10 Flaws Star Trek: Klingon Bird of Prey

We take a look at 10 design flaws in the Klingon bird of prey, one of the iconic Star Trek ships.
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[@venomgeekmedia9886]

in true trek nerd fashion i have to point out that the reason the cloaking device prevents a ship from firing is not because of power consumption. its because the cloaking field would either reflect or refract the weapons energy. to if you did try to fire you would most likely blow yourself up. for this reason weapons are disarmed while under cloak because klingon officers would too frequently ignore this TYPICAL KLINGONs

[@MandalorV7]

I don’t mind Klingons. They’re like Mandalorians. Actually got to meet Michael Dorn and take photo with him while wearing my mando armor.

[@Predator42ID]

how much did your mando armor cost?

[@themandalorian400]

Us Mando'ade approve of this comparison

[@optillian4182]

This is the way

[@clearspira]

2) ''The less than perfect cloaking device''. People always say that the Feds were stupid to ban cloaking tech on their ships, but I would argue that ''less than perfect'' describes every cloak we have seen on Trek with the exception of Shinzon's. If there is one thing that the Federation is good at, it is identifying, exploiting and adapting to flaws in enemy ships. Every time someone invents a better cloak, the Feds invent a better method to detect them. And we have seen this over and over again.

[@rhorynotmylastname7781]

The concept of a cloak in space is flawed heat, starlight, and emissions of the craft are all hyper detectable. Also if they can detect warp fields couldn't they detect the micro fluctuations in spacetime

[@marcbartuschka6372]

@@rhorynotmylastname7781 On the other hand, we should not forget that the "incredible geniusses" who defeat all the klingon and romulan ships are "hero" ships. Ships with crews, which has just one mission: to win in every situation against all odds, every week on screen, overcoming all problems anyway how big. How often we hear about destroyed normal bases, ships, devastating assaults by the Klingon or Romulan Empire? How often they use their cloaking devices quiet sucessful to hammer the Federation-half-soldiers or other foes away from the screen, when the "gret hearoes" are not there? There is a reason why they are feared and why in some parallel-timelines where the Feds are at war with the Klingons that not end SO well for them.

[@MandalorV7]

Rory O'Brien That’s why the Normandy from Mass Effect is a better concept of a stealth starship.

[@Scooby-Doo_Villain]

The star trek cloaks aren't just high tech camo paints. They actually do hide emissions from the ship too. As to how it's never really explained beyond the technical babble.

[@shawn6860]

Cloaks are for the most part masking the presence of the ship. So ya no cloak is perfect. throw a wine bottle at the cloaked ship and it still hits it. That said the ban on cloaks was the Romulains, not the federation. in a peace treaty, they insisted on the ban. The federation Phase cloak on the Pegasus was far superior but had flaws of its own..that overheating and instability factor chief among them. Also if you parked phased in the wrong object possible contamination or Radiation exposure. Pretty sure frequency might also attract multi-dimensional aliens too.

[@L0stEngineer]

Based on how often he disappears, Im going to guess British Ben either mounts a cloaking device and .... or has falling nerd levels.

[@maclennanld]

My head cannon is he has to go on a quest to retreive the ideal tea to power back up

[@imbetter599]

@@maclennanld mine is he goes out and kills children

[@maclennanld]

@@imbetter599 a bit extreme, it is not like he is a member of their monarchy

[@JeanLucCaptain]

no it's a space-time paradox!

[@warreng675]

But can he fire though

[@_Muzolf]

The "2 seconds window" is actually worst then that. While cloaked, ships cannot use their shields because it would create interference with the cloaking device that would give their position away. Cloaked ships have to drop their shields to make the cloak effective. The 2 seconds window probably means when the shield is dropping/raising but before/after targeting sensors can no longer target accurately. It being outgunned is not a flaw, it was a frigate, that at best could match a light cruiser. (That on itself is pretty impressive.) The flaw was in the klingon leadership trying to use it as a backbone for their fleet when it was obviously designed as a picket ship/raider. You cannot expect it to stand up to a heavy cruiser. The klingons had the D7 and K'tinga for that, and later the Vor'cha.

[@bobjoebo8933]

Actually, they were designed to be used kind of like federation attack fighters, in waves of 3-5 than cloaking again. If you look in tears of the prophets you can see them doing this. That sort of design makes sense when you look at it. Quick strafing runs and than disappear

[@biosonic100]

Well, there’s a reason Worf was the tactical officer, and not Riker. Mr. Worf knows when to use a spread vs a single torpedo.

[@Danny_Trent]

Photon torpedoes don't grow on trees ya know, especially on a doomed vessel.

[@CathrineMacNiel]

@@Danny_Trent tell that to janeway and her voyager

[@mmyatt9560]

@@Danny_Trent they do they can replicate the caseings and use antimatter ftom on board stores

[@Danny_Trent]

@@mmyatt9560that does not seem applicable in the middle of battle. And for Voyager it was told explicitly that it is not possible on board. I think ammo conservation should still be a thing.

