The Panzer Class

In the latter half of the year 2370, the Starfleet Officers stationed on Deep Space Nine encountered the star empire known as the Dominion. Since those days, the threat of a Dominion invasion through the wormhole has loomed over Starfleet. Starfleet had long been a fleet of civil service and exploration, and had only recently begun to look into offensive warfare missions. The threat of the Dominion, and the Borg assault on Sector 001 in 2373, brought Starfleet to the realization that defensive vessels would also need to be added to the fleet. A year before the Borg attack on Earth, Starfleet opened bidding on a contract for a defensive ship Class.
At the same time, FTL-theorists at Abraxas Shipworks had recalculated a maximum power gain from M/AM reactions and implemented them in an experimental warp core. An entrepreneurial mid-level manager leaped at the chance, and employed a design team to create a ship around that warp core which would fulfill the terms of the Starfleet contract.
What they produced was an overpowered, cramped, and completely ugly warhorse that was easy to manufacture, easy to fix, and easy to replace. Though it was initially named after the German tank legions that operated with deadly efficiency, it instantly earned the nickname Fat Boy for its bulky appearance, unseen before in the sleek-lined ships of Starfleet.

The contract that the Panzer Class proposal fulfilled defined its missions as: The efficient, effective defense of the Federation. This was loosely translated by the bureaucrats who ran the contract conmpetition to be cheap yet powerful.
The Panzer Class's relatively low complexity, with the most advanced and intricate parts being its turret systems and Mons Meg, managed to easily fit the need to be mass produced for low cost. At the same time, the power afforded by its Galaxy-Class scale M/ARA core made it a very powerful craft.

Dimensions: Length: 101 m Width: 93.5 m Height: 27 m Officer crew: 10 Enlisted crew: 30 Decks: 10
Weapons: 2 Torpedo Tubes (forward) 4 Repeating Phaser Turrets (Dorsal wing right/wing left, ventral wing right/wing left) 2 Torpedo Turret (dorsal and ventral) 4 Phalanx turrets (2 dorsal, 2 ventral) 2 Mons Megs (Forward)
Engines: Maximum Warp: 9.990 (sustainable for three hours) Cruising Speed: 9.850 Maximum Impulse: .90c Full Impulse: .28c Service: Expected duration: 10yrs Time between resupply: 1 week Time between scheduled refit: 1 year Ship Category: Short Range Defense Craft

The Panzer Class employs a high density M/AM mixture in its warp core, producing vastly greater amounts of energy. This energy increase allows it to maintain cruising warp speeds comparable to or greater than the Intrepid Class's Warp 9.975 cruising speed (see: Star Trek Encyclopedia), and provides energy for greater impulse speed and firepower.
The increase in power comes at a steep cost. Due to the quick depletion of the limited M/AM supplies, the Panzer Class's range at high warp is so limited that it could not make a trip from Earth to Alpha Centauri at maximum warp speeds. Lower warp speeds conserve enough power and provide enough time for Bussard Ramscoop (located ventral bow on the hull) fuel collection to extend the range of the Panzer Class, but it is still incapable of longterm sustained, unsupported space travel.

The small size of the Panzer Class allows for an internal warp propulsion system, with no nacelles to be damaged during battle. The warp field generator, in the stern of the ship, contains multiple field projection systems, to allow the field to be adapted to fit the ship and its external payloads.

Due to the space constraints on board the Panzer Class, the impulse engines are run off of energy tapped from the MARA system, converted into a form the impulse system can use, then channeled through the standard accelerator/generator, drive coil, and vectored exhaust mechanisms. There are two impulse engines at the rear of both the starboard and the port secondary hulls.

Employing a large bank of high-energy thrusters on the prow of the ship, and on the flanks of the ship's stern, the Panzer Class is capable of going from .50c to 0 in 5.3 seconds, and is capable of doing a 360° flat spin with less than 1 meter variance from original position along any axis. These powerful thrusters provide for fighter-style agility during sublightspeed combat.

The Panzer Class employs a defensive shield hull-grid twice as dense as that of the Galaxy Class, allowing the shield system to create more powerful shields and to sustain more powerful weapons hits. Furthermore, the shield generators, housed in the stern of the craft above the warp field generator, provide for shield power comparable or greater than the Galaxy Class, though the maximum limit has yet to be tested. Furthermore, the shield projection sphere is divided into four quadrants by the shield grid, allowing for shield power to be concentrated against a single-vector assault.

