@@mary-kittybonkers2374 Yeah he threatened to bring back the enterprise’s broken hull to Romulus and display it in front of the senate….. Good ol Tomaloc 😂😂
@@Draelyn Yes, I really enjoyed his portrayal of G’Kar in Babylon 5. He played him with great depth, gravitas and humour. I think that his G’Kar, and Mira Furlan’s ‘Delenn’ were the strongest characters in the entire B5 universe.
I find the design striking. Ever sence I first seen it appear in that episode of TNG. Was like now that, that's a battleship! To this day it one of my top sci fi warships. Also think that the ship was done dirty in ds9 lol.
The Dominion showed that the D'deridex was vulnerable to squadrons of small attack ships, Jem'Hiddar Bug ships would overwhelm them. Presumably Klingon Birds of Prey could do the same. They also had the advantage that a surprise attack by a D'deridex could not knock out a squadron at once. One (or two) attack ships would cop a beating, but the others would immediately swarm the D'deridex. During wartime and in post war periods (as a stopgap after the Klingon war wiped out half the fleet) Starfleet would sometimes have a attack ships, _referred to as "escort ships"_ (corvette sized warships), but they didn't have them as a permanent part of their peacetime fleet paradigm. Except after the shock of the Dominion War they made permanent changes and the Defiant and Saber classes became the basis for future ship classes.
So yeah, the Klingon Birds of Prey was actually shown as a counter. There's an episode of TNG where two D'deridex ships "ambushed" the Enterprise -D but as soon as the BoP decloaked, they retreated. The agility and cloaking ability of them would easily allow hit and run strikes against a ship that size
@@blackdog6969 The episode was The Defector. I think it was just sheer bad odds that turned the tide. 2 D'deridex vs. 3 Klingon BoP + a Galaxy class wasn't survivable. Picard even asked the Romulan commander if he wanted to die together in the battle.
You forget that the Dominion bugships used phased polaron beams that rendered deflector shields useless. If not for that advantage the warbirds would have probably won.
That means nothing. Swarm tactics would work on any opponent under normal circumstances but that's not what gave the Dominion the edge. It was there phased polaron weapons that give them the edge in battle combined with swarm tactics. The Klingons tried the same strategy in a offscreen battle with the Romulans. There initial ambush succeeded in surprising a couple warbirds but after the surviving warbirds returned fire the battle didn't last long. Later in the war the Romulans, Klingons, and Federation adapted there tech and nullified this advantage.
@@DrOneOneOne I had always wondered if there was a fourth BoP that was just out of frame so that there would be two behind the Warbirds and two in front by the Enterprise.
I think a defiant class, even though it wasn't really around in the beginning when the romulans showed up again, could easily be agile and small enough to pummel the rear of the warbird where it's weapons and shields are probably weakest. It was designed to go up against the borg.
Romulans: "we built hundreds of big starships that are only matched by starfleets small amount of Galaxy class Starships." Captain Montgomery Scott: "laddie, allow me to introduce you to the Sovereign class."
Hate to break it ya but its been proven (its cannon) just one romulan warbird is more than a match for galaxy class, the only reason the ship isn't smoldering cinders was really good negoation or outmanvering on Picard's part. However I tottally agree that all changed with the Sovereign class.
The D'deridex did have some major downsides, like being a lot slower than its counterparts from other major powers. It could only achieve comparable speeds by permanently damaging its drive systems. It was also simply not designed to fight while outnumbered or evenly matched. The whole design philosophy of the vessel was centered around using its cloak to pick battles it was sure to win, so in the Dominion war where the enemies had massive numbers it wasn't doing so well.
They did have a counter..... but the treaty said no cloaks for the federation, and Riker and Picard turned over the phase cloak in I think the peagasus episode it was called in season 7 episode 12
One of the DUMBEST moves ever by Picard and starfleet. The treat of Algeron is ridiculous. The UFP had way more ships more than capable of disposing of the Romulans.