[@allirogorilla]

the spread was probablt cut from print or never actually shot - flaw in the film itself, I believe

[@matrimalviarin5043]

It's nice to have British Ben back.

[@phoenix55755]

The fact it is out gunned in most one on one battles with federation ships, is because it was designed to attack in packs using raiding tactics you described. The DS9 battles where they are effective are how they are supposed to be used according to the KDF. Most of the one on one fights we see are with rogue captains acting without backing of the high council or the KDF in general. They are also effective scouting vessels.

[@imstarbuck1465]

Lol. So our last video got some people a little angry, so we've decided to turn it into a series. Haha. Love it!

[@victorbruant389]

If my guess is right, she'll have to decloak before she can fire.

[@krisgonynor689]

Good to see Ben again! Now a dream video would be Ben vs Ben / Star Trek vs Star Wars with Allen moderating! FYI: I think i read somewhere that Klingon ships are designed like that, with the bridge at the end of a long "neck", because of the radiation danger from the warp drive. Same reason Federation ships mount theirs on pylons. The Klingons only care for safety of the senior officers so the rest of the crew in the tail end of the ship can get slow radiation poisoning (I've also read that they use slave races in the larger ships to operate the drive systems and do maintenance. Somehow I can't see a Klingon swabbing the decks or cleaning the toilets!). On the TOS D-7 cruisers, the entire bridge section and connecting "neck" can separate and act like a life boat.

[@HungNguyen-uw8ch]

The proton torpedo that was modified to track the plasma exhaust of the Bird of Prey in Star Trek VI was a 23rd century version of the heat-seeking Sidewinder missile. Just like the Gatling Gun becoming the M-61 Vulcan cannon, an old tech was resurrected.

[@nowthatsjustducky]

I'm surprised you haven't been lynched a whole 3 weeks later for calling the Enterprise's photon torpedoes proton torpedos.

[@bobjoebo8933]

Please edit!!!!!!! I will find you!!!!!! pHoton not pRoton

[@josephjenkinsjr.2507]

The Klingon Bird of Prey was a scout vessel, so you're absolutely correct in stating that it was designed for "hit and run" tactics. You also hit on something else, the Klingons usually had Birds of Prey travel in space in "packs." If you see a solitary Bird of Prey, it's usually scouting for a larger force or is rogue. Now the Klingons got their cloaking device from the Romulans, who have a better version of it. The Romulans gave a more primitive version of their "Battle Cloak" to the Klingons in exchange for a warship design back in the 23rd century (Kirk's time) because of the war that the Romulans were having with the Federation at the time. However the war ended before the Romulans even had the chance to build a prototype of the design. The difference between the Romulan Battle Cloak and the Klingon version of the Cloak is that the Romulans had solved the energy consumption issue with the more primitive version that they gave the Klingons. This allows them to cloak/decloak with minimal issues concerning the energy transference between the Cloaking device and weapons/shield systems. This not only shrinks the time period between decloaking and powering up the shields and weapons, but also allows them to do it on much larger ships (which is why the Romulan Warbird is able to cloak/decloak in the same manner as their smaller ships). The reason why the Klingon Bird of Prey is able to cloak/decloak in battle situations but their larger ships can't is because their cloaking device is more primitive than the Romulans, whom they got their cloaking device from, and doesn't allow for the energy consumption that you pointed out in your video.

[@marcbartuschka6372]

I guess many of the lone Bird of Prey were more or less privateer ships, deniable assets, harrassment for the potential enemies etc. The Klingons surely saw them es expandable. It is also the perfect ship to proof yourself as a captain (if you do things terrible wrong, the loss is not so huge). Sometimes I think it would be a wonderful idea to at least in some episodes of a future Star Trek series feature the events on a Klingon Bird of Prey - as antagonist to the "hero Star Fleet ship". Done well (not in a simple black and white way) it would surely make things much more balanced and interesting. It could have a much lesser crew, which make it more easy to give the crew members personality and background.

[@_Muzolf]

It is not like the klingons stopped development on the cloak either. They were just somewhat behind the curve. They did cloak their bigger ships later on. At least some d7 variants seemed to have a cloak, and later in the dominion war, even their biggest capital ships could cloak.

[@shawn6860]

Another factor would be Romulan Warbirds (D'Deridex) also had Singularity cores. so the energy flow never really stops or gets delayed. Smaller romulain vessels with out Singularity cores would likely have that gap too. just shorter. The Big Daddy D'deridex however he cloaks at will quickly...Cloak on, cloak off.

[@marcocappelli2236]

@@marcbartuschka6372 Klingons with the old look, J.J. Abrams look, or Discovery look? And what about making a klingon series?

