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Starfleet: Oberth-Class is for research and exploration ONLY Also Starfleet: Alright kid, you're heading towards the front lines.

"Oberth-class is Starfleet vessel class worst-suited to combat... EVER." --- Sol-System inner defense perimeter torpedo boats*: Hold our beers. ... * Best Of Both Worlds, part 2 (built as combat ships)

Oberth: What a Captain can expect an assignment to when they piss off an Admiral.

The new Oberth class upgrade ... Now with 50% more explodium. 👍

If the class was also made to be given/sold to civilians, then it makes sense that it makes sense that it wouldn't have the best defense systems. You don't want some rando nutcase getting a fleet to overthrow the Federation. Look at the Maque, they had to get older scout ships, but did they try to get any Oberth's? No.

The Oberth was probably disigned to study space anomlies that are relatively safe. Its shields and 1 phaser would be enough to scare off most pirete ships if such things existed. Lets also be real about phasers, they do a lot more then blow things up. It would be a good civlain research vessel off studying P3X804's fungus deep in federation space. What we see in the show is how star fleet cant tell a oberth from a galaxy class ship in its ability to handle issues.

Supposition: Starfleet threw the Oberths at the Borg because they could get a starship class phaser bank into the fight for only the cost of 5 people. SOP was to tie the phaser to the warp core and fire until explode.

The Audacity Of Starfleet and the Federation always amazes me. They're always so shocked when they run into other races that, surprisingly, don't like them that much and want to fight

The Oberth: A quick introduction to why there are so few starfighters in Trek.

I love the Oberth in concept. A dedicated science/research ship that could hang back at the edge of a system or even lightyears out and feed data to front line forces? Possibly with upgraded communications gear so it can act as a relay at the edge of the space wedgie of the week to get signals in and out of the damned thing? Yes Gimme! The way starfleet uses the damned thing? "if there is a God and I end up meeting him. he will have to get on his knees and beg my forgiveness for this fucking abomination of a ship.' Yes that about sums it up quite nicely.

The problem isn't the Oberth design, but the fact Starfleet never has enough Strong vessels around primary federation planets. Wolf 359 Starfleet could only send mostly Space Junk at the Borg Cubes. Then in the solar system they launch like 5 attack drones. And they were like well our defenses of earth are all expended. The Oberth is a fine ship design, but you don't send a skiff that could take on a random pirate, to war against a battle ship.

Just how tough is Riker? He served a tour on one and lived.

To me as an EVE Online player I can't help but feel Starfleet started out with the idea of making a scout/electronic warfare ship, then about half way though decided "ehh fuck it" and decided to make it into effectively the Star Trek version of the EVE Online starter Corvettes. Something you throw new recruits into and hope for the best. Though I could see them having intended it as to use an EVE Online ship as an example a "Griffin" a ship that uses ECM(Electronic Counter Measures) to disrupt the targeting computers on hostile ships, basically making it impossible to get a target lock. At least in a combat sense. It's also possible they wanted more of a Heron/Magnate/Imicus/Probe type ship that's whole purpose was to basically be a bed to launch probes from for exploration, giving it just enough protection to smash a few asteroids and take some bumps from the remains of said asteroids, but not to get into a fight. Then found themselves as needing any weapons they could get and hey, it does have a single phaser. Though in the end it just became the Corvette of Star Trek, not really good for anything, but a decent proving ground for a new captain. If they can go on a mission in an Oberth and come back, I feel it's safe to say that captain and crew are worthy of bigger things.

The definition of a military, as far as I recall, is anyone with the power to wield weapons on behalf of the state. That would necessarily include Starfleet. It would also include civilian law enforcement, but who are we trying to kid here? 1: Does the ship and crew have weapons? 2: Do they own those weapons themselves, or do they truly belong to someone else? (Did Picard pay for those torpedoes from his vast family winery or did the Federation?) 3: Are they authorized to use those weapons on behalf of the owning party? (Those are Federation phaser banks, only to be used under certain circumstances, which seem frequent enough in show to prove the point.) Guess who's in a military organization?

