Sovereign vs 1 Star Destroyer?

[Praeothmin]

The example I referenced was in the midst of combat - "Sacrifice of Angels," in fact. The GCS ships in question I gauged at about ~90 degrees in 4 seconds each were, in fact, shooting and pivoting pretty much the whole time. In fact, the one that starts that attack maneuver actively starts turning the other direction while still shooting.

And that, I think, is fairly conclusive. They may be slow circles, granted, but 20+ degrees per second in combat can let you fly circles around Star Wars capital ships. Maybe they can't bank 180 degrees in three seconds flat while in combat, but they can turn roughly four times as fast as SW capships while in combat.

Nor was the Galor they were attacking stationary. It's turning slower than they are, but it's moving and shooting itself (rewind a couple seconds to see it shoot, and watch closely.)

That was actually the example I was thinking of when I said:

The best we may expect would be the 2 GCS' strafing run vs a Galor in a DS9 combat.

And the Galor was perhaps not stationary, but it did not do anything a SW Cap ship can't do either.

I have to agree, and concede, on the point that a GCS or a Sovereign could run slow circles around an ISD.
But that would just make it an easier target to hit.
That's why I was talking about the strafing run vs a Galor, which not only allows you to maneuver, but also keeps you going, and eventually brings you to their back, where they have no guns.

But then again, with enough time, so could an ISD.
Yes, the circle would be wide, and really slow, but they could.

I guess my problem comes from combat maneuvers.
The first thing that came to my mind when I read run circles around was the Defiant's maneuvers vs the Klingon Super ship in the mirror universe, or all the MF-like maneuvers we see it pull on and on during combat, and I didn't remember seeing any other ship (except for the BoP or the Peregrines) pull those kind of maneuvers.

And while the Defiant running circles at full speeds would be hard to hit, a GCS initiating a slow turn vs an ISD bristling with guns would be an easy target.

[Praeothmin]

I went to Youtube and watched the battle from "Sacrifice of Angels" again,
and you canclearly see that the GCS doesn't maneuver that fast, at least not enough to maneuver like the Defiant.

But I also noticed something else:
At about 6:36m, they mention Jamming by EM pulses, which O'Brian compensated for within 30 seconds.

I guess once more we see that what the other side assumes, that ST doesn't know what to do against Jamming because it is never employed, is false.

You can see all of this here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwKnvRPIrl0&NR=1

[Enterprise E]

About starship maneuverability, while I do think that the Galaxy class starship, while noticably more maneuverable than a Star Destroyer, is on the low end in terms of Star Trek starship maneuverability. The Sovereign class, however, has shown quite good maneuverability, especially when it did that tight 180 in Nemesis after Picard was rescued by Data. While it may not literally fly circles around a Star Destroyer, like a Defiant or an Attack Fighter would, it is noticably more maneuverable than the larger Imperial warship, and faster at sublight as well.

As for the rest of the fight, I do believe that the Sovereign would defeat a Star Destroyer. While the Star Destroyer may have more guns, the Sovereign has more powerful weapons blast for blast. And Photon and Quantum Torpedoes are significantly stronger than Phasers. Add to that the sublight speed and maneuverability advantage, and I think that the Sovereign would win. And this is not taking into account that the Star Destroyer's shielding is split into two, with ray shields that protect against only energy weapons, and particle shields that protect against physical weapons. From what I have seen, a Star Destroyer's particle shields are noticably weaker than its ray shields, since Proton Torpedoes don't seem to be nearly as powerful as Turbolasers. That could make them exceedingly vulnerable to a torpedo barrage from a Sovereign.

[Cocytus]

The Sovereign also has coverage across all fire arcs, as demonstrated in Nemesis, while the Star Destroyer has a massive blind spot behind its engines. The Sovereign could maneuver into that area and attack the ISD with impunity, since the ISD could never manuever fast enough to get the Sovereign into a weapons arc before the Sovereign could counter. The one problem I foresee is if the fight occurred in a confined space, whatever that might be, where the Sovereign's superior maneuverability and range were negated. In such a scenario, with both ships blasting each other across short ranges and being unable to effectively maneuver, the Sovereign will take more damage than it can dish out, since short range brute force is precisely what Star Destroyers do best.

Dukat said it best, Praeothmin, in Call to Arms. "I've learned it's wise to never underestimate the Federation's technical skill." And as we've seen, the Empire has a bad habit of underestimating people.

[Praeothmin]

It has been my belief since the beginning that the E-E would win, I simply did not agree with those who thought it would be a cake walk because the E-E would "run circles around the ISD".

