Where Are The Constitution's Weapons? 

While ships in a class are generally identical, they aren't always... at least in real life. My own submarine had features that none of the other Sturgeon class submarines had. It is possible that Defiant's armament was different from the rest of her class or perhaps just different from the Enterprise.

in my head cannon theres a guy literally firing a weapon out a window wearing a space suit. no clue how hes aiming

I agree on the idea of high-speed warp maneuvers in combat to gain position. This was backed up in a TOS episode where Kirk ordered Sulu to leave a solar system for "fighting" room.

Based on the later FX artists, they would have ignored any hardpoints anyway. Disruptor Beams coming off the S-2 Graf/Warp Nacelles. coming out of the torpedo tube. Emitting from other things that are definitely not the weapons emplacement - like windows, sensors, deflectors, etc.

On screen dialogue definitively establishes that the Enterprise had at least SIX torpedo tubes, and forward, port, starboard, and midships phaser batteries. The Defiant is probably the most perfect expression of the TOS Connie we're going to get. And, yes, I can prove it with episode citations.

The limited number of torpedoes gives a different insight into Balance Of Terror. Kirk is using torpedoes in a proximity detonation mode, but he had a limited supply, meaning he had to be more aggressive than he'd have preferred.

The constitution class USS Enterprise has a secret weapon.... Kirks giant brass balls!

The Enterprise NX-01 had its phasers located inside the hull with hatches that opened and allowed the phaser emitters to extend out and swivel to point to the direction of the target. The torpedoes were launched through hatches that opened right before being launched. Chances are that the original series Enterprise USS1701 had the same features.

This is an excellent analysis. In TOS, Starfleet's ships were frequently alone, facing other lone ships. Industry in the Federation and neighbouring empires did not have the capacity to build large fleets that we see later on. Hence why maneuverability was enough. In later years, we have more large fleet engagements, necessitating the need for round coverage.

On the model there’s a tiny little gun on the bottom of the sensor dome. It’s near invisible because of the camera work in the 60s

Another thing to consider is the necessity of 360 degree 3 dimensional phaser coverage in the TMP era over the forward facing firing arcs of TOS era ships, with the proliferation of Romulan Cloaking Technology present throughout the quadrant. In TOS most Klingon ships didn't have cloaking devices so star fleet ships can maneuver to chose the engagement. Fast forward to TMP era and nearly every Klingon and Romulan warship had a cloaking device that could attack with little warning from any direction or angel, so Star Fleet ships had to be able to bring at least one of their weapons in any direction whatsoever, to engage any hostile ship wheresoever.

Originally the photon torpedoes were just energy or as Probert told me “globs of scary.”

A thing to remember is that these are star SHIPS, not fighters. They would be engaging at much longer ranges, rather like WW2 battleships, despite what we see on the later shows (I blame Wrath of Khan for this tendency to see ships maneuvering close in like fighters). This means they wouldn't NEED weapons facing all over the place, particularly aft.

The interesting thing about the TMP armament is that it has a very limited field of fire. It would actually make more sense to broadside a target. In terms of a spacecraft, that would men flipping the ship so that the entire top or bottom was facing the target. Then all phaser banks on the top or bottom could fire directly on the target. Torpedo tunes would be most useful when a target is in front of the ship, but then only the forward phaser banks would be able to fire, and have only a 90 degree field due to the hull being in the way. I think it would be fun to have seen Kirk order a broadside and have all the phasers on the top or bottom firing on a larger. I also like the fannish idea that the TOS phasers and torpedoes have gunports. They open when phasers or torpedoes are needed, but are otherwise closed. They're very small gunports and only visible at close range, which is why we never see them.