Picard: Starfleet is not a military organization... Oberth Captain: My whole crew is dead... Picard: Well in the 25th century we don't mourn, so that's your problem.

Just had a thought, maybe the Oberth has sets of single passenger tubes, similar to those used ay banks, that run from the saucer section down the pylons to the secondary hull

When I first saw the Grissom I assumed the secondary hull was a sensor pod and the warp core was in the saucer section like the Reliant. Lucky for Kahn Starfleet assigned a Miranda class to Project Genesis and not an Oberth class.

If an Oberth is in a fleet battle, either Starfleet is running out of ships or one captain has seriously hacked off Starfleet brass.

My main thought is that the Oberth Class is less a Star Ship and more of an oversized Shuttle pretending to be a Star Ship. if you think of it as a Runabout with science labs and crew quarters it makes sense I think.

Also I can see why someone would think that an Oberth class could be used as command and control and ECM duty. That dosent mean you should. While the vessel is capable it's is not sturdy enough to take any real damage. Starfleet would have been better served using a Nebula class with the sensor pod.

We know the SS Vile is a modified Raven-type, I bet the USS Reloaded is an Oberth Class with the canoe part removed and replaced by a giant gelato machine.

Seems like a great short-range research vessel. Have a strange anomaly right at the core world Vulcan? Why waste the time of a Nova class or a Nebula class? Send an Oberth! Not likely to be any combat this deep in Federation space, just needs one phaser for its secondary uses as a tool or maybe breaking up some space rocks. But no...Star Fleet admirals decided to send it on the same deep space missions as any other ship in the fleet.

"Helmsman make sure to capture the captain of that Oberth and bring him to me! Anyone so recklessly brave deserves the honor of dying in single combat and looking into his killer's eyes as he dies."

NCC-0002 USS We Had An Off Day When We Built It, OK?, Oberth-class

Props for the correct use of the word “behoove”.

Based on the PC game Klingon Academy, the Oberth should’ve been a close match for a BoP. It had 2 fore phasers and a torpedo launcher. Enough to effectively stay on the vulnerable tail of the BoP.

I always enjoy your content, there is so much lore never really explored or revisited. Thank you for scratching that trek itch

What if the first space force vessel is an non-warp capable oberth?

It's a weird looking ship to be sure. It's like a tug, except that its warp core is in the transport module! At least it one thinks of it that way. In some ways, it's a ship built around the module, reflecting its principal role for science. Yeah, how one gets between the ship and module is troublesome to be sure. Given the narrow struts with some fairly sharp angles, I'd have to say transporters rather than turbolifts, although the idea of using transporters THAT familiarly gives some chills. Particularly in the 23rd Century when this class debuted. Still, the separation of the stardrive hull from the primary hull is a common Starfleet design, so this is consistent with that. One might argue that the warp core in the module might be discarded if necessary, but still leave the other hardware of the system intact, unlike with other dual hull designs. Indeed, perhaps the impulse power is likely ample to propel the Oberth to near warp 2? Certainly if the Phoenix and early earth trading ships are a guide, than low warp need not require an antimatter reactor. The worst ship in Starfleet? Perhaps. Certainly from what we've seen as far as surviving in one. Having said that, it's probably a perfectly legit utility ship. It shows up, it does scans, does science, and leaves, this being the usual and expected outcome. It's not meant to be looking for trouble, it does have a phaser bank for if trouble finds them, albeit, that's certainly more of an antipirate weapon or utility tool than legit weapon should an actual warship show up. But again, these ships aren't meant to see action. So why do they see action? Well, I am a big proponent that their appearance in battles is indeed as communication relays or 'throwing science' at the problem. Scanning Borg cubes and such, seeing how well new ship designs are doing in action and so on. They really should have stayed in the 23rd Century, more than any other ship model that was used, but as it is, decades of peace and generally routine exploration and scanning missions made the Oberth a long running science platform, its utility keeping upgraded versions of the class in service. That's my story. As a SCOUT? Particularly a scout that might tactically engage and be expected to make some useful hits and survive the experience, well the Nova Class is tactically designed for that, even if a small vessel, loaded with instruments. The Oberth is about as tactical as the tractor hauling the 'Geo Phys' scanner on the archeology show "Time Team". I just bring that up because that's what I think every time I see that show with guys carrying instruments or a tractor doing it. It's why I realized that the Oberth is really a tug hauling an enormous scanning module; I became more forgiving towards the class in that I thought 'Well, what can you expect from a tug?'. While that doesn't much explain why they are in battles, Starfleet being about both risk and science explains a lot.