@@KnowTrentTimoy "more ships" which includes Miranda class, oberth class, ambassador class, excelsiors, and dozens of outdated ships still under service. And yeah starfleet has the ships, but does starfleet have the manpower to do all of this? Remember starfleet is a voluntary service, if you suddenly create conscription the planets would instantly riot.
@@Eradicator-jv9xr The UFP is made up of 100's of planets and the Romulans is just one species. I'm almost certain that if there was an all-out war between the two powers and the feds were up to it, their boundless resources and manpower would overwhelm the Romulans in the end.
@@levyan4718 that is only the movie look at even games like STO that expanded upon them and gave variants, science engineering and tactical. While not practical it was perhaps more feared than even dderidex.
Star Trek the Next Generation. All good things. Part 2 Admiral Riker - " Allow me to introduce you to the USS Enterprise galaxy-class refit complete with assault Cannon."
not if she's cloaked because they wouldn't know where she was to do that but yeah if she could find the ship she could do some serious Romulan ass owning of that ship in combat and rip the ship apart from the inside out✊
@@Dragon_Werks I wish they did show a war bird blowing up and collapsing in on itself in one show that would have been a hell of a scene to see because if the quantum singularity in the core cannot be shut down it would pull the ship in wards as she goes critical
@BathrobeKeck The Promeatheous was assisting it in the end but the fact that Akira's had the ability to stand up to bigger and conceptually meaner vessels made it a mainstay of the UFP fleet for fighting needs
Yes, the D'Derdix class was big, but a lot of that size was empty space. Coincidentally, that sort of matched the empty space inside the skulls of some Romulan commanders. (Specifically the two from the episode "the neutral zone" I just couldn't take them seriously)
Warbirds have glass jaws. We saw them being disabled and even destroyed after taking only a few heavy phaser, or plasma torpedo, hits from the Cardassian Weapons Platforms. It is true, the Warbird has a gnarly alpha-strike, and can dish out punishment, but it isn't a ship to slug it out and tank damage. The Romulans have a very specific fleet doctrine to avoid losses and minimize risk due to their being the smaller of the Big 3 powers. They usually choose engagements on their terms, and when not on their terms they'll often suffer heavy losses, or run before the firing starts.
That's not a fair comparison. The same defense platforms decimated Klingon and Federation ships equally as well. Also by this time the Cardassians and Dominion were in arms race with Klingon-Federation Alliance. They were doing very well at the start of the conflict when they entered.
As a side note. Nah they only had around 2 dozen galaxies. And they didn't built any more in the Dominion war. You would just build ships with the same firepower and non-of the exploration part. A Nebula as an examples literally has the same combat ability as a Galaxy other then less mass to take hits. The Federation had around 12k starships at the start of the War, but only about 24 Galaxies.
@@captainseyepatch3879 They had a lot more than that, depending on the source or combination of sources. Given what we know from on-screen evidence, behind-the-scenes, and discounting any "fleet building" games, I'd actually estimate the number at the start of the Dominion War as at _least_ 30 ships, and at least 40 Nebulas, with another dozen or so under construction, of both classes. Given that they used similar components, it wouldn't be terribly hard to finish the work on them with whatever parts were available and whatever new construction could be done, with a great deal of secondary equipment simply left out. Without all that extra science stuff, and all that extra power routed to weapons, both _Galaxy_ and _Nebula_ class ships are incredibly formidable. An often-overlooked detail is that the Dominion used Phased Polaron Beams instead of standard Phasers or Distruptors, which made shields useless. _ANY_ Alpha Quadrant ship would take an easy beating and be blown to bits fast if it had its shields down. The Dominion ships did have shields, but pure Jem'Hadar crews rarely used them. Doctrine during the war was to reroute Shield power to Weapons or Structural Integrity Fields. Now, also, think this: A _Galaxy_ or _Nebula_ stripped of most of its science equipment, diplomatic facilities, and without civilian passengers, could probably operate with a crew of about 400 or so, and have LOTS of sacrificial space not being used by anything/sitting empty. Another thought to keep in mind: D'Deridex class vessels were about the _only ships_ that the Romulans produced in numbers. At the same time, every square inch had a purpose. Nothing could easily be sacrificed (except perhaps not including dedicated landing/boarding troops). So, they had purpose-made vessels with a set order and somewhat limited flexibility. Galaxies and Nebulas had a lot of potential flexibility. Of note, Babylon 5 had one of their races do the same thing: The _White Star_ class ships were the only vessels the Minbari made after a certain point, so, this isn't without Sci-Fi precedence.