I think Defiant was an outlier. Memory Alpha has a quote from one of the people who worked on that episode, and he said that they had envisioned the Defiant as a much more recently built ship, with really bad luck considering how quickly it met a bad fate. If she was a newer ship, she may have possessed an intermediate armament between the TOS Constitution and the TMP Constitution. She has an aft torpedo launcher. She also has four aft phasers, two fired in the episode from above the shuttle bay, and two below it in the Main System Display. Defiant also appears to have had six forward phasers - 2 dorsal (seen in the Main System Display), the two we see fire from the "chin" of the ventral saucer surface, and then the two way down where the turret is found on the Enterprise on the Main System Display. Also, look at the Impulse Engines - they glow blue instead of red, possibly indicating a much higher energy output. My supposition is thus that Defiant was an early attempt to make the transition from warp combat to a ship capable of slugging it out at impulse (like we see with the Constitution Refit), using more powerful impulse engines to achieve superior speed and maneuverability at sublight speeds.

Nice of you to flesh this out. I played the FASA Star Trek RPG. They did a great job fleshing out the TOS universe, but did it in a game-balance way for playing the game. You looked a bit deeper in the lore in a more objective way.

I've seen a couple good takes on this. my favorite is a minor retcon to add ball emitters and a torpedo room to the pre-tos connie (See Alvision100 for a really good take on this) with the justification of the studio model just wasn't detailed enough. This jives with the SNW refit1 enterprise having the expected 6 twin ball emitters+2 singles.

I like this approach and the general conclusions. Well done!

I love the ToS torpedo sound effects

I think that the combat doctrine of high-warp manuvers would stay in effect even after the Enterprise was refitted with additional phasers. Those extra phaser mounts would give it even more flexibility. The only way I could see sub light combat is "Ship of the Line" Scenario. In fleet actions where ships are assigned to cover for each other.

Having only the 6 dorsal phasers and not the 2 ventral phasers be heavy phasers seems a little top heavy, both in number and power. It would make more sense for all the phasers to be of a similar caliber if the number stays the same. This issue thankfully doesn't seem to be present with the placement of the 18 phaser turrets on the Connie refit. Beyond that, the layout you suggested makes sense.

There's also the fact to consider that most beta cannon sources would place the Defiant in the Block 3 or flight 3 construction run of the Constitution class so that alone would allow for variation of in the weapons fit. While my personal version of the Block 3 lacks aft torpedoes There is room in the engineering hull to include one ventral of the hanger and astern of the fabrication center and repair shops. 48 is a standard patrol load and 96 is a wartime complement but part of those are in storage and would need to be added to the magazine between battles.

I like to think the torpedo launcher spins around as needed

Great insights! Great music, too! Subscribed.

Good job mate!! Much enjoyed

P.S. The CONSTELLATION was from "The Doomsday Machine", NOT "The Ultimate Computer". (And I should know, because they're my 2 favorite episodes.)

According to the Franz Joseph Starfleet technical Manuel the phaser banks are on the upper primary hull 2banks port and 2banks starboard and with 2banks forward on the under side just before the lower sensor dome and the photon torpedoes were facing forward half way down from the bridge those 2 tiny little circular looking windows in the front, any ways a very nicely well done job and very informatively explained and executed in every way provided by you indeed Sir!👌.

Excellent Video!

How much does the improvement of photon torpedoes play into it? We go from the weaker blue, to the thicker and more powerful orange/red ones. Connie refit moved it down because they needed the bigger auto-loading magazine?

13:21 Who would have thought TOS had jump scares. Thanks Venom :P

I think it is also important to consider that Gene's vision for space combat evolved over time. In the beginning, it is massively implied that these weapons are so scarily powerful (this was made in the nuclear age mind you) that even the best screening against them would last only a couple of direct hits and a ship without screening would be destroyed or flooded with deadly radiation in one or two hits (they are also crazy adaptable, ranging from the equivalent of phaser depth-charges to knocking a town unconscious). With the movie era he had more time to devote to each single story and could show a much slower progression of compounding damages, to heighten tension. So in the TOS era you didn't need many of these weapons from a story-telling angle, who needs to bother when avoiding hits in the first place and informational superiority matter much more than the amount of weapons you can bring to bear? In the motion picture era, we could argue in-universe, shielding was making leaps and bounds that weaponry was not keeping pace with, and thus you needed more weaponry and more powerful ones. We also see that even weak phasers like the ones on the Reliant caused crippling damage on the Enterprise as soon as shields were down. Then later hulls become much more resilient and we get the very long engagements we see in TNG or DS9, and ships like Voyager and Defiant tanking many hits with just their hull. Far from Roddenberry's original vision, but it's entertaining in a different way.