The Mons Meg multiple weapon projectors, named after the largest cannons in Europe in the AD1400's, are universal emitters developed from the deflector dish idea. The deflector dish was seen by the MM's designers as a wonderful system for delivering large amounts of energy yet remaining versatile.
The many uses for the Galaxy Class deflector dish that crews such as the Enterprise-D developed showed it was capable of many tasks. So, beginning with the basic deflector dish design, the R&D team converted it into a system more readily used as a weapon. It is capable of generating more types of energy/matter streams, and is powered by a direct tap from the MARA. Its particle storage facilities are refilled by ramscoop shunt.
This dish, though, lacks a little of the deflector's ability to hit subatomic particles at long range, and its firing arc is only 15° up, down, left, and right.
Since they do so closely follow the deflector dish design, the MMs show the same frailty and rather unwanted tendancy towards explosion when hit by a phaser beam. Therefore, they have blast doors that slide over the projectors and protect them when not in a battle.
Mons Megs include:
  Electro-Magnetic Pulse- Borrowed from the atomic weapons experimentation of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries(see also a tree-hugging anti-nuke page and reports of DoD experiments), the EMP creates a burst of energy capable of disrupting the flow of electrons in electrical circuitry, disabling the electronic circuitry and most other systems dependent on electrical currents, including computer cores and the human nervous system. Matter/Energy Dispersers- modifications on the transporter system which can 'beam up' portions of hulls or shields with a general area targetting lock. Trapping the shield energy or converting the hull into energy, it then dissociates the energy in the beam into random quanta in space. The general area targetting lock is not completely effective, and is best used to drain shield energy. With a more specific targetting lock, the beam can be used to drill out specific portions of the enemy hull. Phaser Cannons- borrowed from the system developed on the Nimitz Class, the Mons Meg system packs a larger wallop with its direct energy feed from the MARA and its ability to store larger amounts of particles for plasmatization.

The turret systems are evolved from those present on Deep Space 9 and the Trafalgar Class. They provide for 360° rotation, and also 45° of elevation in the shots. While this does create a small blindspot for the phasers directly above or below the Panzer Class, the ship's maneuverability and speed are seen as more than ample enough to negate any combat disadvantage that the blindspot might generate.

The Panzer Class includes a tachyon cloak detector with a capacity of three bursts of 5,000,000km range each.

The Panzer Class is equipped with a basic sensor scrambling system. It emits a burst of high-energy particles and pulses of electromagnetic and subspace frequencies which provide a temporary disruption of all sensor activity. If an opposing ship is close enough, the sensor scrambler can cause a destructive feedback capable of significant damage to the enemy sensor systems.
Also included in the Panzer Class's offensive and defensive package is a graviton generator capable of making a localized subspace disruption to prevent the formation of warp fields. This system allows the Panzer Class to blockade any traffic outbound from its home system (smugglers and pirates and the like).

The Panzer Class, though too small to contain a fighter bay, has two docking ports on its ventral hull and two more on its dorsal hull which can dock a fighter or shuttle and allow transfers of personnel or goods betwen the Panzer Class ship and the auxillary spacecraft.

The Panzer Class includes escape pods near all quarters and work areas.

The officer corps of the Panzer Class is made of the Commanding Officer, Executive Officer, Chief Engineering Officer and two lieutenants, Chief Tactical Officer, Chief Medical Officer, Chief Gunnery Officer and one lieutenant, and the Chief Flight Officer and one lieutenant.
The CO, XO, CEO, and CMO posts have the standard jobs found on other Classes, command, administration, maintenance, and tending the wounded, respectively.
The Chief Gunnery Officer and his lieutenant are responsible for coordinating and directing the various weapons aboard the ship.
The Chief Tactical Officer is in direct control of the ship's shields and engines, translating the captain's orders into actions of the ship. He coordinates with the CGO to implement combat tactics in a battle situation.
The Chief Flight Officer is responsible for any fighters attached to the Panzer Class ship. Standard fighter complement for the Panzer Class is a single flight (two fighters), manned by the CFO and XFO.

