Deleth Class Warbird

This is my design for the Deleth Class Romulan Warbird, a refit of the Klingon designed D7 battle cruisers.

In the shows and movies, you see both the Federation and Klingons use starship designs that are decades past their prime. This makes sense as refitting older vessels is something that navies have done for centuries. However, we see none of this from the Romulans, probably due to the limited budget of the show, but from a story standpoint, they must have also practiced this age old tradition.

This is my imaginary history for the Deleth Class Warbird:

When the latest in Romulan starship design, the Bird of Prey, proved ineffectual against a standard Starfleet heavy cruiser, the Imperial Senate struck a deal with the Klingon Empire. In exchange for cloaking technology, the Romulan Star Empire would receive a number of D7 heavy cruisers which had proven to be a reliable combat platform and deterrent to Starfleet. When the USS Enterprise came to be outnumbered by these new Romulan D7s, the Empire was humiliated yet again when one of their new Heavy Cruisers was not only boarded, but its cloak stolen and its captain abducted. After this incident, the Empire withdrew, choosing to study, research, and build, determined never again to face such humiliation.

Years past and the D7s, as well as the copies produced by Romulan shipyards, began to show their age. Although not seeking conflict, defense of the Empire was always of importance and the fleet had to be maintained as an effective deterrent. With this in mind, the Senate authorized a complete refit of the aging D7, renaming it the Deleth, or “Bodyguard” Class Warbird although its crews privately referred to it as the Wort Class or “Bastard” due to its Klingon heritage.

The new Warbird was equipped with a duel impulse system designed to maximize the effectiveness of the cloak by minimizing ion emissions. This made for painfully slow acceleration but a higher than normal top speed. A second, more traditional, impulse drive could be utilized when not cloaked to deliver maximum thrust.

The warp nacelles, too, were redesigned, as well as the general shape of the vessel in order to create a warp signature smaller than its tonnage would otherwise produce. This had the effect of rendering the new Warbird virtually undetectable at speeds up to warp 5.

Although the D7 Class was not equipped with aft weaponry, the Romulans were much more pragmatic and a full aft weapon’s grid was installed including a pair of torpedo launchers. The forward grid was also upgraded with the unique ability to fire both plasma based and photonic torpedoes. The added machinery required for this feet of engineering necessitated an extensive redesign of the head and neck portions of the D7, as well as the addition of a pair of large capacitors at the base of the neck that could be charged by the reactor and used to power the plasma torpedoes. This enabled two plasma torpedoes to be launched prior to the lengthy recharge period, during which time standard photonic munitions could be used.

As was the fate of refitted hulls before and since, the Deleth Class served adequately, but without distinction, and was slowly moved to increasingly remote sectors as more modern, capable frames came online.