Defiant could have had a different mission profile than Enterprise. Also maybe she was just built later and they decided it was a necessary addition to have an aft torpedo system so every Connie after a certain point was built that way and Enterprise, being one of the first (or the first if you've read Final Frontier) didn't have some of the later amenities. As the oldest Connie she'd be the perfect choice for the refit project given that she was the most out-of-date at that point.

This is a good point and I would love to get a detailed answer on this as well. If we only look at the TOS scripts in the episode Arena, The Alternative Factor, and a host of other episodes there is a quote about Phaser Banks - so there must be more than one Phaser Bank, at least two. The best quote is from “For The World Is Hollow”, KIRK: Prepare phaser banks one and two, Mister Sulu. This could imply there are only 2 phaser banks. In Balance of Terror the enterprise only fires phaser one and phaser two, there is no phaser three. Of course the first mention of photon torpedo is the 19th production order episode Arena, so the quote from Balance of Terror by itself could refer to photon torpedoes, as in this episode the phasers can explode. But we do have a much later reference which implies we only have two banks of phasers. As for ammo, Scott implies he can launch a few dozen photon torpedoes in A Taste of Armageddon, so it must have at least 24 photon torpedoes, if not more. In The Changeling Kirk talks about a Photon torpedo two. In Journey to Babel Kirk fires torpedoes two, four and six. In Elaan of Troyius the enterprise fires six photon torpedoes, with only one hitting. It seems when the target is fast its hard to hit. I suspect the enterprise has at least size photon torpedo tubes and maybe more, although I think six is the number. I am uncertain about rearward firing torpedoes; I think the conclusion in this video is correct. The ships turn to face the enemy and fire weapons before veering off. You can see this in several episodes, but The Ultimate Computer gives you the best view. In terms of the distances, Elaan of Troyius gives you some solid distances. Based on this phasers seem to have a range of about 20,000km, photon torpedoes 30,000km to 50,000km. Photon torpedoes have poor accuracy when firing against a rapidly moving ship at distance. Some form of engagement is possible beyond these ranges, but at 500,000km no phaser or photon torpedo fire is viable. I have created a video on what I think space combat is like in the TOS star Trek universe, but I have not posted it yet and will do so in nine days. But this post pretty much sums up what the video covers so there is no need to view it.

Thank you Awesome videos

About Connie torpedo launchers: in TOS It Is mentioned in balance of terror they have 6 torpedo launchers. In my headcanon constitution class launchers are placed the same way of NX class ones.

Well I don't recall if it's confirmed it the defiant comes from our universe or just a similar one that made a Connie slightly different. It's possible that when ships are under construction if a captain is assigned to it the captain is able to have some minor alterations to the ship like an extra torpedo launcher or more sensor modules etc in anticipation for the 5yr missions

Great video. The exact armament and location of weapons can seem a neglected factor in many common ships. Forgive me if this has already been covered in the channel, I'm still working my way through the excellent but large amount of content... But has the Vor'cha Class been covered in detail?

Looking at the Eaglemoss magazine that came with the discovery version of the Enterprise, it appears to have 2 aft torpedo tubes between the impulse engines with an airlock between the tubes.

I might make my own version that's more heavily armed for a heavy firefight. And we need a clear definition of how much Armaments does the Kelvin Timeline Enterprise and Constitution-class has since they're bigger than a Galaxy or a Sovereign.

I have a vague memory of the designer of the Motion Picture enterprise, Andrew Probert, talking about how in that design the Enterprise had complete 360 degree coverage with its phasers and how it was an exciting new thing for him and Roddenberry. So I certainly agree that the refits phaser array was supposed to be different and superiour. I really do not remember where I read or heard it though.

