nothing (in some episodes).
@@nunya3163 I'm not talking about parity, you don't parity to win battles. You said 'generations behind' which is not completely true. Moreover, parity in naval terms is also secondary to doctrine and operational considerations. Fainlly, moreover people also do not evaluate ships properly. You evaluate relative value of ships against other ships in their role. Real war is not like War Thunder. A Galaxy Class ship is a battleship. A Nebula Class a heavy cruiser. I think it is obvious that a heavy cruiser can easily destroy a destroyer or medium cruiser which is what the Galor Type II and III are respectively. Cardassian doctrine, knowing full well they are behind in tech to the heavier Starfleet vessels is the use of large numbers of average cruisers and destroyers, to attack in numbers and to withdraw when the ratio is not favorable. If qualitative superiority was the only metric, than the Germans should have dominated armored warfare between 1943-1945 fielding AFVs superior to the Sherman or T-34. But that isn't how it works. For ever Tiger there were larger numbers of Shermans and T-34s which individually are weaker, but when one takes into account the strategic and operational factors, the Tigers were always outnumbered. There were only a handful of Galaxy Class ships at *_the end of the Border Wars_* and relatively few Nebulas until the mid-2360s. Starfleet's qualitative advantage grows much thinner when the average combatant in the Border Wars was the Miranda, Constellation or Excelsior Classes.
*Venom, you are one of the first people to actually understand how and why the Border Wars would have been fought.* 1) You understand security policy that means the UFP can never mass the majority of its ships almost anywhere. 2) You understand the actual make-up of Starfleet in the era, and that actually Starfleet didn't have the qualitative advantage people thought they did thanks to the overwhelming majority of their fleet being older ships with a few newer ones that need to show the flag elsewhere. 3) You understand the near-peer powers fighting on their doorstep can mass their forces to parity against a larger power stretched all over the place. *The Cardassians are a power with many systems. They have a large fleet that requires a large fleet to fight it.* 4) You understand that supporting a war further from UFP borders poses a problem, and how the Cardassians didn't have that problem. 5) You understand the nature of the fight wherein as the aggressive force in their own support zone, the Cardassians could pick and choose when to fight and when not to thanks to being able to fall back on their fortified space. 6) All wars are political and you understand that the UFP is almost never going to have the political support for a Total War and that the Cardassians are smart enough to understand how to conduct a fight against an enemy that loathes casualties.
I agree with you on some points and on others i disagree but I agree more than disagree.
@@crownprincesebastianjohano7069 glad you agree.
Aye. The Federations growth required Starfleet vessels patrol and assist not just on the frontier, but inside Federation space as well. You don't need cutting edge ships to look after the daily grind of the Federation so older ships still have utility... But when an emergency is called those old ships have to chug to the emergency zone and by then, some of those ships, travelling faster than they can reasonably travel would have thrown a gear or two.
Case in point, when Picard sought every ship to prevent the Romulans from helping Duras during the Klingon civil war... some of those ship's had problems that should disqualify them from frontier duty since they should never do the heavy lifting and need a Star Base close by to seek repairs.
I think point 2 is a bit flimsy as measuring the older classes capabilities is harder as some will have under gone major refits were as others may still be basically stock still. So one Miranda maybe peer vessel but another maybe end up being as dangerous as the new classes. In setting you see this with the Lakota being able to match the defiant in a fight
I mean irl you see this with the 1910s HMS Warspite going on to fight the 1930s Roma class battleships and be a match for them.
So I think there fleet being composed of older ships isn't as much of qualitative weakness as made out.
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Nice job. The farther a war is from home, the harder it is to win fast.
TNG, _The Wounded_ - Gul Macet: "Captain Picard, can you pretty please help us defeat a single Nebula Class Science Vessel that's one - shotting our starships?"
DS9, _Defiant_ - Gul Dukat: "Captain Sisko, can you pretty please help us defeat a single Defiant Class escort that's one-shotting our starships?"
No threat. The only reason the Federation didn't "win" is because they hardly tried.
@@Idazmi7 Thank you!
I think Starfleet was "pulling punches" like America "pulled punches" in Vietnam, not holding back, really, but more held back by politics and rules of engagement. I don't think there was any political will or public support for Starfleet to steamroll the Cardassians. They were nowhere near an existential threat to the Federation, so the Federation government likely kept Starfleet on a leash for reinforcements and supplies.
The Cardassians are more like Ukraine to Russia, or France or the UK to the US. Cardassia was a major power by then, whereas the UFP is a Superpower. It would take a considerable percentage of Starfleet to conquer the Cardassian Union and democracies rarely engage in total wars.
@@crownprincesebastianjohano7069 Good point. Definitely agree about democracies rarely fighting total wars
@@joshpetersen5968 thing is with Vietnam. Its a Mix I don't think anyone would call rolling thunder "pulling punches".
@@venomgeekmedia9886 Understood. But the reason I went with Vietnam was it was the closest analogue I could think of (at the moment I posted) where there was a conflict between two non peers with one side being under no existential threat, and lacking the political will and public support to fight to the finish.
@@venomgeekmedia9886 it's pulling punches in the sense we never invaded the north. Had America used it's full power things might have been different and so I do think it's an apt comparison with the Federation. Isn't the lore that the federation didn't want to use any ships from the galaxy program because they wanted to be seen as ships of peace? That would be indicative of fighting with one hand behind ones back
I think something you’ve overlooked here is regional infrastructure and constraints, and when I say constraints I mean like spacial anomalies and nebulas which may do things like increase metal fatigue on the hull, make navigation/weapons go haywire or have critical components (e.g. bussard collects) need replacing by more often. To use a real world example, the Dutch East Indies. Atmospheric conditions, difficulty of the seas, the vast distances and the general infrastructure led to the Dutch creating ships specifically to operate in the unique conditions. Ships like the De Reuter, Java class, or the very unique Admiralen class which was a destroyer equipped with a float plane.
I’d argue that the border area was similar to this: vastness of the area, lack of infrastructure and spacial conditions meant that starfleet couldn’t just deploy ships to the region because the starfleet standard ships just weren’t cut out for it. I’d hypothesis that ships deployed to the border war each had to go through modifications just to make their usage viable, a sort of micro refit if you will. That’s why Starfleet deploys so few ships there, because every ship they do deploy is one they have to take out of service, spend months refitting then even more time retraining crews on. Because this is something that the federation won’t standardise on (because that’s admitting there is a war going on) it has to be done on a case-by-case basis which consumes even more time. The federation won’t make ships designed to fight in this region either because that means admitting there is a war, and not just border skirmishes. As you said, because starfleet was going through such a big redevelopment of its fleet, that means taking dockyard space away from building the Brams (Brahms?) line galaxy ships and using them to refit older ships, something starfleet undoubtedly gave a low priority in the production world. Then include maintenance time for ships out there (I forget exactly what the rule of thumb is, but generally it’s about of third of any given fleet down for maintenance at any given time) and the federation fleet size regionally hits manageable numbers for the cardiassians to fight.
The cardassians meanwhile can spend their time producing ships specifically designed to conduct warfare in this region, ships they don’t have to spend time meticulously retraining crews on and can regiment and standardise in military academy’s. The cardiassian would also be giving the production of their ships the top priority, while starfleet is giving the modifications to their existing ones a lower priority. The result being that the rate both sides trickle ships in theatre actually evens out.
The end result being that the federation isn’t pulling their punches, they just don’t have the local advantage. Sort of like the Japanese did in the Russo-Japanese war; the Japanese couldn’t win a long war, they just didn’t have the capacity to fight one. They just had to make winning the war more trouble than it was worth to the Russians.
Perhaps if they had an ace fighter pilot that never talks on their side....
Good points. Many advantages to the regional power fighting in its region.
@@madkabal ISAF Ace: >
@@ISAF_Ace This is a really interesting point. I wonder if the Bhrams line would make this better or worse.
I wouldn't say they were pulling their punches but also weren't taking it as seriously as they should. When the Dominion War came around, nearly EVERY ship was pushed into the fight. I'd wager the only ships doing science and exploration were old Oberths and the like and even some of those were pulled in if only for supply runs and medical evacuations. Had Starfleet pulled back from science and exploration, they could have committed more to the fight. It reminds me of the Vietnam War policy of containment rather than seeking victory. They put enough in the fight to contain the problem but not enough to solve the problem.
NOw this is the closest thing to making sense I've seen on this video.
Oh gee I wonder why a massive threat to the entire alpha quadrant was treated in such a vastly different manner to a small regional power.
@ That's the attitude that got a lot of young men needlessly killed in Vietnam.
@@madrabbit9007 What got a lot of young men needlessly killed in Vietnam was America being full of idiotic war hawks but go off I guess.
I agree the number of ambassador class ships were stretched thin over multiple fronts but…. I think excelsior class ships were under valued as a capital ship. It was starfleets previous top of the line vessel and they keep that ship in the line even through the dominion war. I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re updating its shields and phaser banks to just below or on par with ambassador class ships. Maybe not all got the refit but maybe a dozen or so as the border war pressed on.
Excelsior-class ships seem to be competent foes with large modernisation potential built into them from the start. We see the Lakota being able to cause serious damage to the Defiant and take a pounding (albeit suffering more casualties, possibly due to a lack of ablative armour question mark) while packing quantum torpedoes. That alone probably brought her, combat wise, at least close to an Akira in initial punching power.
I've always been of the opinion that the Excelsior was the do-all workhorse that Starfleet needed, with the Sovereign class being designed as an effective replacement for the Excelsior for the next hundred or so years.
@ exactly they would put some of the latest technology on excelsior to maintain fleet strength and ability!
One look at the Battle of Wolf 359 shows the ships making up the home fleet were largely from the lost era. Star Fleet seemed to have retired all the old Constitution Class in favor of the Excelsior and the Miranda class and its variants were common but anything newer than those were rare.
It seems the long period of peace with the Klingons and the Romulan disappearance allowed the Federation to become complacent.
It wasn't until the Borg proved how weak they were that new ships began to become produced.
@@ravenmoon5111 Well mostly, but there’s actually a Connie at Wolf 359. Where the hell they found that Constitution class is beyond me but evidently they were still kicking around somewhere.
@@nicholasavasthi9879 probably a training ship running cruises to Alpha Centauri🤣
The ultimate irony is that Wolf 359 actually ended up saving the Federation. The destruction of an entire fleet in just a few minutes was the swift kick in the ass the Federation needed to realize they had been far too neglectful of the threats outside their borders.