[@marcbartuschka6372]

​@@marcocappelli2236 To be honest, I found the new Klingons (both types) a little bit ugly, but I think it is more a question of what you let them do and say, and not how they look. A Klingon series (or a klingon-romulan series) would be a cool idea I think - IF made right. And that is a huge "if", since it would need that without "whitewashing" the Klingons too much (I mean in terms of moral) it would mean that you show them not as noble savages or brutal imperialistic aggressors, but complex personalities with a set of values, dreams and believes which are complete different from that of the humans (but that mean not they are wrong or bad, just very different). Same goes for the Romulans, of course. Both Empires have in my eyes a lot of potential for "grey" stories. But I think this will hardly ever happen on screen, since it is not likely that they make a series with a mainly not-human cast (even if you put for example some Orionians and other Aliens in the Klingon crew). That would maybe be more something for an animated series with lesser production costs. So I would just hope to see a little bit more complex and nuanced antagonists, THAT would be a great step forward, I think. Well, a man could have dreams and illusions, right?

[@CAP198462]

Flaw 11. the bird of prey has no replicators and so must carry live food, which limits its cruise time.

[@brothersgt.grauwolff6716]

Just the way they like it especially food that bites back 😄

[@limiv5272]

Haven't watched TOS and it's been a while since I watched TNG, but i do remember that on DS9 birds of prey did have replicators. Alexander used one to replicate a lung for lunch (eww)

[@CAP198462]

Limi V ok, well that’s new to me, in TNG they didn’t. Thanks.

[@bobjoebo8933]

Lol they do have replicators, they just prefer gagh lol. Mmmmmmm worms

[@lyianx]

For the last point "cant fire while cloaked", i've read (somewhere) that this isn't actually a flaw, but a choice by the empire. In order to preserve their limited Honor, they believe that firing while cloaked (ie, not revealing yourself to your opponent) is dishonorable. (see ST:TNG Reunion "A Klingon who kills without showing his face, has no honor") I think the reason why they had it in ST:6 was the group of Kligons in that ship, and who developed that cloak were conspiring against their current government, so they were effectively without honor anyway.

[@troyvernon6335]

I was just wondering, did Palpatine have anything to do with Anakin Skywalker's mother's abduction, rape and murder?

[@casbot71]

Was thinking the same thing, here's a copy of a post I made on Eckharts ladder last week (?) on why didn't the Jedi or Padme free Anakin's mother. … True, it's been stated that the Jedi philosophy is to completely cut off all attachments, but surely they should have realised that his moms safety would have been an emotional issue. But Padme, definitely. She had met Anakins mother and liked her. And her doing it would have not been questioned, freeing a slave who you met when you were on the run. Not that she would have to reveal she's the ultimate buyer, use an intermediary who does confide to mummsy who's behind it. And she had the resources to buy the freedom of all of Anakins friends with just her pocket change. Or she could use her political muscle to outlaw slavery on Tatooine. But simplest, buy Anakins mother as a wedding gift (along with any other family?) and give her a nice place on Naboo and a life of comfort and rest (without her own servants - that would gnaw at her, maybe some droids). Anakin can visit whenever, and the Jedi or anyone else need never know. And Padme gets to bond with her mother in law, helpful when expecting. And a future position as nanny could be emotionally gratifying. Side note, it is convenient for Palpatine that Anakins mother died like that and helped push him to the dark side, could Palps have arranged it?

[@casbot71]

You do realise you'll have to do the Defiant now, Flaws … well, it doesn't have a gelato machine.

[@brokenursa9986]

Yes it does. The replicator can make anything, even gelato.

[@trippsmythoftheaurigancoal8155]

No gelato? No gelato? This is why I like the NCC-1701-E Enterprise as it has a gelato machine every 3m or about every 10 feet...

[@CathrineMacNiel]

It's main flaw is that it doesn't have rocks when console explodes.

[@raw6668]

Larger than average warp core that can cause the ship to fly apart without an adept engineer keeping it together. Focus too much on forward weapons with limited arsenal for enemies able to keep up or attack anywhere but the front of the ship, while also giving it the inability for strafing runs unless facing the ship partially during attacks. Compact design means aiming one system can potentially take out multiple systems at once. Limited facilities to keep the ship operational behind enemy lines or too far away from supply lines compare to other starships. Lack of utility and multi-purpose combat roles most Starfleet ships have due to size, lack of facilities, and weapon choices. The defiant can only be used in close range combat, preferably in wolfpacks, while most other starships can act of ship screener, scout/command ship, and close combat warships on its own or in groups with ships like the Sovereign can also act as artillery, tank (absorb damage) and dreadnaught killers, Intrepid as troop transport, spy ship and combat cruiser class, and the Akira as an artillery ship and fighter carrier. Yeah, I can think of a few flaws.

