star trek - How do the USS Kelvin and USS Enterprise compare?

Rewatching the film and reading through the wikis I'm a bit confused about the Kelvin. When comparing them, the Kelvin seems smaller (but seems to have a similar sized shuttlebay) and better armed.

Is that correct or am I mistaken?

Answer

The excellent Ex Astris Scientia website offers a wealth of detail about the various ships seen in the Star Trek universe.

Ship size

The USS Kelvin

approx 315m from stem to stern.

Reboot Enterprise

(officially) 366m from stem to stern.

It's worth noting that there's some controversy over the size of the Enterprise as seen in the film, largely because of the liberties taken by the filmmakers in creating such a vast shuttlebay for the iconic landing scene.

Weaponry

Memory Alpha offers an overview of the armament of each vessel

USS Kelvin

3 x Rapid-fire photon torpedo launchers

6 x (Pop-up type) dual phaser banks

USS Enterprise

2 x Rapid-fire photon torpedo launchers

5 x Rapid-fire phaser banks

Don't let the relative similarity in terms of armament numbers fool you. The Enteprise seems to be capable of rapidly-firing its phasers on a nearly continuous basis for a whole minute and unleashing photons in very large numbers.

Comments

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