Klingon Empire vs. UFP circa 2360ish

[Sean Robertson 11]

Gentlemen,

 

Along with the classic ISD v. Enterprise debate, I thought I might toss the Klingons versus the Federation discussion into the fray. So far as I know, this is NOT a topic Brian intends to cover; as such, if this isn't the appropriate place for this thread, I apologize to the mods in advance and request that it be redirected to the proper venue.

 

Really, though, the Klingons fighting the Federation is every Trekkies' dream scenario. The Borg are entirely too powerful and, unencumbered by wormhole nonsense, we all know the Dominion, even sans allies, is easily a potential overmatch for our beloved Federation and its Starfleet.

 

But what about the classic adversary, the Klingons? In "Yesterday's Enterprise," we learn that, after a 20ish-something year war, half of Starfleet had been destroyed and the war was going so badly that the Federation was considering a kind of surrender (? I think that's right).

 

I've debated this with many Trekkies in the past. They swear up and down that the Klingon Empire simply *cannot* be the dominant local power. But then, what about the events of "All Good Things"? In that timeline, the Klingons had conquered the entire Romulan Empire. In DS9's "The Visitor," Klingons had actually even taken control of DS9. I've little doubt the Federation would have allowed that unless it was absolutely necessary to keep the peace.

 

That is not without precedent. The Federation has been known to secede some of its planets/systems in the interest of diplomacy; e.g., "Final Mission," which saw a human colony suddenly fall under Cardassian jurisdiction. Still, giving up control of the wormhole, particularly after the Dominion established itself to be thoroughly unpleasant ... that also leads me to the conclusion that, at full-strength at least, the Klingons are the greatest military power opposite the RSE and UFP. That is NOT to suggest the UFP could not prevail in a war against the Klingons, even the Federation's supposedly greater industry; nonetheless, even with those resources, just as I said, the Klingons were kicking Starfleet's ass in the "Yesterday's Enterprise" timeline.

 

The way I reckon, unless someone can offer good reason why that alternate timeline isn't indicative of what might happen in the "real timeline," I think it's a case-closed scenario. That is, the more militarized Klingons would, more often than not, whip the Federation in a war.

 

That's not to say the Federation could never prevail, of course. Post-DS9 tech, to say nothing of the Voyager's findings, might turn the tide and then some.

 

On the other hand, when we're talking "VGR's home!" stuff, it's important to remember who's in charge of the Klingon Empire: Chancellor Martok. He's as human and Federation-friendly as you'll ever find. The likelihood of warfare with him is absolutely nil.

 

More cough-syrup inspired ravings

 

-Sean

[Khas 12,158]

Awww, but drug-inspired ramblings are always the best. How do you think I came up with the idea to ask Brian to do a "Principality of Zeon invades Narnia" video? (Two words: Lime Beer).

[Sean Robertson 11]

I'm not sure, Khas All I know is that, between the stress of taking care of my dad, some cough meds and, yes, a shot of good-old Sovietski vodka, I'm a bit looser than normal; still, sick as I still *sorta* am, I can take better care of my Dad and I'm more cognizant of others' problems, including Little D's illness I know she'll get over it, but I'm still said to hear she's not at 100%.

[Sean Robertson 11]

Incidental note for you, Khas: I had the chance to meet Gunny R. Lee Ermey recently, but I blew it

 

Fact is, my father had me "stand guard" whilst he and my mom attended a convention in the Charlotte, NC area. I was happy for them. but I really wanted a signature from Gunny Ermey if nothing else. They said the line was too long, albeit the fact he broke ranks to take a pic with her. (Marines know good-looking women when they see 'em.)

 

Maybe next time. Regardless, I hold Gunny Ermey in the very highest regard. In addition to his many appearances, I understand he's a very generous, kind, loving Christian man.

[Khas 12,158]

Heh. My dad was also a Gunnery Sergeant. I say was, because he retired in '05.

 

As for R. Lee Ermey, that pic of him in my signature is just one of many new smileys we have. In fact, all the pictures in there are.

 

[Tyralak 12,068]

This is an excellent topic, Sean. I'd be glad to move it to the appropriate forum.