The only way an Oberth would win in a naval engagement would be if the enemy spontaneously exploded before it fired its fist broadside. If it exploded after it would probably be a draw.

For Wolf 359 it made sense that Oberth class ships would be there. It fits with Starfleet's utter lack of preparedness for what was really out there. At Sector 001 I always looked at is as these were civilian or militia ships that were scrounged together as a last resort as the Cube was advancing on Earth. Kind of like how in the real conflict in Ukraine at the moment we see both sides pulling WW2 vintage equipment out of storage and throwing that into the fray as something that can shoot is better than nothing.

Why is Lore sitting in a chair happily jiving around eating a cereal bar the best marketing I've seen in years?

In my head Cannon the oberth class is an older class of starship that dates from the era of Jonathan Archer. Starfleet kept them in service and refitted them as needed due to various treaties as well as the ease of refitting and upgrading the vessel where it was designed to be fully modular. All the crew is up in the main section of the ship with the pod just being unmanned sensor arrays as well as can be swapped out as needed. The ship was originally intended to be an exploration vessel designed to be manned by a minimal crew where Starfleet in the early days was viewed as a suicide mission basically due to the romulans, Klingons and the Xindi and a few other hostile species at the unreliability of the early warp drive systems

My opinion on why the Oberth keeps showing up in combat situations is this. Most of the time,we see the Oberth in combat, it's with the Borg. While the ship isn't a combat vessel, when the Borg show up and intend on assimilating everything, it's all hands on deck. Starfleet isn't calling and sending Oberths into battle, they just happen to be in system when extremely dangerous ships show up and Starfleet can't risk sending anything less than everything they have.

Even if Starfleet had been divided into separate military and science branches the Oberth still would have been horribly under protected. Space is dangerous, even within areas of Federation space. It wouldn't need to be equipped for war, but should have at least been able to put up enough of a fight to escape reasonable danger.

My head canon for this ship for a while after I first saw it in Star Trek 3 was that it was a refitted and re-purposed older ship, just due to the Grissom's registry number being so low (NCC-638). I imagined that back in the day it had shields that could take a serious beating and kick some hoop and that the single phaser bank carried an insanely overpowered phaser cannon for its time (think the upgraded canon used during the Collector base assault fitted on the Normandy in Mass Effect 2). I also rationalized that the stardrive section had no connection to the saucer section because the original design featured a powerful warp drive that powered the ship's insane shields and phaser (for the time) but that this warp drive constantly flooded the stardrive section in lethal radiation.The separation of the two sections was a security measure as crews working in this highly radiated stardrive section had to be fully outfitted in radiation suits and only spend short amounts of time working in the stardrive section (which was largely automated and controlled mainly from a workstation in the bridge and crews only occasionally had to go into the stardrive section). They either transported or spacewalked from saucer to stardrive section. They didn't want to have a connection where someone could get off a turbolift on the wrong floor and walk into lethal radiation, or a shared ventilation system where damage to the ship could cause radiation to leak into the saucer section. In my head canon I also hypothesized that the ship is still useful now for research despite its weapons and shields being highly outdated because it has additional radiation shielding built into it that is useful when studying certain anomalies that is not standard on most modern Starfleet ships, so the fleet of Oberths in Kirk's era just had a generic low grade phaser and shields with a small, not radiation spewing warp drive slapped on and retrofitted with current tech scientific experiments. By the Grissom's registry number I assumed that this ship would have been part of the generation of ships that would be brand new by the time the Deadalus class was being phased out of service.