By the time the Dominion appeared on the scene, the Federation had the newer ships ready to
I feel the notion of the Cardassians being an actual difficult problem to deal with falls apart when you consider how the Klingons, themselves a second-rate power, easily crushed them when they declared war. The only reason the Federation couldn't have done the same is simply because its wasn't a priority for the Federation Council. I think this flippant attitude is best conveyed by Riker who across TNG openly struggles with taking Starfleet's defense role seriously. The Federation would be much better served if the roles of research/exploration and security were divided into separate agencies. As it stands the competing roles has left the security side of things in the hands of an agency whose internal culture runs counter to it.
Based on what we were shown in the shows it always felt like the Federation Council is hopelessly complacent and negligent. Busy patting themselves on the back while their borders get nibbled away by outside powers and their colonies fall apart to neglect.
Hard Disagree. You're comparing the Klingons after decades of peace with the UFP in a bloodlust to wage total war against a decades earlier conflict with a power that does not do total war and has to keep protecting everywhere all at once.
I think it's unfair to call the Klingons a second-rate power. In the timeline where the Enterprise-C disappeared, the Klingons were dominant in their war with the Federation (which included ships in the Galaxy family), so much so that Picard was forced to concede to Captain Garrett that the Federation was only six months away from being forced to surrender.
Then there was the brief Federation/Klingon conflict in the prime timeline after Chancellor Gowron withdrew from the Khitomer Accords, and Starfleet clearly suffered losses in these engagements even while the Klingons were focused on the Cardassians. From both of these examples it is clear that once the Klingons decide on waging full scale war, they hold nothing back. A second-rate power they definitely are not.
@@Lennis01They also held the line alone against the dominion for an extended period. There's no reason why we should assume that the Klingons are anything less than a true peer to the Federation.
But the Klingons *_didn't_* crush the Cardassians. They conducted a surprise attack, made some progress, disabled the regional fleet and then had to stop. They took no major worlds, didn't engage the primary Cardassian fleet that was positioned at the DMZ 80 light-years away, and only had a shallow foothold. And once they stopped they were stuck. For nearly two years they made zero headway. Whereas it is true the Klingons were now fighting a two-front war, if the Cardassians had been broken it wouldn't have mattered. Not only that, but after nearly two years of attritional warfare, the Cardassians routed the Klingons from Cardassian space in only 78 hours with only 80 Dominion ships acting as a vanguard. The Klingons had 100s of ships in Cardassian space and offensives require planning, IPB and weeks if not months of logistics build-ups and at the very least numerical parity in warships. The Cardassians executed that offensive with Dominion assistance in ships only. They did all the leg-work prior and clearly had rebuilt their fleet, or didn't suffer that heavy loss to start with.
@crownprincesebastianjohano7069 nothing you've said here makes sense. It's stated in DS9 that 1/3rd of the Klingons fleet attacked Cardassia. The Klingons only pulled back, when the Federation rescued the entire Cardassian leadership, remember Dukat evacuated the Cardassian Government. They expected to lose!
The DMZ is not 80 light years away. It's literally right next to Bajor, which is only a couple of light years from Cardassia prime.
I've said before that I think you are grossly underestimating the number active ships Starfleet has in the mid-24th century by at least an order of magnitude if not two. So with that being the case, I disagree with your final assessment.
However, I do find that you have a good point that the UFP also has to deal with the Klingons, Romulans, Talarians, and Tzenkethi; but with exception of the Tzenkethi, I think all those fronts would be secondary to the Cardassian one in the 2340s & 2350s.
I was also going to pose the question, why is Star Fleet so small if it has so many obligations, over so much space. But I suppose we can chalk that up in large part to the Federation's internal politics and complacency. Sitting safely on Earth, it's easy for the Federation's leaders to say "Well, we're not officially at war with anyone and it would be deeply unpopular with our member states to ask them to contribute more funding and resources to Star Fleet. I'm sure they'll handle things with what they've got"
@weldonwin I think it's just Venom being Venom. He often pulls things like this out of thin air.
The registry numbers already give us some form of idea of how Starfleet is growing, given the fact that we still see ships in the 1xxxx and 2xxxx range serving alongside ships in the 5xxxx and 6xxxx registry range during TNG. By DS9 and VOY we're comfortably into the 7xxxx range. In fact, it's only just before TNG that the Constellation-class appears to be mostly retired and those ships are in the 2xxx range. So Starfleet clearly is building ships at a large scale and, more importantly, frequently holding onto hulls for at least fifty years if not more.
Of course, we do need to account for the fact that, by DS9, craft capable of limited independent operations like runabouts also end up on the NCC registry which probably explains why Starfleet doesn't have 50,000 ships ready for the Dominion War but I'd be utterly shocked if the total fleet size was less than 10,000 actual starships.
I agree. It doesn't seem right to assume Starfleet only had circa 400 ships in the entire fleet in the mid 2360s when they were having fleets and fleets of ships of 100+ in the Dominion war.
Even if they rushed newly-commissioned ships and recommissioned mothballed ships, it doesn't seem plausible to increase the number from 400 to multiple thousands. Bearing in mind the fleet that took back DS9 had 600 ships it!
no way starfleet doesn’t have 1000s of ships.
@@casimirgroeck I don't remember exactly which show it was (but probably some throwaway line in DS9) where I heard an approximate percentage of ships being lost, and when coupled with other lines mentioned in DS9 in another episode where the fleet sent to Kyra had something like 114 ships, I calculated that Starfleet should have around 12000 ships in total; including reserves, front line, supply, command, and transport ships etc etc. At least 10000 would make more sense.
I still think Starfleet was "Pulling punches."
The interesting qualifier you added to your argument was that Starfleet wasn't pulling its punches, because of its other commitments.
I see that logic, but to flip it on its head, believe that Starfleet not moving the Cardassian conflict up in terms of priority says a lot about them pulling punches.
Most of this comes down to which piece of somewhat contradictory canon do you want to go with.
During Operation return, we know that Sisko pulled elements of of three fleets and got about 600 combat ships.
Even if we assume he pulled as much as 50% from each fleet, that leave those fleets at about 400 ships each.
In Best of both worlds we get the idea that losing ~40 starships (Probably more) to the Borg was a great loss.
I don't think these are too contradictory, losing 40 starships is still a big deal, even if you have hundreds or thousands to call on especially if they were all from the same area.
It's also a significant loss of trained crew.
We get some other unexplained lines, like in the wounded where they say "Starfleet can't handle another sustained conflict" Which isn't very helpful, because no real reason is given, only inference.
I lean more towards the idea that Starfleet, Post Klingon cold war and moving into the golden age was building a lot of ships, to match those DS9 numbers we see in the 2370s.
I think this matches up much better with the scale of the Federation as a whole. They have multiple century old shipyards able to put out new starships.
I also think that on the whole, Starfleet was on a technological edge compared to the Cardassians. While the Cardassians may of been able to match an Excelsior and Miranda, but there were a number of more modern Starfleet designs in good production by that time.
On top of that I'd say their crews are better trained than the Cardassian crews.
My personal view is that for the Cardassians to draw the conflict out as long as they did, given that they had less to work with. They would of been using Asymmetric tactics and strategies.
Sneaking troops onto planets and digging in around population centres to force Starfleet to engage on the ground, where their technical advantage was less apparent.
Using deception to distract and avoid federation ships.
The sheer scale difference between the Cardassian's and the Federation lean towards this being the most likely occurrence.
We also get some minor lines that inform this as well.
"Two years I spent on the Cardassian border. Two years fighting Guls and Legates and Glinns. They were cunning enemies. Always had us chasing holo-projections and sensor ghosts. Everything was a game with them. Always had a plan within a plan within a plan leading into a trap."
This tells us the Cardassians were well practiced in guerrilla conflict.
Drawing Starfleet ships into traps, sneaking troops onto colonies and digging in.
That's why I see the cardassian conflict being so difficult for Starfleet to end.
I'm sure I can argue more points, but this is already too long.
You paragraph your talking points, it was a nice read.
When taking the landscape of the Badlands (which is within Cardassian space during the Border Wars) it makes sense the Cardassians would know how to use their terrain to disrupt the Federation. Given the Maquis being mostly ex-Starfleet, it's likely they would have used their experience from the Cardassian Border Wars to essentially turn the tables on the Cardassians (and weaken the Federation's standing)
Thank you, Venom for once again pouring your heart and soul into a well cited position. It is unfortunate that so many will continue with their dubious pre-conceived notions about the conflict and demonstrate that there is no argument that can't be ignored.
This discussion fits very well with "The Wounded." I can see Starfleet sending an experienced diplomat in one of its most powerful ships to the border. I can see Maxwell, now in command of a ship with a decisive advantage, wanting to prevent a war any way he can but unable to stop himself from punishing his old foe along the way. If TNG had this video as backstory, the episode would have been much more dramatic than it already was.
I think you're right that Starfleet was almost certainly putting enough ships into the Cardassian border wars to keep the Cardassians contained whilst not compromising anything else they were doing. Starfleet was stretched. However I can still see why people like Captain Maxwell would think Starfleet pulled their punches. It would have been a gamble but I suspect the likes of Maxwell would have compromised a couple of their other mission areas to pull together a larger task force to deliver a decisive knock-out blow against the Cardassians.
I also wonder if Federation politics played a part. Being over-stretched, Starfleet should have been able to produce a lot of ships not only to plug holes but to build a significant reserve of ships to call on when one of these border wars sparked. Perhaps the Federation stalled over ship production, not wanting to be seen as building a war fleet by their own citizens and also to keep the Romulans calm.
That's my read.
The thing is, of course, the Federation wasn't doing itself any favors by doing this contain nonsense. Much like with the Talarian conflict, the Federation could have easily stomped if they focused, but they didn't, which in the end cost them more than they would have lost had they just focused for a sort period of time to bring its full force to bear.
The Federation may have been stretching itself, but long term it wasn't showing lesser antagonistic powers to not mess with them. It showed them that they could pose a threat, because daddy was too busy focusing on a dozen different things to give you a proper spanking.
But, well, we're talking about a post Klingon peace treaty Federation, where they were expanding in all directions and the lead up to the mentality of Riker to consider war to be "a minor province" in the make up of a captain, and Picard smugly assuming that the Federation could handle anything... right before Q introduced them to the Borg.
Which is hilariously within the same time frame of the Cardassian and Talarian conflicts.
oh boy, I love stuff from this era of Trek. It's really interesting.
I think it's pretty simple, Starfleet just didn't see a need to apply their full force to the conflict. Sometimes you need to pull punches so you look like the good guy. Back during the early part of the second Gulf War I worked for two different oil companies as a security contractor ( private soldier ) and there were many times we wished the US Military would take a harder stance but they chose not to in certain areas and due to that we contractors had to actually do some serious fighting. The government wanted to be the good guys in the eyes of the world but it made my job much harder protecting the oil companies interest even though it benefited the government. I had to do some very unpleasant things that still keep me awake at night because the military didn't want to put all in.