[scvn2812 504]

I suppose the knee jerk reaction is always "the Federation will win" but clearly this doesn't have the certainty of say USA vs Japan in WW2 where the US had a bigger GDP than all three axis members put together, its critical industries well out of range of any air or sea attack and the ability to rebuild every sunken ship or shot down plane twice over before anyone could even remote think about building a fleet and air force that could actually attack the mainland US. Earth is pretty close to Qonos, a week or two at warp 5 iirc. in an era where most ships can comfortably do warp 7 or 8 and the best can do 9+ for a few hours. Probably the 40 billion deaths in the alternate timeline may have come about because by 2360 a no holds barred war between the Klingons and Federation would be a blood bath. Cloaking devices would force the Federation to make hard choices about their defensive posture: defend the colonies while leaving themselves open to being chewed up piece meal by the Klingons and possibly leaving the core worlds' defenses under strength or serve the colonies up on a platter, a humiliating, demoralizing and enraging move - especially if the Klingons decide to start attacking worthless colonies to try and force the Federation to sally out from the core systems to relieve the suffering of their colonies. If it takes even 30 minutes to respond to a distress call, how many thousands - millions if they use WMDs - can the Klingons kill with orbital bombardment? They can also land plenty of troops and use the civilians as human shields to force Starfleet to land their own troops and draw them into personal combat - think Omicron Theta Iraq IV for how well that would likely go.

 

Given that we don't have a Jane's Guide to the ships of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants with numbers or any idea how to peg industrial capacity, we have no idea how big their relative economies are but obviously the Klingons must be within shouting distance since they evidently can win if certain variables turn up in their favor. In the absence of detailed knowledge about industrial capacity, location of key industrial sites, resource availability, fixed defenses and fleet strengths we can only guess at how likely or unlikely the alternate timeline scenario was or what had to go right for the Klingons or wrong for the Federation for that situation to develop. Its not like WW2 where we can look back with hindsight and see how thoroughly screwed the Japanese were and how utterly beyond hope victory was for them. The Klingons are clearly in a situation where with unity and good strategy they can win but its not clear how easy it is for them to pull it off.

 

Even if you use minimalist numbers for the Star Trek universe, plug your ears and cover your eyes and pretend all those doomsday weapons that blow off planetary atmospheres, destroy planetary crusts and cause stars to go nova; this could still be 40 billion people's worth of bloody just from damage to infrastructure. Well over a million allied casualties were predicted in the invasion of Japan. An island nation with a population in the tens of millions who was facing critical shortages of every last thing you need to make war except warm bodies.

[Jason 27]

Well know Federation economic much stronger then Klingon Empire. Fact end of the Dominion war the Klingon Empire taking next decade rebuilding while the Federation get back normal strength very quickly. So industory able we giving UFP stronger. Wolf bother openly stated the Klingon Empire did not even stand a chance against the UFP..3.00000000000000000

Culture come war is mix on one hand Klingon afraid to not a fraid to die on other hand well taking needless loses stander ground must other race would retreat.

 

Worst of all ignore disease making danger setting dock to slaughter disease taking years before before gives of any real warn signs. Something easy see Section 31 it kind like if war Federation is losing aim for did criple blow before UFP defeat not shortage the war by much. We seen Section 31 do this in Dominion war. No reason think did if the UFP war Klingon Empire unless over terrorery. How us did explain why Half way though Deep Space Nine season 7 the Founder getting sick. They likely play same game Klingon Yesterday Enterprise timeline as well guessing that war not over territoriality issue.

 

We know Deep Space Nine Klingon fleet worth 15,000 Starship available fight the Dominion.

[scvn2812 504]

You forget, the Klingon Empire had a civil war several years prior to the Dominion war over the succession to the chancellorship, fought a war with Cardassia, fought a limited war with the Federation, had been at war with the Dominion for over a year at this point and then spent several weeks having to hold off the Breen, Dominion and Cardassians single handedly while the allies scrambled to find a fix for the Breen energy dampening weapon. If anything, that they were able to pull it off without the Dominion rapidly gaining a decisive advantage speaks to A. The Klingon war making ability B. The logistical difficulties involved in capitalizing on the momentary vulnerability of the Federation and Romulans or C. A little of both A and B.