What a great video, Lore. I'm sure it'll explode! Though now I wanna see General Picard's Oberth. Probably just a super massive missile or torpedo. With a crew. So no different I guess.

Still safer than the cadet coffins they claim are fighters.

There is a game called Space Engineers, in which I've made a Oberth class star ship. I've tried to keep it as close to the original look as possible but it has, 4x pulse lasers, 5x point laser defensive "Disco Balls", 1x experiment heavy laser, 2x Torpedo launchers, 2x missile launch systems, and 1x Shilva class nuke missile launch system. Needless to say that it does have a shield system that would possibly take a few direct hits but that would be about it, but it may have just enough firepower to survive a short encounter.

I think there was no turbolift between hulls so that the crew in the saucer could separate quickly. So the command crew had an excuse to not wait for engineering to evacuate from whatever demonic experiment was going on in the lower hull. The Star Trek novel "In the Name of Honor" starts with some Klingons getting the jump on an Oberth (USS Gagarin). The captain has to handle the opening seconds of a basic combat situation like a last-ditch, hail Mary gambit as soon as the action starts. She is then forced to deploy the Oberth's standard secondary weapon: the self-destruct system. (This book was written to provide a character/historical segue between ST:V and ST:VI for Kirk and galactic politics. I liked it.)

If I remember correctly, In Nimoy’s commentary for The Search For Spock, the Grissom was supposed to be a ridiculous ship. He even mention that’s why the bridge seats were pink. I know that Geordi points out differs points on a schematic for manned departments in Hero Worship, but it would make more sense if the secondary hull was just an unmanned sensor array or, in wartime, a weapons array.

Finally the oberth the backbone and pinnacle of starfleet engineering great work😍😍😍

I love the disco light aesthetic in the Oberth-class ship in TNG season 1.

I think it makes sense for a light duty navy vessel. The minimal defenses are more then adequate to handle most of the threats that they would expect to encounter inside the federation, and as they would remain inside friendly territory, help from a larger craft should be close at hand. This idea actually supports the idea of installing a cloak on it, as for this ship running is always the right choice. However, at the battle of 001 and wolf 359, as well as the battle of ds9, the federation was literally throwing whatever they could. At the first two, the fleets wehere fleets of last resort. Especially at wolf 359. The fact that a small escort craft that is wolefully undergunned is pressed I to the front lines is reasonable here, starfleet called in whatever ships they could. Everything from the enterprise to ships that should be in a musium.

You can tell that the Oberth was either made by, or sponsored by, that *one* Admiral in Starfleet that everyone hated to be stuck in meetings with, and wondered how they ever got promoted to Admiral. Like someone's lazy kid or their weird uncle in the family business that shows up the office, but no one's ever seen them *do* actual work. (Some large family-owned corps in the U.S. come to mind here that I can't mention for "reasons".) They gave this person the entire Oberth project to keep them busy and away from the rest of the Admiralty who were doing actual things, like starting wars, designing Galaxy class starships, and so on.

I always imagined that after getting Kirk killed on the Enterprise-B, John Harriman was transferred to an Oberth.

*Random Captain of an Oberth Class:* "All right! I just got promoted, this nice vessel has been newly refitted with improved relay circuitry, and I just served as a Tactical Officer for 22 years. My overconfidence is overflowing. Let's see what my ship can do against the D7 Cruiser bearing down at 12 o'clock!" (The ensuing battle barely lasted for a full minute, although the nameless Captain's name was subsequently immortalized in a Klingon War Opera to honor his misguided bravery and doomed crew...)

There was a version of the design in the fan published Ships of Starfleet books back in the late 80s early 90s with the lower hull replaced with the torpedo pod from the Miranda/Reliant class which was supposed to be a light Corvette sized warship.

