Honestly the issue could have been resolved by not putting the Torpedo launcher on the neck. Could have put it on the Secondary hull like the Excelsior, or even do a throwback to the saucer mount of the pre-refit Connies. However if you have to have it on the neck... having the tubes angled in such a way as to avoid hitting your own ship makes sense.
I believe that the point is so that the vessels can dodge and fire at the same time. You can't really do that if you are required to keep the bow pointed at the enemy. That is especially helpful if the norm is forward-firing torpedoes. Angled Fire is advantageous because you can do it and they can't. But, of course, that only only applies to firing non-guided projectiles or in places where the tracking won't work, like in a nebula.
I think that Riker also mentions Roll Firing in one of the scenes.
Dodging doesn't really have a place in Trek, the weapons are not manually aimed and slow to move, they lock on and follow the target no matter what kind of maneuvers it does, especially the strip type which aims electronically like one of today's phased array radars instead of physically moving to track the target. The only time dodging actually works is the rare occasions when it is impossible to get a lock-on.
That said, the game Star Fleet Battles used the "Blueprints" from Franz Joseph (along with checking for obstructions on 3D models) to figure out what the firing arcs would be for the ships where those were available and came to the conclusion that the D7 was optimized for an oblique approach since both the disruptor cannons and the wing phasers (and most of the pod phasers) had cones of fire that overlapped forward and slightly to the sides (all of the phasers on the ship could fire in a narrow line straight back behind the ship as well, but that is another matter).
The arrangement meant that instead of heading straight for the target (the way they did in the show) it would be more advantageous to head for a point ahead or behind the target and fire as the enemy ship entered that convergence zone.
It was kind of a niche thing, but the fan theory at the time was that the Klingons arranged the weapon mounts so they could make high speed runs without holding some energy back for making a high-speed turn (and to avoid subjecting the ship's structure and crew to the stress of such a turn) to avoid ramming the enemy ship. Of course, that arrangement was only on Franz Joseph's deck plans (which are not canon) and there was never any indication that anything like the wing/waist phasers ever existed in any of the shows.
The fact that Wrath of Khan firmly established that Trek torpedoes were actually powered, internally-driven weapons like today's submarine torpedoes* makes small differences in the direction of the launch tubes irrelevant, though too much off-axis deflection means that the torpedoes would lose the some of the acceleration advantage of the pressor-beam catapult in the tubes.
*The description of the torpedoes in the series bible from TOS was unclear about whether they were self-propelled torpedoes or a form of caseless spar torpedo riding a tractor beam.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,728Community Moderator
And ST6 did establish that Torpedoes do have some significant homing capability, especially when modified to detect gaseous anomalies. While it might not hit as hard as a direct fire attack, torpedoes can do indirect just fine. We just tend to see them in a more direct fire capacity most of the time.
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normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
Comments
Dodging doesn't really have a place in Trek, the weapons are not manually aimed and slow to move, they lock on and follow the target no matter what kind of maneuvers it does, especially the strip type which aims electronically like one of today's phased array radars instead of physically moving to track the target. The only time dodging actually works is the rare occasions when it is impossible to get a lock-on.
That said, the game Star Fleet Battles used the "Blueprints" from Franz Joseph (along with checking for obstructions on 3D models) to figure out what the firing arcs would be for the ships where those were available and came to the conclusion that the D7 was optimized for an oblique approach since both the disruptor cannons and the wing phasers (and most of the pod phasers) had cones of fire that overlapped forward and slightly to the sides (all of the phasers on the ship could fire in a narrow line straight back behind the ship as well, but that is another matter).
The arrangement meant that instead of heading straight for the target (the way they did in the show) it would be more advantageous to head for a point ahead or behind the target and fire as the enemy ship entered that convergence zone.
It was kind of a niche thing, but the fan theory at the time was that the Klingons arranged the weapon mounts so they could make high speed runs without holding some energy back for making a high-speed turn (and to avoid subjecting the ship's structure and crew to the stress of such a turn) to avoid ramming the enemy ship. Of course, that arrangement was only on Franz Joseph's deck plans (which are not canon) and there was never any indication that anything like the wing/waist phasers ever existed in any of the shows.
The fact that Wrath of Khan firmly established that Trek torpedoes were actually powered, internally-driven weapons like today's submarine torpedoes* makes small differences in the direction of the launch tubes irrelevant, though too much off-axis deflection means that the torpedoes would lose the some of the acceleration advantage of the pressor-beam catapult in the tubes.
*The description of the torpedoes in the series bible from TOS was unclear about whether they were self-propelled torpedoes or a form of caseless spar torpedo riding a tractor beam.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode