Klingon Ships

1. Overview

The Klingon Empire builds warships for one purpose, and it shows in every line of them. A Klingon ship is designed to find its enemy, close with it and destroy or take it. Comfort, research and long voyages of exploration come a distant second, when they come at all. The Federation has met Klingon warships for more than two centuries, fought them, flown beside them and, in the Dominion War, depended on them. It knows the older types well. It knows the newer ones less well, because the Empire, like any power, does not show its best to outsiders.

This article describes the main types of Klingon warship that the Federation has met, from the earliest known to those on the borders in 2393. It sets out what is known of each, and says plainly where the record is thin. The names used are those in common Starfleet use; where a Klingon name is known it is given. The last types described are Starfleet assessments of newer ships, not confirmed facts. For the service that crews these ships see The Klingon Defense Force, and for the Romulan ships they face across the Zone see The Romulan Star Empire.

2. Klingon Ship Design

Certain things are true of almost every Klingon warship the Federation has seen, across more than two centuries.

Form. Klingon warships tend to share a common shape: a forward command section carried on a long neck or boom ahead of a broader main hull, with the engines behind or to the sides. The Bird-of-Prey, with its swept wings, is the great exception, and even it keeps the forward command section. The shape is so familiar that Starfleet crews can often name a ship as Klingon at a glance, before its type is known.

Weapons. Klingon ships are armed with disruptors and photon torpedoes. Disruptor cannon are mounted forward and, on the Bird-of-Prey, at the wingtips. Klingon designers favour a heavy forward strike, in keeping with a doctrine of attacking head on.

The cloak. Most Klingon warships carry a cloaking device. It is central to how they fight, and it is discussed in section 5.

Crew space. Klingon ships are built close and spare. The bridge is open, with the captain seated above his officers. There is little privacy and little comfort, by design. See The Klingon Defense Force.

Long service. The Empire keeps its ships in service for a long time. Types first seen in the 2270s were still fighting in the Dominion War a century later, refitted and rearmed. Starfleet has learned never to assume an older Klingon type has been retired just because a newer one has appeared.

3. The Known Types

The following are the Klingon types the Federation knows well, in roughly the order in which it first met them.

3.1 The ships of the 2150s

The first Klingon warships Earth met, in the 2150s, were already recognisably Klingon: battle cruisers with a forward command section, and smaller craft for scouting and patrol, among them a type Starfleet records call the Raptor class. Earth’s early starships met these ships many times. They were well armed for their day and handled aggressively, and they gave Earth its first lessons in what Klingon crews would do. Little else about them matters now except as history.

3.2 The D7 battle cruiser

The D7 was the Klingon battle cruiser of the 2260s, the ship the Federation faced in the long hostility of that decade. It had the classic Klingon form: a bulbous command section on a long boom ahead of a wide main hull, with two engine nacelles. In 2268 Starfleet intelligence reported that the Romulans were flying ships of Klingon design, a sign of some exchange of technology between the two empires. See Klingons and Romulans.

3.3 The K’t’inga battle cruiser

The K’t’inga is the D7’s successor, very like it in outline but larger in detail and better armed. It was in service by the 2270s. In 2293 the Chancellor’s own ship, Kronos One, which carried Chancellor Gorkon toward the peace talks that became the Khitomer Accords, was a K’t’inga. The type remained in service through the following century, refitted, and K’t’inga battle cruisers fought in the Dominion War. Some may still be seen on the quieter borders in 2393.

3.4 The Bird-of-Prey

The Bird-of-Prey is the ship most people in the Federation think of when they think of a Klingon warship. It is small, fast and well armed for its size, with a forward command section and two swept wings carrying disruptor cannon at their tips. The wings move: they are raised in flight and lowered for attack. A Bird-of-Prey can land on a planet and take off again. It carries a cloak.

The Bird-of-Prey was in Klingon service by the 2280s. A Bird-of-Prey captured in 2285 was flown by a Starfleet crew for some months afterwards, on a voyage that included a passage through time. In 2293 a single Bird-of-Prey was fitted with a prototype cloak that allowed it to fire while cloaked; it is described in section 5. More than a century later the type is still the most numerous Klingon warship, built in several sizes. Starfleet calls the smaller the B’rel class and the larger the K’Vort class, though both are simply Birds-of-Prey to most Klingons. Birds-of-Prey fought throughout the Dominion War, often as raiders and escorts. The Rotarran, the Hegh’ta and the Pagh, the last the ship of the 2365 officer exchange, are among those the Federation knows by name.

3.5 The D12 Bird-of-Prey

The D12 is an older Bird-of-Prey type, distinct from the common one, which the Defense Force retired from service because of faulty plasma coils. Retired ships of this kind did not all disappear. In 2371 the Duras sisters, Lursa and B’Etor, flew a D12 when they attacked the USS Enterprise-D at Veridian III, and were destroyed. The type matters to Starfleet now chiefly as a reminder that retired Klingon warships can find other owners.