Technically legal, not illegal. The Romulans would have screamed bloody murder about the phase cloak and forced the Federation to rewrite their deal to include that tech as well as soon as they saw it in action, but it was never actually illegal during the time they tested it. That was the whole point of making the thing after all, it's tech that does what a cloaking device is supposed to do, without being a cloaking device as outlined in the Federation-Romulan treaty.

The Oberth class kind of feeds into my "Bad Guy Federation" head cannon.

In the game Klingon Academy, an Oberth is the first enemy ship you have to fight, and it is a PAIN. It's tougher than your B'rel class bird of prey, and also much faster, so it can skitter out of your range with ease to recover. It would take forever to beat if you didn't have a tractor beam.

Sending the oberth into combat would be like sending a canoe into a battle of midway

I could see the Oberth being used in whatever the equivalent of electronic warfare is in the 23rd/24th century, while providing countermeasures from enemy attacks of the same nature. It's not to say that most if not all Starfleet ships are capable of this, it's good for those ships to dedicate their limited resources into specific tasks. A carrier and missile cruiser today does have AA defenses, but you wouldn't want to put them in a position of always having to worry about that threat while carrying out their main role. Which is why you have smaller destroyers and frigates along your fleet perimeter to deal with those threats first. Of course, this only works in theory in conjunction with a fleet formation which we never really get to see in Star Trek. We see escorts and light cruisers surrounded by heavy cruisers with fighters and scouts filling in the spaces in between...because it looks cinematic.

War canoe that is a little generous. I found out how you get from the primary to secondary hull in the pylons were "special turbolifts" (special that is one word for it"!

There are two possible in universe reasons for the Oberth being in battles. Reason 1. They happened to be nearby and could be literal canon fodder to distract the enemy. Reason 2. This is the galaxy of the anomaly of the week where a ship dedicated solely to science could credibly rank up quite impressive kill count by sheer ingenuity and when facing an enemy who gimmick is adaptability that skill of scientific improvisation might be useful Of course the real reason is 'More Dakka! Ka, plow, plow! Hey what models do you have in the store cupboard? Lets include them."

As a pure science/information warfare vessel, I think the Oberth is excellent (other than having no direct access to the main hull). However, as you stated, there's little point for an IW vessel in starfleet, and it gets thrown into battle as if it has any reason being there. It definitely belongs in a very different sort of fleet. I could see a vessel like that belonging to Earth Alliance in Babylon 5 and fitting in perfectly, since they'd use it for its proper purposes.

Aww come on theres a difference between deliberate murder and a suicide mission. Someone just explain why the hell the primary hull couldn’t be attached to the rest of the hull?

Oberth, made with explod-e-um.

Anybody ever notice that the Klingons blew up a Starfleet vessel and nobody seemed to have cared?

Outside of the aforementioned recon and testbed applications, the only other possible use I could see for the vessel would maybe for possible ECM capabilities? Even then, the more modern/powerful vessels would probably have better suites to do the same job...only better!

I feel like the Oberth-class was basically a form of constructive discharge for Starfleet. Put your crappy officers there and either they're out of the way studying stars, or they get blown up. Problem solved.

Whatever the opposite of "Plot Armor" is... That is what the Oberth has... If you will, it is the "Red Shirt" of Starfleet ships.

To think a Defiant-Class was about the size of an Oberth but packed more firepower than a Galaxy-Class...Tough, little ship!

The Oberth is basically an economy class vessel in a galaxy of suv sized vessels. It needs the least maintenance has the highest safety ratings for crashes , never breaks down , best reliability ratings , cannot fight at all.

I laughed so much for that intro. *Oberth Class: Legally providing suicide services since 2324*

Funny enough my first exposure to Oberth was in the game "Star Trek: The Birth of the Federation", and in the early game in one vs one against enemy it could easily hold it's own if set to "evade". It was nimble enough to outpace Klingon Birds of Prey and even destroy some better then the Miranda's.

love that into for the Oberth, I always go with chair over phasers.

