STAR FLEET DESTROYERS, PT I...

[MikeKozlowski]

dd 1.jpg

dd 1A.jpg

Mike

[MikeKozlowski]

dd2.jpg

dd2A.jpg

Mike

[MikeKozlowski]

dd3.jpg

dd3A.jpg

Mike

[Johnnie Lyle]

Are the AKULAs going to be MIKEYVERSE compatible?

I assume we’re going to see some of the war destroyers and heavy war destroyers?

[MikeKozlowski]

Are the AKULAs going to be MIKEYVERSE compatible?

I assume we’re going to see some of the war destroyers and heavy war destroyers?

John,

Absolutely. We've got coming up:

Kreuger Class DDE
Caine Class DMS
Akula Class DD
Hazelwood Class DDX
Clio Class DDGX
Von Richtoften Class DDEX
Zulu Class DWDX

FWIW, by the time of TLS none of the original three classes of DD are in service as such; all of the survivors have long since been converted to other roles or sent to reserve. By just after the time of the Khitomer Treaty, all of them have been disposed of. And within a year or so of Khitomer, DDs of one flavor or another made up the majority of StarFleet.

Mike

[MikeKozlowski]

...The Kreuger class DEs were StarFleet's first generation of destroyer escorts. In order to get them into space quickly for the Big Macs, StarFleet made the reluctant decision to use the standard Mark 7 destroyer hull as a starting point.

This led to them being a mixed bag in terms of service - although one torpedo tube and three Phaser 1s were removed, and a larger engine plus two auxiliary power reactors were added, the AEGIS combat management system, 4 25-cell VLS units and three Phaser 3Gs more than filled the empty space, and then the increased crew made the already cramped Mark 7 hull very nearly unlivable. (They were so unpopular with crews that StarFleet eventually made the Kreugers a hardship tour with increased pay and preference for follow-on assignments.)

The good news was that for all their problems, the Kreugers were superb at their assigned role, being fast enough to keep up with the CVBGs and well armed enough to deal with the expected threats from Klingon drone and attack shuttle strikes. The standard VLS loadout was 50 Patriot dual role ASD/ADD, 40 Bloodhound ADD, and 10 Harpoon anti-ship drones. The only real issue was that with their reduced phaser and photon armament, they were not well suited for single-ship work well away from the main body of the fleet or task force. They were inadvertently determined to be quite good at anti-pirate work, as they were often able to engage Raiders at outside the pirates' maximum sensor or firing range.

kreugerdd1.jpg

dd 1A.jpg

Mike

[Craiglxviii]

Nice, I like it

[Johnnie Lyle]

Are NCC numbers in the MIKEYVERSE not necessarily consecutive?

The KREUGERs have hull numbers well in advance of the more technically advanced MIRANDA, SOYUZ, SYDNEY and EXCELSIOR class ships, and place close to the CONSTELLATION class HATHAWAY (NCC-2593). IIRC the Franz Josef tech manuals and the Star Fleet Battles universe assigned hull numbers in blocks by type, but that hasn’t held up as Star Trek expanded (especially Discovery and Picard S2).

I’ve kicked around that Star Fleet has been engaged in disguising scrapping and replacing as “refits” in the finest traditions of the USN and the RN (which fits the age of sail heritage of the universe), and a cancel and reorder as a new type for some designs (like the FARRAGUT DLs) that were not terribly successful.

But it still looks like some kind of compromise is needed to address the DIS/PIC/SNY hull numbering / Frans Josef/SFB hull numbering, since they conflict.

[MikeKozlowski]

Are NCC numbers in the MIKEYVERSE not necessarily consecutive?

The KREUGERs have hull numbers well in advance of the more technically advanced MIRANDA, SOYUZ, SYDNEY and EXCELSIOR class ships, and place close to the CONSTELLATION class HATHAWAY (NCC-2593). IIRC the Franz Josef tech manuals and the Star Fleet Battles universe assigned hull numbers in blocks by type, but that hasn’t held up as Star Trek expanded (especially Discovery and Picard S2).

I’ve kicked around that Star Fleet has been engaged in disguising scrapping and replacing as “refits” in the finest traditions of the USN and the RN (which fits the age of sail heritage of the universe), and a cancel and reorder as a new type for some designs (like the FARRAGUT DLs) that were not terribly successful.

