dominion war shields

[mrbob]

ok, for ages whenever i go on youtube or scifi or some thing, i always see the question, where the shields in the BIG battles likethe battle for bajor( sacrafice of angels(sp)) well i watching the jem'hadar(who, in my opinion are the best warriors ever) and the weapons on the dominion 'beattle ships can pass through federation shields so theres no point in having them on coz they waste power. sorry if this has already been said, but im sick of people saying that they were using contact shields like the ones the enterprise E has

[Pharaoh Atem]

i actually didn't know that thanks

i was always wondering why the federation never had their shields up

[Jeffala]

The Federation shields were only ineffective against the Jem'Hadar weapons to begin with. By the time that Dukat and Weyoun came to attack DS9, they had already adapted ("Call to Arms").

DAMAR
Sir, the station's shields are holding.

WEYOUN
Impossible. Federation shields have always proven useless against our weapons.

DUKAT
I've found it wise never to underestimate the Federation's technical skill or Captain Sisko's resourcefulness.

#

[the Fifth Race]

ok, for ages whenever i go on youtube or scifi or some thing, i always see the question, where the shields in the BIG battles likethe battle for bajor( sacrafice of angels(sp)) well i watching the jem'hadar(who, in my opinion are the best warriors ever) and the weapons on the dominion 'beattle ships can pass through federation shields so theres no point in having them on coz they waste power. sorry if this has already been said, but im sick of people saying that they were using contact shields like the ones the enterprise E has

The Federation and there allies did have a lot of trouble with there shields working against Jem'Hadar/Dominion Starship weapons. First of all there are 3 different Dominion battle ready Starships. - You have your small yet fast and powerful Dominion Fighters which resemble a large Beetle or Cockroach. Then you have the larger Dominion Battlecruisers which are backbone of the Dominion fleet and are slightly more powerful than a Romulan Warbird but is much smaller, about the size of a Galaxy Class. Then you have the rarely seen and uber powerful Dominion Battleships which is massively powerful and is twice the size of a Galaxy Class with three times the power. This was the type of ship that the USS Valiant attacked with its cadet crew and was destroyed quite easily. In all the various battles throughtout the entire Dominion War, only 3 of the believed 6 Dominion Battleships built were destroyed by Federation forces during the war.

Now to address the shielding question. -- The Dominion has special deflectors which as well as negating the effects of tractor beams also spread out the explosion from one of the Jem'Hadars favourite tactics- ramming. The Dominion mainstay of weapons is the phased polaron. The Dominion only has phased polaron beams and torpedoes but both these are extremely powerful. Until recently these weapons went through Federation shielding. However on the first battle of the Dominion War the Federation revealed a new way to allow shields to hold against Dominion weapons. --

Before the Federation adapted it's shielding to the phased polaron beams that the Dominion used (and could fire through shielding) the Dominion Fighter was considered the bigger threat, three of these vessels destroyed the USS Odyssey yet when the shielding was created the true weakness of their defences was revealed. Pulse Phaser cannons (as used on Defiant Class vessels) rip through these vessels and larger ships such as the Galaxy Class can now take them on with ease. As a result of the new shielding towards the end of the war the Dominion began construction of larger vessels, first it built more Battlecruisers and then it developed the Battleship. Even more fighters were lost when the defecting Weyoun 6 told Odo that the fighters had a key weakness, the shields were very weak at the dorsal field junctions and that meant it was vulnerable to attack from above.

I hope that helps.

[Specter177]

Also, in massed attacks, many ships may be firing, causing the shields to weaken faster.

[Aerilon]

I believe it to be a simple case of the fault of ship commanders. Maybe they were so worried about winning the war, that they simply forgot to raise their shields?

[./freelancer]

I seriously doubt they forgot to raise their shields

[nx01a]

You mean the Fed or the Jerm'hadar? We saw no shields from the Jem, and little shielding from the Fed, at least in the huge battles [where it's far more expensive to give every ship shielding]

[Jeffala]

You mean the Fed or the Jerm'hadar? We saw no shields from the Jem, and little shielding from the Fed, at least in the huge battles [where it's far more expensive to give every ship shielding]

Shielding is a fact of life for almost all Star Trek ships. Starfleet didn't produce any ships that didn't have shields. Even the smallest shuttlecraft had shielding.

[nx01a]

I meant from a tv show production sfx point of view. Showing a shield effect on a dozen ships back then was expensive. I'll try to dig up the reference material on that, but I remember tptb saying it simply cost too much.