Please goddamnit please have Magic Spoon be your sole sponsor

If an Oberth has a sensor suite equivalent or even better than a Miranda, then it deffo has combat utility. It ain't just detecting stuff and getting firing solutions - it's also jamming enemy sensors and running ECM. The Oberth can focus on those missions while the better armed ships do the shooting. That would also explain why Oberth's fly into harm's way - they're there to spam the enemy sensors so the whole squadron is harder to hit; can't do that from the back.

The Oberth is what SF should be giving to training crews or cadets or to low risk local science/exploration details. In that regard it makes sense, that it was ever sent anywhere else is where it falls apart.

The oberth is a great ship. The only problem is starfleet only assign the dumbest crew to it. Every time an oberth is destroyed is because of the ineptitude of the crew.

Dont always agree with your takes but the analysis is usually interesting no matter where you come down on a Trek concept or issue. Really appreciate the nerdy dedication to once great science fiction worlds.

The Oberth Class was first introduced in TOS as the USS Grissom. It's primary and original use was purely for science and research. The now odd looking nacelles were and early experiment in alternate nacelles design. Though functioning adequately, they did not produce the necessary warp "oomph" to accommodate the larger Constitution Class ships, and not equiped for indepth, long term exploration or compete in hostile encounters. It was versatile. Easily converted to be a hospital ship, troop or cargo carrier. It was the faithful workhorse of the Federation, sort of like the Jeep was in WWII. BTW, the USS Pegasus, future captained by Beverly Crusher, harkens back to the very first designs for the Enterprise. Rejected by Roddenberry as it's look was too resistant to Kubrick's 2001 design of the Jupiter ship, Discovery.

"illegal Starfleet cloaking device that had the additional bonus of phasing through matter" I prefer to think of it as: "legal Starfleet phasing device that had the additional bonus of rendering the ship undetectable to sensors" Romulans know how to propaganda, Starfleet ought to learn a thing or two!

Cannon fodder. You gotta give enemies something to shoot at to draw fire away from the more valuable starships. Also, make sure they're crewed with Starfleet's rejects. Saves a lot on wages & pensions for unproductive personnel.

Oberths are highly modifiable and for how basic they are, they have top-tech on those tiny things. You know all those awesome larger ships? Everything on them, each component, was first installed, tested, and perfected on an Oberth. Bringing them into combat, now that's just cruel. That's like bringing in your test vehicles to a battle just because they are currently armed with one of the best gizmos that could be used... like a Jeep with a new AA gun to come in with AA vehicles as part of their task force... or a U2 spy plane into a dogfight with the interceptor jets because it has the newest radar system.

I just can't help laughing whenever you play that clip of people screaming.

When I first saw it in ST3, I thought it looked like a surfboard with a frisbee on top. Not much else to it.

Ships don't have walls, or floors or ceilings. They have bulkheads, decks and overheads.

Oberth's as the advanced sensor equipped Starfleet vessels , assisting fleets in targeting. Kind of like an E-2 Hawkeye or E-3 Sentry AWACs aircraft. Invaluable to their forces for the information/coordination they provide but extremely vulnerable.

I have always agreed with your analysis of the oberth especially when you called it a war canoe good times

The Oberth to me looks like it should have been a science vessel where its primary use it to land on planets. Its secondary hull can detach and become a lab complete with its own powersource.

Aside from the usual mention of Science Vessel, I often wondered if the Oberth Class couldn't be configured as an A.W.A.C. early warning Vessel that would patrol the Federation side of the Neutral Zone with emphasis on long range sensor capabilities that would give the ship the ability to detect threats with such advance warning that it could literally slip away before coming under direct attack. Also it could be equipped with superior countermeasures capabilities....

Fun fact: If you turn the oberth class ship upside down on the Micromachine toy, it looks like a much cooler ship. Like a sleek alien shuttle craft.

The funny thing is, the Oberth was the only ship to survive the Battle of Wolf 359 because it was used as a long-range sensor ship.

