Tip of the hat to the brave crews of the Mirandas who gave their lives valiantly for the benefit of the viewers to enjoy the show as their ships exploded the moment someone sneezed near it.
I always thought it was stupid that the ships would be cut in half the moment they were hit by any enemy fire. Could have swore those fuckers had Shields.
The Miranda takes lots of flak from its use in the Dominion War, but if you watch things like the 1st Battle of Chin'toka you'll see far newer designs like the Akira getting obliterated about as fast. Ships like the Miranda, Bird of Prey, and Peregrine fighter fall into the smaller, cheaper, more numerous category which is good for a long duration war of attrition; these ships are the tools of a materialistic warfare doctrine and they worked. We shouldn't look at them as the flying coffin of the Dominion War but as its Sherman or T-34 tank; simple, reliable, and combat effective, basically a war winner.
I almost agree, but I'd amend to say the Miranda Class is more like the M3 Lee specifically. It was more the metaphorical stopgap until more modern designs could come in.
5 лет назад
Too bad you had to use the T34 coffin for comparison... Most historians no longer believe in the myth of Russian tanks. Here's a translated quote from a training manual for German panzerzerstörtruppen (armour destroying infantry squads) for Armee Gruppe Mitte, dealing specifically with the T34: "Slow and unmoveable. Effect mostly psychological. Combat effectiveness very low." It goes on to detail how you should simply fire at the tank with personal weapons, as the crew will be nearly blind after closing the hatches. After that the T34 can nearly be ignored, as they were rarely issued enough shells to fire and couldn't acquire targets. Destroying can be done as easily as tossing a molotov cocktail on it, since the vision slits don't have glass in it and the crew will burn to death from just a tiny bit splashing through. Typical losses were 10-15% before they even got to within firing range. Quite often an entire unit would be lost with their opponent suffering minor losses. It's for that reason the Russian crews prefered lend-lease tanks, especially the Sherman, that had much high survivability and crew comfort.
I agree 100%. The scene the video uses of the 2 Mirandas being destroyed has been somehow seized upon by fans(including the makers of this video) to mean that the Mirandas were poor combatants and flying death traps. If that's the case, so were Akiras, Nebulas, Galaxies, and Excelsiors.
Agreed completely, a unit(ship) is not strong as much weapons and defenses he has but you need to take into account its price(time of manufacturing). If its an effective design you can compensate simply with numbers.
I'd like to see a story about the crew of a Miranda during the Dominion War. A makeshift crew on an ancient ship, trying to stay alive while facing hopeless odds. You could do something Battlestar-y with that concept.
Star Trek Adventures RPG seed i'm working on is actually the players joining the crew of a Miranda class that served the entire dominion war and is now being sent out on survey duty "out to pasture" because there aren't any other ships to send after the heavy losses of the war, and hey, command did just do all those wartime upgrades... one poor sod is playing the ship's counselor...
I love the Miranda class. it was the perfect supplemental class design for heavy cruiser Constitution Refit. Borrowing many recognizable design cues from the Constitution. Instantly recognizable as from the same organization, and instantly recognizable as a less capable support craft in a fleet action. Great design IMO
You want to know something funny the model kits made for the series following the original show actually had several modular designs you could make out of the Enterprise kit, one of them was something akin to the USS Reliant we saw in Wrath of Khan
I actually think that on a tacital standpoint the Miranda is a superior to the Constitution because of its more compact design. It doesn't have to rely on a 4 meter wide neck.
Csaba Hofecker Same could be easily said for the B-52 strategic bomber. Though it has yet to see a conflict where it is incredibly vulnerable, in the case of a major war, where America does not have air superiority, bass losses of the B-52 are all but guaranteed. EDIT: IIRC Vietnam is the best modern example that had happened to the B-52. But even back then, the technology isn't nearly at the level it is today.
@@TheEDFLegacy the b-17 crews in world war II had to do 25 missions for their tour of duty. Before they had P-52 lighting escorts most only made it 10 mission. If you made to your 11 mission you were on borrowed time.
tahhotep I'm well aware of the history of those two airplanes. The reason why I brought up the B-52, because it has been in service for over 50 years. the B-17 was phased out far sooner.
Everybody likes to bring up "explodium" this and that. Quite honestly anything that wasn't the hero ship is blown up like firecrackers anyway. Don't let them get to you.