It's true that The Federation has a different stance on war compared to many of their neighboring powers. Asking a pacifist-leaning military to be the aggressor is a hard sell.
The advantages of Starfleet vessels were that they had better sensors, better cruising speeds, and better shields compared to the Cardassian Union.
So Starfleet could choose when to begin an encounter, and this made them often hesitate to engage, because if a battle started to go badly, they were at a disadvantage when starting a withdrawal. It was much the same way with the Klingons. Klingon vessels, especially with cloaking devices, were good at ambushes and short high-warp sprints, but lousy at sustaining higher warp cruising speeds. By contrast, Starfleet starship nacelles were kept so far away from the rest of the vessel, because they were literally hot rods, with warp coils that could sustain higher warp cruising speeds compared to most of the other Alpha Quadrant powers.
By the time of The Border Wars, The Federation had played too wide and had spreaded their forces too thin.
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I feel like the answer to whether Starfleet was pulling punches depends on which "phase" of the war we're talking about. Early on, probably not. In the later parts pre-TNG where it's likely more of a skirmish war and they have more modern designs that can deal with the threat easier, probably. As for the Cardassians... they're a regional power. I don't think they could pull punches if they wanted to throw down with the Federation successfully.
I think your fleet numbers are off. If the fleet size was ~400ish for (early) TNG, you then have to say that it jumped by at least x10 by the Dominion War. Remember, two fleets split off part of their forces for Operation Return. Those two groups combined totaled over 600 ships alone. It didn't sound like it was a major part of those fleets being pulled away, but also certainly not the entire fleet. And there were upwards of 10+ fleets operating during the war. I don't feel like Borg panic + rising threat of the Dominion was enough to enable Starfleet to jump x10-x20+ in size of proper sized ships (no runabouts) in likely under a decade.
Unless you want to argue that Starfleet kept building ships and immediately mothballing them, and they just cycled ships in and out of mothballs while leaving the active navy size at ~400. Which, to be honest, does sorta feel like something that might happen if you can keep ordering ships to "preserve industrial knowledge/skills" but lack the manpower to crew them. ...And I'm now imagining Starfleet Command explaining to Parliament that they don't need increased construction but increased recruiting, because they have 30-40k ships in mothballs - many in like new condition! - they can just take out, modernize as needed, and get crewed.
@@nekophht Given that the size of Starfleet in the Dominion war seemed to swell incredibly quickly that’s more or less always been my interpretation. Sort of like the USN after the Civil War. Huge Union fleet almost completely mothballed.
Hello Venom, I think your proposed revisions are pretty reasonable way to view the border wars, and I look forward to hearing more of your theories. I've been a long time listener, and am happy to be commenting for the first time.
I like your more nuanced proposals for why the Federation might have not been more aggressive in the Border wars. However, I still think having the Federation and Starfleet not taking the threat posed by the Cardassians seriously enough in the border wars, only for the Cadrassians to escalate to helping to start the Dominion War creates an pretty effective narrative around the real dangers of not treating authoritarian states as existential threats they are to everyone. Ultimately you are the master of the story you choose to tell, but I hope my thoughts are useful or at least entertaining.
Your proposal that the Cardassians, Tzenkethi, and Talarians were in somehow collaborating so that the Federation would have to divide their attention among them rather than being able to concentrate on and conclusively defeat any one of them is really brilliant. This is especially funny because beta canon usually depicts these powers neighbors who hate each other, so I can guess that any collaboration between them would quite entertainingly tumultuous. I do hope you can give a bit of time to proposing theories about the Tzenkethi, Talarians, or other obscure aliens nations and how they could fit into the wider Star Trek universe, whether politically or in terms of storytelling.
I think the Romulans could also have an interesting role to play in the border wars. I have no doubt that the Romulans would be happy use the Cardassians, Tzenkethi, and Talarians as proxies to distract and weaken the Federation. Even if it was not an overt alliance, it is the kind of political scheming that would fit the Romulans like a glove. In particular, I think the political relationship between the Romulans and Cardassians would be interesting and ripe with storytelling opportunities given their similarities and differences as authoritarian imperialistic powers.
Awesome video great explanation of fleet assessment and technology of both sides.
People always talk about the Galaxy Class abusing a Galor, but the vast majority of Starfleet ships in the 2340s and 2350s were pretty old. A Galor Type 2 is not going to be outclassed by a Miranda Class and because they travel in packs, can handle Excelsiors. Plus the Cardies are fighting in their immediate near abroad. If they ever ran into a Galaxy or Nebula they would simply choose not to engage them. People assume the Cardassians were stupid and actually stand up and fight against superior ships. They wouldn't. Everything we know about the Spoonheads is that they don't fight fair. They'll attack old ships because they know causing losses is the same as winning when fighting a democracy.
To an extent that depends on the democracy. Trying that with Rome didn’t tend to go well.
Tiger syndrome. For every Galaxy there are 50 old ass ships that the Galor is perfectly capable of wooping.
The Amabassador still has an edge.
Part of the problem is how the Cardassians were first introduced. In their first appearance we see a single rogue Nebula class steamrolling its way through their space with them completely unable to deal with it. It takes the Enterprise to clean up the mess while the Cardassians sit there whining and crying the whole episode. This gives the distinct impression that they are weaklings and reflects poorly on Starfleet's leadership if those weaklings have been such a persistent problem.
Speed is a major factor, and is Starfleet's party trick. The Enterprise D kept up with a Borg cube going all out, after all, while the Sovereigns and Intrepids were even faster. It gives them a critical advantage.
I think some people often forget that the Federation is MASSIVE. Picard says it covers 8,000 light years and we know that the Federation divides space into Sectors, cubes roughly 20 light years on a side. Even at Warp 9, that still takes almost five days to traverse. At the Ambassador's cruising speed of Warp 7, that's a bit over eleven days.
If we look at the map provided in Star Trek Charts, the Federation covers a LOT of Space and there needs to be patrols in many areas. The Federation-Cardassian Border is five sectors long. Then there is the 12 sector long border with the Romulans. Then 8 more sectors are the Klingon Border. Then there is the distance across the Federation, four or five sectors from the Romulan Neutral Zone to the Cardassian Border and two from the nearest part of the Klingon Border. So even the shortest journey to redeploy forces would still take 22 days, that is three entire weeks. And that assumes nothing breaks anywhere else.
All things considered, Starfleet is a formation that has basically the same problem the Royal Navy did in the 19th and early 20th century or that the US Navy has today. Quite simply, there is more space for Starfleet to patrol and police than there are hulls and warm bodies to do it.
I would argue that you underestimate the number of ships in Starfleet, simply because 330 ships is WAY small for polity that spans THOUSANDs of light years. Hell, the US Navy managed to hold 600 ships in commission during the Cold War and still maintains around 300 warships in full commission even with budget sequestration and things like that. An entity with the industrial resources of hundreds of worlds and hundreds of billions of people could certainly maintain more ships that the Earth Bound US Navy.
Awesome analysis. Thank you for it 🙏
You're onto a new series with this video. You successfully break down Starfleet's doctrine/production capabilities and their ever-increasing level of commitment. It wasn't lost on me WHY you showed Wolf 359 - because to me, it was that one moment where Starfleet's logic of "well, we can just keep refitting older ships - look, we're holding the line everywhere, we can afford to focus on pushing the limits with these fewer bigger ships" was brutally ended. On top of this, we have the Maxwell incident - where many of the frontline commanders of the Boarder Wars were proven right that the Cardassians were gearing up for another go.
I think you should continue this by covering Wolf 359, Maxwell's proved correct, and the "reality check" that forced a shift of design/construction toward smaller, more modular combat-capable ships. You can even go a step further in a third video by covering the last gasps of the older thinking - refitting the Miranda, Excelsior, Centaur, and The Frankenstein Fleet to plug the holes while these newer ships start replacing them in numbers. You can cap it off with possibly a fourth video on how all of this converged into a jumping off point for the fleet reconstruction efforts following the Mars fiasco in the early 25th century that produced the Inquiry Class - and the extensive "refits" that produced ships like the Titan A.
TL/DR:
"The Reality Check" - Wolf 359, "The Maxwell Incident", and The Jem Hadar
"The Last Gasp" - The final refits of the Mirandas, Centaurs, Excelsiors, and The Frankenstein Fleet
"What's Old is New" - Mars is gone, Inquiry Printer Go Brrrrr, and Recycling Up (Titan A "refit")
Really enjoyed how you teased out the chronology at the beginning. For me, I think Starfleet pulled it's punches, though mahbe as part of a deliberate strategy engineered by the Admiralty to deplete, not defeat, the Cardassian navy, perhaps for fear of reducing Cardassia to a failed state with all the chaos and unpredictability that would ensue.
Oh I remember this discussion. As spoken, I'm in almost total agreement with you. We tend to think of Starfleet (rightly so at times) as a technological terror of thousands of invincible ships that could flip black holes upside down on a whim.
But what if they're a real (space) navy with limitations and committments. You mentioned the Italian-Austrian war, I submit for your consideration the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean in WW2. Cunningham had to make do with old tubs like Warspite and Barham due to the empire's global commitments, while the Regia Marina was able to sortie very modern and capable ships thay could match, or even beat, Cunningham's best.
I'm looking forward to more revisits, these are so much fun to watch and discuss
Nice point on the RM. Littorio Class was amazing.
@@Relav1364 Arguably an even more extreme example than the RN in the Med was the RN in the Pacific. The full strength of the Royal Navy was roughly a match for the IJN but they never deployed anything even resembling that full strength until 1945, by which point the IJN was already largely defeated.
Interestingly if you look at Force Z from the start of the Pacific Campaign it’s a little more potent than Cunningham’s fleet, with Repulse and Prince of Wales being fairly modern ships but facing a far larger and deadlier foe.
@@nicholasavasthi9879 Somewhat different cases, the med is much closer to England than Japan, but I understand what you're trying to get at. For the BPF, the challenge was operating so far from home in tropical waters that British ships were frankly not suited for (limited a/c and frozen food storage, issues with electrical wiring melting and ammunition corrosion etc). The same might be said of Starfleet, depending on how far you believe Cardassian space is
Hey! Major props for the Austria-Hungary reference. Combining WWI and Star Trek, two of my favorite topics. :)
And now for the 13th battle of Insonzo!
@chadwickst.clair-smythe4217 Blackadder could have been the greatest general the Italians had in that war.
