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	Archive through September 14, 2019	25		09/15 05:15am

Garth, I meant replacing the POL design long after the General war, say year 202 and later.

The point was made in Captains Log number 38, I think it was, that the original POL had a number of successor designs published, none of which were entirely satisfactory.

A PCT (a CT saucer mated to a POL rear hull YIS 202+, would be a possible contender for a non X type police ship.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Saturday, September 14, 2019 - 12:18 pm: Edit

Cheaper and easier to just use FFG that Star Fleet replaced with DW rather than invent a new design.


Garth L. Getgen

By Jeffrey George Anderson (Jeff) on Saturday, September 14, 2019 - 12:50 pm: Edit

While I'm sure the Police would LOVE FFGs, Sgt G, I honestly don't think that's a realistic idea.

First of all, their production line was reworked to make the DWs that replaced them, meaning that the only hulls available, those that somehow had survived the Wars, would be themselves old, "War Weary," and irreplaceable to their new operators.

Second, think about the personnel requirements for those ships. To effectively use them, the police would either have to expand their numbers or have to make do with fewer hulls.

A third problem that comes to mind, something not reflected in SFB, is that there're specialist functions that a police ship performs that a frigate just isn't equipped to handle.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that having the Police replace their POL with surplus FFGs would be like having the Coast Guard replace cutters that were scrapped at the turn of the century with Perry class frigates instead of having the National Security Cutters built for them.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Saturday, September 14, 2019 - 02:19 pm: Edit

According to F&E, production of the FFG hulls never ended during the General War.

The DW production had to make "do" with only half of the FFG slipways! (iirc.)

We have had a discussion / proposal to assign FFG hulls to the police force, and ***I think*** SVC mentioned it as a possibility a couple of times in some of the now deleted proposals.

The problem is converting a FFG to the POL role requires changes.

One was the need to add 2 cargo boxes to an already tight design. Unless you add a deck house, or a secondary hull (as in the case of the FFB.) there just isn't room to Unless you start deleting SSD boxes.

Just what do you want to delete from the FFG? The photon? done G rack? Phasers? The APR/AWR? Hull? Labs?

Take things away, and you soon find the result design isn't as good as the POL+ that it's supposed to replace.

By Michael Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Sunday, September 15, 2019 - 05:15 am: Edit

I would guess that some Frigate slipways were just big enough to convert to DW building. And some were just a tad too small so they kept making FFs.

Besides there are lots of missions a FF is just fine. Police work. Patrol behind the front line. Frigate transport, commando ship, Frigate VOP ship (whatever it was called). Heck, if you know tht the front lines have moved far away, a FFM might be perfect to sweep whatever remnants of old minefields are still around.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Sunday, September 15, 2019 - 10:48 am: Edit

There is a free trader SSD on file, unpublished, that Petrick prepared a couple of years ago. The idea being that a regular minesweeper (like the OCL variant MS) has more important tasks to complete than maintaining existing mine fields of Star Bases, BTS, and major worlds that have existing mine fields.

NOT one of my proposals, but it came up in discussion as a side issue to a proposal. Frankly, I forget which one...there have been so many....

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Monday, September 16, 2019 - 11:06 am: Edit

Do the other Alpha empires have published replacement police ships?

If so, do they use frigate hulls?

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Monday, September 16, 2019 - 01:57 pm: Edit

The Orion cluster (non pirate affiliated Orion home world) has a police ship called a destroyer, and was the base hull of the carrier iirc. Orion had provision for building and operating police ships as part of their deal in joining the UFP.

Cygnus had a number to of warships patterned on freighter hulls, but ***I think*** they were retired when Cygnus was accepted into the Federation.

Several of the major worlds (Vulcan, for one, several others)had W and Y era technology ships published in module Y series, but I do not think any of them had a designated police ship.

The steves have mentioned over the years that most major and some minor worlds operate police ships, the implication being that they usually had POL class ships.

the conventional wisdom is that most Federation worlds use POL and Police flagship designs.

I do not recall if the steves have formally banned police ship designs from member worlds.