Spoiler:
Damn these spoilers.Where are you getting the 47 birds of prey thing? I didn't see that anywhere in the film. No where. It simply isn't there. Now, I hear that there was a Klingon subplot that will be on the DVD, but it something about him being in prison.
Also, the enterprise took out all of the missiles just fine. It was simple PIS by the writing. If the guns could easily lock onto the missiles, why the hell didn't they do that in the first place? Why would no less than 5 ships have trouble locking on to those missiles and take them out when the enterprise does it completely alone?
Of course, you can claim that the enterprise had a much more superior computer. That's fine and all, but that doesn't work. Even a simple computer from that time would be powerful enough to calculate thousands of trajectories and travel time for their energy weapons. That's another technological oversight in the movie.
Also, the Earth has much much much more than just 45 ships on it's home planet. There are also several stations in the solar system that could quickly send large numbers of ships that direction. Again, don't forget about the MASSIVE amounts of ships that would be on the planet, the defensive guns in place on the planet, and the rediculously large number of defensive vessels that would remain in place on Earth. What Abrams did with Starfleet's military prowess was take a major shit on it. You honestly think that with Vulcans also advising, other diplomats on Earth, etc. that they would leave Earth that defenseless?
Sure, the ship had torpedoes that were rather strong, but not very strong at all. A photon torpedo is stronger than those missiles, but you don't see that happening in the movie? The explosive yield on those torps were measly. In Star Trek 6, they were ripping the Enterprise a new one with explosions. It was cutting straight through the ship. These torps were on par or less in power. Photon torps are at maximum yield of 25 isotons.
Also, that ship wasn't heavily armored. It takes damage. It had no shields. You can see it take damage. You can see how susceptible it is to damage to burst fire when Spock's ship escapes from it. Sure, you can claim that Spock's ship had superior burst fire weapons, but that is unfounded and baseless. It looks just the same as the burst fire energy weapons on the enterprise. Besides, why would superior weapons need to be on that small shuttle sized vehicle? It was built for speed and science. Also, the collision disable the mining vessel for quite some time. Long enough for it to do absolutely nothing while all the people escaped. Don't you think that Nero would have destroyed it long before it collided with them? Why didn't he? PIS.
Also, the mining vessel is not made of some uber material like neutronium or something. Also the USS Kelvin does damage to that vessel when it collides. The explosion was hardly huge but it was certainly large. No core detonation huge, but it was big enough to cause some damage. They do seem to repair it.
The fact is, phasers are still used in that future he came from. Most ships are made from Tritanium. Phasers can cut that. Also, do you know why the Narada seems to repair itself after taking that damage when we see the time skip? They salvaged some Borg technology enough to utilize the auto repair feature. Not to the extent we see Borg vessels do, but it does it well enough.
Also, I still can't believe that Abrams and crew thought to create a plot device that left the Earth with no ships around. That's so utterly retarded that it makes my brain hurt. Why would they do that when there is tension with both the Romulans and Klingons during that time?
And, yes, the Earth was heavily outfitted. There was a massive war with the Romulans in the previous century. There were other hostile species the pre-federation and existing federation had skirmishes with. They could have at least justified why they were able to do it.
1. The ship takes damage from those weapons.
2. Their torpedoes are limited. Nero yells to fire everything, which appears to be the remaining torpedoes.
3. A collision with a ship completely disabled it and caused a significant amount of damage.
4. The ship doesn't have any shields...at least not the type that we see in the 24th century.
5. The torpedoes are easily locked onto and destroyed at one part in the movie. They are also locked onto at the beginning, if I remember properly. Of course, the Kelving was overwhelmed, but they still shot some.
6. Why would the mining tube thingie be left intact? Wouldn't those four other vessels who went before the enterprise have done something, anything, to try and destroy it?