[@CathrineMacNiel]

@@raw6668 well the defiant is built as a gunboat against the borg. It's quickness and manoeuvrability allows the ship to focus only on forward or ventral/dorsal armament, it has phaser banks after all and not Only torpedo launchers and pulse cannons. Due to its compactness it is easier and more efficient to build than a sovereign or akira.

[@dalemartin815]

Time travel in a Bird of Prey once commanded by Christopher Lloyd. They managed to get that rust bucket up to 88 mph. That alone was an awsome feat.

[@indianajones4321]

Hi British Ben! How’s it going?

[@imbetter599]

British

[@warreng675]

Junior

[@doncalypso]

K'Plagh!!!!

[@elricthebald870]

At least get your spelling right: Qapla'

[@doncalypso]

@@elricthebald870 perhaps today IS a good day to die.... and Klingonese is hard as hell. Now if you had called me an honorless Romulan P'tach then those would've been fighting words.

[@elricthebald870]

@@doncalypso The Klingon language is called Klingon. NOT Klingonese. Hab SoSlI’ Quch

[@doncalypso]

@@elricthebald870 tell that to Quark... that's what he referred to it when Worf was coaching him on courting Grilka.

[@26th_Primarch]

And CBS has sued you all for speaking it!

[@MultiTomcat67]

Good video, thanks 😃 . Must add tho, the B'rel class Bird of Prey looks like a big fighter or scout. It's heavily armed for its size so use it as a pack hunter, hit & run attacks & the Klingons can overwhelm Capital ships with less personnel. Like a pack of wolves can confuse a moose or elk & take it down.

[@Darkseraphimw]

You mentioned that the transporter was not used while cloaked. It was used several times in Next Generation, especially in the 2 part Episode Unification, where the Bird of Prey hangs over Romulus and beams Picard, Spock, and Data up and down several times.

[@lukejazz7508]

More Star Trek please !!! Love it

[@randyranderson690]

Klingon ships have a neck because of design philosophy. The pod contained the officer quarters and officer facilities and the neck was the conduit for a turbolift to reach the aft section. The aft portion of their ships contained the bulk of the crew (servitor races and low honor klingons) as well as the engines and shuttle bay. The boom could be separated, much like the Enterprise saucer, and housed a micro-impulse engine. All of this can be seen in the D7 starship blueprints and various star trek novels.

[@Jaeih]

This video has far better points about flaws and shows a far better haircut than in your video about the Enterprise-D. I really like it. Keep the Star Trek content coming, British Ben! Your style in these videos is always very refreshing for this channel! (Dont worry American Ben. I still like you, too!) What about a "10 Great things about the USS Defiant"?

[@Jacob6853]

Star Wars/Trek fan here. I love this mix of content!

[@MrPanda._.]

Star Wars + Star Trek = Heaven

[@lookbehindyou2549]

Imperial Empire vs The Federation

[@jozefkozon4520]

Mayhem rather. For ST at least.

[@seekertwo1]

CLONE WARS Republic vs. Klingon Empire.

[@hodor9851]

@@lookbehindyou2549 galactic empire

[@snonsig2688]

​@@lookbehindyou2549 since star trek ships are WAY faster than all star wars ships (full impuls is about 167,000,000 mph or 268760448kph) and have a weapons range of 300000 km range, give or take 50000 km (standart combat range) i think federation ships wouldn't even get hit

[@CertifiablyIngame]

And they are often stolen. Like all the time.

[@GenerationTech]

Ah, yeah I should have thought of that one

[@christopherheckman7957]

In the novelization for Star Trek III, the Klingon commander's pet ("dog") was bothered whenever the cloaking device was turned on or off. I don't remember whether Klingons were susceptible in the same way.

[@Crimson_Hawk_01]

I think you are confusing flaws with limitations. Maybe tech of this time frame does not allow shields and cloaks at the same time.

[@Demobot1]

That is exactly right

[@DrForrester87]

It's a pretty universal trait with cloaked ships in Trek. Though I do believe the Scimitar was exempt from this.

[@shawn6860]

Power and the number of emitters for shields and cloaks would limit a lot of what a cloak can do.

[@arakuss1]

What this video described is weaknesses not flaws. As an example a faster lightly armored tank is not flawed because it has light armor it just a weakness that speed tried to compensate for. Defective armor is a flaw or the idea that it's speed will help it is a flaw in tank tactics.

[@FreakyFirestorm]

Just found your channel and I'm diggin it bro.

[@SnakeVenom3000]

I also always noticed how Worf fires only a single torpedo instead of a spread of them like Riker told him too.

[@shawn6860]

Flaws in star trek ships...noooo! lol! That said the Klingon Empire does quickly compensate and redesign efficiently. The Bird of Prey is a wolf pack vessel and highly adaptable. You did nail the weaknesses well. Most weaknesses that did happen were easily fixed or designed out. the Cloak flaw was the only one to really stay across all the variants. and yes that one that can fire while cloaked was pretty cool.