But it still looks like some kind of compromise is needed to address the DIS/PIC/SNY hull numbering / Frans Josef/SFB hull numbering, since they conflict.

John,

On reflection....you got a point, and explain it better than anywhere else I've seen.

The weird hull numbers that pop up - especially in TNG and later - do pose a challenge to canon. Now, one way would be to simply say that (for instance) the number shown on screen for HATHAWAY is, simply, wrong. Given the tech shown on screen for that ship, I actually think that NCC-3593 makes much more sense.

Another possibility is that HATHAWAY is an 'honor' ship - that is; an A or B in honor of an older vessel. And that vessel could be USS HATHAWAY (NCC-2593)...a CAINE class destroyer mine warfare vessel. The CAINES are going to be Class 1A DDs (SIVA class) optimized for minelaying/minesweeping, and the 2593 number could fit in there quite nicely. Now, for the PERSHING and RANGER CVs, the VON RICHTOFTENS are going to be the dedicated escorts - and since those ships are 26XX and 27XX, that gives us plenty of room, especially as there's going to be an even hundred of them. What say you?

Mike

[Johnnie Lyle]

Are NCC numbers in the MIKEYVERSE not necessarily consecutive?

The KREUGERs have hull numbers well in advance of the more technically advanced MIRANDA, SOYUZ, SYDNEY and EXCELSIOR class ships, and place close to the CONSTELLATION class HATHAWAY (NCC-2593). IIRC the Franz Josef tech manuals and the Star Fleet Battles universe assigned hull numbers in blocks by type, but that hasn’t held up as Star Trek expanded (especially Discovery and Picard S2).

I’ve kicked around that Star Fleet has been engaged in disguising scrapping and replacing as “refits” in the finest traditions of the USN and the RN (which fits the age of sail heritage of the universe), and a cancel and reorder as a new type for some designs (like the FARRAGUT DLs) that were not terribly successful.

But it still looks like some kind of compromise is needed to address the DIS/PIC/SNY hull numbering / Frans Josef/SFB hull numbering, since they conflict.

John,

On reflection....you got a point, and explain it better than anywhere else I've seen.

The weird hull numbers that pop up - especially in TNG and later - do pose a challenge to canon. Now, one way would be to simply say that (for instance) the number shown on screen for HATHAWAY is, simply, wrong. Given the tech shown on screen for that ship, I actually think that NCC-3593 makes much more sense.

Another possibility is that HATHAWAY is an 'honor' ship - that is; an A or B in honor of an older vessel. And that vessel could be USS HATHAWAY (NCC-2593)...a CAINE class destroyer mine warfare vessel. The CAINES are going to be Class 1A DDs (SIVA class) optimized for minelaying/minesweeping, and the 2593 number could fit in there quite nicely. Now, for the PERSHING and RANGER CVs, the VON RICHTOFTENS are going to be the dedicated escorts - and since those ships are 26XX and 27XX, that gives us plenty of room, especially as there's going to be an even hundred of them. What say you?

Mike

I’m of several minds.

Here’s Memory Alpha’s list of ships by hull number: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/NCC

We know(ish) that very early cruisers (like the DAEDALUS) have very small hull numbers, and then we have a mix of DDs and cargo ships around NCC-500, then OBERTHs in the NCC-600 era, and then more broadly cruisers in the DIS era with NCC-1XXX. Then things get messy.

We also know that Star Fleet conducted a MASSIVE refit to at least the CONSTITUTION class, and possibly the MIRANDAs.

Putting my Vulcan ears on, the most logical solution is that Star Fleet placed big block orders of ships as they’re planned or authorized, but not necessarily built. That explains why types have big swaths of hull numbers. However, any given ship may be cancelled and reordered as something else to meet the needs of the fleet, using an existing assigned hull number or name. Also, when the Fed Council won’t pay for building new ships but will pay for upgrades or refits, Star Fleet conducts “great repairs” or refits. This probably happens most often with newer ships that can’t be scrapped without upsetting the congresscritters. Based on both RN practice with great repairs and USN practice with breaking up and replacing with the same name and some timbers, I suspect Star Fleet did this a lot until caught. It probably got so blatant that almost any hull not destroyed got “refit.” I posit that the Klingon War and the 2260s showed starships needing more firepower and survivability, and so Star Fleet was laying down or “refitting” every hull it could spare, starting with the smallest DDs and “cruisers” first.

