PITCHING A GREEK TRIREME AGAINST A WW2 WARSHIP
THIS POST CONTAINS QUITE TECHNICAL DETAILS AND SPECULATIVE COURSE OF ACTION
MEET THE COMBATANTS
Galaxy-class USS EANES, NCC-1434
(After Gil Eanes, portuguese sailor from the 1430s which ended the myth of sea monsters in the northwestern African coast)
In the Star Trek universe, Galaxy-class starships were put in service around the 2360s into the 2370s by the Starfleet, crewed by between 1000 to 6000 people; these 641 meter behemoths were usually designated as explorer ships. Like most Starfleet vessels, it is composed of a large saucer, a neck, and two warp nacelles.
The average speed for cruising can be around warp 6, though at times warp 9 is possible but risky for long periods.
Armaments include a total of 26 phaser arrays (halves above and below the saucer), 2 torpedo launchers (250 photon torpedoes), and antimatter mines, and of course the staple deflector shields.
There isn't much information about how powerful phasers can be, citations say it takes several seconds to melt through granite, for further strength calculations 1 second will be considered for 1kg, for a total power estimate of 1.7 MJ/s, or roughly 2MW. In the TNG series throughout episodes we can estimate that typical firing power for ship-to-ship combat is between 40 and 400 MW, the latter of which is more than enough to overpower the ship’s shielding.
The TNG manual says phasers travel just under lightspeed with an effective range of 300 thousand kilometers.
Photon torpedoes get their power from matter/antimatter annihilation, which releases great quantities of radiation. Photon torpedoes are warp-capable depending on model, traveling up to 0.17-0.2c, they have an approximate range of some 300 thousand kilometers, but this can be extended at the expense of torpedo yield to 3.5 million km.
The series speaks of setting levels for torpedo yield, which commonly go from 1 to 16, called isotons, and at one time is said that a level 25 warhead could level a city, so I'd imagine they'd have the yield of tactical nukes overall, is implied that these levels are not linear, since a 54 isoton could blow up a planet. The Star Trek Next Generation Technical Manual page 129 says that about 1.1-1.5 kg of anti-matter are carried by your typical photon torpedo, and conversion parameters set the explosive yield at a maximum of 64,4 megatons, it could be less if the annihilation is not total.
So basically this ship's capabilities are taking out a ~4 km wide asteroid with a single torpedo (from the gravitational binding energy equation), and particle beans able to vaporize through up to 200kg of rock a second.
On the other side of the ring, we have a fleet designed by me:
All ships follow the same construction rules as the blog's flagship the Scitalis, including the camouflage pattern
SCITALIS-class Support Cruisers
(The Scitalis is a medieval beast that is said to possess beautiful shiny marks)
(The Scitalis is a medieval beast that is said to possess beautiful shiny marks)
Each vessel is about 320 meters long, I calculated, given an overestimate of the density of submarines, for 400-600 kg/m³ to account for the plates, reactor and skirts, that each ship would have a dry mass around 50 or 60 thousand tons, or the weight of two moderately-sized battleships, it could be way less if it can be manned by a small crew, or none at all, which is why I'm counting on a computer to crew the ship.
In the last post I calculated that a decent spin for the ship would impart over 60 G of acceleration on the ends of the ship, and knowing that the tensile strength of steel is between 400-800 MPa, and that the ship has an overall cross-section of the deck of some 24-35m, the stress shouldn't be above 20 MPa per square meter, and so the ship wouldn't rip itself apart unless it is spinning anything over 160 rpm (as fast as the blades of a fan).
No warp drives or superluminal travel capabilities, minimum artificial gravity, top speed just about solar escape velocity at 50 km/s, no in-atmosphere flight capabilities. No energy shielding, relying on inclined and thickened steel plating for projectile protection, which can be as thick as 1 meter in the most critical parts, with effective thickness of 2-3 meters due sloped armor.
For weapons, each broadside is equipped with 75x 80mm 7,4 ton fast paced artillery guns (40 rounds/minute). And 6x 7,0 ton kinetic kill dispersers (basically a shotgun with 300kg of pellets a shot), firing in a 30° cone.