She can still outgun ships that are much younger. And come on, the Miranda spaceframe could be refitted with new gear just like any other spaceframe could be. There is NO reason why she couldnt fight and survive beside starfleet's finest if she had the same gear onboard. Might even fare better, being so much smaller...
Hands down my favourite Star Trek ship. I love everything about it, from the looks to the size to the versatility. I have three models in my collection (two variants plus a kit bash).
@@raxsavvage yes. It's also worth noting that the Sitak and Majestic were destroyed several hours into the battle. While screening the Defiant. They aren't made of explodium. No sir.
Not a huge fan of the Miranda, but the Nebula is one of my favourites. That being said, the Nebula literally would not exist without the Miranda, so credit where it's due!
Personally I find one of the most amazing things about the Battle Of Sector 001 is that there is an Oberth present (giving us the one time to date that we have seen one fire a weapon), which to me really screams that Starfleet was just throwing whatever it had at the cube to try and make it stop. Amazing it lasted long enough to witness the E arrive and we never actually see it get destroyed, so it's possible that somewhere out there is what is presumably the luckiest Oberth crew in the galaxy, who somehow took a ship that can be one shot by a Bird of Prey BY ACCIDENT, into a battle with a Borg Cube and survived it.
@@JamesTobiasStewart There is something to be said about being on a ship that has so little firepower that you are on the tail end of the "priority targets" list. That being said, one of my fav tactics on the game Birth of the Federation was sending a horde of these against a Borg cube. Ironically, it was actually much cheaper in the end than sending in actual warships despite the losses, there is only a finite number of guns those cubes have and they could not cut down enough Obeths to kill them all before they killed it. Material warfare FTW.
Oh I absolutely love the lighter classes. Paid money for the T'varo and its refit. I have zero complaints and that little hockey puck has served me quite admirably. Also it's fun to just slap on all the turning rat gear and have a ship sized teacup ride.. In all seriousness I tried some of the bigger ships and the fact they turn about as well as an eighteen wheeler with half of its wheels blown out while towing a house.... Yea I value manuverability.
One thing to keep in mind is that the dominion war required starfleet to field massive amounts of vessels to deal with the numbers the dominion were fielding. The miranda's were brought out of mothballs to fill that gap, many were sent to the frontlines after basic repairs and resupply were completed. It's no wonder so many were lost, though to be fair the Galaxy class didn't fare all that much better with the dominion willing to ram them for the glory of their gods....
I mean...at least it's not an Oberth? That's basically the only thing the Miranda has going for it at this point. That and its ability to turn its overhang bar into an additional rapid-fire torpedo launcher.
@@zafranorbian757 Yes...when she was introduced...in the 2260's. Come 2370, she's over 100 years old, and clearly out of date. Does the Miranda still have its uses? Absolutely. Should it be used in a conflict? Only if you literally have no other ships that you can call upon. Ships like the Miranda-class and B'Rel-class are testimony to their good design, but time will make all things impotent eventually. Scores of Miranda-class vessels were wiped out during the Dominion War, so we know this to be the case.
@@sergeantassassin3425 In the Dominion war the Federation was so overstretched that they literally had nothing else to call upon as reserves. And considering how their other ships were blown up just as fast (Dominion polaron weapons, making shields useless.), they seemed to serve just fine as the rest of the cannonnfodder.
I used to play that as well, and used the Miranda class as lead ship of a group of destroyers doing "light" duty such as security and escort against pirates or checking out systems before the bigger ships came in.
@@Thane36425 Yep...classic. I miss running those games. Many a day/night was spent on adventures with our trusty ship. It got banged up and scraped, but always got them home. We lost lives on the way, but the crew could trust her. Wow, that was almost thirty years ago. Time flies.
@@grafffuller3265 Unfortunately I've lost most of that material, including the rule books and space combat boxed set, over the course of a couple of moves. That's a shame because they have a nice, workable system that was very flexible as far as designing and developing characters. You could also design star ships. We did a lot of that and tried them out against published ships and each other's designs.
Thane36425 yes, Th system was great. We had so many great campaigns. Never got into designing ships, though. Interesting. Yea, all my stuff was left in boxes. The the kids got to them...then my wife saw the mess and “cleaned” it up. After the kids devoured the books (literally ate on them...it was ONLY trash at that point. It’s not that I have thought of running a campaign (after all these years). Who has the time anymore? Great memories though. Thanks.
