How big SHOULD the Federation Fleet be?

[SuperSaiyaMan12]

I'm asking since each fleet shown in DS9 seemed minimalist compared to how much territory they were fighting and defending. In LOGH (Legend of the Galactic Heroes) which dealt with territories around the same size as the Alpha Quadrant powers, they had fleets of 10,000+ and those were considered small, yet a combined Federation fleet to retake Deep Space Nine had just 500 ships.

So how big should the Alpha Quadrant, specifically the Federation Starfleet be considering how much territory they have?

[Sionnach Glic]

That depends on a [i]lot[/i] of factors, many of which are unknown.

1) How big are the ships in question?
2) How many inhabited worlds are available?
3) What is the population of these worlds?
4) What type and quantity of usable resources are located on these worlds?
5) How many uninhabited planets or moons are available?
6) What type and quantity of usable resources are located on these worlds?
7) How easy would it be to mine uninhabited worlds?
8) Is it possible to mine asteroids?
9) If so, how many are available and useful?
10) What sort of infrastructure exists for mining operations?
12) How many personel are available for mining operations?
13) In what quantity can resources be shipped away from mining sites and at what speed?
14) How many construction yards are available?
15) How easy is it to build more construction yards?
16) How long do ships take to build?
17) What's the life-span of a typical ship?
18) How many personel are available for construction work?
19) How many training centres are available to train new starships crews?
20) How many personel are available to crew these new ships?
21) Is conscription an option?
22) What duties will the typical ship perform?
23) How far from base - if at all - will the typical ship have to operate?
24) How fast can a strategic location recieve reinforcements and in what quantity?
25) How much does it cost to run a starship?
26) How much does it cost to pay its crew?
27) How much does the typical ship cost to build?
28) How much does it cost to pay the construction crew and perform standard maintanence on equipment?
29) How much does it cost to begin mining operations on a habitable world?
30) How much does it cost to pay for the mining crew, their required amenities and perform maintanence on equipment there?
31) How much does it cost to set up mining operations on an uninhabitable world?
32) How much does it cost to pay for the mining crew, their required facilities and perform maintanence?
33) How much does it cost to ship mined resources from the mining facilities to the construction facilities?
34) How much does it cost to pay the crews of these freight ships?
35) How many ships does Starfleet lose per year on average?
36) What's the absolute minimum amount of vessels required to perform Starfleet's duties?
37) What's the absolute maximum amount of vessels the UFP could afford to field?
38) How wealthy is the UFP?
39) How strong is the UFP's economy?
40) How much of its budget can it afford to give over to starships construction and operations without adversely affecting other programs?
41) What's the absolute maximum amount of the budget that could be given over to starships construction and operations without crippling vital areas of the UFP?
42) Would the populace of the UFP be willing to have such a massive armament program running?
43) Is it possible to push through a political bill alocating Starfleet these vast sums of money?
44) What sort of political and public backlash would the governing party be hit by if the new construction program began to affect the public's quality of life?
45) What's the current fleet strength of all nearby foreign powers which could pose a threat?
46) Can Starfleet, as it is now, defeat an alliance of three of these foreign powers in open combat?
47) How many ships can the neighbouring powers construct per year?
48) How many ships can the neighbouring powers construct per year?
49) What's the potential industrial capacity of the neighbouring foreign powers should they devote their entire economy to a total war scenario?
50) What is the minimum amount of vessels required by Starfleet to defeat an alliance of three neighbouring powers in such a scenario?

And that's just off the top of my head. I'm sure the list easily extends to a couple hundred (hell, if anyone else can think of one, add it to the list).

Quite simply, it's an unanswerable question because, to be frank, we know very little about the UFP despite thousands of hours of footage. We know nowhere near enough to estimate how many ships Starfleet "should" have. Hell, we don't even know how big the UFP's territory is and how it's shaped. A massive cube-shaped nation would require a much different defence force than a long, thin line-shaped nation.

However, Starfleet does seem to be adequate for what it's does. It's capable of both exploring strange new worlds and defending the UFP against foreign threats. Could Starfleet be streamlined and optimised into a more effecient and effective force? Almost certainly. But it's current size and composition seems adequate for the tasks given to it to perform. How big it "should" be, after all, is dictated primarily by what you want it to do.

[Atekimogus]

I agree, there is just not enough info or consistancy to make an educated guess.

From a pure dramatical point of view I think TOS and TNG got it pretty right. The fleet should be small enough eg space should be big enough that two federation ships meeting casually is a rare occurence. Most of the time they should be on their own with minimal support because that is what the hero-ships are supposed to be designed for.

Altough cool looking I do not like the massed fleets of DS9. I always thought this is rather inconsistent with what we have seen prior to it. The most important station in the UFP is in constant danger, yet Starfleet is only able to spare a frigate to defend it and suddenly fleets with hundreds ships are popping up from nowhere. I am sure you can reason why this is so, it is just a personal preference that I didn't like it very much.

Having such huge fleets would also mean, that there would probably be more ships with specialized roles, yet the jack-of-all-trades design is clearly dominiant. (Not only in the UFP also in the romulan empire, the Cardassian Union etc).