I have a similar problem with STE: you can clearly see the NX-01's torpedo tubes, but when it comes to the phase cannons there's no defined emplacements. Apparently they have turrets that pop up like 80's headlights, but I've only seen those in extreme close ups, and from the wide shots the beams come out from seemingly random intervals all across the hull. I drove myself half crazy trying to figure it before I finally accepted that NOBODY knows heck about how many cannons the NX class has.

Here’s a much simpler answer. The visual effects artists at Paramount didn’t have the technical know-how to depict multiple weapons placements in the 1960s, nor did they have the budget. But TMP, they had the budget and FX to depict it as Roddenberry intended. Now, here’s my in-universe explanation. During TOS, Enterprise only had the energy capacity to support one main Phase Battery. Later variant had more capacity and could support more batteries. We have to remember visual effects made tremendous leaps between the time TOS ended in 1969, and TMP in 1979. And almost all those innovations are thanks to Star Wars in 1977, which created the era of the modern sci-fi space battle.

I've always liked FASA's take on on ST in their ST Tactical Combat Simulator. Both the refit and the Connie had a total of 6 phasers on the saucer and granted it was a 2D setup but it was pretty close to how the series and movies appeared. (If you went off the model kit, Connie and Enterprise actually had 12 phasers on the saucer-- You had 6 on the Ventral and another 6 on the Dorsal sides. On the other hand, if you had only 6 total phasers, and they were funneled to 12 emitters.....) There are serious issues with these designs

World war 2, the ship is set up like a WW2 cruiser with a deck made specifically for armaments, and the lower half acts like a phaser turret, while the deck below the bridge acts like the turrets for the upper half and also the aft torpedo launcher is below the impulse engines, granted that was added for a mirror darkly instead of an aft phaser array like the refit had but its pretty much a federation version of a corvette, a fast light attack cruiser

Maybe they replaced the bowling alley on the Defiant with an aft photon torpedo launcher 🙃

There are these small twin ports where the phaser shoots out from underneath the saucer section, usually in the foward direction or sometimes downwards. No aft phasers or turrets.

I Have a question Who Would Win The Cylons From Battle Star Galactica Or The Tye Fighters From Star Wars and Where in the Time Line Would The Rebels of Star Wars ,and The Galactica Crew Be in Star Trek and Who Has The Baddest Weapons of all.

The Enterprise having a powerful arnament up front to start also makes sense from an idea of progression of a battle crusier which the Constitution class is of its era. They start with a forward facing turret and wing turets based on all front fire less armour then before and are fast enough to chase down other cruisers. You then within 10 years move into an era with bigger guns along the centerline and higher armour even in the battlecruisers with lots more battleships and battlecruisers. You then get to a point where they effectively merging. Within the context of this the Enterprise getting a refit with greater phaser and shield power with a more efficient engine plus more torpedoes is a bit similar to what the Royal Navy was doing with its later World War 1 era capital ships to make them useful in World War 2.

This has bothered me since I first watched Star Trek as a kid. Also, the SFX people on the original series would often show what appeared to be photon torpedoes firing when the Enterprise was allegedly firing phasers.

I honestly prefer the FASA interpretation - there are 3 banks top/bottom on the saucer, like in the movie version, plus a few others. It irritated me that we only saw one firing angle because that seemed to imply you could just hover above the ship and avoid its phasers.

In the TNG era, you don't actually need to carry a ton of torpedoes, just enough for a single engagement and you can replicate more on the fly.

the torpedo sound effect gave me a heart attack.

I'm debunking what you're saying about the torpedo tubes. According to Franz Joseph' technical manual, the torpedo tubes are in the saucer. The three circles in a sense where the "bow" of the Constitution Class are. In the refit, I go by Mr Scott's guide to the Enterprise.

Torpedo compliment; I’d say for each ship… Constitution class - between 15-20. D-7 - between 20-30.

I always expected the TMP refit took the same space frame and design and upgraded the equipment. Basically the SNW Enterprise is basically the TMP Enterprise with the old nacelles and no fixed torpedo launcher on the neck. The TOS enterprise is the SNW Enterprise, you just need to squint a little more.