@@grafffuller3265 We played more with the starship combat game rather than the RPG, though we did often make characters for it. The reason was that you could use characters from the RPG in the game and use their skills rather than the created tables that came with the game. That could really give you an edge over the stock rules. One time we did role play was using a Miranda Class ship tasked with running supplies and replacement crew to the Epsilon IX station just before it was hit by V'Gr. The ship arrived shortly before V'Gr attacked and all but a skeleton crew removed then we stay out as a safe distance monitoring until the Enterprise arrived and were still present when all the rest happened. Naturally this threw out the "only ship in the quadrant" quip, but we all thought that was BS anyway. Anyway, we had a lot of fun with that, since I was playing the Captain and refused to endanger my ship after what V'Gr did to the Klingons and the station, and it did try to get us once but we warped out (because navigation was constantly updating the system for an emergency jump and as soon as V'Gr twitched we were gone.) We ended up staying well out and essentially operating in passive mode and fed info to Enterprise. The fun was the Gamemaster playing Admiral Kirk and really hamming it up as my character refused to make suicide runs on V'Gr to get information, finally winning out with the argument that we had all those station crew on board. So in the end, we played it that canon was slightly changed about the rescue and recon mission, but the role sharply downplayed because of the interaction between the captain and Kirk. In other words, they got the glory and we got a footnote, but at least the captain wasn't court martialed.
my all time favorite star trek vessel. not as long serving as the bird of prey but a ship that was a workhorse in a faction that relied on cutting-edge technology and beautiful too
Great review. Favorite ship when I first saw Star Trek II, still love it today. Along the same lines, I have always loved the smaller versions of the flagship designs, the Miranda, Nebula and Akira classes etc
I always had an image of a wolf-pack of Miranda class jumping unwary second-line ships of the Dominion behind enemy lines when it was said they were most often deployed in groups.
Love the Miranda-class! My favorite Federation class of starship. Sure, by the Dominion War, their primary combat role was to clog up enemy sensors with their debris, but still the workhorse ship for much of the history of Starfleet. Better than the showy Excelsior- class or the buggy Constellation-class, or even the vaunted Constitution-class (didn’t see many of those hanging around in the 24th century). Best look for a Federation ship too, i thought.
o7 the miranda class deserves a salute and standing ovation for it's ruggedness, versatility, and longevity. she will may fall out of service but she will never be forgotten and will live on in the new vessels that are inspired by her classic design.
Funny I thought that would be the Akira Class. Does everything the Miranda does but better and faster. The only thing the Akira lacks is a Tetsuo... Megaphaser...
As with all ships and fighters, the radio is the best built part. The ship or fighter is torn to flaming bits, but the radio always lasts long enough to send the pilot's death scream.
The Soyuz is one of my favorite ships mainly because it is so rare only appearing in one episode as little more than space debris. I got the eaglemoss model and it comes with a mag with stats and behind the scenes gubins, its funny the ship you see in next gen is called the bozeman and in the next gen movie they mention it, meaning that it came through a hole in space time nearly hits the enterprise and star fleet is just like "oohh a free ship, better put that back into service for like another decade"
In beta canon, the U.S.S. Bozeman was replaced by the newly renamed Bozeman-A, a destroyer commissioned shortly after the maiden voyage of the Enterprise E.
U.S.S. Reliant, the first different class of Federation Starship to appear in 1982. This vessel has come along way, and amazing that it stayed in service longer than the constitution class Starship. It would've been nice to have seen one of those in the Next Generation to at least show that the Refit Constitution classes were long serving aswell.
Having the Miranda class starships fight in the Dominion Cardasian war would be like having the original Constitution class ship from the war of 1812 fight to WW1 or even WW2.
Good-looking ship. Liked the design since I first saw it in Wrath of Khan(I was seven, on VHS). The low-slung warp nacelles have since been seen on numerous ship classes. It's a trademark. Like the Akira, my fave.
I think the Miranda has to be the most unfortunate ship class in the Federation, next to the Oberth-class. I think I've seen maybe 2 instances where an Oberth appeared on-screen and didn't have something horrible happen to it, namely the end scene of Generations where the Enterprise-D crew were recovered from Veridian III, and the DS9 pilot where Dax and Bashir were brought to the station (this shot might have been reused a couple of times afterward in the series). The only craft in Starfleet service that might have a worse time of it than the Miranda is the various shuttlecraft across the different iterations of the franchise.
