Originally Posted by Voxin

The fact that they use the term "flown" is completely and utterly irrelevant. "Sailed" is a term that evolved from a time when vessels traveled across water using wind power. It is still used today even though modern vessels (even nuclear powered ones) use mostly steam power simply because it connotes moving across water. That doesn't make it it the sole reference to a ship moving. "Steamed" is often used instead of "Sailed" because of the change in propultion methods. Likewise, the term "sail" references a form of two-dimensional travel as, with the exception of submarines, modern ships only traverse the surface of the water. Aircraft and spacecraft move through three dimensions, and they do not traverse water, surface or otherwise. Refering to a nuclear/steam powered vessel as sailing, let alone one that travels under the surface of the water, is already stretching the use of the term beyond is actual meaning. It would be completely inappropriate, except for nostalgic reasons, to refer to starships as "sailing" (except in the case of the yet theoretical solar wind powered vessels, which ironically enough, brings us full circle).

Either way, shuttles are primarily used in Star Trek for physically transporting people or cargo for point to point purposes, such as moving between an orbiting starship and a ground colony. Thus, they are analogous to shuttle aircraft between a carrier (or a destroyer's or smaller ship's helo-deck) and land or another ship, not analogus to the ship itself. As such, it is natural to refer to their movement as flight since they are not the ship itself even if you don't consider the above. Shuttles also engage in actual atmospheric flight, making the point moot anyway since they actually do fly.

In other words, the fact that they refer to flying starships and shuttles neither negates the obvious structure of starfleet as a Naval organization nor the function of starships as ships, not aircraft. Likewise, to suggest that it is not canon that Star Fleet is organized as a Naval organization is absurd.

It is Star , not Star Airforce. Their ships are orgainzed into fleets, taskforces, and squadrons, all Naval terminology in that context.

They routinely refer to starships as just ships.

The internal organization of a starships is that of a ship. The person in charge of the ship is referred to as "Captain," regardless of rank. They have a "First Officer," and so on. Everything about the internal function of the ship is patterned after a large naval vessel.

They perform naval ceremonies. Captains can preside over weddings to marry couples. They do "burials at sea." They even signal attention with a botswain's whistle.

Unlike Star Wars where they use a mix of military ranks (e.g., Generals and Admirals) all in a single service, Star Fleet ranks are patterned after Navy ranks and rank order. Any ranks such as General, Major, and so on, are part of a different (like the Army) or subbordinate services (like the Marines to the Navy). Either way, the Star Fleet ranks you see are Ensigns, Lieutenants, Lt. Commanders, Commanders, Captains, and Admirals (including Rear Admiral, both lower and upper grades and Vice and the rank itself). And depending on the period, you can also find the ranks of Lieutenant Junior Grade (references in Beverly Crusher's rank history and even Dax's) and Petty Officers, including Chief Petty Officer (e.g. Miles O'Brien was a CPO). These are all clearly Naval ranks, specifically US Navy ranks. On top of that, you find various positional titles used only in the Navy, such as Yeoman. Crimeny, they even have Commodore, which is a rarely used Navy special purpose rank.

Then there is the "Captain's Yacht," also the designation of a Navy captain's personal boat.

They have Battleships, Dreadnaughts, Cruisers, Escorts, Carriers, Covettes, Destroyers, Frigates, and so on. These are all Naval ship classes. On top of that, they use the designator "USS" to name their ships. They changed it to mean "United Starship" rather than "United States Ship," but it is clearly a nod to the US Navy ship designation.

For that matter, you think it was a random selection of a name to name the ship flown by Krk and company, "USS Enterprise"? At the time, the real USS Enterprise, the nuclear aircraft carrier, was the biggest and most advanced warship in the world. That follows a canon tradition of rehashing famous warship names, especially those of the US Navy. For example, the USS Farragut, USS Leyte Gulf, the USS Yorktown, the USS Consitution, the USS Lexington, USS Constellation, USS Intrepid, and others were all names of US Navy ships. The USS Hood was no doubt named after the HMS Hood, a WWII British battleship. Were all starships named after naval ships? No. They made up names to reference things in the lore or to connect to the space theme, but the connection to historic naval vessels is absolutely and totally undeniably canon.