[Jedi Master Spock]

I went to Youtube and watched the battle from "Sacrifice of Angels" again,
and you canclearly see that the GCS doesn't maneuver that fast, at least not enough to maneuver like the Defiant.

Clock them carefully (particularly the background one) and you'll see the turn rate is about what I described.

4 seconds for a 90 degree turn (that ends with a GCS not turning anymore) isn't really fast looking, no. That's at most an angular acceleration of 22.5 degrees per second per second (coincidentally the same as the average turn rate because of the size of seconds.)

It's actually not clear that the main anti-starship guns on a Star Wars ship can train quickly enough to shoot very effectively at a GCS making a close turning strafe just like that one, although the lighter guns definitely can.

The first thing that came to my mind when I read run circles around was the Defiant's maneuvers vs the Klingon Super ship in the mirror universe, or all the MF-like maneuvers we see it pull on and on during combat, and I didn't remember seeing any other ship (except for the BoP or the Peregrines) pull those kind of maneuvers.

Which is why our problem is mostly a matter of communication and clarification.

I can't speak for everyone, but for me, the ability to run circles around something else refers to the tactical ability to dictate relative position through superior maneuverability and speed. I'm not thinking of close strafes; I'm thinking of circling around and attacking weak spots.

Any Federation capital ship - even the relatively large and clumsy GCS - can make its choice of range of engagement, how much of a target to present when, and from what angle it attacks when engaging any Imperial capital ship, becuase of its combination of superior acceleration and superior turn rate.

In what amounts to a duel between two starships, that is absolutely critical.

[Praeothmin]

Which is why our problem is mostly a matter of communication and clarification.

I agree, our problem is one of communication, and it comes mostly from my side of this debate.
I post a lot of my answers from work, so in order not to take much of my employers time, I try to keep my answers as short as possible.
But things that are clear to me are not always conveyed clearly to others...
Luckily, I take all the time necessary to answer our customers... :)

I can't speak for everyone, but for me, the ability to run circles around something else refers to the tactical ability to dictate relative position through superior maneuverability and speed. I'm not thinking of close strafes; I'm thinking of circling around and attacking weak spots.

Any Federation capital ship - even the relatively large and clumsy GCS - can make its choice of range of engagement, how much of a target to present when, and from what angle it attacks when engaging any Imperial capital ship, becuase of its combination of superior acceleration and superior turn rate.

In what amounts to a duel between two starships, that is absolutely critical.

Yup, I agree on this part too...

[Mr. Oragahn]

It's actually not clear that the main anti-starship guns on a Star Wars ship can train quickly enough to shoot very effectively at a GCS making a close turning strafe just like that one, although the lighter guns definitely can.

The first thing that came to my mind when I read run circles around was the Defiant's maneuvers vs the Klingon Super ship in the mirror universe, or all the MF-like maneuvers we see it pull on and on during combat, and I didn't remember seeing any other ship (except for the BoP or the Peregrines) pull those kind of maneuvers.

Which is why our problem is mostly a matter of communication and clarification.

I can't speak for everyone, but for me, the ability to run circles around something else refers to the tactical ability to dictate relative position through superior maneuverability and speed. I'm not thinking of close strafes; I'm thinking of circling around and attacking weak spots.

Any Federation capital ship - even the relatively large and clumsy GCS - can make its choice of range of engagement, how much of a target to present when, and from what angle it attacks when engaging any Imperial capital ship, becuase of its combination of superior acceleration and superior turn rate.

In what amounts to a duel between two starships, that is absolutely critical.

Indeed, it is. But if one shot hits, it's baad, and I don't expect the Trek ship to immediately jump to advantageous tactics such as exploiting blind spots.
If anything, the captain would obviously attempt a long range firing first, with torpedo salvos.
The fastest TL bolts I've seen, in ROTJ thus far, seemed to be able to travel something like 30-40 km per second.

About turret turning speed, in Star Wars, we have the turbolasers on the DSI's surface, either mid or heavy ones.
Most interesting would be to look out for TPM and see if those huge quad cannons were rotating, by any chance, and see how fast this happened.

[Mith]

It's actually not clear that the main anti-starship guns on a Star Wars ship can train quickly enough to shoot very effectively at a GCS making a close turning strafe just like that one, although the lighter guns definitely can.

The first thing that came to my mind when I read run circles around was the Defiant's maneuvers vs the Klingon Super ship in the mirror universe, or all the MF-like maneuvers we see it pull on and on during combat, and I didn't remember seeing any other ship (except for the BoP or the Peregrines) pull those kind of maneuvers.

Which is why our problem is mostly a matter of communication and clarification.