I’m not so sure the Miranda was as outmatched in the Dominion War as it first appeared. People point to things like Sacrifice of Angels when we have those shots of 2 Mirandas flanking the Defiant getting obliterated, but if you actually look at the episode as a whole, those 2 Mirandas kept up with the Defiant on her charge through the lines long enough that by the time they were destroyed the Defiant had already taken severe damage. If you look at some of the ways the Defiant was treated during the battles, I honestly think they didn’t really get rid of shields like it looks during the battles but they replaced the look of a weapon hitting the shields to look like an explosion for cinematic/effect reasons
I would like to see a Star Trek Inside Starfleet ships on the Miranda Class as they've already done ones on the Constitution Class (T.O.S.) and the Refit Class,the Excelsior Refit Class U.S.S. Enterprise,the Ambassador Class,the Galaxy Class and the Sovereign Class so seeing one on the Miranda Class would be nice.
You know they should do a spacedock video on the Antares class because apparently that is what the Miranda class was said to be before it was apparently rebuilt and refitted into the Miranda class that was first introduced in Star Trek 2:The Wrath of Khan the U.S.S. Reliant NCC-1864.
It's my favourite ship on screen and in game, it has the hardpoints of a fully-fledged assault cruiser while being able to maneuver like a smaller vessel should. It has decent hit points should you ever catch it and is suited to defending earth from the Borg, a fast response vessel to answer most threats or as a long range, deep space science ship that can beam down medical staff or even create entire fresh eco systems on long dead planets. It's both the cannon fodder rust bucket and the advanced right-hand refit of Starfleet and earth would have fallen long ago without it.
One of my favorite designs in the franchise. Also, while the Miranda was originally designed as a ship that would look clearly related to the Enterprise while being clearly distinct, later installments taking place in the pre-TOS era seemed to run with the idea of the flying saucer with warp engines attached as a standard Federation ship design (compared to how the Klingons and Romulans favored ships that resembled birds of prey with their aggressively swooped wings). If you watch Star Trek Discovery, almost all of the Federation ships shown are the flying saucer type, with only a handful of ships using the two-hulled "Saucer and sausage" layout that the Enterprises normally used.
While you touched on it there is a clip in episode what you leave behind showing a Miranda dodging and weaving against a Dominion ship showing just have capable it is, takes a direct hit too and keeps going, for all its faults the ship was capable if used correctly in the war a sad fact it often wasn't.
A Starfleet Admiral dispatches 3 Vessels render aid after a cataclysmic event inflicts massive casualties... an Oberth Class vessel A Miranda Class vessel An Olympic Class vessel
When you get transferred to a Miranda class in the 2370's they give you two documents - one is the transfer documents and the other is a blank last will & Testament for you to fill out.
I love how there's a thin veil of professionalism when it comes to the critique of Starfleet's continued use of the _Miranda,_ when they were so clearly obsolete and prone to just simply exploding the moment someone shot at them.
When you spend the last one or centuries without a big threat to deal with, it shows how SF was completely unprepared for war. By Voyager's time, they already made the Prometheus-class, double their production in Defiant class, and the Akira class.
One of my all time favorites. I loved the Miranda class more than even the Constitution class. Eventually surpassed by the Excelsior class. Many would disagree, but I always thought that the Miranda was the primary inspiration to the Akira class. Although it has been stated to be the inspiration to the Saber class, which I can now see.
I find it interesting that plot extras such as Mirandas and Excelsiors ended up as workhorses across a century of service, yet the illustrious Constitution Class that carried the original series and defined the signature style for Federation vessels seemed to come and go as though it was a failed experiment.
I'd love to see an extended version of this, one of my all time favorite Star Trek ships. STO just finished its 10 year anniversary recently. The Reliant version of this little ship was my go to "non-carrier"" whenever I wanted something that was quick, reliable, and packed enough phaser banks to make a mess out of Klingons, Borg, and everything else the TFOs could throw at me. Leave to an engineer to keep something going; whenever Star Fleet wanted to mothball this thing, some crazy project would be packed into that hull, wrapped around its nacelles and keep her flying for another ten years.