[McAvoy]

IN TNG we got the impression that a few hundred ships were in the fleet and by DS9 it was perhaps several thousand.

Fleet size is dictated by requirements, war time and peace time. Offense and Defense. Who is enemy and who are your allies and where it is.

So the fleet could be anywhere between 5,000 to 50,000 for all we know.

Registry numbers may not even give us a clue since apparently Starfleet assigns them to Runabouts.

[Graham Kennedy]

If I'd had to guess, during TOS I would have said Starfleet probably only consisted of 100 ships, purely based on the idea of there being 12 Constitutions. And during TNG I'd have guessed that Starfleet consisted of perhaps 250 ships, based on the idea that 40 ships was a big loss in BOBW, and later than 20 or so was clearly a pretty big force, but not a decisive one in the Klingon civil war.

Obviously those numbers went out the window with DS9, and Starfleet is pretty clearly in the 5,000 - 15,000 sort of range. I think this is reasonable, IF you assume that the Federation really is so spread out that it can take years to get from one side to the other, because that would result in even 15,000 ships being pretty thinly spread most times, and DS9 was the first time they had a couple of year lead time to a major crisis and so were able to gather most of Starfleet.

If we assume for the moment that only the major member worlds build Starships, and colonies don't, then we're looking at each of those worlds maintaining a fleet of some 30 - 100 ships. I agree there's a shedload of info we don't know, but that figure "feels" about right to me. It would mean one Starship in the future, very roughly, for every five or ten Navy warships in the world today. Sure seems in the ballpark of what I would have guessed.

[Coalition]

You could cheat. Assume a Federation population of 1 Trillion, divided by Earth's population of ~6 Billion, and multiply that by the current size of the US Navy.

That will give a rough idea of how many ships of various classes exist.

Here is where I did the numbers for TOS, but only using Federation divided by United States.:
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=2939&start=15#p150585

[Graham Kennedy]

That does rather assume that it's as easy for the Federation to build a starship as it is for the US to build a warship. Ain't necessarily so.

[Tyyr]

Given the apparent construction times of some starships it doesn't appear to be that difficult for SF to pop out a new hull.

[BigJKU316]

Given the apparent construction times of some starships it doesn't appear to be that difficult for SF to pop out a new hull.

That was the impression I got. That it took a very long time to R&D and field test ships. Then once that was done they start appearing in numbers pretty rapidly.

[Coalition]

That does rather assume that it's as easy for the Federation to build a starship as it is for the US to build a warship. Ain't necessarily so.

US Warships take ~8 years from start to delivery:
http://hamptonroads.com/node/241601
The story is from 2007, saying the construction has begun, and the carrier is scheduled to be delivered in 2015.

From Memory-alpha The Galaxy class design was started in 2350, and the USS Galaxy was commissioned in 2357. So a Galaxy class only took 7 years from design to commissioning. Enterprise was commissioned is 2363, 6 years later.

So yes, I'd argue that it is just as easy for the Federation to design and build a starship as it is for the United States to design and build a carrier.

You have ~1 trillion people in the Federation, with an overall superior tech base. A Carrier to the United States would be roughly the same as a top end starship to the Federation.

[Graham Kennedy]

The memory alpha dates for the GCS are entirely speculative (presumably drawn from the Tech Manual). In point of fact we have no idea how long it took to build the GCS.

[BigJKU316]

That does rather assume that it's as easy for the Federation to build a starship as it is for the US to build a warship. Ain't necessarily so.

US Warships take ~8 years from start to delivery:
http://hamptonroads.com/node/241601
The story is from 2007, saying the construction has begun, and the carrier is scheduled to be delivered in 2015.

From Memory-alpha The Galaxy class design was started in 2350, and the USS Galaxy was commissioned in 2357. So a Galaxy class only took 7 years from design to commissioning. Enterprise was commissioned is 2363, 6 years later.

So yes, I'd argue that it is just as easy for the Federation to design and build a starship as it is for the United States to design and build a carrier.

You have ~1 trillion people in the Federation, with an overall superior tech base. A Carrier to the United States would be roughly the same as a top end starship to the Federation.

I would add, though it does not matter much, that the construction of carriers is deliberatley slow in order to allow the US to retain the workforce to build the things and the infrastructure while not ever having more than 12 or so in service. Building ships is not something you can just start and stop because it will cost you a ton.

Basically the US is building carriers as slowly as is economically possible just to retain the line and replace ships in a slow controlled manner. They could build them far faster than every 8 years. They were knocking the 4th and 5th units of the Nimitz Class out in 5 years before they slowed down due to the end of the Cold War.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

Starfleet is just big enough...

So that the Enterprise is always the only ship in the sector.

[BigJKU316]

Starfleet is just big enough...

So that the Enterprise is always the only ship in the sector.

That is the best red letter media moment of the trek reviews when he is talking about Nemesis and picking up the positronic signal close to Earth. He does the little thing with dozens of ships showing up saying "Did you guys pick up that signal too? How wierd..."

[Sionnach Glic]

Heh, I loved that bit.

Though seriously, that's exactly what should be happening. The idea that an untested ship out on its trial runs is the only vessel in place to defend Earth is insane. Particularly when you consider how many times Earth has been attacked and almost destroyed.