I mean the Enterprise-no-suffix, before the movie refit. Watching as a lad, I always had the distinct impression that it was not as powerful as many of the ships it might come into conflict; Kirk generally won because of his cleverness more than brute force, and that cleverness often took the form of “tricking the enemy into letting us haul ass outta here.” I never even thought it was intended to be as powerful as a Klingon ship of the line. I mean, with the executive officer position going to the science officer, and no dedicated weapons station, it always seemed intended for things other than smacking around alien vessels.
Enterprise was always “supposed” to be a ship of exploration, not a military vessel. However, I always thought they just paid lip service to that notion; she clearly had some pretty formidable armament.
This is all gleaned from bits and pieces of various sources over the years (both canonical and non- ), but if memory serves she was pretty evenly matched with the Klingon D-7 (maybe slightly tougher). I think the Romulan bird-of-prey was overmatched in weaponry and maybe even shields, but made up for it with cloaking technology.
I’m not completely sure there’s a definitive answer to this. OTOH, by simply making this statement I will have made sure that someone will arrive to provide evidence to definitively answer this.
I had the opposite impression. Toe-to-toe, the Constitution-class starships outgunned anything the Romulans or the Klingons could throw at them.
The Romulans had much weaker ships, but were able to put up a good fight because they had cloaking tech and their plasma cannon. But it was like a submarine going up against a battleship. They could only win by using hit and run tactics.
The Klingon battle cruisers were only a little weaker than the Enterprise. One-on-one the Enterprise would come out on top, but against two or three at a time they were toast.
Of course, a difference might be that both the Klingons and Romulans were typically operating in groups (trios, to be specific), while the Enterprise was almost always alone.
Well, if you’re willing to consider game stats from Star Fleet Battles, the original Enterprise was probably a CC (command cruiser), a slightly upgraded version of the CA (heavy cruiser). A D-7 would probably fall somewhere between the CA and the CC versions of the Federation heavy cruiser. A Klingon D-7 has more guns (phaser 2s and disrupters), with wider firing arcs, and is much more maneuverable. The CA has fewer, but more powerful, guns (phaser 1s and photon torpedos). The CC has 2 extra phaser 1s on a 360 degree turret, and probably has a slight edge over the D-7, unless the D-7 Captain is really good. The D-7 probably has a slight edge over a CA, unless the CA Captain is pretty good.
Also, Klingon disrupters can fire every round. Federation photon torpedoes can only fire every other round, and have to be “cooked” for one full round (costing energy) before firing the following round.
IIRC from the old FASA role-playing game and my musty memories, the Enterprise (as a heavy cruiser type) was a bit weaker than a D7, but the game gave heavy weight to crew skills and experience, and the Enterprise crew in particular were statted as near deities with their skill level and wouldn’t break a sweat against a D7. A run-of-the-mill crew was undermatched against the D7.
Against a single Romulan warbird, though, the Enterprise was safely superior.
I always figured that they paralleled the assumptions of the West during the Cold war. The Klingons made solid equipment, much like the Russians did - think Russki Tanks during WW2 - but were limited in their imagination and quality control and general engineering talent relative to us freedom loving Federation types. Call a similar Russian ship 90% of ours on engineering, 80% when you factor in our crew’s inherent better-ness.
Similarly, the sneaky Romulans were like the Chi-Coms. Not as strong or well designed a wessel, but still able to skulk up and nail you when you’re not looking, and they cruise around in invisible packs, the cowards. 70% based on engineering, 65% when you factor in the crews, but two or three of them could give you trouble, unless you come up with a clever freedom-loving seat of the pants scheme.
A garbage scowl that carried corobmite captianed by a tin plated dictator with delusions of granduer. One fracking dangerous combination if you ask me. It fought God and won for God’s (RIP) sake. Hell, it even had a one night stand with Vger (bow chicka bow wow)
I generally agree with the Klingons = Russians analogy. I usually go with Romulans = East Germans, but Chinese probably fits better.
The Romulan Warbirds suck in Star Fleet Battles stats. Underpowered, few guns, light shields (or maybe no shields, I don’t remember). They have really big plasma torpedoes, though. Those things can only fire every third round, after two rounds of spending energy to cook them. Worse, I don’t think they can cook torpedoes while cloaked. They’re essentially sitting ducks for two rounds while they’re cooking up a big ass torpedo, but they may not live long enough to ever shoot the thing.
I don’t see where you get East Germans at all. The Romulans appear in the series before the Klingons do, for one thing, and for another they never seem dependent on the Klingons at all.
As for Star Fleet Battles, the Command Cruiser was only cooked up when people noticed that the standard Heavy Cruiser, (which the Enterprise was supposed to be) was more expensive yet inferior to the D7. So the CC is an upgraded CA, and about as powerful as the CA “should have been”. Like the Federation DD is pretty much useless unless you get the upgraded DD–it had the photon bank of the CA, but only one engine and therefore couldn’t afford to power them, so they were near useless.
I used to play SFB a bit, and the Klingons always seemed to kick their ass, point for point. But maybe my little gaming group just didn’t know how to use them.
I always thought that the Federation heavy cruisers were supposed to be quite a bit tougher than the Klingon cruisers. Not tough enough to take on two at once unless you’ve got Captain Kirk in command, but they had little to fear in a one-on-one standup no-sneak-attack battle. We only ever saw Kirk worried when there were three or four Klingon cruisers against the Enterprise.
Whereas I used to play in a group where all too many scenarios were designed by a rules and points lawyer Federation fanboy would equip the Federation with Phaser-G’s and all the latest doo-dads while equiping the Klingons with over-priced obsolete ships. That got really old in a hurry and was one of the main reasons I left the group.
A good player flying a D-7 oughta beat even a CC, I think. Even with the two turret phasers, if you can get in behind him, he’s toast. He’s got only the two turret phasers that can shoot at you, and you can turn better to get the angle to unload everything you’ve got into his rear shield.
Federation Dreadnaughts suck. Tons of shields, but only a couple extra guns, and can’t turn for shit. I ate one alive flying a Kzinti Carrier (dreadnaught equivalent).