I know you haven't run out of ideas 😉😉, but if you had I think a video about the Kzinti wars would be interesting. I imagine your headcanon might incorporate some more of Miseo Ukazaki's museum designs given the timeline changes you made for the Romulan War. I know the designs were from like 50 years later at the earliest but I think it could be doable and I just love them so much it's a shame for people to forget about them.
To be honest I just have a craving for 22nd century and starfleet content, the way you build a coherent timeline is so unique and interesting.
Perhaps we just have a case of an admiralty so laser focused on Romulus that the Cardassians were just a sideshow for them. Conservative culture and narrow vision on a single adversary can do that, kinda like how in Earth history some powers ended up in wars with no game-plan and were making it up on the fly.
This is true after 2365, but the Romulans had been dormant until Season 1 of TNG. It is more likely that the reemergence of the Romulans was a proximate cause of the UFP deciding to make peace with the Cardassians and willing to do so by giving them some concessions. I think the UFP was simply too big, that Starfleet had grown soft after the Khitomer Accords, and that the Cardassians were also a pretty major power with a big fleet. The allocation would have been quite a lot. Plus, supporting a large fleet on the frontier is a taxing enterprise whereas the Cardassians were on the very doorstep and fought from fortified space.
@@Redlin5 See much of Roman history where conflicts with Persia frequently took priority over border conflicts in Germania or Britannia.
One interpretation I’ve seen is that the Federation wasn’t pulling its punches but was being hamstrung by the politics of the era, forcing it to rely on older starships (Excelsiors, Miranda’s, Constellations) or less combat-oriented ships (Springfields, Ambassadors, Cheyennes), which lead to more… debatable military effectiveness
They only really had older ships then, about 85% of the fleet were 23rd Century, or early 24th Century legacy ships. The major leap forward happened after Wolf 359.
I think a large contention of your analysis depends on which you believe to be the more accurate estimate based on the (admittedly sometimes contradictory) information we get from canon.
The options are, either Starfleet has a small (as you estimated) fleet of around 400 combat-capable ships (not counting transports, short-range hoppers, essentially the equivalent to liberty ships, troop transports, and merchant marine), which the necessitates them ramping up production and crew training on a gargantuan scale to reach the numbers of ships we see in DS9 by the end of the Dominion War, or, alternatively, Starfleet has a larger number of ships available (thousands, certainly, though I'm hesitant to put an exact number down without significantly deeper investigation), but is unwilling or unable to commit a significant enough number to actually win the war, so to speak. Each of these options has their own advantages and drawbacks to consider when it comes to how reasonable they are.
A smaller fleet, as you surmised, means Starfleet is exceedingly stretched thin on all fronts and thus incapable of detaching enough ships to effectively combat the Cardassians, and while I thoroughly enjoyed your analysis, this brigns up several questions. First, if as you suggested, the Starfleet detachment was roughly half of the Cardassian fleet in the AO, it should still be possible to make headway using asymmetric warfare tactics; after all, if the Cardassians suddenly find themselves on the defensive against a massed Starfleet assault, it should be possible to inflict losses by attrition. Now, this works both ways, and is highly dependent on the skill of the commander. Second, this also depends on the kinds of resupply and repair facilities available to both powers nearby, as logistics is going to heavily influence who can return their ships to battle-readiness quicker.
However, the biggest issue I have with your count of roughly 400 Starfleet ships of the era is that it doesn't leave a lot of time to build up to the numbers that we see dispatched during the Dominion War. Sure, the ships are one thing - you have an entire quadrant (or a significant portion of one) capable of supplying resources, labour, and dozens, if not hundreds of shipyards, assuming the Federation went full "total war" mode and began turning civilian manufacturing to wartime production much like the US did during WW2. However, manpower is always going to be an issue, and while coming up with the ships is one thing (perhaps many from mothballs, as well), training the crews for them and finding experienced command staff to fill the vital positions is another matter. We do, of course, see ships also crewed by cadets with only one or two experienced officers aboard, but I'm uncertain if that's the exception or the rule.
The alternative option is that Starfleet has several thousand ships available - which only mitigates the margin by which it is over-extended, however. Borders need to be patrolled, pirates chased down, and when you account for ships that are down for maintenance, repair, or refit, even thousands of ships seem barely adequate to cover a space as big as the Federation's territory. It is, however, still possible to make the argument that the initial run of Ambassadors, as was the case with the Galaxy-class, was limited and therefore only available to be detached for the Cardassian Border War in limited number, if at all. In this case, it comes down to what the political and social sentiment of Starfleet is; was the Council weary of the extended cold war with the Klingons and wanted to move on to peace time and thus afraid of escalating what they saw as a minor border squabble in fear of igniting a full-on war? Was the general population unwilling to commit ships and fighting men to the border for worlds they didn't even know existed?
Considering the general nature of the Federation and the fact that war is usually bad on any politician's portfolio, my inclination is towards the latter, especially when considering that I find it difficult to believe that the Starfleet of that time, which likely entered a phase of rapid expansion after no longer having to deal with the decades-long threat of the Klingons, only had 400 combat-capable ships at their disposal. Even if we're being generous and double that number to account for ships laid up in drydock for various reasons, that seems rather small to cover this vast area of space, especially since many of the founding member worlds likely had their own navies integrated into the Federation in some way or another.
Add to that my belief that coming out of such a long stalemate with the Klingons, the Federation was likely uneasy about fully committing to a war, especially one that didn't immediately threaten any core assets, it isn't difficult to imagine that there was a lot of pressure, politically, socially, and perhaps even militarily, to not further escalate the Border War. Maxwell and Nechayev are some examples we have of officers that fought it and wanted to keep fighting and winning, but what about the captains on the other side of the quadrant in their cushy science deployments? They probably saw no reason to lobby in any way for their ships to be redeployed to a war zone, possibly even seeing people like Maxwell and Nechayev as warmongers without whom the Federation would be at peace.
Anyway, great analysis as usual, just my two cents.
I think one thing we should keep in mind is that these were small sometimes unauthorized colonies they were defending. They might feel they should help, but they might not want to mobilize if they can get the colonist to leave or work out a peace deal.
Historians often re-valuate and correct their previous material, have access to new information or formerly declassified documents.
Favorite yt channel. Venom is my source for Trek lore.
I had discovered the length of the Cardassian Border Wars when doing a little research for ship names and a few things for the defunct Attack Wing minis game.
I found that the length would make for an ideal backdrop to campaign a ship and crew with a potential recurring enemy that comes up more frequently than just straight border patrol along, say, the Klingon border. I also think that it would have been a good era to explore in a TV series.
Sadly, if I were to bring it to table top, I don't have enough Cardassian ships for any of the desired scales. I'm looking at mostly a Micro Machine Galor class or the AMT 1/2500 scale model Galor. And I only have one of each.
Could you do a video on starfleet battles, and the wars that take place in that?
I always assumed that strategically, the border wars were a low priority. The federation was fighting to protect several colonies and defend it's frontier border from aggression. While the Cardassians were more motivated to fight, focussed primarily on a single enemy, and were fighting closer to their homeworld, shorter supply lines etc. And while only some of the federation vessels had a technical edge when it came to combat capability, in other ways like warp speed, sensors, etc. the federation was superior pretty much across the board. We know from DS9 that that area is considered the frontier or the outskirts of federation space, unlike the other borders that the federation has, presumably more fortitified, strategic, and population centers etc. Though we also shoudn't assume the federation was the only force, colonists may have developed or acquired their own vessels especially toward the end of the war that later morphed into the Maquis. While not on parity with the Cardassians, they may have at least been able to slow down their attacks or even notify and/or fight beside starfleets own vessels.
I agree. They knew the Cardassians were both no intent on destroying the Federation, nor capable of it. This was a regional conflict over very limited territory. This is like Russia seizing the Crimea. I imagine the Cardassians assumed if they kept the conflict at moderate levels they might get away with snatching a few systems. They did get more than they gave up in the Treaty.
Best way to see the NCC as yard and as batch numbers, like with the Construction you had 1700 and 1600 because of the yard they was built at, with 1800 being later batch.
I would love to see a show based around this era. I want to see the Ambassador in action!
I'm going to borrow a line from another Sci-Fi franchise to describe what the Federation did to end the Cardassian wars: "You sacrificed too much."
And I argue that at this point, Starfleet is overstretched, but if the war really took this long, Starfleet could have teched up, sounded the war drums, pulled ships out of mothballs, and build new ships. They did this in the Dominion War, but I suppose the Cardassians by themselves are a pretty pathetic enemy compared to the Dominion-Cardassian alliance so it's not as urgent for the Federation.
On the other hand, that means they could have done some propaganda work, and crush this regime if they wanted. It wasn't a lack of resources so much as a lack of will.
I know that Federation member worlds have local PDFs in their defense but 400 Starfleet vessels is insanely small. Even the post Dominion 20,000 is insanely small give the size of the Federation given the hundreds of member worlds.
Was about to say the same, 400 for an interstellar organization spanning hundreds of worlds? Lol cmon how is that even remotely reasonable? in WW2 the allies invaded france with THOUSANDS of ships, your numbers make no sense bro
Almost all space fiction gets the scientifically expected scale of civilizations wrong. Both resources and populations
@@aone9050 I think even discovery hinted starfleet was comprised of several thousand ships at the time, though it was a short treks which is debatable cannon.
I tend to think the number is closer to 3000 back then. Even so, a certain percentage is exploring. A % on the Neutral Zone. Etc. etc. Meanwhile, people are mistaken to believe the Cardassians are so over matched. They weren't. This is a major power with as many systems as the Romulans whose whole economy is geared to the military. We saw in DS9 right at the point the Dominion entered the AQ that the Cardassians launched a major offensive, with only those 80 Dominion ships, that completely routed the Klingons in 78 hours. The Klingon fleet had 100s of ships in Cardassian space. Even at a weaker point the Cardassians could clearly muster many 100s of Warships. At the start of the Dominion War their fleet was around 1500 or more. So they aren't like a minor power. If they had like 1000 ships in 2360, and could mass 50% on the Fed border, that means Starfleet has to mass equal numbers when they have huge commitments elsewhere.
Venom had done some amazing work collecting the clues given in DS9, so we have a pretty good idea of how many ships the UFP had based on the Dominion War (please correct any errors I made here). Most "fleets" were composed of about 100 ships. Based on what we saw in Call to Arms (late 2373), we know Starfleet began the war with a half-dozen or so fleets, then it grew to 10 by mid 2374, and had grown to over 20 fleets by late 2374, when they finally got their production on a roll and all older ships had been taken out of mothballs and rushed into service (which was about 1/2 of the entire fleet).