@captainseyepatch3879 they had a lot more than 24 lol. You see several in every major engagement of the Dominion war. And where are you getting this 12k number from?
It was a truly impressive ship, and one of the most elegant. It was much more badass than the Klingon’s Bird of Prey and more iconic than any of the Vulcan vessels. I’ve always been puzzled why the Romulans and Klingons had ‘vessel sized’ cloaking devices and were allowed to use them, whilst Earth/Starfleet clearly had some cloaking capabilities/devices/Duck blinds. eg. the Mintaka III episode/Who Watches the Watchers, also, the movie Star Trek: Insurrection, but were forbidden to use them by the Treaty of Algeron. It seemed that the Romulans got a far better deal from that treaty.
the Treaty of Algeron was an in-universe explanation why Star Fleetdidn't have cloaking devices and to maintain the Romulans and Klingons as threatening powers. Because otherwise why *wouldn't* they have cloaking devices. If Star Fleet had a free hand they would have devices that were superior to anything used by the Rs or Ks. Because all Star Fleet stuff is mahoosively over-engineered compared to other major powers "I've found it wise to never underestimate the Federation's technical skill" - Weyoun
Star Trek the Next Generation. All good things. Part 2 Admiral Riker - " Allow me to introduce you to the USS Enterprise galaxy-class refit complete with assault Cannon."
I'd argue the counter was the Akira class. In Star Trek Voyager when the crew sent the Doctor to the Prometheus, 1 Akira & 2 Defiant class vessels took out like 3 or 4 Romulan Warbirds. Yes the Prometheus helped but the Akira was going head on with a Warbird & was winning.
times changed and the warbird was aging at that point. plus the akira had a major manoeuvrability advantage. 90% of the warbird weapons were forward facing and designed for ambush/head-on attacks.
There were two ready counters the Federation had access to to pinpoint a cloaked ship; a tachyon sweep/pulse, but you had to know one was nearby so as use that. And Telepaths … that was a ability that Romulans had no counter to, and if Starfleet had gone on a recruitment drive on Betazed they would have had a massive tactical advantage. And just that there was a cloaked ship in the area could be detected (with difficultly) by their emitting _Tetryon particles_ … Subspace energy fluctuations ... quantum fractures in the electrodynamic field... EM spikes across the spectrum... [That was why the cloak on the Scimitar was so revolutionary - it was perfect as far as Starfleets sensors were concerned, they couldn't detect even if it in the vicinity while it was right in front of them.] And if the cloaked ship was travelling at Warp there were subspace disturbances. The Dominion developed anti proton sweeps that were like search lights that could detect a cloaked ship - but for some strange (plot) reason, Starfleet didn't equip their own ships with this technology after the end of the Dominion War, even though they had stolen Dominion ships.
Depending on what multiple choice answers you accept as canon, I can bet that Starfleet simply saw anti-proton sweeps as superfluous to a certain point, when they had other methods available, and wanted to develop their own in-house solution - even if it ended up being based on Dominion tech. Starfleet hasn't really had a history of stealing or scavenging technology from captured vessels or enemy ships, or they'd've had ships made of Neutronium by the TNG era (the Doomsday Machine from TOS would have been captured ~100 years before the Galaxy-class ships were made). They prefer to innovate on their own.
It was built on intimidation. The Dominion showed that this massive giant was a pushover easily overwhelming them. The Galaxy Class could match this war bird. it was down to who was the better commander. People keep giving the galaxy class a low weapon number grade... But then we saw just how powerful it was when faced against the larger Borg Cube. Firing not 1 Phasor. or 2 Phasors.. But 3/4 at once while launching a full spread of Torpedoes. then with the ability to split into 2 ships and fire a full anti matter spread. Galaxy class is badly underrated...