[@SamuelJamesNary]

The flaws within cloaking technology in Star Trek are generally universal, mostly as while both the Klingons and Romulans use cloaking devices, the Klingons got the technology from the Romulans during a brief alliance the two powers had during the Original Series era. Now the alliance didn't hold and from there the research with the device likely deviated... which would mean that by the Next Generation era there would be some differences in how the Romulan and Klingon cloaking devices worked... Though even with those changes in development, many of the flaws within cloaking technology remained. When the USS Defiant was equipped with a Romulan Cloaking Device for exploration in the Gamma Quadrant (and Gamma Quadrant only), it would have many of the same issues noted here... that the Defiant couldn't fire while cloaked and would have to drop its shields in order to cloak... and that was with a Romulan Cloaking Device, which in theory would be considered superior to the Klingon version as the Romulans were the ones who invented it and did the most research with it... The "perfect cloak" wouldn't come about until the Scimitar in "Star Trek: Nemesis," though it is possible that in that case, the Romulans, Star Trek's masters of espionage (2nd only to Garek) probably managed to somehow get the design specifications for Chang's Bird of Prey to figure out how to allow the Scimitar to fire while cloaked... as by "Undiscovered Country" the alliance between the Romulans and Klingons was over and yet the Klingons had figured out a way to fire while cloaked.

[@marcbartuschka6372]

Maybe the Romulans gave a) not their most state of the art cloaking device to the Fed Ship (I mean - I would not trust them, and I am sure the Tal Shiar was very sceptical about that cooperation) and b) the design of the Defiant was not done with the use of a cloaking device at most important part. Klingon and Romulans ships are build to be cloaked from the start and take maximum advantage out of that. May it be that Fed Tech and Fed design did not fit perfectly?

[@SamuelJamesNary]

@@marcbartuschka6372 - Both are possible... though given that the Romulans wanted information on the Gamma Quadrant too, I'd find it unlikely that they would give an outdated device to the Federation to use in the Gamma Quadrant (with a Romulan official to monitor the device) for fear of the ship being lost and no information gained. Though figuring out how working with a cloaking device would be difficult to figure out as Romulan and Klingon ship designs are both very different from one another, and for the most part the Federation was banned by treaty with the Romulans from ever experimenting with cloaking technology... Though not that this always stopped the Federation. There was one TNG episode in which a rogue scientist was actually working with a "phase cloak" which would allow the ship to not only become invisible to the eye and detection but be able to go through solid objects. The scientist's ship ultimately failed... but the Enterprise D managed to perfect the device to escape the trap it had fallen into to rescue the scientist and his lost ship... And later in "Insurrection" the Federation holo-ship was equipped with a cloaking device... Though neither case really goes into depth on how the design worked with the cloaking device... DS9 had the best advantage to do this with the Defiant... but I really don't know that was ever definitively stated as to whether or not the Defiant's design created issues with regard to the interface with the cloaking device.

[@losthart5577]

This was done really well. Good job

[@thecozman1]

Great vids, thanks man

[@thewicked_witch4720]

Love both of you guys ! Generation Tech 😍

[@HunterX05]

I'm a Star Wars fan here to see Star Trek get dunked on

[@stick1998]

In comparing the two technologies of Star Wars and Star Trek, I will give that lightsabers are the absolute shit. Pass that, as far as ships, Star Wars cannot compared to Star Trek. The common come back is, well we can destroy a planet. Yes, with a small moon size battle station. In Star Trek, we can use as a roughly seven footlong torpedo, to destroy an entire star. The resulting Shockwave destroys every planet in the system. Boom. Pun intended.

[@user-dl2dr6nm6q]

Welp, time to open up that 2307 Bloodwine I've been saving up, get me some Gagh and enjoy myself...

[@Crossbones6732]

Flaws smaws, Bird of Prey still makes me jump for joy whenever I see it in Star Trek.

[@MrAcerulez]

Seems like most the flaws are centered around the cloaking device. Their biggest strength is their biggest weakness huh?

[@RiGuy]

*Star Wars Explained and Eckarts ladder have disconnected from the server*

[@Mathadar]

Hmm?

[@RiGuy]

Matthew Whisennand They do Star Wars videos

[@HunterX05]

*Star Wars Theory and The Stupendous Wave have left the chat.*

[@mikeyjames1000]

Well done great vid

[@cryhavoc9748]

Thanks for sharing this. Now that I am aware of all the design flaws, I will NOT be buying a used bird of prey.

[@filiphastik4493]

He is back! And with my favourite topic! Praise Kahless.

[@hellbilly69101]

the search for spock and the voyage home are still my favorite ones because of that ship! I always loved the bird of prey

[@MikhaelAhava]

It’s nice to watch Star Trek videos.

