Star Trek Aesthetics

[McAvoy]

The Iowas, and to a lesser extent, the North Carolinas, had lines that scream "battlecruiser!". They feel more at place alongside Hood and Renown than other fast battleships.

Yamato only just escapes that as well. It's girth and sheer bulk make it clearly feel like a battleship.

My father would agree with you on the battlecruiser descriptor for Iowas. With their weaponry and speed they fit the bill better than that of a battleship.

I agree. Long and sleak. Very fast. They look like battle cruisers. But they are not. They are most likely the second most powerful battleships ever made. And it's arguable that they can stand toe to toe with a Yamato.

[Nealithi]

The Iowas, and to a lesser extent, the North Carolinas, had lines that scream "battlecruiser!". They feel more at place alongside Hood and Renown than other fast battleships.

Yamato only just escapes that as well. It's girth and sheer bulk make it clearly feel like a battleship.

My father would agree with you on the battlecruiser descriptor for Iowas. With their weaponry and speed they fit the bill better than that of a battleship.

I agree. Long and sleak. Very fast. They look like battle cruisers. But they are not. They are most likely the second most powerful battleships ever made. And it's arguable that they can stand toe to toe with a Yamato.

If I recall his argument correctly it was not her lines. It was by definition a battleship should have armour to resist her own guns. And the Iowas are actually light against their own guns.

[Aezetyr]

The TOS Enterprise (no bloody a, b, c, or d) was functional and effective for what a half-a-shoestring-budget in the 1960s could build. Effects and set designers couldn't have possibly imagined what we'd have even in 50+ years of real time, so it looks like it came out of the 1960s. Even just the handful of years between the end of TOS and creating TMP, there was a HUGE leap in aesthetic and what was possible; thank you George Lucas!

In 50 years real time from now, fans are going to download Discovery/Strange New Worlds to their brain storage devices and think "This is so non-functional! Where's their ocular implants and data ports?!"

[McAvoy]

The Iowas, and to a lesser extent, the North Carolinas, had lines that scream "battlecruiser!". They feel more at place alongside Hood and Renown than other fast battleships.

Yamato only just escapes that as well. It's girth and sheer bulk make it clearly feel like a battleship.

My father would agree with you on the battlecruiser descriptor for Iowas. With their weaponry and speed they fit the bill better than that of a battleship.

I agree. Long and sleak. Very fast. They look like battle cruisers. But they are not. They are most likely the second most powerful battleships ever made. And it's arguable that they can stand toe to toe with a Yamato.

If I recall his argument correctly it was not her lines. It was by definition a battleship should have armour to resist her own guns. And the Iowas are actually light against their own guns.

Yeah... Not really. The class is heavily armored and can withstand majority of the guns battleships of the time had. It was just that the Iowa class had such powerful guns. Between the gun design itself, the 16"/50 cal and the Super heavy 2700 LB shell made it very hard to armor a ship against them.

For example the Montana class that was to follow was designed to withstand that gun. Granted the class had an extra turret but was back to the slower 27 knot speed. But they weighed alot more. Around 60k versus 45k for the Iowa.

North Carolina class was designed around a 14" gun but the US at the last minute swapped out the quad 14" turrets for the triple 16"/45 cal turrets. Keep in mind those guns also fired the super heavy shell.

Keep in mind also, the US 16" gun paired with the super heavy shell was about just as good as the Yamato's 18".

[McAvoy]

The TOS Enterprise (no bloody a, b, c, or d) was functional and effective for what a half-a-shoestring-budget in the 1960s could build. Effects and set designers couldn't have possibly imagined what we'd have even in 50+ years of real time, so it looks like it came out of the 1960s. Even just the handful of years between the end of TOS and creating TMP, there was a HUGE leap in aesthetic and what was possible; thank you George Lucas!

In 50 years real time from now, fans are going to download Discovery/Strange New Worlds to their brain storage devices and think "This is so non-functional! Where's their ocular implants and data ports?!"

It's the appeal to those who do watch it. Not the remastered version but the original.

The movie era Enterprise just has that look that makes it so good. Even if you have suspend a bit of disbelief in the design. The pylons are thin as hell and the neck's width is barely as wide as a mid size sedan. Or the oddball design of the saucer with that severe undercut.

Honestly, Abrams I think making his Enterprise twice as long fixes the issues Star Trek ships have.

[Madner Kami]

Designating a ship's class based on it's performance is very treacherous, as different nations have different notions of what's more important to them. You get much more mileage out of classifying ships based off their main mission profile.

[McAvoy]

Designating a ship's class based on it's performance is very treacherous, as different nations have different notions of what's more important to them. You get much more mileage out of classifying ships based off their main mission profile.