Ehhhh... some of the hate is warranted, though, since they were designed for diplomacy first and fighting as a last resort. As such, while it has a good weapons suite, that weapons suite could have been better, more powerful, and expanded (a second set of strips further up the saucer towards the center, for example, or additional dorsal arrays). Really, for their size, they could have been incredible warships.. but this is post-Kirk Starfleet: Peace at Any Cost. Fighting was reserved for when all options failed, and given that Starfleet tends to operate solo vessels instead of formations or task forces, it having 14 Phaser Arrays and 2-3 multi-shot torpedo tubes is a rather light armament for its size. Though, yes, a lot of people pooh-pooh that multi-shot launcher to bits, and I hate it. What those things are, is more or less a revolver cylinder of 5-6 Torpedoes that can be launched like a machine gun or shotgun - 5-6 miliseconds apart, or all at once in a spread, then it can swing the next cylinder into place and do it again, keeping up a blistering rate of torpedo fire, as each cylinder rotates out and is reloaded all at once. The previous _Ambassador-class_ ships had similar launchers, but smaller "cylinders" with a smaller spread and longer reload time. Non-refit _Excelsior-class_ ships just had rapid magazines - which, if my understanding of the technology is correct, is about a quarter of the rate-of-fire of one multi-shot launcher. They had two of those tubes in the forward firing arc, giving them half the ROF of an _Ambassador-class_ vessel, or about a third of a _Galaxy_ or _Nebula._ Given that at least half of the _Excelsiors_ still had this tech.. it's easy to see how much firepower a _Galaxy_ could present. Now, another thing: Keep in mind that the _Nebula_ Tactical Module gave it _two more_ forward multi-shot launchers, and one more aft launcher.
@@BattlestarZenobia Ahh.. no, no it did not. The _Galaxy-class_ was barely a match in raw firepower, and itself was out-classed when the Romulan cloaking device is thrown into the mix. The two ships kinda balance each other out, as the _Galaxy-class_ generally had better crews initially chosen for them, whereas the _D'Deridex-class_ Warbird was mass produced. Pre-DW, if they had fought, the victor would really come down to the skill of the crew, and their captain. I went into detail about this on a clip covering Picard vs. two D'Deridex with two Klingon _K'Vort-class_ backing him up. In total, the _D'Deridex_ was to have 10-12 disruptors, and either 1 or 2 torpedo launchers. _Galaxy_ has 12 or 14 phaser emitters and 2 launchers. Both sides had multi-shot rapid-fire torpedo launchers. In terms of simple numbers, that's either an exact match, or a very slight advantage to the _Galaxy._ Just, right here, that's not "decisive" at all. Now, keep this part in mind: The energy output of both weapon types, and how they function, how they interact with adversary deflectors/shields. On-screen evidence generally pushes that Romulan Disruptors have a higher output/deal more damage than Federation Phasers. In addition, Romulan disruptors can be fired in bursts, whereas Federation Phasers can really only be fired in beams (from the _Galaxy-class_ at least), meaning the Romulan Disruptor is more versatile. When it comes to placement, they're roughly an even match, with both ship classes being able to fire at least one weapon system anywhere within a 360 degree sphere. Both favored frontal arcs, however, with the main phaser strips of the _Galaxy_ and the main Disruptor arrays of the _D'Deridex_ both facing forward, along with a torpedo launcher. The _D'Deridex_ has an on-paper edge in the 2360's with the cloaking device, though various methods to detect them were known more or less fleet-wide in Starfleet, after 2370. This is where crew skill and captain experience come in - tactics, and adaptation to the tactical situation. If the _D'Deridex_ captain is skilled, they could press this advantage with a sudden ambush, and even if the _Galaxy_ was on alert with shields raised, the Romulan would be able to get off at least a few unanswered volleys before the _Galaxy_ could return fire, and if they're smart, immediately recloak and run. If the _Galaxy_ crew is alert and experienced, they might be conducting sensor sweeps of the area far outside the _D'Deridex's_ weapons range and detect their ambush before it's sprung. And it only goes on from here. The two ship classes are an on-paper near equal as of 2368, with a slight edge to the Romulans. After 2370, they're pretty much an even match. After the Dominion War, the Federation has better warships, period. The _Galaxy-class_ does NOT "decisively" out-match a _D'Deridex._
This was prior to the development of the Defiant, Akira and Sovereign classes, however - although admittedly no Soveriegn class ships took part in the Dominion War alongside d'deridex to compare
The Voyager episode Ship in a Bottle also proved that the D’deridex wasn’t as powerful as many originally feared One Akira and two Defiants aggressively engaged three of them and it looked like a stalemate until the Prometheus was regained by Starfleet and blew up one of them
It was sluggish and vulnerable from the side/rear where it had little to no weapon coverage since all its primary weapons are forward facing. Its artificial singularity could be detected through the cloak, it had to remain under warp 6 or 7 while cloaked otherwise its engines could be detected, it had numerous shortcomings.