The enlisted personnel are split between the engineering, weapons, and medical departments. Fifteen non-comms are attached to the engineering department, ten non-comms man the weapons turrets and torpedo tubes, and five non-comms serve as nurses and medical technicians.

The Panzer Class has 20 external hardpoints to which clusters of torpedoes, extra phaser banks, extra power generators, extra shield generators, extra sensor packages, or an innumerable list of other add-ons can be attached.

The Panzer Class, despite its Fat Boy nickname, is relatively short on space, leaving quarters and work spaces cramped and less than. To provide a more spacious and relaxing environment away from the work spaces and crew quarters, the Panzer Class includes two lounges, an onboard library, two holodecks, and a gymnasium.

Deck 1
Bridge, Observation Lounge

Deck 2
Combat Control Room, CO's quarters, Ready Room, 2-Astern Lounge

Deck 3
Officer's quarters, ship library, dorsal shuttle/fighter docking clamps, transporter room 1

Deck 4
Crew quarters, primary computer core, dorsal torpedo turret/bay, avionics, transporter room 2

Deck 5
Crew quarters, medical bay, primary computer core, torpedo bay, shield generators

Deck 6
Crew quarters, holodeck 1, gymnasium level 1, engineering level 1, fuel processing, matter storage, warp core, dilithium chamber, antimatter storage, engineering/auxillary computer core, shield generators

-Starboard Wing
Braking/maneuvering thrusters, torpedo tube/bay, forward/aft sensors, dorsal phaser turret, ventral phaser turret, ventral hardpoints 1-7, wing-tip hardpoint 1

-Port Wing
Braking/maneuvering thrusters, torpedo tube/bay, forward/aft sensors, dorsal phaser turret, ventral phaser turret, ventral hardpoints 14-20, wing-tip hardpoint 2

Deck 7
Crew quarters, holodeck 2, gymnasium level 2, engineering level 2, fuel processing, matter storage, warp core, dilithium chamber, antimatter storage, engineering/auxillary computer core, shield generators, cargo bay

Deck 8
Ramscoop, fuel conduit, crew quarters, warp field generator

Deck 9
Forward lounge level 1, crew quarters, ventral torpedo turret/bay, warp field generator, ventral hardpoints 8-11, ventral shuttle/fighter clamps 1 and 2

Deck 10
bow: forward loung level 2, crew quarters, ventral hardpoints 12-13
stern: warp field generator

Starboard/Port Secondary Hulls Contain:
2 Impulse Propulsion Systems (top and bottom):
power conduit from MARA, power converter, accelerator/generator, drive coil assembly, vectored exhaust director
and
Mons Meg:
Ramscoop shunt processor/generator, six particle storage pods, channeling coils, directional targetting dish

Naming conventions for the Panzer Class include the names of famous admirals and generals from throughout the Federation. This list is ammendable.

The following pairs of ships are slated to be commissioned as sisterships, constructed in pairs and assigned to defense of key locales such as Earth, Vulcan, Bajor, OP42, et al:

USS William Tecumseh Sherman
USS Braxton Bragg

USS Jeanne d'Arc
USS Henry V

USS Hannibal
USS Pompeii

USS Ulysses S. Grant
USS Robert E. Lee

USS T'ien Chi USS P'ang Chüan
USS Tecumseh
USS W. H. Harrison

USS Frémont
USS Thomas J. Jackson
USS Zachary Taylor
USS Santa Anna

USS Chang Kaishek
USS Douglas MacArthur

USS Sun Pin
USS Sun Tzu

USS Wu Ch'i
USS Shang Yang

Individual ships for defense of systems and stations are to be commissioned from the following list or any name that Starfleet Command deems suitable:

USS Perry
USS Halsey
USS de Grasse
USS John Paul Jones
USS Kearny
USS Farragut
USS Zhukov
USS Potemkin
USS Bureaugard
USS Jubal Early
USS Sheridan
USS Joseph E. Johnston
USS Ho Chi Minh
USS Chang
USS Howe
USS Cornwallis
USS Bismark
USS Frederick
USS Lafayette
USS Francis Marion
USS de Rochambeau
USS Napoleon
USS Charles du Gual
USS Pericles
USS Andrew Jackson
USS Yamashita
USS Agee
USS Yiromoma

Created and submitted for review, April 17, 1998, by Owen Townes