As Darin Wagner says below, loadouts among ships in a class can vary, BUT I tend to agree with Star Fleet Battles and the Star Fleet Technical Manual that it's based on. At least for THIS ship. 3 banks of 2 phasers, 2 forward, 2 port/forward, 2 starboard/forward with 2 banks 2 each photon torpedoes firing forward. They really tried to be a STARSHIP SIMULATOR rather than a game and the game got away from them, but that's what I believe.

Super Thanks!!!

It has always bugged me that they made "Photon torpedoes" into things you put in a tube. In the show i took them to be a "blob" of energy rather than the "beam" that the Phasers were. It's in the name.

I like to think that After TOS with the Advent of both the Romulans and Klingons having Cloaks Starfleet moved towards the good all round firing arcs that we see on the Majority of Starfleet ships going forward, Like Excelsior and later. Another thing is that there may be differences between the different Connies, as time goes on you incorporate advancements into a design and later refit the older vessels up to the latest standard. One of the really old Original Jefferies arts of the Enterprise (Old enough to call it "Starship class") lists the Ventral Phasers as the "Main Phaser." In A Taste of Armageddon Scotty reckons they had at least a couple Dozen Torpedoes and that seems to be only a small amount of their complement. The 2270s (TMP) Enterprise had a complement of 144 Torpedoes. Assuming the complement was increased when they moved the launchers into their own space, I'd say the 2260's Connie probably still had in excess of 60 Torpedoes, maybe 72? Those things are pretty small. That would mean the TMP Connie had double the Torpedo Complement that the TOS connie had. I'm not even going to get into the whole "Six torpedo Launchers" thing.

love this

We don't much agree which is clearly based on the way we value various sources. Still I really enjoyed what you had to say.

I would expect some rear torpedo coverage, even if it’s a single, slow firing tube. The NX had rear tubes, and it’s a hundred odd years older, and even on a maneuverable ship having rear torpedoes can be helpful. More boom won’t hurt. Or the defiant was special.

An interesting enquiry

The Reliant had aft torpedoes. Khan: "Aft Torpedo! Fire!"

the official Paramount blueprints from the 60's shows tops are on deck 2 right under the bridge .. the phasers are on the lower side of the Primary Hull

most sources i find say Torpedoes are on Deck 2/3 Phasers 3 on Deck 5 and 3 on deck 8 each phaser is dual emitter

Coincidentally I was watching TOS right through right now, and I remember in one episode 6 phaser batteries were mentioned.

The D7 does have aft launchers. They use aft torpedos when executing evasive maneuvers with V’ger.

TOS episodes clearly show all phasers and torpedoes being fired from the ventral port. It also very clearly shows both weapon types being fired at warp speed. How can the weapons be used at warp speed? this is never explained, but they obviously are.

Phasers would presumably fire at FTL speeds. Engagements could occur at Warp speeds. For one simple example, I would choose TMP. Kirk clearly felt he could engage something from warp speed with phasers.

I've always thought of them as turrets like on a battleship

Event the constitution refit from the movies seemed to lack aft torpedoes as well.

It's not true that no one has said where the Enterprise's weapons are. In the 1975 Starfleet Technical Manual she has three phaser banks, four on the upper side of her saucer (two on each side of her bridge module) and two on the forward side of that, um, teat on her saucer's lower side. Her photon torpedo tubes are at the bottom of her bridge module, two in the center, side by side. All that said, her weapon placement leaves much to be desired and is clearly dictated more by "That looks pretty" than "That's where they need to be." The phasers, especially, aren't sited to give them a 360-degree field of fire in the horizontal plane, much less up or down.

I remember a bunch of Star Trek computer games in the 80s assumed a compliment of six torpedoes. Really had to ration them.

Thanks!

They came out of the dome on the central ventral.REALLY it should be the dots on the dorsal & ventral part of the saucer.

Orginaly like the phaser the photon torpedo was meant to be an energy based weapon. Photon is basically the source of light.