[@emperorconstantine1.361]

I grew up with both Wars and Trek. I’m a touch more fond of pre-Disney Star Wars. But I had a love for pre-“discovery” and “Picard” Trek and yes that includes “Enterprise” (though only Borg involved/7 of 9 included later seasons of “Voyager”) Star Wars does have more action, but Trek has more on being realistic more often. But regardless I still truly love both for what each one is. (“Discovery” does not have real Klingons).

[@thereturningshadow]

Ben you are wrong about transporter use while cloaked. In ST3, Commander Krug was beamed up while the ship was cloaked when the Enterprise arrived. Torg cloaked the ship first, then contacted Krug and then beamed him up. Even Torg told him they were already cloaked when Krug came on the bridge.

[@vivalarevolucion9]

So happy to see you Ben!!! Star Trek fan here too! LLAP!!! :D

[@roofer3608]

Sshhh! I like startrek also! Allen doesn't doesn't know what he's missing

[@trippsmythoftheaurigancoal8155]

Allen is too young to know the greatness that is Star Trek...

[@astrobot4017]

@@trippsmythoftheaurigancoal8155 Well I'm 30 and I watched TOS and TNG as a kid

[@trippsmythoftheaurigancoal8155]

@@astrobot4017 your point being?

[@shawn6860]

In the new age, age is not an excuse. You can find TOS episodes online.

[@roofer3608]

Honestly, as a kid I watched Reading Rainbow.. that led to TNG...

[@patembersouls]

Yes more Star Trek! Thank you.

[@stick1998]

Actually, the depiction of the Enterprise's spread of photon Torpedoes in Star Trek generations is accurate. As shown as I believe in the first season episode, the galaxy-class Starship can fire 10 torpedo simultaneously. The Torpedoes leave the tube in a single mass, then break off to their individual targets. As the Torpedoes in Star Trek generations were all heading to the same point, they all stayed in one Mass, which appear to be one large torpedo.

[@GabbieTheFox]

Probably the number 1 flaw with the BoP is that most versions of the ship rely entirely on forward facing weapons to dish out damage, often completely foregoing any aft weapons as well as being infamous for their aft shields being MUCH weaker than their foreward ones. Long story short, if you got behind a BoP, 9 times out of 10, all they could do is try and shake you off.

[@chipatchison5971]

Great Star Trek video. Keep it up. Also, how about some KOTOR videos too.

[@johnpatz8395]

My problem with the cloaks have always been, that since they are not actually phasing the ship, and instead are only masking everything, the ship would still be extremely vulnerable as it's unshielded but can still be hit, but of course episodes show phaser fire passing through the area the ship should be in immediately after it cloaks without hitting anything. Like the clip you showed, once Kirk say the wrinkle in space that was the Klingon ship, all he need to is target weapons at that spot and fire and the ship would have been destroyed before even uncloaking. Strangely in undiscovered country they basically do the same thing, except they use the torpedo to track it instead of their eyes.

[@Talon1124]

It wasn't just a powet issue re:firing while cloaked. It was a targetting and ray scattering issue especially with earlier models. The energy of a disruptir or phaser could be reflected off the inside of the cloaking field and hit the firing ship.

[@itzauthenticxd4218]

*Star Wars Fans have left the building.

[@daleford8621]

Same here, I love most sci fi. The sheer amount of imagination and the different aesthetics of the various universes are so much fun.

[@lawrencewilson4080]

I'm still here. Can't go wrong with Star Trek, nor Star Wars.

[@ekkepehter907]

I'm still here, both are cool

[@Orca19904]

The incident you mentioned with the Olympic-class ship was against two Negh'Var-class battlecruisers, which were large, heavily-armed capitol ships comparable to Starfleet's Sovereign-class Enterprise-E, completely separate from the Bird of Prey line. As for the flaw about not being able to fire while cloaked save for the one-off prototype, this was a common flaw amongst almost every Star Trek ship with a cloaking device; the only other ship that could fire under cloak was the Scimitar-class warbird created by the Remans in "Nemesis".

[@GenerationTech]

What incident with an Olympic class vs two battlecruisers?

[@Orca19904]

@@GenerationTech The destruction of the Olympic-class USS Pasteur in the TNG episode "All Good Things".

[@JohnSapato]

"Flaw number 6.5 It always explodes in the exact same way." Lol!

[@martinhanke1670]

Voyager ship at end of series, was off the wall tough. It was kicking ass and not taking names, because it destroyed the enemy.

[@trippsmythoftheaurigancoal8155]

British Ben, great video about the B'rel-class Klingon Bird of Prey... But, what about the major flaw of every ship in Star Trek? No heads (the Naval term for bathroom)... I mean as a book says, "Everyone Poops" & no ship that is canon in ST has any heads on it, at least in the deck plans, they have sonic showers, but no toilets... Major flaw in my book... Funny, the same thing in Star Wars too... Also, how about doing this for Babylon 5 & the advantages of ships in Star Wars, Star Trek, & B5 as well?