 

In all likelihood holding the line against the Dominion, Breen and Cardassians forced the Klingons to commit far more of their reserves and thus they lost a substantially greater portion of their fleet both in absolute terms and relative terms during the war than the Federation and Romulans did. The Federation and Romulans got a breather for all intents and purposes, the Klingons had to fight the whole war and part of it alone.

[Brian Young 11,994]

Given the set criteria I'm using (which places the focus on abilities necessary to wage interstellar war), I'd say the Kllingons have the advantage.

*FTL is roughly equal

*Klingons probably have greater resources/industry. They rule an empire, which means everything in their similarly-sized territory is theirs. The Federation is comprised of members who join or decline of their own free will and accord. That means some planets are theirs, some are not, in a similar volume.

*Klingons are pretty much all warriors, so they have an advantage in military numbers.

*Klingons practice ground combat often. But they let their bloodlust get the better of them, throwing down their disruptors and using bladed weapons. Call it a tie.

*Planetary bombardment. It is possible the Romulans are the big dogs here. As far as we know, the Klingons and Federation are about equal.

*Ship to ship combat. It seems they are about equal.

*Overall technology goes to the Federation. Those guys are pretty smart.

*Planning/skill. The Klingons do this for fun, but not always intelligently. Call it a Federation advantage.

 

So the Klingon advantages are in the most important areas, Federation advantages in the least important areas, and the rest about equal.

In Yesterday's Enterprise, the intelligence and ingenuity of Starfleet are probably what kept the war going so long, but still winding down to a defeat. I'd say it is quite impressive they held on so long.

[scvn2812 504]

Of note is that the Klingon obsession with personal glory has led to a fleet structure that is their greatest advantage and weakness. If you sneeze at a Bird of Prey, it will explode but for the mass of a Galaxy-class, you can have a couple dozen or so Birds of Prey that can be marauding through someone's colonies and raiding their supply lines. They are well set up for asymmetric and attritional warfare, Birds of Prey likely being able to be much easier to replace than even a Miranda but in a major fleet action, Starfleet's heavier framed ships would take a lot of putting down by the relatively puny Klingon warships. As I've said before, while Starfleet ships have a bit of fat on them from the science facilities, it can't be that much or they'd have been easy prey for the Klingons and Romulans since their weaponry is not decisively better, so Starfleet's bigger ships ought to be challenging for the Klingons' smaller, lighter ships to take down.

[Jason 27]

You forget, the Klingon Empire had a civil war several years prior to the Dominion war over the succession to the chancellorship, fought a war with Cardassia, fought a limited war with the Federation, had been at war with the Dominion for over a year at this point and then spent several weeks having to hold off the Breen, Dominion and Cardassians single handedly while the allies scrambled to find a fix for the Breen energy dampening weapon. If anything, that they were able to pull it off without the Dominion rapidly gaining a decisive advantage speaks to A. The Klingon war making ability B. The logistical difficulties involved in capitalizing on the momentary vulnerability of the Federation and Romulans or C. A little of both A and B.

 

In all likelihood holding the line against the Dominion, Breen and Cardassians forced the Klingons to commit far more of their reserves and thus they lost a substantially greater portion of their fleet both in absolute terms and relative terms during the war than the Federation and Romulans did. The Federation and Romulans got a breather for all intents and purposes, the Klingons had to fight the whole war and part of it alone.

Section 31 made that statement about Klingon Empire before Breen enter the war. Old ship that Klingon during the Dominion war that sevice since Kirk days it does not seem likely that civil war took out longer numbers of ships. Federation wolf 359 and wars many other races as well.

 

The Dominion statement about the Federation also sound like Federation lot bigger either the Klingon Empire or Romulus star Empire. He only talk Federation as require massive fleet starships and manpower and equipment The Dominion dugestion the Klingon and Romulus star Empire easily hardly suggestion Federation lot bigger then the Klingon Empire have lot more resource.

 

Cardassion Union they basic minor threat to anyone before the Klingon beaton pretty badly if not UFP the Klingon simple over ran them.

 

Federation has one Ace up it selves if not war over terrioiry it call section 31.

Klingon basic ignor disease unless effect combat able. We see many different Klingons.