I can't speak for everyone, but for me, the ability to run circles around something else refers to the tactical ability to dictate relative position through superior maneuverability and speed. I'm not thinking of close strafes; I'm thinking of circling around and attacking weak spots.

Any Federation capital ship - even the relatively large and clumsy GCS - can make its choice of range of engagement, how much of a target to present when, and from what angle it attacks when engaging any Imperial capital ship, becuase of its combination of superior acceleration and superior turn rate.

In what amounts to a duel between two starships, that is absolutely critical.

Indeed, it is. But if one shot hits, it's baad, and I don't expect the Trek ship to immediately jump to advantageous tactics such as exploiting blind spots.
If anything, the captain would obviously attempt a long range firing first, with torpedo salvos.
The fastest TL bolts I've seen, in ROTJ thus far, seemed to be able to travel something like 30-40 km per second.

About turret turning speed, in Star Wars, we have the turbolasers on the DSI's surface, either mid or heavy ones.
Most interesting would be to look out for TPM and see if those huge quad cannons were rotating, by any chance, and see how fast this happened.

Why would it be bad specifically? Imperial ships can't exactly shoot down ST ships in one shot. They've only been shown to take out 40m asteroids.

[Mike DiCenso]

Actually, the 40 meter asteroid destruction is a myth perpertrated by mistakes made on Brian Young's Turbolaser Destruction page confusing flack bursts for asteroids being vaporized during the Avenger-Falcon chase scenes. The asteroids actually seen being destroyed earlier in the film by an unidentified ISD are considerably smaller than that as scaled to the width of the TL beams hitting them, which are in turn scaled to the ISD's 20 meter tall side wall trenches.
-Mike

[Mith]

Actually, the 40 meter asteroid destruction is a myth perpertrated by mistakes made on Brian Young's Turbolaser Destruction page confusing flack bursts for asteroids being vaporized during the Avenger-Falcon chase scenes. The asteroids actually seen being destroyed earlier in the film by an unidentified ISD are considerably smaller than that as scaled to the width of the TL beams hitting them, which are in turn scaled to the ISD's 20 meter tall side wall trenches.
-Mike

Well, at least the Starfleet cadets will get a chance at target practice...but that isn't too surprising given that the UFP uses antimatter and the Empire uses fusion.

[Cocytus]

There's further evidence that the antimatter used by the Federation is a compressed version with more power per kilogram than standard antimatter (which is about 43 megatons per kilogram). One example which springs to mind are TOS "Obsession," in which a small handheld container of antimatter produced a sizeable blast stated to be able to strip the atmosphere off the planet.

[Mith]

There's further evidence that the antimatter used by the Federation is a compressed version with more power per kilogram than standard antimatter (which is about 43 megatons per kilogram). One example which springs to mind are TOS "Obsession," in which a small handheld container of antimatter produced a sizeable blast stated to be able to strip the atmosphere off the planet.

Indeed, although this may have been mostly for antimatter containers for the warp engine during TOS, which would explain why they didn't use a torpedo. Later they seemed to develop more advance methods of holding antimatter, which is perhaps why shielding was so much stronger than PTs in TOS; they didn't have the technology to compress enough antimatter into a torpedo.

Although, this would seem to change around the time of the movies, given how badly that Bird of Prey messed up the Enterprise A.

[Jedi Master Spock]

Actually, the 40 meter asteroid destruction is a myth perpertrated by mistakes made on Brian Young's Turbolaser Destruction page confusing flack bursts for asteroids being vaporized during the Avenger-Falcon chase scenes. The asteroids actually seen being destroyed earlier in the film by an unidentified ISD are considerably smaller than that as scaled to the width of the TL beams hitting them, which are in turn scaled to the ISD's 20 meter tall side wall trenches.
-Mike

Well, at least the Starfleet cadets will get a chance at target practice...but that isn't too surprising given that the UFP uses antimatter and the Empire uses fusion.

By all evidence, highly advanced fusion.

Well, while the 40m asteroid scalings may be disputable, the fact remains that these are medium-size weapons, probably somewhere in the terajoule range, and we do see much larger bolts in play. An ISD probably could obliterate a 40 meter asteroid, with its heavier weapons if nothing else.

And while the size advantage of the ISD is occasionally disputed as well, most would place it around 53 million cubic meters, and the Sovereign only 2.4. The ISD is some 22 times as large, which should help compensate for using a less powerful fuel.

[Cocytus]

Actually, as per the episode, they couldn't use a torpedo because they couldn't directly scan the creature, so they needed human beings on the ground in order to attract the creature with their blood.