We also know from Sacrifice of Angels, that Operation Return was going to gather almost half the fleets - 9 in total - for the massive counterattack on the Bajoran Sector, but Sisko had to move before the last 3 fleets guarding the core planets had arrived. Ironically, this movement of over 300 ships plus the collapse of the battle lines due to the Klingon flanking maneuver, spooked the Dominion so badly, they withdrew back to Cardassian space, squandering all of their captured Federation territory, which was substantial. Starfleet & the Klingons were on a roll until the disastrous Kalandra Offensive & the Chintoka II battle, which cost Starfleet well over 300 ships. The Romulans really saved their bacon.
As an Austrian, I would've never expected the late Austro-Hungarian Empire be compared to Starfleet, even in a limited special scope like here at 21:21 , but here we are, and I have to say, I can totally see your point.
But now I kinda want to see an old TOS episode where Kirk stumbles onto an old splinter colony where he needs to wrestle with a clone of Kaiser Franz-Joseph who desperately tries to keep his empire of different alien races together while surrounded by forces who wants to carve it up between them (even if those forces have a legitim right to do so).
Something to also consider is how this is one of the prices pay for the "peace at nay price" mindset the Federation went into with the Treaty of Algeron. By giving up cloaking technology, the Federation cost themselves one of the greatest force multipliers which is no one knowing where you are and especially where your best ships are. While the Federation might not have much tactical use for cloaking (and why the diplomats did not see giving it up as too big of a concession), they put themselves at a distinct disadvantage strategically as anyone could track where their fleet was deployed. This forces Starfleet to spread their limited number of top of the line ships thin as the have to have a presence everywhere because any holes will be noticed and potentially exploited.
Imagine the Cardassians know the Federation has 15 Ambassadors. However, there is no telling where they are. All of them could decloak out of nowhere over Chintoka and lay waste to it and any fleet unlucky enough to be in the system before disappearing into the night. It would make picking a fight with the Federation far less appetizing. Even if the Federation would never do this, the fact they could and they would never see it coming is enough.
And, frankly, Starfleet was not all that big before Wolf 359. No doubt this was part of the post-Praxis environment. Starfleet no longer had to match the Klingons, and thus resources could go elsewhere. They could only manage a fleet of 40 ships to defend the capital system against the Borg attack which included several outmoded ships, and it was so devastating for the fleet they were still wanting for ships a year later.
It would not be until after that massacre that the Federation would ramp up starship production and begin true fleet modernaization and the massive fleets of the Dominion war would be possible. I've said elsewhere that Wolf 359 triggered the Cambrian Explosion of Federation starships. We cannot use what Starfleet was in the latter half of TNG or DS9 as any indication of their capabilities in the Border wars.
Basically, the Federation was ripe to be nibbled on at the edges by lesser powers during this time, and nibble those lesser powers did.
The Cardassian Border Wars was an interesting addition to the Lost Era. Picard and O'Brien were veterans of this war... and... strangely... Captain Janeway. What's strange about Janeway being a Cardassian Border Wars veteran is that she and Riker attended the academy together and Riker was NOT a veteran of the Cardassian Border Wars. Jeri Taylor's two canonical books about Janeway (the only two novels that Paramount Television considered "canonical") established that the two of them went on a blind date while they were at the academy. The writers of Voyager decided to retroactively make Janeway a CBW veteran in order to justify some Ripley-like action scenes with her late in VOY's run.
Not really odd for a large organization for people to have different career experiences.
As an example, Hans Urich Rudel, the famous German Stuka pilot, spent the first part of WW2 doing nothing because of his postings, training, and the timing of certain campaigns.
@@DarinRWagner and as I recall Sisko fought the Tzenkethi but. Once again that is evidence that it was a protracted war.
@@venomgeekmedia9886 I meet an old timer where him and a few of his buddies join the Us military.
The one that join the navy end up running a river patrol boat in Nam.
The one that join the army end up in west Germany.
Other than superstitions and boat safety, people DO just .. fall .. out of boats. Sometimes you see a very large fish jump through the air and hit someone. Other times you see a guy get knock out of the boat and you saw Nothing hit them. But the physics of them moving through the air and the guy yelling Some Thing just tackle him !
Something about .. river spirits.
b.) The reason why infra-red night vision switches over from red to green.
Red sight they were having senor shadow as to what was moving or not. Sometimes the shadow being stop moving and look at the person/crew viewing. Regard that campfire ghost story as you will.
@@MM22966 That's not how it works. If you served during a war, then you are a veteran of that war... even if your participation in the war was minimal. Riker and Janeway were at the academy together and she was considered a CBW veteran but he was not. That makes no sense and is just another example of how feckless the writing on VOY was.
@@DarinRWagner In a total sense, yes. But when somebody SAYS 'veteran', it usually implies they saw combat in some fashion, not that they got a participation ribbon.
All I am saying is that space is vast, Stafleet did not have every ship deployed to the Cardassian border, and Will might have gotten posted to some ship that saw him clear on the other side of the Alpha quadrant.
In truth I think this comes down to a matter of logistics. The ideal of Starfleet having 400 ships sounds completely probable. I personally think your explanation makes a lot of sense.
Honestly probably my new favorite video of your recent roster, just cuz of how its a culmination of so many different topics and actually allows for Trek fans to start thinking about military defense in a more 3-dimensional and nuanced way then usual which boils down to "send ships to fight enemy and enemy die"
Good point!
I understand it as a allegory for the Vietnam War from the perspective of an American TV show produced 20 years later.
In that it’s still fresh in everyone’s heads, it dragged on for a while and it gave a certain generation of Starfleet staff PTSD.
I also think there was a design in keeping it a stalemate. If the Federation could push the Cardassians back, what are they expected to do their colonies. Starfleet armed with a few dozen ships for the conflict, couldn’t invade & occupy a colony of very brainwashed people of a hundred thousand, ethically or logistically.
Likewise the Cardassians were fighting a foe that wasn’t being an existential threat but one that could justify a large scale war effort and added legitimacy for the occupation of Bajor.
Other possible "obligations" for the Ambassadors: The Tholian border (maybe, depends on how friendly the two sides were at that point), the Sheliak border (they seem pretty advanced themselves), the (newly discovered?) Ferengi border, and maybe even the Breen border (it is unclear how much, if anything, Starfleet knew about them at the time).
My understanding is that the Galaxy class was made in response to all of these conflicts. as the wars went on I can see star fleet pulling some ships back for Galaxy phasers ect upgrades depending on if the ships were compatible with the upgrades and if they wouldn't take long to upgrade them. I can see Ambassador its era ships and maybe the Excelsior(part of the reason it wont go away is how much it can be upgraded, lol). but can't see Maranda or Constitution class really getting these upgrades though.
This seems to be Starfleet in transition between being a Great Power and a Superpower, having the mentality and resources of the former, while having the enemies of the latter. It would only be later in the century they truly reached the level of a superpower
I think it’s surprising that Darly didn’t try to expand the fleet further, mainly by leaning more into the ambassadors like they have the Excelsior. I get that therefore to produce, but if they are that much better than anything else you have, you’re gonna make it and you’re gonna make it in a lot of numbers. Like they needed the fabricator facility and the replication facilities in the industrial replicators to make these bigger work oils, you could just make more industrial replicators to make more of the work coils faster, so that it’s less of a bottleneck or at least the bottle is very large so that you can build more ambassadors. That’s just surprising to me to be honest like I get making Excelsior but at that point if it’s being matched by most what anyone else can make, it’s probably going to be more of a second line ship already. It’s it’s 40 years old by the 2320s. And by the time the border war start it’s half century old. Especially once you know that a lot of your enemies have something to match it or exceeded or beat it then you definitely want to drop it or definitely phase it out for what they do not match
I'm not sure on your total numbers called out for the Federation, when you consider your fleet strength will always have debits due to maintenance, not even counting losses from exploration or other mishaps. What you brought up on 'Stargazer' would make it worse. I also think that Starfleet had more ships not on the front, perhaps in a lower state of readiness for budgetary or strategic reasons. I have to believe that Starfleet treated a threat from the Romulans or Klingons before Khitomer as needing more than 'everything' if things blew up, wheras other fronts like the Cardassians weren't. That would make the 'pulling punches' more political as others have commented with Starfleet holding back on their strategic reserves rather than pulling from other fronts - the reserves were there, and the various ups and downs in the conflict were when the Federation did allocate ships based on the pain level.
If we're estimating TNG Starfleet to be ~400 ships, I'd love to see another episode focused on the absolutely massive logistics effort Starfleet and the Federation must have undertaken in the 6-ish years between Wolf 359 and the battle scene in Favour the Bold, in which Sisko leads two Starfleet fleet formations totalling ~600 ships in the operation to lead DS9 - and those are just *two* of at least *nine* fleet formations in the war at that time, which gives Starfleet a force strength in the thousands if not more, *after* suffering catastrophic early-war losses *and* losses in the brief Klingon war preceding it.
More like 3500 ships, no?
In a post scarcity world and a muti decade long conflict the fact that the Federation never uped production of ships or lowered the admissions standards to join Starfleet to get more bodies is them pulling there punches. If they had recruited like they do for the Dominion war they would have plenty of crew, as for ships, they had decades to build new yards, train new workers, streamline the process to be as efficient as possible and plenty of resources to throw at the problem, the Cardassian economy is there greatest weaknesses and the Federation's greatest strength, but they chose to continue the status quo. So yeah, they pulled there punches and left the Cardassians in the fight long past due.
TNG, *_The Wounded_* - Gul Macet: "Captain Picard, can you pretty please help us defeat a single Nebula Class Science Vessel that's one - shotting our starships?"
DS9, *_Defiant_* Gul Dukat: "Captain Sisko, can you pretty please help us defeat a single Defiant Class escort that's one-shotting our starships?"
No threat.
Hello, it has been months since I seen any of your recent posts, feels like a year or so.
My D&D/Star Wars group regard the Klingon war with the Cardies, the BoPs were torpedo boats, and the Klingons sent 5 or 7bops to every Cardie ship they attacked. I call that overkill.
As for the multiple RPGs starship construction manuals out there, you can build multiple Bops for every main line Fed " science/ exploration " ship.
Then you have the Run a Bouts, which are the length of the Falcon. That can also function as torpedo patrol boats, but they go warp5 while Bops go warp9.
Hope you have a lovely weekend.
@
Not sure why you're referencing RPG mechanics in a lore discussion.