The most deadly ships are from the Galaxy class, 1000 people on board and it will explode everytime the nacelles got damaged. Damage the nacelles, core breach starts and the ship is gone.

I like to think that the reason why you see so many of them get destroyed is because they were small and cheap and thus very plentiful, and that there are lots of Oberth class ships that served into a ripe old age, but you don't hear about any of them because they were boring and stayed in the safe parts of the Federation. They are meant for science missions, or transport, or freighter work. The reason why you see them in those battles with the Borg was just pure desperation, they were just throwing everything available into the fray. I feel the Oberths get a bad rap. While sure, it wouldn't be my first choice, I'd take one. I'd just keep it to the appropriate space lanes. Sort of like how I wouldn't drive my Buick through war zones or tornadoes, but on the roads in the conditions that it's meant for, it does great.

If I had a dollar for every time the " starfleet is not a military " line I could buy the star trek property

The super sensor theory could make sense if it was used like an AWACS is nowadays

I feel your pain Lore, I once had a white cat that jumped off a cabinet, onto my desk, and right onto an external hard drive... Not sure how his fat ass broke it, but it stopped working right after.

Omg, that opening shot had me cackling, I had to rewatch it multiple times.

Ah. Yes. The Oberth class. Starfleet regulations state that it *must* be 100% crashium, explodium, and Oberthium.

The Paul Rice hologram said that his ship, The Drake's top speed was Warp 3. I imagine that was upgraded after 2364. Because that would take forever to get around for any kind of science or exploration mission, much less defense. EDIT: Now that I think about it, The Drake might not have been an Oberth, but a freighter.

I have to agree. These no better than sending small numbers of stinging bugs to kill an armadillo..the size of a hourse, during mentioned battles. Giving it their all, but.. in the end, meaning nothing on the grand scale of of things at the time..however, no one knows, that they weren't doing exactly what you suggested they should have been used for at the same time..as getting blasted to fiery vaporized clouds of wasted matter and energy. Like you said, in non-combat times and scenes, they should have been the ultimate science utility vehicle. Apparently good enough to make and keep around for at least a couple of centuries. Also, as agreed, when in the battle fronts, the best thing they should have been set up for, was ranged tactical data functionaries. Relating the grand views of the 3 dimensional battlefields in question. Combined with just a few bigger ships, to overcome jamming tech and other interferences, as-well-as expanded data storage and collection capabilities. In such case, this would make it a valuable asset in both states of war and peace times. Also, cause for validation for the half-assed "GALAXY CLASS UPGRADE", variant to be put into equal production. The tiny ones, could easily valuable in "tiny spaces", but the bigger ones could easily handle bigger jobs. Though I would have to say, again, as merely rearguad support and intel gathering. Since the "NO CLOAKING TECH RULES", are out the window now. They are easily hidden while on stealth missions now. .if anyone has the sense. Especially the phased CLOAKING technology.

The Oberth-as-deathtrap situation fits my theory of Starfleet being a lot smaller than most people think. Its focus on sensors and analysis systems would make it suited to a vital, but pretty narrow, mission profile where it _won't_ routinely run into dangers it can't handle. But Starfleet being Starfleet, they just don't have enough ships to let the poor Oberths focus on their specialties. Instead, the little guys get sent out alone into the black to handle whatever problems come up. If Starfleet was large enough enough to let the Oberths actually perform their design functions, they would almost always fly as parts of larger task forces where they could perform electronic warfare and early-warning roles, or be deployed to study scientific anomalies in uncontested space.

I wonder if the first ship of the class was the USS Ford Pinto...

And now we have a grissom class In STO because when you build a failure canoe that kills thousands of officers... It makes sense to use that design to build one for a whole new generation.

The obvious explanation for the oberth is it was designed by a starfleet committee

The Oberth was the federations Culling machine. useless red shirts where assigned to them only to get rid of them, Tom Paris was suppose to be assigned to a Oberth as his first ship but he never made it to the ship luckily enough or we whould never have had Warp Lizz..... Actually his assignment to an Oberth makes sense come to think of it.