KLINGON STARSHIPS

Klingon starships are fictional spacecraft that appear in the television and film installments of the fictional universe of Star Trek. In the shows, these vessels are used by the forces of the Klingon Empire. Interstellar vehicles, they are typically warships, ranging in sizes similar to modern naval vessels to much larger. They are equipped with a fictional faster-than-light propulsion system called "warp drive", and armed with equally fictional weapons like photon torpedoes.
Although a variety of Klingon ships were appeared on Star Trek, they generally conform to a general and recognizable style, the antecedent of which was the Klingon ship that first appeared during the third season of ''. Designed by Walter M. ("Matt") Jefferies—the designer of the original USS ''Enterprise''—it featured a bulbous forward hull separated by a long central boom from the wing-like main hull, which featured wingtip-mounted nacelles. Jefferies wanted to emulate the shape of a predator, something akin to a manta ray, and so he made even the color scheme of the ship dark on top, lighter on bottom. All later designs harken back to at least some elements of this original design.
In contrast to Federation starships (especially Starfleet ships of the 24th century), Klingon vessels are spartan and utilitarian in nature. They are often equipped with disruptors and photon torpedoes as their primary offensive weapons, and most later examples are equipped with cloaking technology.

Contents

D5 class

Design

D7 class

K't'inga class

Bird of Prey classes

Bird of Prey (22nd century)

Bird of Prey (23rd/24th century)

Vor'cha class

Negh'Var class

Raptor class

References

D5 class

The D5 class battlecruiser is a 22nd century Klingon starship. The D5 class is equipped with disruptor cannons and photon torpedoes,^[1] with a maximum speed of warp six.

Design

The D5 was built according to the basic Klingon battlecruiser shape: a small primary hull at the forefront attached to the larger engineering hull by a long, horizontal boom, an impulse drive module supported above the secondary hull at the aft end, and two back-set warp engines held by two downward-angled pylons. The D5 is distinguishable from its descendant, the D7, by its (proportionally) larger, longer, less spherical primary hull, non-forward-angled engine pylons, and larger, tapered nacelles.

D7 class

The D7 class is the first Klingon ship design. Although this starship was designed and intended to be a Klingon vessel, its first broadcast appearance was as a Romulan flagged vessel in the original series episode "The Enterprise Incident". In its next appearance in the original series episode "Elaan of Troyius" (which was actually filmed before "The Enterprise Incident") it was identified as a Klingon vessel, as it was in "Day of the Dove". The original airdates in 1968 for these episodes were out of step with the actual order of episode production, so by production number, the ship's first appearance is in "Elaan of Troyius" in which it is identified as a Klingon vessel, and not in "The Enterprise Incident".
The "D7" designation was never used on screen in the original series, but was (apparently) referred to as such by some members of the production staff. This designation was later made official by its use during the '' episode "Trials and Tribble-ations". For this episode, Star Trek model-maker Greg Jein built entirely new motion-control models of a D7 class vessel and the original Enterprise.
Its primary weapon of attack in "Elaan of Troyius" were nacelle-mounted and fired green energy. Similar ships (the same shooting model) were later identified specifically as having disruptors in dialogue in "The Enterprise Incident".
In '' (which Gene Roddenberry created and was executive producer for, but later asked Paramount to consider non-canon), Spock calls the engines of the Klingon ship "S-2 Graf Units, roughly comparable to our warp drive". It also seems to have separate and distinct beam weaponry firing from the command pod somewhere ("More Tribbles, More Troubles"). The opening in the forward hull never saw use on screen in the original series. However, it was a photon torpedo tube in many of the episodes of '', especially in "More Tribbles, More Troubles" and "The Survivor".

K't'inga class

An upgrade of the D7 design, this class of ship had the same basic design, but the model which was originally built for '' differed slightly in proportions and was given a more detailed surface for its appearance on the larger motion picture screen. The color of the model was a deep green, but on screen it sometimes appeared blue-grey. In '', the color was changed to light grey and maroon and it received detailed gold ornamentation to signify its role as the vessel which was transporting the Klingon Chancellor. The ship was later used in episodes of ''DS9'' apparently as a regular ship of the line ("The Way of the Warrior").
This class appeared in a number of episodes of ''The Next Generation'' and ''Deep Space Nine''. Like the D7, this class was not initially identified on screen, although the novelization of ''The Motion Picture'', written by Gene Roddenberry, identified it as K't'inga class. This designation became official in an episode of ''DS9''. In the ''TNG'' episode "The Emissary", we learn that some of these ships were converted into special "sleeper ships" which could travel for decades with its crew in suspended animation.
Assuming a date of at least 2270 for when this ship appeared in the first movie, that means this basic design has been in service for at least 100 years by the time of the last episode of ''DS9''.
The large port on the front of the bulbous forward hull is seen to launch photon torpedoes from its first appearance and throughout most of its later appearances, however in the ''DS9'' episode "The Way of the Warrior" ships of this class fire an orange disruptor beam from the same location. Throughout the series it also had a cloaking device, like all of the other Klingon warships seemed to have. On at least one occasion it used a pair of disruptor bolts which fired from the sides somewhere in the ST:TNG episode "The Emissary". Visual inspection of the studio model reveals 6 cannon-like emplacements that are meant to be the disruptor mounts. Early blueprints from Lincoln Enterprises (a Gene Roddenberry-approved source) showed this ship with at least 8 of these cannon emplacements, the extra two being under the main wing hull, but which on the studio model were replaced by large unidentifiable greebles. The Lincoln blueprints also (erroneously) label these eight emplacements as "sonic disruptors", probably based on the fact that the ''ST:TOS'' Klingon handweapon was a sonic one, but which of course ignore the fact that sound cannot travel through space, making it an unrealistic starship weapon. The Lincoln blueprints also call the ship a "D-4 Heavy Battlecruiser", but this appellation never became used or popular, probably because it seems retro when compared to the D-7 of ''ST:TOS'', despite the fact that Gene Roddenberry himself had approved this. Fans have substituted other appellations for this ship, like D-8 or some higher variant of the D-7, but none of these are canon.