Making this ship 2% cannons by mass, muzzle velocity at ~850m/s for 10 kg artillery and 100g pellets.
The typical barrel life for WW2 warships was between 200 to some 300 shots depending on what cannon, while allowance (typical/minimum ammo carried) was up to half as much, with less than 50-60 shots fired per battle. By the same standards, since we have 150 cannons across the ship, our allowance is about 100 rounds per cannon, and our typical munitions cache is under 15 thousand rounds (150 tons of shells), had one vessel have to empty their stockpile, it would take approximately six minutes using a single broadside, costing us that whole set of weapons.
If the cannons on one side concentrate fire inside a 10 meter wide area, each salvo would impart over 270 megajoules of energy, or >1.73 MJ per m².
Jaculus-class Gunships
(The Jaculus is a medieval beast, a flying serpent that hides on top of trees and strikes from above)
While the Scitalis-class hulls are pretty scary for their suppressive fire capability, a Jaculus-class ship, as the name suggests is intended to attack directly with a powerful strike. Because Jaculus ships are a big collective of heavy weapons, they must be scouted by lighter and faster ships which give them space and time to aim their salvos.
The frontal hull of the Jaculus possess parabolic geometry to deflect incoming shells, the main array of 7x 120mm cannons is endearingly called "Trumpets" as a reference to the trumpets in the book of Apocalypse, each shell weighing 20 kilograms, fired at 1,7km/s and 10 rounds a minute. With 1000 shells aboard, the ammunition types are broken in ¾ shaped explosives, and ¼ shredder rounds which break apart to maximize structural damage. The main arsenal in a Jaculus gunship are 24x 100kt plutonium fission warheads, these are usually kept unarmed and separated at different parts of the ship, in extreme situations the three-man crew will initiate the assembly which takes a few minutes, and then deploy the weapon.
The Jaculus cannot maneuver its individual Trumpet cannons, since they are mounted on the ship's structure. The whole vessel has to be pointing directly at the target as the small face size of the ship grants all cannons greater accuracy regardless of distance, for this reason it possesses greater turning capability than its companions.
A full Trumpet salvo can deliver >202 MJ of energy at once, making it as powerful as a Scitalis-class ship. Each side of the ship is lined with 15x 80mm cannons like the ones used in Scitalis-class ships, their purpose is purely defensive at first.
Archer-class Ranged Battleship
(I didn't find a beast cool enough to name it for its ability)
The Archer-class ships have very similar hulls to the Jaculus-class, but the Archers exchange caliber for range and speed, in place of 120mm cannons they sport 90mm with superior muzzle velocity, at 3 km/s, 20 rounds a minute, and 15kg shells. Most of their arsenal are shredder and cluster rounds. The ordinance that gives the ship hull its name are curved trajectory missiles and flashbang/flare charges, which are designed to fly along a predetermined curved path in the hopes of striking the target from an inconvenient angle, at adjustable speeds up to 5 km/s.
If Scitalis-class ships are in the middle of the battle, and Jaculus aim for the citadels, Archers rely mainly on taking down moderate value targets, like enemy ordinance, fighters, and peripherals as well as providing field intel and combat interference from a distance.
THE FIRST ENCOUNTER
2372.74, Omicron sectorUnknown presence detected moving across the UFP-Romulan neutral zone. The Federation fears another Borg threat. As of a few years ago, Starfleet has sent Galaxy-class USS EANES to verify the strange movements last seen near the Iconia system…
From the crew’s point of view the readings of the potential hostiles are not threatening, the detection of no shields and minimum vital signatures inside the group would raise curiosity but proceeding with caution is the order. The bridge would transmit their salutations and warnings in the name of the United Federation of Planets, but they answer with a negative, claiming the Iconia system and the ancient technology within it under their control.
The first encounter fleet is composed of two archers and two scitalis ships, captain Leonhardt from the USS Eanes orders the shields to be activated, and that the rebel fleet surrenders to the UFP. To no avail, the two archers strike first with a full cannon salvo against the starfleet ship, just to be stopped by the energy shield, an immediate surprise for the home side.