Even though I will always be a proud & unapologetic Cardassian Empire sympathizer, I am man enough to admit that my eyes fell deep in love when i first seen the design of the Romulan Warbird
Honestly, the book the Return had one of the most interesting means of dealing with a Romulan Warbird. A Defiant Class under cloak actually flew between the two hulls. Power transferred to hull integrity and ablative armor before the ship began a 360-degree rotation and gutted the Warbird.
Love this ship, it never got much love in actual canon though, by the time we really got to see it in action, it was overwhelmed with shear numbers, outwitted, or outclassed by newer ships.
The trouble is that had not Starfleet tied their own hands with all sorts of weapons and cloaking treaties, they could stomp anyone's head into the dirt but for maybe the Borg and Species 8472. Always remember that had Picard kept his mouth shut, Starfleet would have a cloak that also allowed you to phase through miles of solid matter.
There was one’ edge the Federation had on these. Speed Federation ships at warp would blow Romulan ships out of the water and Warbirds would need to destroy their engines to keep up “TNG Tin Man”
It’s massive, but it’s mostly empty space. One Galaxy + 3 (maybe a 4th offscreen) Klingon birds of prey was considered equal to 2 D’deredex warbirds by both sides in The Defector. I don’t recall us ever getting a clear number on the Romulan warbirds in service, but there’s about 22 in the shows, and the next class down seems to be a vastly inferior ship, whereas the Federation has several Galaxies, Sovereigns, Defiants, Nebulas, Akira’s etc. you always get the feeling they considered each other pretty worthy adversaries.
Combine the cloak, which almost guarantees a successful first strike, with a weapon as powerful as a plasma torpedo, and you could potentially end most engagements before your enemy has a chance to counterattack.
Even though a galaxy-class May hang in a firefight with one I believe the defiant-class and a nebula-class due to there compact size could take out a romulan warbird.
Along with its size, and a large number of that ship model from Romulan shipyards, and its cloaking device, the Romulan Warbird has powerful disruptor weaponry, AND a very thick and strong hull, very heavily armored against most (phasers, photon torpedoes) attacks against it.
I think it was said in voyager that two of these war birds would overpower the intrepid class, which was despite being a powerful ship, one of the smaller and less powerful flagships. Especially in the DS9 era, there was probably a lot of ships that were uneven match or more so for the warbird, especially as far as firepower or speed goes
A lot of people won't admit how much DS9 started things off the rails, but throwing out the entire buildup of the Romulans as the most formidable "near peer" adversary was a huge mistake that had lasting ramifications.
My theory is that the RSE never actually had the resources to make as big a fleet of warbirds as they wanted, so relied on intimidation to preserve their boarders.
If the Romulan fleet thought they could roll through the Federation with their warbirds they certainly would have. The war birds were tough, but they didn’t have enough of them.