[@shawn6860]

ooh like that..B5 had funky ships.

[@travissmith2848]

Funny.... the book I had on 1701-refit showed the bathrooms. Really though, even "Fart Joke McFarland" knows that stuck on the john is not riveting television in sci-fi. Do like The Orville, and I don't have to pay for a streaming service to watch one show!

[@trippsmythoftheaurigancoal8155]

@@shawn6860 and very realistic too...

[@trippsmythoftheaurigancoal8155]

@@travissmith2848 that was the only one & isn't canon... But, Patrick Stewart & William Shatner both have stated the Big E had only one head & they had Captain's privilege to use it.

[@nowthatsjustducky]

Engineering, in order to prevent yesterday's synthtaco Tuesday from becoming wet fart Wednesday, please lock on to you know where and commence Emergency Beam Out Procedure #2. And no Captain's Log jokes.

[@Jarsia]

"Members of an 80s rock band who just got released from the matrix" So very accurate

[@billymorgan7717]

Excellent !!!!!

[@joshuadunford3171]

Funny thing about the Olympic Class Hospital Ship. She was named after the passenger liner and later on WW1 armed troop transport ship, RMS Olympic, which never served as a Hospital ship, however her almost identical sister ship, The HMHS Britannic was a Hospital ship, until she was sunk by a sea mine. I guess Britannic sounded too much like the third sister ship.

[@MrAranton]

There's a difference between a design flaw and the limits of technology. If the best cloak you can build and integrate into a ship is "less than perfect", using it is not flaw it's doing the best you can with what you've got. There's also the general design philosophy; the bird of prey is supposed to be an easy to mass-produce ship the empire (or the great houses running them) can afford to lose a ton of. Putting up with flaws and weaknesses to keep the cost down in order to be able build a lot of them, is a point of military doctrine that differs from the Federation's "let's build the best possible ship no matter the cost", but can work just as well.

[@justinreilly6619]

If going 'off piste' and doing non-Star Wars content, and why not, there are other shows and films out there, how about a run at Babylon 5? Great show and some lovely space ships there!

[@MetalMe55iah]

Many a time I flew a bird of prey rocking the battle music to a modded X2 the threat..shes a thing of beauty

[@Crais000]

The power situation with the cloak seems to be endemic to any vessel so equipped. The Romulan version in “Balance of Terror” appears to not only lose combat capacity but limit the ship’s sensor grid as well

[@Idazmi7]

The sensor element was clearly corrected by Star Trek 6 and has never been a problem since.

[@youke84]

Can you do a top 10 or 10 flaws of the Romulan D'Deridex?

[@stevenzegalia3931]

Discuss the captains yacht on the Enterprise D

[@baka_energy]

I´d love some more ST content

[@MoriShep]

It main weapons can only fire in forward arcs, according to startreak command (that you used in your Romulan video as a source of data) its rear shields where also much weaker meaning from behind it was helpless flying dodo

[@James-rn7dx]

The Enterprise-D had the ability to link her torpedo's together, this was shown all though TNG. So for all we know it was more then one torpedo fired on the Bird of prey in Generations.

[@AaronPharaoh]

Tune in for my new series "11 Flaws with the 10 Flaws Series"

[@afterburner2869]

The bird of prey was notorious for allowing radioactive particles to penetrate the hull of the ship causing Klingons to change the way they looked over the years.

[@bug1701]

BEN! you missed one! They don't have have replicators! They have to bring all there food along with them. Usually in the form of wild targs, and Gagh, those crunchy worm things.

[@clearspira]

With respect, the title is very misleading as by your own admission you did not find ten flaws with the Bird of Prey - you found ten flaws with multiple models spread out over two hundred years. And on a side note, I feel as if that makes the BoP one of the best designed ships in all of Trek and probably Star Wars too as you cannot make that claim with any other ship that you have covered.

[@GenerationTech]

Restrain your inner simpsons comic store guy

[@clearspira]

@@GenerationTech I must admit I do have that problem lol.

[@jozefkozon4520]

I would like to draw attention to a fact, namely, the best-designed ship in ST is a defiant, at least when it comes to the frame. Apart from him, no ST ship is worth comparing to any SW warship, omitting the nebulon-B, which was deliberately nerfed by the tarkin. Also other problems of SW warships were caused only by laws such as Russian reformation or tarkin doctrine, which often forced the shipyard to modify a well-designed ship, such as ISD, depriving it of progressive defense and loading crappy TIE. I am able to explain each ship's defect in legal problems, or that they are not a defect in a technical sense. In addition, placing most of the alliance ships in the warszip category is illogical, because most of them were not designed for that. In turn, in ST, only stupidity justifies Pylons and a divided hull. This makes sense, if the faction wants to manifest a peaceful nature and then exalting weaknesses of the structure is justified, however, the klingons do not recognize them as such. The fact that the defiant has problems with the hulkiness of the hull under the influence of speed considering the fact that its structure is more solid than the majority, as not all ships in ST escapes my logic. Even if it results from the transfer of vibrations to the hull, there are simple ways to remedy this.

