I think that this could fall under "Hero Worship". Or "Epic Plot Holes". Or "Mohab is an uber-nerd". One of those.
I'm afraid I must invoke the Defiant principle in dealing with Hero ships and their plot armor as well as the Law of Enterprise which both state it is perfectly permissible to destroy a Hero ship so long as the crew escape and a suitable replacement is available that can be renamed for the fallen vessel. See ST III/ST IV, Generations/First Contact, and DS 9 The Changing Face of Evil/Dogs of War.
True. Three ships lost and (relatively) promptly replaced.
Same thing happened with Tasha Yar (replaced by Worf), Spock (replaced by Spock), Jadzia (replaced by Ezri) Dax, Beverly Crusher (replaced by Kate Polaski), Kate Polasaki (replaced by Beverly Crusher), Kes (replaced by Seven of Nine, although slightly backwards from the norm), and Wil Decker (replaced by Jimmy Kirk). There's more but that's just what I can remember off the top of my head.
These heroes, and the hero ships, existed as long as plot dictated. How many torpedoes did Voyager really have? 34. How many did they use? I lost count (I think the writers did, too) last time I tried to count them. At least twice Janeway mentioned "Shuttlebay Two". I'm not denying that there might have been two; I just only ever saw the one. Don't get me started on Voyager's shuttles and the mysterious "extra" warp core on the
MSD. Its just the cool little things that we need to believe.
The Intrepid-class also featured a secondary warp assembly. (VOY: "Alice")
The secondary warp assembly was never seen as a set on-screen, but was featured in the MSD as a second warp core in the secondary hull of the ship.
Why? Because its a hero ship. Its what they do - they take the requisite plot situation and solve the problem. At the end of the day (or seventh season for Voyager) they come home. Or carry on as if nothing happened (with a few exceptions driven by plot - TNG:"
Family" comes to mind). Or whatever else heroes do.
Equinox, Reliant, Oddesey, Yamato, and countless others blew up and we didn't bat an eyelash. Non-heroes. Who cares? The next episode/movie we've moved on. The crew of the affected ship has moved on (or tried to, STIII:"
The Search for Spock). The "hero-ness" of the ship is why a single Borg cube can obliterate the fleet at Wolf 359 and only damage the impulse engines of the Enterprise's saucer in the very next battle.
Voyager and Enterprise (any of them, really) are hero ships. Hero ships generally don't get destroyed. Endgame Voyager could go toe to toe with Broken Bow NX-01 and neither would be destroyed. Damaged, disabled, crippled, crunched, smacked, slammed, smattered, or anything else, sure. Just not destroyed. Its the nature of hero ships.
With an approximately 99.59% survival rate (more if you consider DS9 was never destroyed, less if you count that it was captured... twice (once by them, once by us); and I'm not even counting runabouts, shuttlecraft or other auxilliary craft), we clearly see that hero ships generally don't get destroyed.
Now, before I go on, I must emphasize that I am not attacking the "Defiant principle" or "The Law of Enterprise" - I'm just pointing out that I agree, and supporting the point.
It is this "hero-ness" we would have to discard for a true "battle" between any two (or more) hero ships (or individuals, for that matter). The "hero-ness" implies that the inertial dampners go off line at the worst possible moment, or the starboard power coupling fails yet again. Its the one and only thing that would keep either of the ships alive when perhaps it shouldn't be. Its the unfair advantage that keeps a certain ship's fanboys whining when the ship loses and bragging when it wins.
And we can't have any of it if we're to properly assess the capabilities of two combatants. It has to be "equal" whether it is hero vs. hero or hero vs. generic or generic vs. generic.
This does not, however, count the crew. While lightly touched upon here, its another bag of worms for another day.
Cheers,
The Czar