Altering the Original NCC - 1701

You're assuming facts not in evidence.

For all we know, the advanced engines, armor, and weapons of the Defiant class might've made them very expensive and difficult to build completely out of proportion to their size.

Now, I know we don't use the Technical Manuals as canon, but the DS9 Techical Manual implies this very thing maintaining that a huge portion of Starfleets production of quantum torpedoes was to supply the one U.S.S. Defiant.

Doctrinally, Captains weren't even supposed to fight their ships from there. In the case of capital ships, they were supposed to do so from the armored conning tower/citadel.

It's why I've always thought BSG (new and old) portrayed a more logical location for the bridge. Hell, nuBSG doesn't even appear to have a viewscreen, much less a "window" to look out.

I honestly think that comparing fictional starships to real naval vessels beyond tradition alone is like comparing apples and oranges.

Consider that in the world of Star Trek, you've got a lot going on in terms of what the computer can do. Erect forcefields to seal hull breaches. Reroute power to where it needs to be automatically. Replicators to get every part you need just around the corner, rather than passing it up from storage most times, and transporters any other time.

The Nimitz class is pretty fucking big, yet, throughout Star Trek, a starship would be significantly understaffed by looking at it from a naval perspective. The original Enterprise had, what, 450 or so crew members at highest count? Can the Nimitz class even run with 450 crew members? The E-D had about ten times that. Makes sense, as it was probably about ten times as large. Multiply the Nimitz class in the same manner, and you're sitting on like fifty thousand people. Yet, with the ten-times-as-large E-D, I bet you're still sitting on a pretty small damage control staff, and that is a big. Fucking. Ship.

I'd bet that the Defiant could probably get by with their Engineering staff handling damage control, especially since there are very few areas that really need operation on the Defiant otherwise.

No they wouldn't. Once they input the design of all that technology into a replicator, it's no problem. To a replicator, it's all just matter being reorganized. Instead of replicating the materials needed for a science lab, it instead replicates 10 torpedo tubes to be used in 5 different Defiant class ships.

That's because the Defiant was defending the wormhole, the key to the Alpha Quadrant.

If I were redesigning Trek, I'd have a Combat Intelligence on board (for those of you who've read "The Axis of Time", you know what I'm talking about) - an AI which could fight the ship and manage the battlespace with a speed humans can't match (and don't gimme that M5 stuff )

...Toaster ships?

You start building that sort of intelligence into your ships and you wind up with either Cylons or the virus vampire fleets from Traveller.

See? You give the A.I. too much power, and it kills your graphics!

Rubbish. The CVN is INVINCIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!! MWAH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

Who told you that?

As a former crew member of the USS Nimitz, I have to say that your information is woefully incorrect, unless you are using some strange definition for your term "primary damage control responsibilities" that isn't immediately understandable to the listener.

I read it in a book called "CVX" that outlined plans for manpower reductions on the next generation of supercarriers.

I assumed that the 1000 people mentioned as part of damage control included a large number of people who would have support positions aboard a carrier when not engaged in hostilities.

Well, to be clear, there are about 100 to 200 people on the ship who have "full time" damage control responsibilities. In other words, these guys have no other job but to perform damage control tasks. When not in an actual battle situation, their day to day job consists of training themselves, training the rest of the crew, and maintaining/repairing all damage control equipment.

When the ship gets into deep kimchee and General Quarters is set, every single person on the crew of the ship is responsible for damage control.

Is it true that 10% of the crew of a Nimitz class ship is involved in foof preparation in some way?

Of course, excluding the air wing personnel, I guess that would be 250-300 people

I assume you mean "food preparation".

Yes.

Everyone who reports to the ship (except air wing) who has paygrade of E-1, E-2, or E-3 spends a couple months working in the galley (the kitchen). We call that "mess cranking", and the individuals who perform such work are called "cranks".

Well, to be fair, it is kind of in their best interests, isn't it?

Of course. The USS Forrestal showed us what happens when your crew is poorly trained in damage control techniques.

Your phrasing suggests (to me anyway) that you thought that maybe I wouldn't agree with you?

I think his phrasing was more in the line of an ironically obvious rhetorical question.

I think I remembered the thing on "1,000 people aboard a carrier whose primary duty is damage control" wrong.

Now that I think about it, I think it said something to the effect that a Nimitz class carrier carried

Paraphrasing

nearly 1,000 personnel more than what would be required if not for the need for damage control.

I think it was an argument against automating large numbers of jobs aboard a carrier because of the personnel required for effective damage control during a direct attack or fire aboard a carrier.

Could a modern carrier still function as effectively during all out combat if it had 1,000 fewer personnel?

Durrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

I get it now.

Call me dense today!

I don't know if the first bolded part above is accurate or not. It seems plausible, although in Reactor Department we never really did seem to have enough people to man all of the required watches without being on some kind of ridiculous watch rotation like 5 and dimes (Five hours on watch, 10 hours off watch. Repeat for six months) and none of those watches are damage control centric per se.

As for the second bolded part, the new Ford Class CVNs are actually going to have about 1000 fewer personnel than a Nimitz Class CVN, so I guess we'll see soon enough!

I never said starships can be replicated, I said their parts and materials can be replicated (which they then go on to build into torpedo tubes, phaser arrays, etc., and then into a starship).

Unless you think self-sealing stembolts are grown on farms.

Someone mentioned the E-D had 10x the personnel of the 1701. This is not true. The E-D could carry 11x the human cargo, but the ship's complement was only 2.something x the 1701, weighing in at 1013.

And that's including families !

It does, when it's at sea without the air wing embarked.

Wait, I remember now. It was that the ship could support something like 5,000 folks during emergency evacuations. Yeah, that fits into the calculations with the crazy-dangerous cargo transporters and warping off to a nearby planet to dump the evacuees so that they could go get more, and it still taking years.