[@seekertwo1]

A Corellian Corvette would defeat a BOP easily.

[@marcbartuschka6372]

@@seekertwo1 I do not think so. It depends of course how strong the shilds and weapons are compared to each other, but i guess the torpedos of the BoP are quiet dangerous. And the boP could surely hit when the Corellian Corvette did not expect him. And of course it depends and what type of Cor. Cor. vs which type of BoP...

[@brianjohnson5272]

The K'vort class battle crusier from yesterday's Enterprise in TNG was a BC class bird of prey. 3 were enough to take out the NCC 1701 D!

[@gavinjames1145]

One key design flaw is that no matter the scale of the ship, the windows always seem to remain the same size, relatively speaking!

[@davidf6799]

The ionised gas exhaust isn't a design flaw, it's basic physics. In order to get thrust in one direction you need an equal and opposite force in the other direction. In this case the ions are the source of that force. They have to be expelled from the ship otherwise it can't move. The same would be true of any starship with an impulse engine, and even for the thrusters that turn a starship. There would be no way around that problem except to use the warp-drive, because warp-drive changes the geometry of space itself. The real problem is - why don't they use this method of attack for all cloaked ships?

[@Idazmi7]

I'd imagine that a reduced gas emission profile would make it difficult. Enterprise can detect gas, but they still needed specialized equipment to find the ship.

[@hicknopunk]

F*** yes! I loved the Enterprise-D one. It is the reason I subscribed.

[@micahottaway8455]

Apparently, there were dolphins on board the Enterprise D.

[@chadcastagana9181]

8:19 "Raiding mission"? You mean a 'strafing run', just after the Klingon's Bird of Prey decloaks!

[@d1moabz28]

Today is a good day to die!

[@t3h51d3w1nd3r]

tough little ship, when the shields fell at tanagra

[@chancepaladin]

it is always a good day to die

[@imbetter599]

Then let's all die

[@bcn1gh7h4wk]

"PREPARE FOR RAMMING SPEED!" _Enterprise moves in_ "Nope!"

[@PhilTheJanitak]

I hope they do a video on the Oberth Class some day

[@tigerlilly4712]

The best part about Star Trek IV when Checkov was asking where the Nuclear Wessles were. It was unscripted. These were people's honest reactions.

[@LordoftheSwamp1269]

Alan, you forgot to put beasts in your best Star Wars army. In ancient times and sometimes today, animals played a big role in warfare. Like with Carthage, they had war elephants used against the Roman empire. Star Wars still applies the fact that beasts still make a huge difference in an army. Why not list the best beasts to have in your army?

[@NickMueh]

actually if you have the blueprints that came out in 1973 of the Bird of Prey you will see that it has a 2nd bride and that the neck has a 'sever disconnect'. So the neck is not a flaw but was a purposely added in design.

[@JAGtheTrekkieGEMINI1701]

Very cool indeed.. "Augments are like guys from an 80´s Rockband released from the Matrix", lmao Or that bord of Preys always blow up in a similar way(STVI & SCVII) CLASSIC!

[@StNicholasBrown]

Please do the Romulan D’Deridex next

[@darrenskjoelsvold]

I have always wondered about the prototype bird of prey that could fire while cloaked. 1. Why didn't they ever try to make one again? 2. Did it have specialized torpedoes that themselves propelled down the tubes, thus eliminating the need to the weapons systems to use energy save for targeting which honestly could be a passive system? 3. Which house developed the system? Klingons have a feudal system and each house has their own military essentially. The house of Chang might have been the ones to develop it. ..but.. They would be a proud house with many warriors, so where'd they get the scientists to develop it? Klingon houses seemed to specialize and the more warrior centered houses often scoffed at scientists and engineers. So who developed it? 4. Am I overthinking this plot point and should I just relax? :)

[@williambrightman9970]

Do ten flaws of the Borg Cube

[@GALAXIE67]

Interesting!!👍☯️👍

[@seekertwo1]

#11: Most BOP models did not have aft or side weapons. This made it an easy target from behind.

[@user-hc8oj8cv4f]

5:33 Of course he knows! Shakespear was a famous Klingon poet!

[@jozefkozon4520]

ST has a tradition for ships witch thin necks and pylons. A idea that was newer used in real functional warship in SW, beside Nebulon-b that was nerfed by tarkin doctrin.

[@kylehammerschmidt8366]

You're star trek jokes have me dying....in a good way lol

[@MichaelReetz]

6:28 can you see that as well? the damage of the first torpedo disappears just before the second hits?

[@brewman8140]

Best cool ship design.