I have always felt that torpedo launchers facing in certain directions would not be a such an advantage as the torpedo is guided, if it operated like a missile on a jet that jet can engage and do so all over the place at speed. The issue in trek is torpedos seem quite slow. Are they really slow? how fast are they?

It's such a pity that more care wasn't taken in updating these designs for modern Trek. If you've never seen it, there's a loving reimagining of the TOS Enterprise by an artist called Vektor that keeps the overall proportions, window placements, and colour scheme the same, but refines all the details beautifully. Do an image search for Vektor TOS Enterprise and you'll see what I mean. If they had gone that way, I would be happy accepting the canonisation of weapon ports etc on the pre refit Connie, but as it stands, Disco designs have to live in their own separate continuity in my head. The egotism of it all is galling.

In wrath of khan wasnt there a pod built into the neck under the saucer section that was the forward facing torpedo launcher. I know that the ship in wrath is the refit version of that ship but i figured id ask that question

So, the original Enterprise is a centre battery ship? It's an interesting idea. I guess earlier ships could be casemate ironclad equivalents.

so basically early cold war style dogfights just at warp speed which makes sense as that is how air-combat was done in th 50's when TOS cameout. the US F-60 shooting star was armed with 6 50 cals and the Mig-15 has a 22mm cannon and 2 machine guns. no missiles. Also its worth talking about that "depth charge" barrage in Balance of terror. Can you explain that using this model?

At 7:30, and other time points in the video, you go through great emphasis on where the weapons emit; and with the photon torpedoes, how many the ship carries. All this is utterly unnecessary: in Stephen E. Whitfield's The Making of Star Trek (New York: Ballantine, 1968), he explains that Gene Roddenberry expressly established that these weapons were pure energy--no physical fixtures, elements, components, etc., such as torpedo casings. (I do not have a copy of the book, so I cannot recall verbatim what he said, nor what page(s) holds that citation. I remember it for the distinctiveness and the keen efficiency of the idea.

Well as far as the smaller torpedo compliment goes I beleive that in TOS it was supposed to reflect USA Naval doctrine beginning during the "era of good feelings" US Navy ships were not as manuverable as French ships and carried less guns than British ships and had smalker marine contingents than most of the great empires of the time. The one thing US Navy ships specialized in was the sheer variety of shot the ships carried allowing a commander to adapt to most any situation whilst exploring or in combat. I know the channel owner dislikes Enterprise though in several episodes archers head of security/tactical officer mentions the tedious work of adjusting torpedo yields and finding ways to manipulate phase pistol energy outputs. I wonder if the other races by TOS times were able to do the same. If not than it wouldn't matter if you had fewer torpedos than your enemy because they would be stuck with heavy or light ordinance, as torpedos are projectiles the mass would play a pivatol role in fire rate as one can only convert matter into energy at fixed rates. So by having variable yield torpedos the constitution class could remain competitive and be able to adapt to any situation without the need of large volumes for magazines. Which would free up space for larger shuttle bays or more sensor equipment etc. As even by the TOS era syarfleets main mission was exploration not warfare. My explenation for the Federation possibly having this advantage would be the neccesity to combine very different systems from the various member species would give starfleet personel expertise in warp plasma management and anti-matter manipulation/exploitation. Also as a younger space faring civilazation would have less industrial capacity than older civilazations as well as limited access to possible strategic resources meaning losing ships in the starfleet would be weigh more heavily than the older civilazations with established infrastructure and much larger territories from which to draw resources. This would kead to a doctrine much more focused on survivability and adaptability than specialized fleet roles.

actually disagree with the torpedo room location not being very safe, its protected by the forward saucer section from frontal fire, its protected by the top saucer section from top fire no matter what direction, and protected from fire directly behind by the primary hull to saucer hull. Its far harder to hit then the saucer/hull connector torpedo location starfleet often uses going forward.

