hey guys, been lurking here for a bit and saw this little thread pop up and just had to comment I remember seeing some of the battle scenes in the later seasons of Deep Space Nine with the Dominion war, many times just a few phasers would spell doom for at least smaller ships. And also, Shields seem to be vital to an ST starship, even when they are at full strentgh, instrument panels and the like start shorting out and exploding, the floor has a few dead red shirts, fires are raging and smoke fills the air, yet the shields are still up o.O . So my opinion there is that without their shields any ST ship can be fatally wounded in just a few shots, like in the Dominion War scenes from DS9. far from the thick armor seen on any SW ship. Point is, they can be fast and have mega-powerful torpedo weapons, but the ST ships are so dependent upon their shields that if say a turbolaser salvo brings them down, an ensuing missile salvo would spell the end for the ship most likely. Based on what ive seen at least (sorry for long post!!)