This is crazy I was just about to search for Cardassian boarder wars
I agree with this analysis because it fits with my view that the Federation on the Golden Age is actually a lot more pragmatic and warlike than its detractors like to make out. Remember that the Galaxy class can stand toe to toe with the Romulans and the Klingons and the both the Borg and the Dominion equally took them by surprise. So an argument that the Border war was fought to the best of Starfleet's ability with the best resources it had available given its other obligations fits with my perspective.
I do just have one nit to pick. Part of your reasoning for the reassessment of the data of the border war is the apparent age of the characters. Except if I remember right Picard is supposed to be 80 in the first series of TNG because humans are just that long lived in the TNG era (barring accidents) Which given we see McCoy at the launching of the Enterprise D makes sense. I just felt it was fair to point that out.
"resistant is futile" -Starfleet parking 15 Amassador above Cardassia Prime
It might explain why Q decided to appear to Picard in TNG. He saw that the Federation didnt take the Cardassian war 'seriously'. He had to change its attitude before the Borg were on Earth's doorstep.
The whole Cardassian thing is either a case of the Federation pulling its punches... or the Cardassians went from being an actual, serious threat to the Federation to a massive joke post war.
That or the Nebula class is actually just that insane in terms of power and ability.
The Nebula Class is powerful. But wars are not fought based on ship stats, after all.
Just a few of points:
1: I think it's hard for anyone to be wrong in saying that Starfleet is pulling it's punches. The fact that they can build so many multi-purpose starships that can at least stand up to the dedicated warships of the Klingons and Romulans, both quadrant influencing powers, means that if they DID start building dedicated warships then they would have serious qualitative superiority over regional powers like the Cardassians. Thus, basically until the Borg showed that Starfleet couldn't keep with the same thinking and that explicit warships were required, Starfleet was effectively pulling ALL of it's punches. This doesn't mean that Starfleet did have additional formations to dedicate to the border wars however.
2: I'm not convinced that there was only one conflict with the Cardassians in the pre-TNG era. "Border Wars" tend, relatively speaking, to be short, sharp, repeated events over contested territory. Classifying a period of repeated hostility along a border as "The Border Wars" is pretty common, and would explain why a relatively new ship like an early 2360s New Orleans would have been stationed there long enough for crew to move their families into the area. Remember that Janeway was canonically a lieutenant during battles with the Cardassians and that Picard was involved canonically aboard the Stargazer - and his career is packed with enough that it can't be later than 2355.
3: Maxwell may very well have received some reprimand, which his crew may not have been aware of, that would have been "Career Limiting", or not have had personal qualifications that would have prevented attaining staff rank. This could very well lead to him being at the rank of Captain for an extended period. Also remember that canonically Picard became a Captain around 30 years before he commanded the Enterprise, so extended time in rank as a Captain doesn't seem to be fatal for a career. While Picard might well have been so young as a captain that he didn't qualify for the Admiralty under some qualification like "time in service", that he doesn't become an Admiral until after the events of Nemesis suggests that unless the time in service requirements are in excess of 50 years, that's not the case.
4: It's even possible that there were multiple "Massacre of Setlik III"s, or that the massacre was the event that caused the Federation to actually dedicate significant force to that area.
5: Especially since almost all of the 2340s-2360s period would have been during peace with the Romulans and Klingons, Starfleet would have had significantly more flexibility on where it stationed ships. It's entirely reasonable that Starfleet could have chosen to, and maybe periodically did, commit more formations to the Cardassian border region at points during this, only to later pull them off for other duty when it appeared the tensions had died down.
6: It isn't required that the USS Rutledge of the Cardassian Border Wars that O'brien served on was the same ship as the TNG/DS9 era Rutledge. Even though we see that the NCC registry ID of the latter Rutledge was not a -A or -B, we can see canonically that's not required. The USS Intrepid that that Sergei Rozhenko served on is quite impossible to be the USS Intrepid that is the class leader for the Intrepid class that Voyager is a part of, and two separate NCC registries are canon for those two ships. This could mean that Setlik III is early enough that the New Orleans class Rutledge is replacing the one that O'brien served on.
7: We know that the Rutledge posting was "one of O'brien's earliest postings", which given that he had been in Starfleet for 22 years by 2369 (via DS9), would at least imply that said posting needed to be in at least the front half of that period. This makes me really doubt a 2362 date for "The" Massacre of Setlik III that he witnessed, and should place the event before 2358 at least.
Uh... well, that turned into a bit of a Novel.
The Federation had a Huge expansion period following the Excelsior program. (Yes, it failed with the Transwarp drive experiment, but still had amazing warp coils in the nacelles and an overpowered warp core). The new, sustainable cruise speeds obtained by vessels with these warp drives became both a blessing and a curse for the Federation: They could reach further out, but with that cubic increase in expansion, their fleets started to be spread too thin. By the TNG era, it was a literal stretch for another Starfleet vessel to reach another vessel in a timely manner.
The Federation played too wide.
excellent video, thank you.
Its easier to expand from your home territory than fight on the edge of your own frontiers
Bingo!
When you can use your territory like a fortress, sally into enemy space, inflict damage and run back knowing they can't follow, it is a huge advantage. Plus the immediate support if you get in over your (spoon)head.
I think the short answer is yes, Starfleet did ‘pull its punches’ although I see it as more Starfleet wasn’t in an all-out war as it would be during the Dominion War, which was an existential fight. With the Border Wars it seemed like Starfleet was playing a war of attrition; it could sustain losses in a way the Cardassian’s couldn’t.
Meanwhile for the Cardassian’s, it was a fairly full-on conflict. I remember in “The Wounded” it did seem like the Cardassian’s had basically broke their economy before agreeing terms.
Could Starfleet have won “easily” (few conflicts are easy). Sure, if it went into a wartime economy, but that’s not what Starfleet or the Federation was about at that time. Heck, Starfleet’s most advanced design was called the Ambassador. For me that is very telling as to what Starfleet’s primary mission is.
I also think Starfleet probably would’ve gained qualitative advantage. The Federation’s key advantage over almost all peers is its adaptability and innovative nature, so the Miranda’s and Excelsior’s would’ve been continuously upgraded and gradually shifted the meter in several areas such as weapons, shields, sensors, probably structural strength. We see by TNG that the Cardassian’s have fallen behind significantly.
Star Trek fans tend to think in terms of ships and see conflicts like a War Thunder player does. Unfortunately, a ship's stats are about the least important component in the vast equation of war. Ships are only the culmination of doctrine, logistics, politics, economy, timing, space, etc. It is very easy to understand how and why the Cardassians did well relatively speaking when one factors in all those things. Superiority of Starfleet vessels? The phaser power of Ambassadors? How good were Galors? All of that is secondary to the doctrine, terrain and logistics involved. It is entirely possible to build the most magnificent fleet possible, and still have almost zero chance at success in a naval war.
It’s an issue a lot of Sci-Fi fans have, with Star Wars fans being particularly bad. The idea that wars are not fought on paper seems completely lost on a lot of people.
I still say an early New Orleans development and deployment makes sense, as it's a smaller scale implementation of the Galaxy class hull style. This makes likely to have developed as a proof of concept for that hull geometry before the larger class was designed.
Would the constitution class still be in service by the time of the board of war since it was slightly more powerful than the Miranda class? I would make an excellent second rate ship of the line
Betreka Nebula War from 2328 to 2346. Narendra III 2344. Khitomer 2346. (all according to Memory Alpha).
2346 the Klingons pull out to deal with problems on the Romulan Border, and the Cardassians turn their attentions to the Federation.
I see it this way.
In TNG, an unshielded Nebula could destroy a Galor without any problems. That should not be possible under any circumstances, unless you are significantly stronger.
In ST, shields are the main defense. The Nebula should have lost. The fact that it won anyway shows how superior the Federation is. 1 Federation ship must have been able to fight against 3-5 opponents at the same time in the conflict. Despite that, the conflict ended in a draw, which is only possible if the Federation did not send many ships, which would have been the case for exactly the reasons mentioned.
The entire Cardassian fleet was literally only fighting against the Federation's reserves and still almost lost.
So we don't know that the ship that the nebula killed was a galor. Could have been a kulinor or other older ships.
@@venomgeekmedia9886 It doesn't really matter what class it was, the argument still stands that an unshielded ship shouldn't win against another ship. Shields can absorb multiple photon torpedoes, whereas a torpedo close by is enough to destroy an unshielded ship. So it's fair to say that shields make up 65-85% of a ship's defense.
This ship must have been massively weaker and that can't be explained by the few years since the conflict. We've only seen such an upgrade in the Federation since the Borg, since that's when the disarmament policy from ST 6 ended.
Conclusion: Cardassian technology was 2 or 3 technology levels lower than that of the Federation at the time. (Even Klingons and Romulans are 1 level lower, otherwise the Federation's research ships wouldn't be on par with them.)
How can the federation, a civilisation with trillions of individuals, only have 300 odd ships? It makes no sense to me.
It is insanely small even when you factor in every member planet other then Earth having a local PDF
The UFP "only" has a population of hundreds of billions, not trillions.
But indeed the number of starships Starfleet has should been in the thousands, not hundreds.
The number is actually around 2100 ships of all rates
One could multiply that by 10x and it still isn't enough. People assume the Cardassians were a small power. They were a major power that controlled around 80+ systems. Even right after the Klingon War they mobilized a couple thousand warships. During the Border Wars they probably had 100s of warships in that region, fighting on their support zone. To match this Starfleet would need to keep 300-400 ships in the general region. It is a big number when one considers the other commitments while the Cardassians, even if they only have 33% as many ships in total, can mass most of their fleet on their own border.
Not everything can be LoGH.
I'd love a deeper dive into the New Orleans class Cruiser with and without weapons torpedo pods and with sensor pods and all three deployed variations usage in the boarder wars not just how it was test bedding more project galaxy systems. I always believed it's torpedo pods are testing the Galaxy classes torpedo bay launchers just with reduced Burst capacity
Nice work.
I am rather surprised no one has brought up the Korean War as an example of a limited regional conflict between powers where the might of the stronger power was limited by geography and political will.
That is a really interesting historical parallel to make.