So, how does this play out in practice, especially with the more egregious issues with NCC numbers (such as GRISSOM or CONSTELLATION)?

Looking at the history above and the KELVIN, I get the impression that many of the SALADINs were not suited to non-combat roles (or even some serious combat roles), and so got modified. They were either given a secondary hull (as with KELVIN), or “refitted” into OBERTH classes. Indeed, OBERTH herself could have been a DD converted into a science ship, with others to follow.

I posit that the CROSSFIELDS were a failed class, and so CONSTELLATION was cancelled and then reordered as a CONSTITUTION. Similarly, the FARRAGUTs were “DLs” where they tried to get cruisers on the cheap. So the CONSTITUTIONs with NCC-16xx were FARRAGUTs reordered to CONSTITUTIONs. EAGLE and REPUBLIC were rebuilt or ordered to fill in existing holes. The SHANGRI-LAs (made canon by NCC-1777 TITAN), are also cruisers and are CONSTITUTIONs reordered or rebuilt.

The NCC-1800s were MIRANDAs (expanding the failed FARRAGUT DL design to full cruiser size), and the SOYUZ class (CEs) are NCC-1900 to 1940. NCC-1959 to NCC-1999 are repeat CONSTITUTIONs, with NCC-1974 reordered as the CONSTELLATION class light cruisers (the Heavy War Destroyer upscalled). Then we get to EXCELSIOR, which is the universal cruiser (replacing the battlecruiser, heavy cruiser, fast cruiser and survey cruiser), but teething troubles on the design resulted on a hold, so there were hull numbers that were not used.

Finally, the SYDNEY transports filled in the holes - perhaps BuShips had a young willful Vulcan who said holes in the NCC series were “not logical” and backfilled the NCC numbers, which explains the reorders. Then as a senior officer in the lost era, he decided to go strictly consecutive.

HATHAWAY may have been a fill-in, or a rebuild. Unless you’re intending the CAINEs to be 4 nacelle HWDs. But honestly, I suspect that Star Fleet was already preferring more cruisers to anything else by the 2290s, because they were more capable than the destroyers (especially in non-combat roles), and didn’t require too much extra resources to build and crew. So many DDs and FFs were just never built except for a crash basis.

I suggest that honor ships are very rare, and we limit them to ENTERPRISE. Looking at Picard, Voyager and Discovery, we can see a similar trend to today, with less effective militaries harkening back to the “glory days” and thus overusing honorifics. We also see that in the nostalgia designs, uniform changes, etc. The fleet in the Mikeyverse is not at that point, especially when they’re coming out of a serious ass kicking by the Klingons.

[MikeKozlowski]

Are NCC numbers in the MIKEYVERSE not necessarily consecutive?

The KREUGERs have hull numbers well in advance of the more technically advanced MIRANDA, SOYUZ, SYDNEY and EXCELSIOR class ships, and place close to the CONSTELLATION class HATHAWAY (NCC-2593). IIRC the Franz Josef tech manuals and the Star Fleet Battles universe assigned hull numbers in blocks by type, but that hasn’t held up as Star Trek expanded (especially Discovery and Picard S2).

I’ve kicked around that Star Fleet has been engaged in disguising scrapping and replacing as “refits” in the finest traditions of the USN and the RN (which fits the age of sail heritage of the universe), and a cancel and reorder as a new type for some designs (like the FARRAGUT DLs) that were not terribly successful.

But it still looks like some kind of compromise is needed to address the DIS/PIC/SNY hull numbering / Frans Josef/SFB hull numbering, since they conflict.

John,

On reflection....you got a point, and explain it better than anywhere else I've seen.

The weird hull numbers that pop up - especially in TNG and later - do pose a challenge to canon. Now, one way would be to simply say that (for instance) the number shown on screen for HATHAWAY is, simply, wrong. Given the tech shown on screen for that ship, I actually think that NCC-3593 makes much more sense.

Another possibility is that HATHAWAY is an 'honor' ship - that is; an A or B in honor of an older vessel. And that vessel could be USS HATHAWAY (NCC-2593)...a CAINE class destroyer mine warfare vessel. The CAINES are going to be Class 1A DDs (SIVA class) optimized for minelaying/minesweeping, and the 2593 number could fit in there quite nicely. Now, for the PERSHING and RANGER CVs, the VON RICHTOFTENS are going to be the dedicated escorts - and since those ships are 26XX and 27XX, that gives us plenty of room, especially as there's going to be an even hundred of them. What say you?