[Sean Robertson 11]

Section 31 made that statement about Klingon Empire before Breen enter the war. Old ship that Klingon during the Dominion war that sevice since Kirk days it does not seem likely that civil war took out longer numbers of ships. Federation wolf 359 and wars many other races as well.

 

When you say "Section 31 made that statement about [sic] Klingon Empire before [sic] Breen enter the war," do you mean Agent Sloan said something about the RSE and UFP emerging as the greatest post-war Alpha-Beta Quadrant powers?

 

I still don't see how that really changes the point SCVN made. The Klingons conquered a good bit of Cardassian territory in season 4 and presumably fought the Cardassians until, IIRC, the latter were desperate for a cease-fire ("Return to Grace") less than a year later. Then the Klingons fought the Federation. As Sisko said, "We've been able to slow [the Klingons] down, but that's about all" ("Apocalypse Rising").

 

Given that the Klingons were defending their territory and their Cardassian holdings, I can't say it's altogether optimistic for a key representative of the Federation Starfleet to say his people have fought the Klingons but have only slowed them down Some might suggest that Starfleet was slow to respond to the Klingon threat, but that's not exactly something to brag about in warfare Slow response time would suggest a host of bad things about the Starfleet -- and no, I'm not even going to suggest gross incompetence as some former associate of ours might.

 

 

The Dominion statement about the Federation also sound like Federation lot bigger either the Klingon Empire or Romulus star Empire. He only talk Federation as require massive fleet starships and manpower and equipment The Dominion dugestion the Klingon and Romulus star Empire easily hardly suggestion Federation lot bigger then the Klingon Empire have lot more resource.

 

I'm not sure I understand you, so I hesitate to reply here.

 

The long-standing assumption's been that the UFP is much larger than the Klingons or Romulans in terms of space, worlds and resources.

 

That might be true; right now, I'm tired and frankly don't care to explore that discussion. All I can do is to kindly ask for you to express those sentiments in something closer to proper English. I can barely make sense of what you wrote.

 

Cardassion Union they basic minor threat to anyone before the Klingon beaton pretty badly if not UFP the Klingon simple over ran them.

 

Yet the Cardassians were threat enough that, in the interest of peace, the UFP surrendered some of its planets to the Cardassians in the Neutral Zone. The Cardies were also threat enough that, when they allied with the Dominion, Cardassian ships were right there with Dominion fighters and cruisers. And there have been plenty of times we've seen even less than the CUS's best in Galors blow away enemy ships with one discharge from their main weapon emitter ("Sacrifice of Angels," "Once More Unto the Breach," "What You Leave Behind").

 

 

Federation has one Ace up it selves if not war over terrioiry it call section 31.

Klingon basic ignor disease unless effect combat able. We see many different Klingons.

 

If you're talking about the Klingons in ST:ENT, those guys were specially interested in genetic engineering. I'd hardly say their ambition = some big win for Sector 31, especially since the Klingons with less pronounced ridges went on to rule a good part of the quadrant (remember Kor and "Errand of Mercy"?).

 

Section 31 is ruthless but it's hardly some ace-in-the-hole in a Klingon v. UFP debate. Section 31 failed to save the Federation by wiping out the Founders with the disease they generated. They didn't stop the Xindi planet-killer from nearly destroying Earth. They didn't avert the war in "Yesterday's Enterprise." They didn't ever intervene when the Borg were about to fuck over humanity.

 

Like any secret agency -- the CIA, the NSA -- Section 31 isn't omniscient. They might be ahead of the curve but depending on them to prevent the Klingons from winning a major war = fail IMO. S31 certainly didn't have Picard convinced that the Federation would have to surrender within months in "Yesterday's Enterprise," no?

 

-Sean

[scvn2812 504]

I think it might be useful to draw some parallels to the real world. Real world navies are not lists of rock, paper, scissors balanced units that are the same for all factions as in the Total War franchise. Every government, planetary or interstellar, makes decisions about how to arm themselves based on geography, their economy, their skill sets (both martial and industrial), where they expect to fight, who they expect to fight and what peace time purposes their military serves - repressing the downtrodden who might want to trod on the ruling elite, defacto economic stimulus to help private industry by setting out an all you can eat government trough, reproductive organ measuring for the patriotic, exploration, scientific research, humanitarian aide, anti-piracy - all of which are either historical or modern secondary missions that navies might have besides defense. Generally speaking, being a jack of all trades is a game for the rich. Right now for example, the United States Navy is realistically the only one that can perform virtually any mission anywhere in the world without straining too hard. Everyone else has more limited resources and infrastructure to play with and has to decide what their priorities are.