I think it was a Starfleet policy to not present it's true numbers. The US navy Trains. In BEING OUTNUMBERED. And Holding the line
I always believed the boarder war was gearing up in 2330s but was kinda like a cold war stand off with scattered fights until it goes hot in 2340s-2450s ending in mid to late 2350s Picard was told in regards to the Cardassian that the federation was not prepared for another war in the 2360s
The curious thing for me is what happens after the border war. Starfleet, either due to how stretched it was or the Borg, started to build a lot more ships. When you get to the Dominion War suddenly starfleet is an awful lot stronger. I'd be curious how they achieved that
Yes Starfleet pulled its punches for the bulk of the conflict because it is always been primarily an exploration and discovery organisation with defence in regards to military functions. Probably at the beginning, Starfleet Command was scrambling ships and squadrons to cover the border with the Cardassian as they had no idea what was really happening but would later re-organise and limit their dedication as I am sure the Federation Council would have stepped in and demanded limited offensive operations to happen so peace negotiations can happen. Also if Starfleet did go all in, it would be a disaster as they would have to defeat the Cardassian military who would be defending their homes and if Starfleet won, there is the problem of an occupation force and theres all the political problems back in the Federation from said occupation
A lot of good points. I still think that Starfleet was pulling punches. Just not as strong punches as believed. Mostly doctrine as in “don’t pursue beyond this line”. A few extra resources could have easily been brought to the conflict. However, that would have turned the border skirmishes into a full blown war and a lot more resources would have gad to be directed there. This would also allow the Federation’s enemies to say that the Federation wasn’t as devoted to peace as it claimed.
1. Starfleet probably has a lot of military/political obligations, which prevents them from amassing an overwhelming force.
2. There is the Tyranny of Distance.
3. There may have been a lack of political will, at least at the beginning for a border war, and minimal resources were allocated. After all, the core systems of the Federation are not threatened.
4. There may have been a degree of arrogance and distain for the Cardassian, which reduced the resources allocated for "dealing with the Cardassians".
5. And because of 3 and 4, the Federation never mobilized for a "War Economy".
Points 3, 4, and 5 would make it appear that the Federation were consciously pulling their punches when in reality, the Federation simply did not assess the situation properly and allocate appropriate resources.
To my mind, the border war was a low intensity conflict, with relatively few casualties on either side. The Cardassians (not being idiots) were very careful not to escalate the conflict too far. If the Federation moved to a war footing (as they did after Wolf 359, and again after the Odyssey was destroyed), Starfleet could secure the border within only a couple of years. It was all very careful and deliberate, so that the Cardassians would have the strongest possible position when negotiations began.
Amusingly, all of those strategic moves were pointless. The Bajorans successfully persuaded the Cardassians not to scuttle Terok Nor on their way out. When Starfleet took control of the station, the Cardassians must have been furious. After all of that careful strategy, they inadvertently gave the Federation the perfect staging area to invade Cardassian space and threaten Cardassia itself.
I think the issue people get to is they often mistakenly use the Federation's performance and sheer scale of military power in the later Dominion War, A federation fighting for it's very existence and going full total war and led by people who think like Sisko, a Federation which also had the Wolf 359 Borg scare. When they should be using a Pre- Dominion War Federation that is not as militarised, isn't fighting for it's existence, not had the Borg scare yet and Leadership that hasn't been as war hardened or is willing to do the same dark deeds like Sisko was willing to do.
Every fan knows in time Federation will become the Superpower juggernaut of Late Dominion War and so I do think many are too quick to rush to claim Starfleet and the Federation would transform into that if at war with Cardassia in full on conflict. When Cardassia would not have the strength to push the Federation's to that extreme.
The one thing id put to this is that Starfleet had the capability to increase production on their capital ships to quickly combat this issue. They decided to remain at the status quo and not put additional investments into building a force that could easily wipe the Cardassians without any issue.
We saw that Starfleet could maintain and build smaller ships during the Dominion Wars, which had the Federation going against vastly superior vessels of the Dominion.
With that in mind, had the Federation put more emphasis into building newer, more advanced and more powerful vessels, this would not even be a conversation.
The other factors in this are from TNG and just how relaxed Starfleet officers are. Many would have been veterans of these conficts yet there is very few who harbor resentment or have a more militaristic mindset that was present in the 23rd century.
The Federation did pull their punches in the border wars because they had the capability of producing vastly superior ships that could have dealt with the situation far quicker but chose not to go down that path.
The problem with that idea is that with the Romulans and the Klingons at the door had the Federation started pumping out warships the Romulans might get fight and the Klingons might consider it a threat. Heck even during the dominion war there was a good bit of tension with both powers and that was when they knew why Starfleet was churning out the ships. Like oh great idea mass build ships and hurriedly train up crews while the Romulans and Klingons get ready for war with you because you decided to send ships to deal with somewhere far away.
@@farshnukeExcept the Khitomer Accords had been a thing for a while at this point. There was little threat from the Kligons. They're almost a non-factor. And if what is said in TNG is right, the Romulans had been quiet for decades.
@ You think that those two mighty powers will stay silent if the Federation suddenly gears up for an invasion when we see how fighty they do get on their own timetable? You think the UFP isn't going to factor that into the handling of the situation? Even before the Romulans emerge in the first season of TNG much is made of the need to fly the flag at the border.
@@farshnuke The Klingon's during that era would not have had the capability of being able to do anything really. They would likely see the Federation just responding to the Cardassian threat the same way they responded to the Klingon threat.
The Romulan's potentially could have come out of hiding earlier then season 1 TNG but they were also likely to see that the Federation would not be easy to attack. It may have changed their minds on how they handled things like the Battle of Narendra & the Kitomer attack.
Bit of a stretch to call Dominion ships vastly superior, to be fair. In the early days they did indeed outgun Starfleet ships in general, but Starfleet appeared to have an edge in both speed and sensor tech. It's pretty much stressed that Dominion long-range sensor platforms are the only thing allowing Dominion forces to out-observe their Starfleet counterparts and that this advantage flipped once they were knocked out.
Similarly we see modern Starfleet ships absolutely hammering Dominion vessels. By the end of the war, their ability to withstand attrition is seen as the only real concern regarding Dominion forces.
Could you do a vid on how many fed ships would be required to quickly overwhelm a borg cube and destroy it.? Numbers of phaser arrays fired around the same time. Numbers of torpedoes etc.
I thinking along the lines of the numbers required to one shot a cube
The long short of it is that most every major power is always pulling its punches. Powers rarely go into total wars. Total Wars are rare precisely because the costs are ruinous. Moreover, most people who have not studied history, or served in the military, do not understand that wars are merely extensions of political policy by other means just as Clausewitz said. Politically speaking, one cannot justify total war against the Cardassians, for the same political reasons why the United States only ever embarked on two total wars in its history. A smaller power can win a favorable treaty because the larger power cannot mass enough forces far from home to counter the pretty substantial forces of near-peer powers fighting on their doorstep, and because the political will doesn't exist to wage a costly invasion of heavily fortified enemy territory.
I dont think that the usa has only been in total war 2 times. Vienam was total war for them and a polictical sideshow for the usa. It has never been in a near peer conflict till now. The USA HAS NEVER SEEN TOTAL WAR due to geography.
@@donhodgkinson6233He means where the US considered it a total war. And the Civil War and WWII could both be considered total wars for the US. A total war means all the resources of the state are committed to making war, and both those events qualify.
@@crownprincesebastianjohano7069 civil wars dont count and ww2 was total for the other major powers but not for USA dont think you lost many civilians women and kids probably less than 1000 so does not count
@@donhodgkinson6233 What is defined as a total war doesn’t actually have to do with casualties taken, nor whether the war is with a foreign state or internal. A total war is defined by a very high mobilization of resources; both societal and material, an unwillingness to compromise; and the blurring of the line between a combatant and a civilian since nearly all economic activity becomes tied to the war in some way.
Civil wars are often total wars. And yes, WWII for the United States does qualify.
Another way I’ve seen it phrased is as “total war being defined as war in which the objective was the extermination of the enemy or rendering the enemy incapable of self-defense, i.e., winning by knockout rather than points”. To reiterate; what qualifies something as a total war has to do with how the war is conducted, not the casualties received, nor does any definition of what is or is not a total war make a distinction between a civil conflict and a foreign one.
@@nicholasavasthi9879 Correct!
If you like to read, check out Force & Motion by Jeffrey Lang. It follows Maxwell after serving his sentence and lives on a deep space station as a janitor, basically, and tries to be forgotten. Until O’Brien and Nog stop by for a visit.
There is simply no way the Federation only has 400 ships at this time. In Strange New Worlds, Pike says that Starfleet has over 7000 ships in 2260, and that is after losing a third of the fleet during the Klingon war. Then in the 2370s, after the Breen introduced their power dampening weapon disabling Federation and Romulan ships and causing them to be removed from the battle lines, it is said that the Klingons with 1500 ships would be out numbered by the Dominion 20 to 1. That means the combined Dominion, Cardassian, and Breen fleet would be about 30,000 ships. That means that if the Klingons had 1500 ships, and we know the Romulans like large imposing vessels, probably only had about 1000 large ships committed to the Allied efforts, that Starfleet would need to make up the lion's share of the 30,000 ships, in fact, because the Federation and Allies were going on the offensive at this time, they probably had more then that.
Additionally, the Federation is huge, and warp travel before 2400 is relatively slow. The Federation encompasses over 8,000 lightyears, containing over 150 member species, and thousands of colony worlds. Not to mention that within 8,000 light years could easily contain a million stars most of which are uninhabitable but still full of resources. on 21st century earth, the ocean navies of the world have about 13,000 warships, with the US having about 295. If we assume that each Federation member species supports the construction of 250 ships, that would give the Federation 37,500 ships. If we go by your poultry 400 ships, that means each Federation member only supports the contraction of 2.6 ships. And we aren't even talking about the support of the thousands of colony worlds.
My numbers are as follows
1700 Ships built in the First Generation *Walker* of ships from 2180 to 2220
2500 Ships built in the Second Generation *Kelvin* of ships from 2220 to 2250
4000 Ships built in the Third Generation *Constitution* of Ships from 2250 to 2270
5000 Ships built in the Fourth Generation *Refit* of Ships from 2270 to 2290
7000 Ships built in the Fifth Generation *Excelsior* of ships from 2290 to 2320
10,000 Ships built in the Six Generation *Ambassador* of ships from 2320 to 2350 *300 of those are Ambassador classes*
12,000 Ships built in the Seventh Generation *Galaxy* of ships from 2350 to 2370
15,000 Ships built in the Eighth Generation *Sovereign* of ships from 2370 to 2390
18,000 Ships built in the Ninth Generation *Odyssey* of ships from 2390 to 2400+
So to answer your question, yes the Federation was pulling their punches in the Cardassian boarder wars. The Federation has to patrol and defend over 8,000 light years of space, and protect against hostile neighbors like the Romulans, Gorn, Klingons, Breen, Tholians, Sheliak, Cardassian, Talarian, Tzenkethi, etc. If the Federation only had 400 ships like you claim, that only gives the Federation one ship to patrol 20 light years. It is far more likely, both from claims made on screen, and common sense, to place Starfleet at Tens of Thousands of ships. And with their massive commitment to patrolling their expansive borders, would be unwilling to bring the full weight of Starfleet on a minor power like the Cardassians, least they open themselves up to attack by another opportunistic power on their border. And remember, during this time period, the Federation was engaged in border skirmishes with the Talarians, Cardassians, Tholians, and Tzenkethi, further taxing their ability to bring the full weight of Starfleet to bear.
