ST weapon accuracy and range

This article will deal with demonstrated accuracy of various weapons used by major Star Trek civilizations like Federation, Borg, Dominion, Klingon Empire etc. As the examples provided below will demonstrate, all major military forces engage at ranges of several hundred meters up to several kilometers which present the upper limit of their effective weapon accuracy.

Examples

Dominion fleet approaching Deep Space 9 as seen in episode "Call to arms"

DS9 "Call to Arms"

In the episode Dominion fleet attacks Deep Space 9 and it is revealed that even when engaging a completely immobile target ST ships need to close to several kilometers before opening fire.

The screenshot on the right shows the Dominion/Cardassian fleet approaching the Deep Space 9 to the point of it taking up a significant fraction of the field of view. Yet in the following scene Damar reports that they will not be in weapons range for another minute.[1]

Cardassian shuttle about to ram Deep Space 9

After the battle is joined the attacking fleet continues to fight at extremely close ranges however even ranges of several hundred meters appear to great for Deep Space 9 targeting sensors to achieve a reasonable accuracy. On the left we can see a Cardiassian shuttle flying straight towards Deep Space 9 central assembly. The shuttle doesn't change course nor does it attempt to evade the incoming fire yet Deep Space 9 misses it, or rather, scores two grazing shots thus failing to stop the craft.

A sequence showing Dominion fleet firing on Defiant and a Bird of Prey

Further evidence of limited accuracy comes from the end of the episode. As Defiant and a Bird of Prey flee DS9 Dominion fleet opens fire and we see 11 shots being fired yet not a single one hits the fleeing ships. The shots can bee see on the right and, as is immediately apparent, the ships are flying in a tight formation without making any attempts to evade enemy fire. As before the range is on the order of several hundred meters or several kilometers at best.

TNG "Conundrum"
Worf reportedly states that the ship's phasers have a range of 300,000 km, yet later in the episode Riker says they are still several seconds from "optimum range" for targetting the Lysian command center, even though they are practically on top of a stationary target that is both very large and very poorly defended (by Federation standards).

TNG "Yesterday's Enterprise"
Three un-cloaked Klingon Birds of Prey close to within a few kilometers before firing on the Enterprise. Likewise, the Enterprise, knowing they will be attacked by the Klingons, doesn't fire until the enemy is at close range (the Federation was in a state of war with the Klingons in this alternate-timeline episode).

TNG "The Wounded"
This episode is often cited as evidence for long range combat of major ST civilizations:

DATA

The warship is three hundred

thousand kilometers from the

Phoenix. It is opening fire.

Trager fires on Enterprise

The Phoenix has taken a direct

hit.[2]

As Data is speaking we are shown a two dimensional display of the battle thus it is not possible to determine how much closer the Phoenix approached the Cardassian ship before opening fire since we can't see the ships movement in the third dimension. That is to say we can't tell how much the ships moved "above" or "below" the plane of the display.
The battle between Enterprise and the Cardassian warship Trager further disproves any optimistic interpretation of the 2-d display as can be seen on the screenshot to the right. As expected ships engage at ranges of several hundred meters, nowhere near the supposed hundreds of thousands of kilometers.

VOY "Equinox"
Voyager reportedly attacks the Equinox with phasers from 30,000 km away. Upon closer inspection of the episode, however, we find that no evidence of such ranges exists. On the contrary the episode implies far shorter maximum ranges of Federation ships. The relevant dialog:

[Bridge]

PARIS: Thirty thousand kilometres and closing.

JANEWAY: Target their power core.

[Equinox Bridge]

GILMORE: Direct hit. Minor damage.

RANSOM: Return fire.[3]

Since Janeway only instructed the crew to start targeting Equinox's power core at 30,000km and since there is a scene cut between the order and the first seen hit there is no way to determine how far away Voyager actually was when it started firing upon Equinox. Further events in the episode suggest much lower ranges:

RANSOM: Lay in a course through the planet's atmosphere. Sixty degree vector.

[Bridge]

JANEWAY: What the hell is he doing. Follow him!

PARIS: Crossing the upper thermosphere.

JANEWAY: Phasers.

TUVOK: Shields are weakening. Thirty one percent, twenty nine.

KIM: Inertial dampers are offline.

CHAKOTAY: Captain, if we loose our shields well be attacked by the aliens. Captain!

JANEWAY: Break off pursuit.

If Voyager had the capability of scoring hits from anywhere near 30,000km there would be no need to follow Equinox into the atmosphere and cause unnecessary damage to the ship.