I thought the bottom dome was the source of the photons/phasers and steerable too.

if the NX class represents the older stage of weapons doctrine and the TMP refit the later one. Then the forward focused TOS enterprise would be a bit of an anomaly. Perhaps after the klingon war in discovery (in which the most successful ship was the highly maneuverable Discovery) Starfleet pivoted towards a more manouvre based doctrine. Enterprise and the other contemporary ships get refits to increase manoverability and forward firepower in exchange for all around coverage.

Wasnt the Torpedos from the Original series not fired from the three round windows right at the Front of the ship? And I mean the original Original Series before the Remaster...

Yeah I usually went off the Starfleet battles schematics

how many magazine do torpedo tubes Constitution'also how do Federation ship get more torpedo not in Federation space?

They're where the SFX guys decide to put them. Which is usually in a place where they shouldn't be. I can't tell if that's laziness, negligence, malice, or trolling on their part. Or maybe star trek ships are made of guns.

It needs to be said that many if not most of the technical aspects of Star Trek are totally arbitrary if not post-hoc rationalizations.

The TOS enterprise was made on a shoestring budget so 1+1=111..... According to Ronald d Moore when he made BSG remake in 2003 he deliberately kept the tech vague and unexplained on how it exactly worked. Star trek's problem is different series and episodes don't always make sense and conflict depending on why and who wrote the script for the season. The star trek actors for years have been flanked by questions that they can't answer or know anything about when it comes to star trek tech. Moore did kept things vauge for a good reason, it does what it needs to do, thats it.

OK so let's be honest here, we all have our own fictional made-up Star Trek ship... Or is that just me? idk. Anyway I'm a huge fan of the original enterprise. For me it's a combination of the simple design and the clean artwork of it. So when I was creating my fictional Starship I took a lot of inspiration from the original enterprise. As a kid watching TOS I always thought it was interesting the enterprise only seemed to have weapons mounted in one spot. And I would argue that it kind of makes sense. that is, it makes sense that enormous fast moving spaceships that are realistically fighting at absurd ranges don't need to have guns on every side. it's like the evolution of the battleship early dreadnoughts thought they would be getting in close and having to brawl it out with all multiple targets. But obviously that changed. most WW2 battleships focused on long range accuracy and thus didn't need guns on every side. I think of Star Trek ships similarly. "If you don't have a gun arc on it, then rotate the ship" ultimately this means that with my fictional design there is only one phaser turret and its mounted on the ventral side of the saucer. And when you look at it it actually has a greater firing arc than you would think, the ship can easily fire aft just by rotating slightly to port or starboard and shooting past its own "neck" as for torpedoes there's one tube in the same place as the phasers and one facing aft. My fictional ship is set after Voyager, so if someone were to ask me why SF started using turrets again instead of phaser strips, and why they only equipped A Starship with one, my lore excuse would probably be that the phasers are "Lance phasers" or some kind of similar extremely powerful but bulky phaser design. Again like battleship guns, WW1 battleships had a lot of small guns on all sides. WW2 battleships had a few big guns that could rotate. Not saying one design is better than the other, just that I prefer big guns that can rotate.

There's no reason a ship can't just point its prow torpedo launchers in any direction while still moving in its vector of momentum.

It seems like a bad idea to put your main weapon directly, like right under the deck plating, beneath the main bridge, in a world where targeting weapons emplacements is the norm.

I didn't like that the Constitution refit had no aft torpedoes---but if it has no aft torpedoes, then I suppose the original version might not have them, either...

Makes one wonder if the torpedoes in the TOS Connies have the same type of circular autoloaders that some weapon systems use nowadays...

i'd caution against using the SNW Enterprise for confirmations of anything. It's just not compatible with the Prime Canon. (Yes i know but seeing how Picard and Lower Decks confirm the visual continuity of the Prime Timeline 99 percent of the time we have no choice but to thankfully lump the Discovery-verse in it's own universe.) The pylon-holes aside she's a very nice redesign (i certainly would pick her over the JJPrise) but not the TOS Constitution.

At times, the phasers look like torpedoes, and the next they look like lasers that spread as they leave the ship, (from the deodorant ball at the bottom of the disc) and somehow, they concentrated back. From the episode where they fight Apollo!