Mike

I’m of several minds.

Here’s Memory Alpha’s list of ships by hull number: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/NCC

We know(ish) that very early cruisers (like the DAEDALUS) have very small hull numbers, and then we have a mix of DDs and cargo ships around NCC-500, then OBERTHs in the NCC-600 era, and then more broadly cruisers in the DIS era with NCC-1XXX. Then things get messy.

We also know that Star Fleet conducted a MASSIVE refit to at least the CONSTITUTION class, and possibly the MIRANDAs.

Putting my Vulcan ears on, the most logical solution is that Star Fleet placed big block orders of ships as they’re planned or authorized, but not necessarily built. That explains why types have big swaths of hull numbers. However, any given ship may be cancelled and reordered as something else to meet the needs of the fleet, using an existing assigned hull number or name. Also, when the Fed Council won’t pay for building new ships but will pay for upgrades or refits, Star Fleet conducts “great repairs” or refits. This probably happens most often with newer ships that can’t be scrapped without upsetting the congresscritters. Based on both RN practice with great repairs and USN practice with breaking up and replacing with the same name and some timbers, I suspect Star Fleet did this a lot until caught. It probably got so blatant that almost any hull not destroyed got “refit.” I posit that the Klingon War and the 2260s showed starships needing more firepower and survivability, and so Star Fleet was laying down or “refitting” every hull it could spare, starting with the smallest DDs and “cruisers” first.

So, how does this play out in practice, especially with the more egregious issues with NCC numbers (such as GRISSOM or CONSTELLATION)?

Looking at the history above and the KELVIN, I get the impression that many of the SALADINs were not suited to non-combat roles (or even some serious combat roles), and so got modified. They were either given a secondary hull (as with KELVIN), or “refitted” into OBERTH classes. Indeed, OBERTH herself could have been a DD converted into a science ship, with others to follow.

I posit that the CROSSFIELDS were a failed class, and so CONSTELLATION was cancelled and then reordered as a CONSTITUTION. Similarly, the FARRAGUTs were “DLs” where they tried to get cruisers on the cheap. So the CONSTITUTIONs with NCC-16xx were FARRAGUTs reordered to CONSTITUTIONs. EAGLE and REPUBLIC were rebuilt or ordered to fill in existing holes. The SHANGRI-LAs (made canon by NCC-1777 TITAN), are also cruisers and are CONSTITUTIONs reordered or rebuilt.

The NCC-1800s were MIRANDAs (expanding the failed FARRAGUT DL design to full cruiser size), and the SOYUZ class (CEs) are NCC-1900 to 1940. NCC-1959 to NCC-1999 are repeat CONSTITUTIONs, with NCC-1974 reordered as the CONSTELLATION class light cruisers (the Heavy War Destroyer upscalled). Then we get to EXCELSIOR, which is the universal cruiser (replacing the battlecruiser, heavy cruiser, fast cruiser and survey cruiser), but teething troubles on the design resulted on a hold, so there were hull numbers that were not used.

Finally, the SYDNEY transports filled in the holes - perhaps BuShips had a young willful Vulcan who said holes in the NCC series were “not logical” and backfilled the NCC numbers, which explains the reorders. Then as a senior officer in the lost era, he decided to go strictly consecutive.

HATHAWAY may have been a fill-in, or a rebuild. Unless you’re intending the CAINEs to be 4 nacelle HWDs. But honestly, I suspect that Star Fleet was already preferring more cruisers to anything else by the 2290s, because they were more capable than the destroyers (especially in non-combat roles), and didn’t require too much extra resources to build and crew. So many DDs and FFs were just never built except for a crash basis.

I suggest that honor ships are very rare, and we limit them to ENTERPRISE. Looking at Picard, Voyager and Discovery, we can see a similar trend to today, with less effective militaries harkening back to the “glory days” and thus overusing honorifics. We also see that in the nostalgia designs, uniform changes, etc. The fleet in the Mikeyverse is not at that point, especially when they’re coming out of a serious ass kicking by the Klingons.