I could to on. They have a staterooms and cabins. They have a bridge, and they reference bow, fore, aft, and starboard. They fire "torepedoes." "Red Alerts" are calls to "Battlestations," and on and on and on.

If you still doubt that Star Trek looks at starships as naval vessels rather than aircraft, watch the TOS episode "Balance of Terror." After watching that, watch the Robert Mitchum movie, "The Enemy Below." The latter is a movie about a WWII destroyer captain pursuing a German submarine. The script from "Balance of Terror" is little more than a Trek'ed-up version of the movie with some Star Trek embelishments (including a marriage ceremony and "burial at sea," so to speak). Even the line where the Romulan captain tells Kirk at the end that in another time they could have been friends was directly taken from the end of "The Enemy Below."

The key thing to note there how closely they mirror the actions of the crew of the Enterprise with the destroyer crew in "The Enemy Below" and the cloaked Romulan ship with the submarine. If you can watch that and suggest with a straight face that there is no connection to the way Star Trek views starship operations as ships, then you are simply not being honest.

The bottom line is that everything about Star Trek screams naval organization and naval tactics. It most certainly is canon.

Originally Posted by Voxin

That is the point I was making.



That totally depends on the enemy who captures you. I would not encourage suicide by any means, but there was/is a tradition of saving the last bullet for a reason.

Also, it is unlikely that you would last long enough in a disabled ship for starvation to be a factor. And not that I would encourage suicide or that I think any means of death is pleasant, death by slow deprivation of oxigen is supposed to be one of the least unpleasant ways to go as you tend to drift off without knowing it is happening. I have heard the same of freezing to death, but since I absolutely hate cold, I cannot fathom that. I suppose it depends on how quickly the body shuts down. Still, I would recommend avoiding it in any case.

Originally Posted by Voxin

It is hard to tell from that what they are referring to as "wings." In the first use of the term, he orders the a couple of wings to attack, but the only thing you see attacking are fighters. There was an intermediate reference to wings, but there was no corresponding visual to make it clear to what he was referring. In the later use of the term where he specifically refers to Galaxy "wings," he orders them to engage and other ships to try to break through. You again see fighters engaged, but you also see everyone enaged, and, in the end, only Cisco's ship breaks through. If non-Galaxy ships broke through but the Galaxies stayed behind, you would could positively assert that "Galaxy" wings referred to the starships themselves, but since, even in that scene, you see fighters engaging first, followed by all the larger ships, and only the Defiant broke through, you have no way to positively assert who was trying to break through and who was intentionally staying behind to engage them.

The only clear example of "wings" attacking only involved fighters, suggesting that I was not incorrect. The middle use had no corresponding visual, so there is no reason to conclude differently. The latter example showed fighters attacking first, reinforcing the former conclusion, and since no ships besides Cisco, there is no evidence that the usage contradicts my previous statement.

That said, even though the first scene seemed to support my conclusion, I concede that they most likely are using the term "wing" incorrectly here. While the visuals either support the idea that the wings refer to the fighters or don't prove anything either way, the context seems to clearly suggest that he referring to more than just the fighters when he uses the term "wing" even though the initial attack seems to only consist of fighters.

Still, my basic point stands. In the beginning, he discusses taking taskforces from the various fleets, and the talk about squadrons, which is the naval organaizational structure of Fleet > Taskforce > Squadron. Writers often throw around military terminology incorrectly, so it is not surprising that they would force fit the term "wing" in the wrong context.