I think you underplay the tech disparity somewhat due to equating the age of the class with tech level. No doubt a significant number of the serving excelsior’s for example (both old and freshly made) would have undergone periodic refits and upgrades to bring them closer to the federations top end.
No doubt they will never match the top line new vessels with the new tech built in from the ground up, but we saw an excelsior in DS9 be upgraded to fight the defiant to a standstill.
That said, I agree with the main thrust that Starfleet had a lot of higher priorities that meant they could not devote the resources to the conflict to end it.
Or strategically, my position in general is that overall Starfleet had the resources to utterly demolish the Cardassians, but they couldn’t devote enough resources without them being unable to manage any other strategic needs.
So not pulling punches, but fighting with one hand tied behind their back because of the bigger opponent on the other side of the ring.
The vast amount of federation space , would make it seem to me that starfleet is extremely spread thin with these numbers.
Makes me think that the Miranda was kept around because of easy and quick construction
as patrol vessels.
I look forward to your videos every Friday (Yes it's Friday for me here).
Starfleet was engaging in Limited Warfare. It's goal was not to conquer Cardassia but the maintain the established boarders. They are not going to escalate the situation with Ambassadors.
Don't forget simple tonnage does not indicate strength. Even Starfleet's older technology is miles (o'brien) ahead of theirs. For a real life comparison compare China's new aircraft carrier to the US'. Quality over quantity can't be underestimated.
My argument is basically the Starfleet only deployed their second and third rate ships because that's all that needed to achieve their above stated objective.
While starfleet is probably not pulling punches the UFP is still in a sense holding back.
The second batch of ambassador class ships will not have been entirely or even mostly a response to the border wars. The ships will have been built in batches/tranches/flights with a fairly decent time gap between them as they would wait for a full long term use report of the previous batch and then implementing required changes and new technologies to make the next model, it is fairly common practice for real world defence contacts and in particular aircraft which are probably the best comparison as ships dont usually get the numbers per class (though some like the Arleigh Burke being an exception) to justify the practice. A second round of Ambassador class ships would always have happened, the border wars may have bought them forward a few years or added a few ships to the batch but the new round of construction of mark 2 Ambassador class ships (not a full refit change like Constitution to Constitution II seen in Enterprise to Enterprise A but more a collection of little fixes and and only minor if any changes to the actual hull like the NX-02 having changes made on the fly in the NX-01 added from the beginning or new Defiant class ships having what I hope was called the O'Brien pack of tweaks and upgrades after he worked out the issues on DS9) would always have happened followed by a quick overhaul of the batch 1 Ambassador class ships to standardise years worth of tweaks, patches and fixes across the fleet.
The UFP could have rushed and deployed the galaxy era highlighter fleet even without having them fully functional in a non-combat role to A) speed up the deployment of combat ready variants from the early 2360s to mid to late 2350s and B) make a statement along the lines of 'We are about to leave the technological generation you have only just entered, you are not qualified to fight us'. Seeing what 1 Nebula class and a pre dominion war model at that did in 'the wounded' the starfleet technological generational change took the Cardassians from near peer to minor inconvenience, while we dont know what ship type tried to intercept the USS Phoenix and was taken out in a single salvo we do know its crew compliment was 600 which puts it in the medium to heavy cruiser range for Cardassians (Galor was 300 plus flight crew and troops and Keldon was 500 plus flight crew and troops according to DS9 technical manual so medium or heavy cruiser is a good guess based on crew compliment). Even if it was an older vessel it was completely annihilated and only did any damage due to longer weapons range.
While the economic capacity to put out another dozen Ambassador class ships and end the war that way wasn't advisable (it may have been physically available but waiting and launching them as a proper mark 2 as explained in my 2nd paragraph) the economic capacity to put out a new batch of proven ships like excelsiors or mirandas with updated technology to either increase the fleet size or raise the quality by phasing out older ships because they werent working on the next batch of ambassadors yet and the highlighter fleet were still in development so very small numbers of prototype ships. The dominion war showed just how high the UFPs ship building capability is and at this time it is mostly unaccounted for. Even if they dont have the spare crew for 100 new Miranda class ships replacing every 20 year old tech Miranda with brand new tech Miranda would be a big increase in fleet power.
More Ambassador class ships could have been freed up if they wanted to for starfleet military operations instead of UFP diplomatic and exploratory commitments. If they kept the Enterprise-C in the core of the UFP and replaced the other Ambassador class ships with Excelsior Class ships with excellent history for the prestige required of a diplomatic ship they would still have the Enterprise-C for major diplomatic meetings and the other ships used for diplomatic duties would hardly be snubbing the other party either (for example the USS Excelsior is listed as decommissioned and USS Enterprise-B just says succeeded on memory alpha so may still be in service after a renaming and reregistering to allow the Enterprise-C to take the name, both these ships could be made serviceable as diplomatic vessels much easier than making 2 new ambassador classes to send to the cardassian front). If they pull Ambassador class ships from exploration duty and replace them with other ships that are less combat capable but still as good at long range functionality like an Excelsior Class then there would be no decrease in quality of work as you dont need that much firepower on exploration unless you are the Enterprise and bound by fate to run into shenanigans. Pulling the Ambassador class ships on the Romulan border entirely is not really viable but down sizing to 1 or 2 located on the 2nd line of defence / patrol to act as a reactionary force instead of using more Ambassador class ships to actively patrol would also be viable as the romulans have been quiet for 40 or so years at this point. Putting together 15 Ambassador class ships and just steam rolling the cardassians is probably not doable but building a fleet centred around 5 should be achievable if you try and fill starfleets requirements over the UFPs instead of the other way round. As starfleet ships are usually shown as faster warp speeds than other local powers they can pick the engagements so a fleet with 5 Ambassador class ships fighting only the battles they choose not what Cardassians chooses would make a massive difference in war power.
TL:DR while Starfleet was not pulling punches and using everything available to the best of their abilities in the conflict the UFP as a whole is not freeing up as many assets as it can or should to allow Starfleet to use more and the UFP is also not using it vast economic advantage to bolster starfleet like it could. Its like a boxing match where starfleet and the cardassian union are both going all out punching each other but starfleet has a gun and the UFP are telling them they cant use it and have to brawl.
See this is interesting because it suggests that in a lot of ways Q is right. Starfleet is arrogant and not ready for the threats out there because it wants t be going exploring instead of dealing with the threats. The border wars might start the process but Q coming out and saying its wonderous but its not safe may well be giving them a kick up the backside. Which is interesting because it plays into the whole Picard likes humanity (and the Picards in particular and wants to help them narrative).
Also what a build up it is from localised 350 ships to 400 to then saying yes we can send 600 ships in 2 fleets to the Dominion War. If those are the number increases then the federation/starfleet has gone on a USA in WW2 style building and recruitment programme. Especially given Wolf 359.
Maxwell I think is a fair question and I think the revised timeline makes more sense but O’Brien being in combat in 2347 would be reasonable. He was born in 2328 so he would have been 19 at the time and he’s an NCO, not an officer, so he wouldn’t have necessarily gone to the academy. A 19 year old private/crewman? Yeah, that tracks.
However DS9: Rules of Engagement explicitly declared that O'Brien has been in Starfleet for 22 years. By Memory Alpha's flawed but popular dating system, that would put his enlisting at 2350, after the incorrect conjectural date of the Setlik III massacre.
What evidence do you have that he was even born in 2328?
(DS9: Shadowplay has O'Brien suggest he joined Starfleet at 17, which would put his date of birth in 2333 and make him 39 by DS9.)
@Mr_Sovik My source was Memory Alpha. It gives his birth as September 2328.
@@nicholasavasthi9879 In this case, and many others, Memory Alpha is very likely incorrect.
@Mr_Sovik I checked a little bit, the episodes it cites are TNG: Disaster; DS9: Whispers (which is where September comes from); and DS9 Homefront. Not sure what it used from those episodes though.
I'd say the TNG Federation fleet probably was about 2000 or so ships which given the size of the Federation would still be spread out a lot
You could say that you are giving the Cardassian Border Wars (and the Romulan Earth War) a refit program.
Let's just hope it's not a Connie 2 style refit ;)
Yeah this is the definition of Starfleet pulling punches. Not becasue they wanted to, but becasue they had to.
If they were truly serious about stopping the Cardassians they would have put their full might (or near full might) against them and had the war wrapped up in a couple to a few months. The Romulans at this time were more interested in upsetting the Klingon Empire rather than the Federation (See Kitamer and Narendra III). And, in fact, I'm sure they'd be more interested in sitting back to watch the Federation fight against the Cardassians to waste ships, manpower, and material against them rather than start another war themselves. That would be the most "Romulan" thing to do. Why get your hand dirty when someone else can do it? As such the Klingon's were busy trying to counter the Romulans as they try to disrupt their own government and territories. The Talarians and Tzenkethi are only minor inconveniences at this time. And I think you're underestimating the Miranda and Excelsior classes in this era. They both had been receiving upgrades though the decades to keep them at the top of their classes, even against their contemporaries.
Memory Beta places the New Orleans-class as launched in 2327. This is sourced as the Autobiography of Jean-Luc Picard. Though the Last Unicorn RPG module: The Price of Freedom places it as entering service in 2332.
In that case we have to consider Memory Beta inaccurate, as 2327 would place it before the Enterprise B was lost (circa 2328) and thus before the Batch 1 Ambassadors. A Pre-Ambassador ship should not look like it’s successor.
@@Ty-yt3lj It's not uncommon for experimental naval technologies such as steam turbines, or nuclear propulsion, to be deployed in smaller ships first rather than capital ships. This lets a navy test and refine the technology before it is scaled up to the largest classes of ships. The first nuke sub was the USS Nautilus (SSN-571), first cruising in 1955, and the first nuclear carrier was the USS Enterprise (CVN-65), first cruising in 1962.
It also places the Ambassador-class launch at 2325.
Honestly, it is sad it took the Borg invasion and the Dominion War to make Starfleet realize they need to update their entire fleet structure. They should not have been fielding Miranda and Excelsior class ships in any wars unless it was an emergency. They have a population in the hundreds of billions just encourage more starship building and they would save their people's lives. And also have less wars to begin with since if those 50 Cardassian ships had to face 80 Ambassador class and 20 Nebula class ships near their border they would have sued for a peace deal at the start...