John,

After careful consideration, you're right on a LOT of this. We can start with the revised CAINE class DMS:

caine2.png

Gotta start with the four engines sometime. And remember at the beginning of TLS, we're told that the resources of the entire Federation can only produce a few dozen starship-size engines a year. What say you?

Mike

[Johnnie Lyle]

John,

On reflection....you got a point, and explain it better than anywhere else I've seen.

The weird hull numbers that pop up - especially in TNG and later - do pose a challenge to canon. Now, one way would be to simply say that (for instance) the number shown on screen for HATHAWAY is, simply, wrong. Given the tech shown on screen for that ship, I actually think that NCC-3593 makes much more sense.

Another possibility is that HATHAWAY is an 'honor' ship - that is; an A or B in honor of an older vessel. And that vessel could be USS HATHAWAY (NCC-2593)...a CAINE class destroyer mine warfare vessel. The CAINES are going to be Class 1A DDs (SIVA class) optimized for minelaying/minesweeping, and the 2593 number could fit in there quite nicely. Now, for the PERSHING and RANGER CVs, the VON RICHTOFTENS are going to be the dedicated escorts - and since those ships are 26XX and 27XX, that gives us plenty of room, especially as there's going to be an even hundred of them. What say you?

Mike

I’m of several minds.

Here’s Memory Alpha’s list of ships by hull number: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/NCC

We know(ish) that very early cruisers (like the DAEDALUS) have very small hull numbers, and then we have a mix of DDs and cargo ships around NCC-500, then OBERTHs in the NCC-600 era, and then more broadly cruisers in the DIS era with NCC-1XXX. Then things get messy.

We also know that Star Fleet conducted a MASSIVE refit to at least the CONSTITUTION class, and possibly the MIRANDAs.

Putting my Vulcan ears on, the most logical solution is that Star Fleet placed big block orders of ships as they’re planned or authorized, but not necessarily built. That explains why types have big swaths of hull numbers. However, any given ship may be cancelled and reordered as something else to meet the needs of the fleet, using an existing assigned hull number or name. Also, when the Fed Council won’t pay for building new ships but will pay for upgrades or refits, Star Fleet conducts “great repairs” or refits. This probably happens most often with newer ships that can’t be scrapped without upsetting the congresscritters. Based on both RN practice with great repairs and USN practice with breaking up and replacing with the same name and some timbers, I suspect Star Fleet did this a lot until caught. It probably got so blatant that almost any hull not destroyed got “refit.” I posit that the Klingon War and the 2260s showed starships needing more firepower and survivability, and so Star Fleet was laying down or “refitting” every hull it could spare, starting with the smallest DDs and “cruisers” first.

So, how does this play out in practice, especially with the more egregious issues with NCC numbers (such as GRISSOM or CONSTELLATION)?

Looking at the history above and the KELVIN, I get the impression that many of the SALADINs were not suited to non-combat roles (or even some serious combat roles), and so got modified. They were either given a secondary hull (as with KELVIN), or “refitted” into OBERTH classes. Indeed, OBERTH herself could have been a DD converted into a science ship, with others to follow.

I posit that the CROSSFIELDS were a failed class, and so CONSTELLATION was cancelled and then reordered as a CONSTITUTION. Similarly, the FARRAGUTs were “DLs” where they tried to get cruisers on the cheap. So the CONSTITUTIONs with NCC-16xx were FARRAGUTs reordered to CONSTITUTIONs. EAGLE and REPUBLIC were rebuilt or ordered to fill in existing holes. The SHANGRI-LAs (made canon by NCC-1777 TITAN), are also cruisers and are CONSTITUTIONs reordered or rebuilt.

The NCC-1800s were MIRANDAs (expanding the failed FARRAGUT DL design to full cruiser size), and the SOYUZ class (CEs) are NCC-1900 to 1940. NCC-1959 to NCC-1999 are repeat CONSTITUTIONs, with NCC-1974 reordered as the CONSTELLATION class light cruisers (the Heavy War Destroyer upscalled). Then we get to EXCELSIOR, which is the universal cruiser (replacing the battlecruiser, heavy cruiser, fast cruiser and survey cruiser), but teething troubles on the design resulted on a hold, so there were hull numbers that were not used.

Finally, the SYDNEY transports filled in the holes - perhaps BuShips had a young willful Vulcan who said holes in the NCC series were “not logical” and backfilled the NCC numbers, which explains the reorders. Then as a senior officer in the lost era, he decided to go strictly consecutive.