 

For the typical third world strongman, that priority is: make it as painful as humanly possible for peers or regional / global powers to attempt regime change. The weapons of choice are generally shore based missile batteries, mine layers, missile boats and diesel subs - the numbers and balance of these depending on how well off and what infrastructure the nation has. These are all relatively cheap and massed, they can make even super powers think long and hard about whether or not you're really worth setting off a few hundred million in ordinance and putting tens of thousands of tons of shipping built at a cost of billions at risk of needing tens of millions in rearming or hundreds of millions in repairs because one of your cheap knock offs of a first world super sonic missile with myopic sensors and shoddy maintenance actually got through the layered defenses of counter missiles, electronic warfare and close in weapons. While you can adequately defend your territory and launch raids into that of close neighbors, missile boats and diesel subs generally do not have anywhere near the capacity for fuel and other provisions to be able to strike outside of the region of interest for the local strongman. Iran for example, can close the straight of Hormuz or attack its neighbors if it so desires through sheer density of missiles, mines and artillery but has no ability whatsoever to strike at Hawaii as the Japanese did in WW2, let alone the mainland US. I would argue that this is probably an analogy for Cardassia and the other races that do not appear to have wide spread influence but nonetheless have managed to bleed the Federation at times.

 

For a nation like the United States with far flung defense commitments all over the globe, things are tricky, even with ridiculous amounts of cash to throw at your problems. You can simultaneously have the world's largest and most powerful navy and still have no where near enough ships to be everywhere that something bad might happen. There's just too much world for the size of the navy that the US can practically field. There aren't enough frigates and destroyers to escort every last cruise liner and freighter by the coast of Somalia for example. If war broke out over Taiwan, things could get very messy by virtue of China taking the poor nation's approach to defense except with a rich nation's budget: not having global ambition frees China up to field a powerful but range limited defensive fleet of missile boats, submarines and a few frigates and destroyers - all of which have the option to fall back to the coastline where they can fight underneath an umbrella of land based aircraft and shore batteries. The US could arguably take the sledge hammer approach and launch a major offensive with nearly every operational carrier in their inventory if the Chinese navy decided to play turtle this way but there is virtually no way to come off clean in any shooting war in the front yard of a regional super power and the world's #2 economy, it would probably be messy.

 

Consider World War 1. Prior to the entry of the United States, the naval situation was, I think, not all that dissimilar to our hypothetical Klingons vs Federation scenario. On one hand you have Great Britain, with the most powerful surface fleet in the world but who has only half heartedly invested in submarines. They also have a vast, global empire to defend and because of how spread out this empire is, its very dependent on shipping to move war supplies around. Great Britain still managed to pin the German High Seas fleet for virtually the entire war after the Germans realized they couldn't win on the surface against the Royal Navy so the Germans invested heavily in submarines. The submarines could act with impunity, sink isolated warships and wreak havoc on supply lines. Each submarine might sink several times its own mass in warship and merchant shipping before meeting its fate.

 

Replace all references to submarines with "cloaked starships" and you've basically got the Klingons with the ability to wage brutal, unrelenting asymmetric warfare on the Federation, with each Klingon ship potentially being worth several Federation ships by virtue of being able to do what a ship without a cloak cannot: choose its battles. The Klingons can strike where the Federation is weak and there's not a thing the Federation can do about it besides spread out their fleet to try and protect their territory or sacrifice all of those one stoplight and a gas station colonies and concentrate their forces around their most important systems while the Klingons chip away at the Federation's war making capability by turning these fortress systems into islands cut off from all contact and trade from one another.

 

So in a nutshell, comparing fleet numbers and territory sizes does not tell the whole tale. It very rarely does actually. Concentration of forces, strategy and a host of other variables determine outcomes.

[Jason 27]

Well come ships to ships say UFP starship normal more powerful. Defiant class warship is basic able fight dozen or so Jem Harder ship. Single BOP retreat when face three them.