Bird of Prey classes

The 'Bird of Prey' was first seen in the movie ''. This has become perhaps the most common Klingon ship design in modern Star Trek. It is much smaller than the D7 and K't'inga class cruisers, Standard crew complement is a dozen officers and men (stated by Hikaru Sulu in STIII).
Birds of Prey are fast and agile warships. They are the ship of choice for espionage and spy missions, and many Klingon commanders prefer to command them over the larger vessels in the fleet. The wings are movable and have three main positions: slanted down for battle, raised slightly above 180 degrees for cruising, and raised very high for landing (the Bird of Prey is one of the few starships that enter a planet's atmosphere and land on its surface; Federation Intrepid-class ships are another). Some designs incorporate a submarine-like periscope for the captain that also has weapon controls on the handles, allowing him to aim and operate the weapons himself; this design also featured movable disruptor cannons (this design was shown in '' and '').

Bird of Prey (22nd century)

This type of Bird of Prey was first seen in the '' episode "The Expanse". The Bird of Prey was heavily armed with several wing, neck and head mounted disruptor cannons,^[2] and fore and aft photon torpedo launchers.^[3]
The Bird of Prey was equipped with deflector shielding and two tractor beam emitters and was capable of at least warp 3.8.²³

Bird of Prey (23rd/24th century)

There are at least two known variants to exist in the 23rd century and into the 24th century, the D-12 scout and the K'vort/B'rel variants. These types of Bird of Prey, like their predecessors, followed a standard design — a large wing span with a neck and a head. The D-12 was retired from active service because of a flaw in their design - a faulty component of their cloaking device could cause it to be activated by certain energy signals, causing the ship to drop shields and cloak at inopportune moments. The B'rel and K'vort variants were larger and stronger, though still classified as frigates/light cruisers.
These Birds of Prey were equipped with wing mounted disruptor cannons and at least one photon torpedo launcher, they were also equipped with deflector shields and a cloaking device.^[4]
The D-12 variant was the ship used by Lursa and Betor in ''. Using a video device implanted in Geordi La Forge's VISOR, they were able to reconfigure their weapons to the Enterprise-D's shield harmonics, allowing their attacks to pass through the ship's shields. Their Bird of Prey was destroyed in the battle, but not before it had done fatal damage to the Enterprise.
Two of the B'rel variant were used by rogue Ferengi in ''TNG'' episode "Rascals". Ambushing the Enterprise-D, they inflicted crippling damage to the much larger Galaxy-class starship while taking only minor damage from her counter-attacks. No mention was made of how the Ferengi were able to acquire the vessels.
In the episode "Yesterday's Enterprise", in the alternate timeline, Enterprise-D is engaged by three K'Vort-class Birds of Prey while she was covering the retreat of the Enterprise-C through a temporal rift. These ships inflicted severe damage on the Enterprise-D, leaving her moments from being destroyed by the time the Enterprise-C made it into the rift, though one of the Klingon vessels was lost as well.

Vor'cha class

The Vor'cha class could match a Federation Galaxy-class ship during combat, despite its considerably smaller size. It was first seen as the command ship of Chancellor K'mpec in the '' episode "Sins of the Father". Although a massive ship for most missions, it is the battlecruiser mainstay of the Klingon fleet and has mostly phased out the aging D7 and K't'inga class cruisers, the latter of which are still used as support vessels in a fleet.
The design of the Vor'cha class is similar to the classic D7 class battlecruiser with a forward "head" supported by a thick horizontal neck running aft and attaching to a larger secondary hull with an impulse engine module on the dorsal side. The Vor'cha class has two warp nacelles that are canted at the end of pylons. The warp nacelles of Vor'cha class vessels appear to have been influenced by Federation starship design as the nacelles are cigar-shaped with red Bussard collectors instead of traditional Klingon cruiser nacelles which are rectangular and emit a green or cyan color.
The Vor'cha class was probably first put into service during the mid-24th century in response to the growing tensions with the Romulans and the Federation. This starship class served in many of the major crises of the late 24th century such as the Klingon Civil War, the Klingon-Cardassian War, the Klingon-Federation War and the Dominion War; several cruisers were lost to Dominion and Cardassian forces.
In the ''DS9'' episode "Tears of the Prophets", a scene during the battle of Chin'Toka involved the Dominion dismantling a Vor'cha class starship piece by piece as part of their attack.
The Vor'cha class cruiser model was designed by Rick Sternbach for ''TNG''.

Negh'Var class

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The Negh'Var class starship is the largest class of vessel in the Klingon fleet to date. The ''Negh'Var'', presumably the first of its class, served as the Klingon flagship from 2372. Served as flagships and saw successful action during the Dominion War. This heavily armed starship class is the largest and most sophisticated in use by the Klingon Defense Force during the Dominion War.
A variant of this class of ship appeared in the alternate future depicted in the ''TNG'' finale, "All Good Things...".
In the ''DS9'' episode "Shattered Mirror", a mirror universe Klingon ship closely resembling the ''Negh'Var'' is seen - identical in appearance, except the mirror version is much larger in size (judging by the shots of the ship alongside the ''Defiant'').

Raptor class

The Raptor class of Klingon scoutship was in use during the 22nd century and is classified as a scout vessel.
The Raptors hull is at least twice as thick as that of the Enterprise (NX-01) and reinforced with a coherent molecular alloy.

References

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