Originally Posted by helixsunbringer

Last I checked Sisko was of the rank of Commander or Captain throughout the majority (if not the entirety) of Deep Space 9. If that is the case, then he would not be of sufficient rank to give orders to other captains or his superiors. Rather that job would fall upon a person with the rank of Rear Admiral, Vice Admiral, or Fleet Admiral. Anything less than those ranks would be insufficient to command other Captains in an engagement. The exception is if a Captain is given special dispensations during war time in order to command a small fleet. Command of a Large Fleet or even more importantly a significant portion of Starfleet's entire Armada, would definitely fall under the command of an Admiral, and more likely under the command of a Fleet Admiral instead of anything less. Keep in mind Captains command single ships, and occasionally Space Stations. Admirals command multiple ships. Fleet Admirals command entire segments of the Armada. The Commander in Chief of Starfleet likely controls the entirety of Starfleets Military Might.

In point of fact the main shuttle bay was so huge on the Galaxy Class that explosive decompression of said Shuttlebay on it's own, was enough to provide propulsion to the ship as a whole (both Stardrive and Saucer Sections combined). That is a lot of Inertial Force. Which means there is enough room for multiple wings of starfighters in that shuttle bay. That's not even counting the two auxiliary shuttle bays on the Galaxy Class. In short the Galaxy Class is about as close to a Canon Carrier as we are going to see as far as Gene Roddenberry's grand vision of the series comes to depicting.

Further I would argue that the so called "Galaxy Wings" that are mentioned, are in fact referencing the support craft launched from various Galaxy Class Starships. Using the term "Galaxy Wings" to reference multiple Galaxy Class Starships themselves (especially when it is coming from the perspective of Sisko giving orders to other ships) is kind of silly when you think about it. Sisko would not have the authority to give orders to the Captains of Galaxy Class Starships. Sure he could make requests of them, or give them strategic advice. But ultimately it is up to each Galaxy Class Starship Captain to make their own decisions on how they run their ships. Thus having another Captain telling them how to run their ship is kind of weird and in a way very similar to mutiny. In point of fact the concept of another CO giving orders on Kirk's ship was actually toyed with in the Original Series in the episode featuring the Doomsday Device. Though in that situation said other CO was actually of a rank superior to Kirk so take that with a grain of salt.

Originally Posted by snipe048

Perfect Explanation there

In another note don't think of it as a Carrier, think of it as an Escort that launches it's shuttles out of it's shuttle bay to "Support" it, if that helps.

Originally Posted by HF_Mudd

The philosophical issue, at least when it comes to Feds using fighters, is that they are often considered attrition units. Rather than putting all of your eggs in one basket and making that basket as secure and well-defended as you can (the canon Fed approach), you're deliberately putting some of your people out there in weaker craft to give the enemy more targets to shoot at. The expectation is that some of them will die, but enough will get through to accomplish the mission. Most cultures, including (most definitely) the Klingons, understand the notion of "acceptable losses" - but the Federation, like the modern Western democracies it's modeled on, would like to cling to the (unrealistic?) notion of winning the battle with as few casualities as possible (ideally, none at all). So they would play cautiously, keep everyone in one boat... and if that boat gets sunk, at least they all went together.

Originally Posted by DeltaFox

I dissagree with this for the Federation. I personally believe that the current 2409 fighters are unmanned, remote piloted craft.

Why do I think this? Well look at the starships themselves. When the captain gives the order to travel at Warp 7, does the helmsman press the gas pedal? No, he inputs a command and hits enter. The ship does the rest. So, in effect, the ships are not piloted but given a series of commands to complete.

Now take that down to fighters. The removal of life support devices from the dedicated combat craft allow for a larger computer core, shields, room for extra weapons, etc. That would result in a more powerful ship than the regular aux craft every ship carries. So the "pilots" remain safely inside the carrier, remote piloting their craft.

Now for the attrition part of fighters. True they will be weaker than full on starships, but they have numbers on their side. Being unmanned allows for more intense combat maneuvers. A torpedo fired from a figher is going to have the same impact as one fired from a starship. So multiple waves of antimatter warheads from different angles is going to hurt no matter who you are. If you lose ships I'm sure the carrier has industrial replicators to make parts for new ships.