The Miranda class is 1 of my favourite Starships I've got a model of the Miranda class USS Reliant aswell as the Soyuz class & the USS Saratoga that was @ the Battle of Wolf 359
The thing about the Miranda-class is that you would go into battle, the next thing you know you're literally getting hammered by 2 Romulan warbirds, the ship wouldn't break, the hull would just be dented around, all of the crew complement dead inside for all the shaking and a continuous message from the computer saying "Warp core breach in 5 minutes" on loop for 20 minutes, when they lock a tractor beam the warp core just decides to go yeet. Also just realized that Sisko was the captain of a Miranda-class at Wolf 359 lmao
Gotta say, I respect the Miranda. It was good at what it did, for as long as it did, despite its shortcomings. The fact it was so modular is something that gains it points in my book. The Dominion war failures and Miranda losses there can't be completely lumped on them; the Feds had let themselves get soft and sloppy, because they'd had almost no competition in ages. Skirmishes on borders, but never a full out war. Its design might be old, but it's also the bedrock for some very good, very strong ships that came later. If I was in the TOS or TOS movie universe, a fleet of up-armored and up-armed Mirandas would be a good system defense fleet to me. Maybe supplemented with a command fleet and a scout fleet of smaller ships.
The Miranda was a good brawler, and a good ship. She was Starfleet. She was a ship that loved deep space, and brawling. As an long range warp-capable wessel, she explored the far reaches of the Alpha Quadrant, from Betazed, to Vulcan and... up to Risa. She died, like so many configurations based on her design, before she could be replaced in her obsolescence. In your wisdom, Q, you took her, as you took so many bright flowering old ships, at Chintokah, Benzite, at AR-558. These old ships gave their lives. And so would the Miranda. Miranda, who loved brawling.
I do like the fact that this ship is a mid-range vessel. Always thought a space faring institution like the Federation would need some kind of patrol vessel and to me the Miranda class would be ideal for diplomats. I hope someone does a updated version for the "next generation" era and that they keep the class name in honor of the long service the original gave.
I love this class so much! And I do believe Starfleet constructed a newer class much like this (Reliant Class I believe?), It'd be amazing to see a video of it!
Congratulations, Captain! The good news is that for you first assignment, you'll be given command of a vessel with over a century of notable achievements. The bad news is you're being stationed out of DS9.
Ah yes, the Miranda. When properly outfitted it serves as a fantastic light, emphasis on light, cruiser. Able to keep up with most escort type vessels, and having the punch to back it up. She's no Akira, and she's no Defiant. She's basically the Federation's version of the Klingon Bird of Prey, venerable, but effective. I remember playing a Star Trek mod for Civ 4. I had a decently sized defense fleet over Earth to keep the god damn raiders from fucking me up while I was building a proper stack of more advanced heavy cruisers. Every other ship got blown up except for the Miranda. And after that, the Miranda held off an additional 10 attacks on it's own and survived. Defense and attack buffs, and experience goes a long way.
A very well done video. I can only hope my own video about this class goes as well when I finish and unveil my redesign of the Miranda into something with all the strengths and greatly reduced weaknesses of the design that I am making in Space Engineers.
I like to think that the Miranda class and the Excelsior class starships did okay for themselves in the war. I mean Starfleet just faxed overwhelming odds that would've been hard to overcome for any starship. That said, yes the Miranda, dating to the TMP era, was used beyond its service life. Only because Trek was still working with models to near the very end did we not get a Miranda replacement during the TNG and DS9 runs. Was always hoping for new vessels to pull up alongside the Enterprise D or DS9 but always got the Miranda or more often the Excelsior in recycled footage...
Well, being the Miranda Class is pretty much the oldest Class in Starfleet to still be in service. They were never designed to be frontline ships. Though when your back is against the wall and you have to do something to give breathing space. Miranda Class warships had to fill that gap and a lot of them did survive more than one engagement.
@@Qardo Right, still definitely better than an Oberth! And reducing the crew to just a few guys with balls of steel was about the best starfleet could have done in this situation.
@@Qardo Like hell they weren't, for being a light cruiser of the TOS era, it could punch way above its class, and could actually beat heavy cruisers from its own era.
Woooo a positive take on the Miranda. Very nice. But the dedicated pod was hardly unique, maybe a for-runner for a dedicated weapons pod. But NX, Steamrunner and Akira class vessels have all had separate pod sections pylon attached.