The Eanes crew is slightly less worried about the aggression capabilities of the enemy, as their attack didn’t even scratch their deflector shields a bit.
Their science official onboard is rather confused with the primitive armament they are being attacked with, the crew considers transmitting again, as the rising of a new spacefaring civilization sounds of importance to the Federation. Still, they are received with aggression, no known language in either side's catalog makes for a stable communication. As the weapons seem of no effect at all, the squadron starts to maneuver around the planet for a retreat.
I'm not sure about other captains, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be fair to fire back at such puny threat at first, as it had occurred several times across the series. Yet the Eanes follows the group around the planet, and as soon as the initial report from the fleet is analyzed in the next dozen minutes, a small object crosses space at some 10 km/s, from beyond the horizon in the direction of the starfleet ship. The collision with the frontal shields reveals that the object was a small 100 kiloton fission bomb, doing a small dip in the shields reading like those created by phasers in typical combat situations. Now this is the signal the crew needed to get ready for combat, despite less advanced, the civilization clearly sees them a threat to be dealt with, and so the crew decides upon showing who's boss, maybe this opens space for negotiation.
A 20-kiloton device can irradiate up to 100 R in a radius of 50km, using the inverse square law, we can say the explosion released 250 kR/km² at 1km from its center, this means that any nukes we launch at the Eanes here will be harmless to our computers and crew even at distances as close as less than 20-50km, as they are protected by 1m thick steel plating and possibly water as well (to get the radiation dose down to a billionth of the exposure), however, the radiation released by a photon torpedo would be so high, that the radiation would be lethal from as far as probably 500-1000 kilometers without some even thicker shielding. Although the starfleet ships have windows that would allow the radiation to penetrate, the deflector and cruising shields are good enough to deal with it during warp as usual, so I'm not even counting on giving the crew radiation sickness from a few nukes near the bridge.
THE SECOND ENCOUNTER
A few phaser beams are shot against the nearest battleships, cutting through the 1m thick steel plating and the ship's internals in less than 1 minute, depending on what exactly are phasers made of, it might not be very effective at all because of the shapes and structures of the hulls, but had it operate maximum effectiveness it would easily vaporize through 5 tons of steel in some 30 seconds, the rapid expansion of the material still causes explosions along where the beam hits. A ship hit with this sort of weapon for more than a pair of seconds anywhere will be taken out easily. No amount of nukes across the frontal shields of the Eanes will stop it, the fleet stops and regroups in a point far above the planet.
With the mutual silent cease-fire the two sides maneuver in space and observe each other.
The surviving scitalis ship relays the result of nuclear attacks as it retreats past the organizing defense fleet, composed of seven scitalis-class ships, four archers and four jaculus gunships, all of which start dispersing at full speed around space. The longer ships start to spin through space while the manned ships skim behind, keeping themselves locked with the Eanes on sight. The captain orders immediate response to the detected new wave of attacks. The scitalis ships cannons light in sequence like Christmas lights as they fire towards the pilons of the warp nacelles and neck of the Eanes, as they are seemingly the weakest structures of the ship, the rain of shells does not do much being promptly stopped by the shielding, the enemy crew orders the computers to concentrate fire on the closest of the warp nacelles to try and overwhelm the shields, maybe it could lower them on other parts of the Eanes. Seeing the shield lecture dip down little by little prompts the Eanes to start attacking the support cruisers but the phaser banks can't get a good reading nor straight shot through the erratically spinning ships, defensive sprays of buckshots also partially block the phaser beans that do manage to hit the ships for a fraction of a second at a time.
So here where the course of conflict diverges in two scenarios:
- The
release of single photon torpedo annihilates the whole enemy fleet, as
I'm not counting they would be much further than a few hundred km from
each other.
- The crew agrees to not use PTs for their large destructive power, and because they still intent to establish dialogue. It is possible that the Eanes sustains significant damage if nothing is done about the aggressors.
- M.O. Valent, 17/07/2026
i forgot from when is this original draft