HATHAWAY may have been a fill-in, or a rebuild. Unless you’re intending the CAINEs to be 4 nacelle HWDs. But honestly, I suspect that Star Fleet was already preferring more cruisers to anything else by the 2290s, because they were more capable than the destroyers (especially in non-combat roles), and didn’t require too much extra resources to build and crew. So many DDs and FFs were just never built except for a crash basis.

I suggest that honor ships are very rare, and we limit them to ENTERPRISE. Looking at Picard, Voyager and Discovery, we can see a similar trend to today, with less effective militaries harkening back to the “glory days” and thus overusing honorifics. We also see that in the nostalgia designs, uniform changes, etc. The fleet in the Mikeyverse is not at that point, especially when they’re coming out of a serious ass kicking by the Klingons.

John,

After careful consideration, you're right on a LOT of this. We can start with the revised CAINE class DMS:

caine2.png

Gotta start with the four engines sometime.

I’ve always been a fan of the heavy war destroyers, and the CAINE class fits that aesthetic. I’ve often thought that the CONSTELLATION cruisers grew out of the HWD.

And remember at the beginning of TLS, we're told that the resources of the entire Federation can only produce a few dozen starship-size engines a year. What say you?

Mike

I suspect that the demands of an interstellar society push the definition of “a few” up to the higher end, and that may only apply to military grade engines (those capable of max warp speeds beyond 5, persay). If all interstellar travel was limited to a few dozen new hulls per year, then we really couldn’t have the kind of society Trek describes. But limit it to a few dozen new high-speed starships per year (with a push to increase that capability every year), especially because the Star Fleet prefers to build in naval yards and that is the bottleneck (also very age of sail like), and we have lots of potential for shenanigans.

This actually does a lot to support the “Great Repair” theory, where Starfleet will strip a ship down and “rebuild” it, because they can’t build too many new warp cores right now. So if many of the pre Klingon war cruisers were found lacking in the survivability/firepower department, we “refit” them to the new specs. It also explains why the old fast ships stay in service so long.

It also raises another question - do we have the equivalent of the sloop/aviso/third class cruiser show up, which is limited to warp 5 by say commercial grade drives, but has sufficient capability for presence missions or defense fleets that just require a ship with a decent mix of capabilities but don’t need high speed for interstellar transit?

[Belushi TD]

Permit me to offer a bit of handwavium to cover any remaining inconsistencies.

I propose that the Russians finagled their way into being in charge of numbering projects/hull numbers in the Star Trek universe, and therefore there is no reason to have to explain ANYTHING else. Just say "You think THIS is bad? Take a look at what the Russians did during the Cold War of the second half of the 20th century, and just be glad that a few sane people were involved to give it the amount of order it has!"

Belushi TD

[MikeKozlowski]

It also raises another question - do we have the equivalent of the sloop/aviso/third class cruiser show up, which is limited to warp 5 by say commercial grade drives, but has sufficient capability for presence missions or defense fleets that just require a ship with a decent mix of capabilities but don’t need high speed for interstellar transit?

John,

We do have the law enforcement/SAR side of the house in the Police cutters and SpaceGuard ships - W5 would be about the upper end (and maybe less) for them, and their range would be fairly restricted as well. Having them built by commercial yards with OTS components makes a lot of sense.

Mike

[jemhouston]

If you're going to do that for them, have them built to local design. They know what works for their area.

[Johnnie Lyle]

It also raises another question - do we have the equivalent of the sloop/aviso/third class cruiser show up, which is limited to warp 5 by say commercial grade drives, but has sufficient capability for presence missions or defense fleets that just require a ship with a decent mix of capabilities but don’t need high speed for interstellar transit?

John,

We do have the law enforcement/SAR side of the house in the Police cutters and SpaceGuard ships - W5 would be about the upper end (and maybe less) for them, and their range would be fairly restricted as well. Having them built by commercial yards with OTS components makes a lot of sense.

Mike

We may also need “presence” ships, which will need long range but not high speed. The classic peace or third class cruiser role. Star Fleet would probably prefer more light and heavy cruisers, but warp core needs must.

Space Guards would still need ships with hefty size and lots of firepower, especially once the Klingon War broke out, and the 2260s proved no less peaceful.