The Warbird was basically a giant flex. It looked mean, and big. It was the ship the Romulans used to bully everyone. It was really advanced and seemed like even the Romulans didn't know how to utilize it's full capabilities.
The Federation agreeing to not use cloaking devices is one of the most ridiculous/implausible premises of Star Trek. That’s like the USA saying “we won’t use any stealth aircraft because we aren’t sneaky and have nothing to hide”…would never happen in any universe
So massive and powerful it had to use a barely contained singularity for power. My favorite Romulan ship. I even used to sketch variants as a kid, including a massive 2km long flagship version. D'deridex was about 1.3km. It supported 3 singularity power cores, one of which could be ejected as a torpedo. It had 6 Romulan nacelles and twice the standard armament, half of which was dedicated orbital bombardment related heavy disruptor cannons.
Given the way the prometheus tore by the middle of the dominion war, they weren't feared. In fact the Starfleet thought it could handle three of them plus the Prometheus with just two defiant and a akira.
Due to the nature of space, there are no size nor hydrodynamic shape limitations. This causes well, basically U-boat battleships. A U-Schlachtschiff, if you will.
The federation is bigger, richer and more technologically advanced than the Romulan Star Empire. To me, it never made much sense that the Romulans could build, crew and maintain such fleet.
But it’s weaknesses were well exploited during the dominion war. Also the Federation caught up as seen in message in a bottle one Akira Class engaged 3 warbirds while the 2 defiant classes engaged the Prometheus. Also the Prometheus class just absolutely owned one of them in the end.
The whole cloak thing was a knuckleheaded plot nightmare. There's no way to justify the federation not having it; that treaty nonsense was terribly conceived.
My headcanon is that the d'deradax was a boondoggle that got the romulan Senate to do a complete 180 and it's galactic strategy just to justify its cost, coming out of isolation. They probably started developing it thinking the federation's Galaxy class was going to be a warship instead of a long term exploration ship.
It's more or less confirmed at this point that the Romulan were always a paper tiger. Able to do a lot of damage in the opening of a war with the federation but never having an actual chance to beat them in a war. Think Japan vs USA in WW2.
The D'Deridex warp drive ran on the power from a captive singularity. It beggars the imagination that such a thing would fail to show up on a basic gravitational sensor sweep, even if the ship was invisible at the time. I can only imagine that there must have been a little known passage in the Treaty of Algeron that forbade the Federation to ever perform gravitational sensor sweeps anywhere near the Romulan Neutral Zone.
Actually in ds9 they manage to find a singularity orbiting the station and turns out it was a d'deridex. But only because it was triggering some time jump in O'Brian after he had been exposed to some kind of radiation, I don't remember
Scimitar built by the Reman's in order to conquer the Romulan's, the Federation and anyone else standing in the way. Unfortunately for Shinzon he screwed around with Picard and everything went to hell with the master plan. But imagine if they managed to pull off the plan and built many of these.
Under interstellar treaty, cloaked vessels were unable to fire their weapons. They had to decloak before they could fire, removing their tactical advantage.
Those things piss me off because in the Star Trek Online game they trap you with a tractor beam and launch 3 heavy plasma torpedoes at you. I learned after a while to get super close to them so their own attack hits them too. My ships have been upgraded.
The dominion in ds9 had no difficulty in destroying those ships, when the cardassian and romulan alliance fleet at the early stages of the dominion war went into dominion space to destroy the founders home world instead got destroyed themselves and lost all of its ships.
Someone else said it, but the D'deridex apparently wasn't built to fight entire squadrons of highly maneuverable and heavily armed smaller ships. They were more sledgehammers than nutcrackers.
Not really fair to state the Dominion "had no difficulty" in defeating the attacking fleet in that episode, as there wasn't a tabulation of the losses the Dominion took in that battle. The Dominion won, but at what cost? The Dominion could shrug off vast losses to gain victory.
Yes finally a voice of reason here. All these people here saying the Romulans were posers or paper tigers. They just weren't the stars of the show and so got the short end of the stick.