Definitely the modern era Naval ships. Even the aircraft carrier is different from nation to nation. US aircraft carrier is the huge super carriers. But other nation's aircraft carrier is basically the US's mini flat tops.

Destroyers and cruisers? The same role.

Far different from the WW2 Era designations. Light cruiser has 6" guns, heavy cruiser has 8" guns. Battleships have 12" or bigger guns with heavy armor. With the exceptions of the German mini battleships which you could call armored cruisers or large cruisers. Or the Alaska class. Destroyers had their own roles.

[Deledrius]

In 50 years real time from now, fans are going to download Discovery/Strange New Worlds to their brain storage devices and think "This is so non-functional! Where's their ocular implants and data ports?!"

Discovery is ridiculous today. We know that floating holointerfaces at head height are stupid because your arms get tired immediately. They're already terrible in VR, which is the easiest way to prototype such a thing with our current tech, but touch screens mounted vertically at a standing height are almost as bad.

And that's putting aside the fact that the ship is hollow and bigger on the inside because the effects people are idiots who don't care a whit about realism or suspension of disbelief, which we're also already laughing at now.

Also, point of order: in fifty years, you won't be downloading the show, it will only stream, you will pay per stream, and remembering the episode afterward will be an extra charge (if offered to you at all). You will need to have a CBS Mind+ implant to view CBS content; A non-branded or third-party implant will not be authorized. Your Disney MagicMind implant will not work with CBS DRM.

[Beastro]

The Iowas, and to a lesser extent, the North Carolinas, had lines that scream "battlecruiser!". They feel more at place alongside Hood and Renown than other fast battleships.

Yamato only just escapes that as well. It's girth and sheer bulk make it clearly feel like a battleship.

My father would agree with you on the battlecruiser descriptor for Iowas. With their weaponry and speed they fit the bill better than that of a battleship.

Hahahaha!

I was gonna warn you about raising the spectre given the literal decades on other boards I've posted on have debated this very issue.

... and I see it's been raised in this thread already!

Designating a ship's class based on it's performance is very treacherous, as different nations have different notions of what's more important to them. You get much more mileage out of classifying ships based off their main mission profile.

Nomenclature doesn't really fly with modern warships, especially with the size and role inflation.

See Destroyers. They began as simple counters to torpedo-boats, then became larger torpedo-boats in their own right, then acquired the anti-submarine role, then acquired the anti-air role. All the while their displacements have ballooned and their roles have changed. Destroyers now are comparable to what Cruisers were a century ago (Just as Cruisers replaced Frigates a century after that).

You even have the power differential. I've heard it argued that the firepower of an Arleigh Burke extceeds that of a late WWII battleship, then think about how the USN has over 50 of them.

Then you have the shenanigans with modern nomenclature renamings, like how the Tico's are Destroyers in all but name and the term Frigate was revived all because Churchill liked it for a type fo ship replacing the original roles of Destroyers as they climbed that ladder.

Far different from the WW2 Era designations.

The nomenclature has already collapsed by then. Even the existence of battlecruisers threw it out of whack in the early 1900s. Cruisers were mutating too much to keep up and the artificial limits to keep them small and "light" (which heavy cruisers still were) only preserved some semblance between Destroyers and whatever was circling around as capital ships as battleships, battlecruisers or fast battleships.

[McAvoy]

The problem with the term cruiser is that is has been all over the place since the term was introduced. You got protected cruisers with just deck armor, you got armored cruisers which is a ship just as big as a battleship but with faster speed, less armor and smaller guns. Armored cruiser evolved into the battle cruiser. In fact its a straight line from it. Instead of a bunch of smaller guns, you got fewer big guns, with the ship having a similar armor outfit as the armored cruiser. But the turbine gave them greater speed. It was a natural evolution from armored cruiser to battle cruiser just like the pre-dreadnought naturally lead to the dreadnought.

Then there is the light cruiser of WW1 Era. Totally different from the light cruiser of WW2. Small ships with little to no armor and light guns. But navies all over the world were starting to look at something between a battleship and a light cruiser. Which leads us to the heavy cruiser and light cruiser designations for WW2.

Nevermind the large light cruisers of the Glorious class or the small Italian cruisers of the interwar period or thd peace cruisers. Or the Alaska class. Then it gets all muddled post war.

Interestingly heavy cruisers even the improved ones were not that far off from the 10,000 ton limit. It wasn't until the Des Moines class with the automatic 8" guns that they grew to battleship size. Hell the Alaska class wasn't that far off from a treaty battleship.

Missiles changed everything though.