Type:

Escort Vessel

Unit Run:

U.S.S. Defiant, NX-74205
U.S.S. Valiant, NCC-74210
plus 26 others and 18 being build, eighty seven planned.

Commissioned

2367 - present

Dimensions

Length 170 m
Width 100 m
Height 20 m
Decks 5 including nacelle sub-decks
Mass 120,000 tons

Crew

50

Warp Speeds

Normal Cruise Warp 6
Maximum Cruise Warp 8.7
Maximum Rated Warp 9.2 for twelve hours

Armament

4 x Class I rapid fire phaser pulse cannon
1 x Type X Phaser bank,
total output for all phaser weapons 70,000 TeraWatts
4 x Pulse fire Quantum/Photon torpedo tubes + 30 torpedoes

Defense Systems

Auto-modulated high capacity shield system, total capacity 2,349,000 TeraJoules
Heavy Duranium/Tritanium double hull plus 20 cm Ablative armour
High level Structural Integrity Field
Strength Indices (Galaxy Class=1,000)
Beam Firepower 1,400
Torpedo Firepower 2,700
Weapon Range & Accuracy 815
Shield Strength 870
Hull Armour 3,400
Speed 840
Combat Manoeuvrability 30,000
Overall Strength Index 1,720

Diplomatic Capability

Grade 2

Expected Lifetime

20 years

Refit Cycle

Minor 6 months
Standard 1 year
Major 5 years

General Information

The Defiant class was initiated in 2365 as a crash programme to develop a starship capable of fighting and defeating the Borg. The design incorporated several new weapons concepts, including the Quantum torpedo and phaser pulse cannon. The design and construction teams were briefed to produce a small, tough, simple to build vessel packing the maximum possible level of firepower.
A secondary aim of the project was to develop new technologies for implementation in the Sovereign project and possibly into existing starship designs. The vessel which emerged from the design office was unlike anything ever contemplated by the Federation before. In place of the usual graceful structures, Defiant was a compact, boxy, almost ugly design. The central body is a three-deck block with the a single deck bridge mounted on the top for four decks in all. The upper deck contains the bridge, engineering support spaces and some crew quarters. Deck two features main engineering, a simple medical bay, more crew quarters and the ships communal mess hall. The third deck includes the transporter room and ships storage and cargo bays and the deuterium fuel tanks. Deck four houses the ships replication storage tanks and systems, the antimatter fuel pods and the small shuttle bay. The single computer core is split between decks two and three.
The navigational deflector is located in a prominent housing on the ships bow, which also contains a probe launcher. Flanking the deflector housing are a pair of torpedo tubes capable of firing both Quantum and photon torpedoes. Aft of this the nacelles are fitted directly to the main hull, flanking the bridge. Each nacelle housing includes four warp coils and two of the ships pulse phaser cannon.
The nacelles supporting equipment are contained within a fifth deck which hangs below the normal four; this deck is divided into three levels of crawl-way spaces. Aft of the nacelles are the aft torpedo tubes, and the ships armament is completed by a turret type phaser array aft of the bridge. Serious faults in the design surfaced.
Overpowered and over gunned for a ship of its size, Defiant experienced serious problems with her structural integrity during warp flight and weapons operation. With the Borg threat now less urgent, the President ordered the Defiant project shelved in favour of the new Sovereign class which was then under construction.