Cutlass class
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One of the critical strategic problems faced by Starfleet Command, if the Federation was going to win the Dominion War, was that the Federation forces were being spread too thin. Between defending the Federation territory from and trying to go on the offensive against the Dominion, in addition to keeping a wary eye on the Romulans, Starfleet found it had too many obligations and too few resources. Capital ships such as the Galaxy and Nebula class ships, or even ones as small as a Defiant class, were too expensive and used up too many resources to continually rebuild the fleet. Additionally, the Jem'Hadar used a great number of smaller fighter craft in combat, increasing the number of targets for Federation ships, and generally causing havoc with strategic planning.
Fighter design and production began to counter the Dominion tactics, but a new ship of revolutionary design would be required to ferry them. Ship designers of Utopia Planitia were up to the challenge. They designed a totally new class of ship, the Cutlass; however, by now the war had ended. The fleet yards had finished constuction of the prototype, but production of the line was halted. It saw no live action, but was used in training exercises for the fleet. It's launch tubes were left generic to accept whatever type of fighter was available at the time.
With the discovery of the Par'tha Expanse and Valcarian Empire, whose fleet is composed primarily of destroyer-carriers, Starfleet has restarted limited production of the Cutlass's for duty in that sector. Admiral Krieger and Commander Varaan designed and developed the FI-25 "Crossbow" Interceptor, which is in mass production for service aboard the Cutlass class carriers.
Critics have said that the Cutlass has a very "boxy" look to it. It has no "saucer", and the warp nacelles are tucked under the overhang of the top 7 decks, on very short pylons. The aft section of Decks 4 and 5 compose the landing bay for the fighters, though the bay extends almost to the front of the carrier. Launch tubes, a dozen on both the port and starboard sides of the ship, handle the launching of the fighters, using an electromagnetic catapult. Deck 6 houses the maintenance facilities for the fighters.
Deck 1 not only contains the bridge module for the Cutlass, but a separate "Flight Ops" command control center just aft of it, and a "Fleet Ops" command control center aft of that.
Notable Ships of This Class
- USS Cutlass: prototype NX-84700
- USS Hanover: NCC-84714
- USS Corsica: NCC-84723
Specifications
- Type: Carrier
- Length: 746 Meters
- Height: 40 Meters
- Beam: 372 Meters
- Mass: 6,165,000 Tonnes
- Decks: 12
- Accomodations: 1000
- Crew: 931
- Standard: 496
- Flight Team: 435
- Command: 2 (1 Wing Commander, 1 CAG)
- Flight Ops Team: 36
- Pilots: 72
- Fighter Grounds Crew: 288 (4 per fighter craft)
- Deck Crew: 37 (6 squad chiefs, 30 specialists, 1 Deck Boss)
- Fighter Compliment: 72 FI-25 "Crossbow" Interceptors
- Warp Speeds:
- Cruising: 6.0
- Maximum: 8.6
- Emergency: 9.2 for 12 hours
- Weapons:
- 8 x Type VIII Phaser arrays
- 4 x Type II Photon Torpedos