3.6 The Vor’cha attack cruiser

The Vor’cha attack cruiser entered service around 2367 and was one of the Empire’s most capable ships of its time. It is large, heavily armed and fast, with a long forward command section and a powerful forward disruptor. In the civil war of 2367 to 2368 Gowron’s flagship, the Bortas, was a Vor’cha. The type fought throughout the Dominion War and remains a mainstay of the Defense Force in 2393, the ship most often at the centre of a Klingon squadron on a border command.

3.7 The Negh’Var warship

The Negh’Var is the largest Klingon warship the Federation knows well. It was in service by 2372, when Chancellor Gowron’s flagship, the Negh’Var itself, led the Klingon fleet that invaded Cardassian space. Negh’Var warships served as flagships and heavy combatants throughout the Dominion War. In 2393 the type serves as a flagship for fleets and the larger border commands. It is not common, and the arrival of one on a border is a statement in itself.

Exact sizes, crew numbers and armament for these types are not published by the Empire, and the figures in Starfleet’s own files vary with the refit. This article does not give them.

4. Newer Types: Starfleet Assessments

Starfleet’s picture of the Klingon fleet in the 2390s includes types the Empire has never described to the Federation. What follows is drawn from Starfleet reporting: sightings on shared borders, the accounts of exchange officers, and what Klingon officers have said, or let slip, in conversation. The names below are Starfleet reporting names, not Klingon ones. Neither type has been confirmed by the Empire, and the details given are assessments, not facts.

4.1 The Morqath type

The Morqath type is a heavy escort, first reported in the late 2380s and now seen in some numbers on the Empire’s borders. It is larger than a Bird-of-Prey and smaller than a Vor’cha, and it appears to have been designed to fill the space between them. It keeps the classic forward command section on a short neck. Starfleet assesses it as more heavily armed with torpedoes than a Bird-of-Prey of the same generation, and better shielded, at some cost in speed.

The type’s purpose is not certain. The most common Starfleet reading is that it was built for border commands, to hold a stretch of space against an enemy that might come in strength, rather than to raid. Morqath-type ships are usually seen in company with a Vor’cha, and seldom alone. Whether they carry a cloak is assumed but has not been confirmed by observation.

4.2 The Duqral type

The Duqral type is a fast patrol cruiser, first reported about 2390, of which only a few have been seen. It is long and narrow, with large engines for its size. Starfleet assesses it as faster than a Vor’cha and more lightly armed, with a forward disruptor and a small torpedo armament.

Reports suggest that its cloak is quicker to engage and disengage than those of older Klingon ships, giving it a shorter interval between decloaking and firing. If that is so, it narrows the window in which a target can react, but it does not change the basic rule: the Duqral type, like every other Klingon ship Starfleet knows of, is assessed to decloak before it fires. Starfleet’s working view is that it was built for long patrols on wide borders, where speed matters more than weight of fire. It has been reported on more than one border, and Starfleet does not know how many exist.

5. The Cloak

5.1 How the Empire came by it

How the Klingon Empire first came by the cloaking device is not certain. In 2268 the Romulans were flying ships of Klingon design, a sign of some exchange of technology between the two empires, and it is often supposed that cloaking technology passed the other way in the same exchange. Neither empire has ever confirmed it, and how long the exchange lasted and how it ended is not recorded. What is certain is that by the 2280s Klingon Birds-of-Prey were using cloaks as a matter of course, and that the cloak has been central to Klingon warfare ever since.

5.2 How Klingons use it

A Klingon warship uses its cloak to approach unseen and to choose the moment of attack. It closes on its target, decloaks, fires and, if the fight goes badly, may cloak again to withdraw. The cloak is a weapon of surprise, not of evasion; Klingon captains use it to get close, not to stay away. On a border in peace, Klingon ships also use their cloaks as Romulan ones do, to patrol and to watch without being seen.

5.3 The decloak-to-fire rule

The usual rule, for Klingon and Romulan cloaks alike, is that a ship must decloak to fire. A cloaked ship cannot use its weapons, and in the moment of decloaking its shields are not yet at full strength. This is the cloaked ship’s weakness, and the one every crew that faces it is trained to exploit. A Klingon captain who decloaks close to his target and fires at once makes that moment as short as he can, but he cannot make it vanish.

There has been one known exception. In 2293 a Klingon Bird-of-Prey commanded by General Chang was fitted with a prototype cloak that allowed it to fire while cloaked. It was used against the USS Enterprise and the USS Excelsior at Khitomer, in the plot to stop the peace conference, and was destroyed when the Federation ships tracked its exhaust and guided a torpedo to it. Starfleet knows of no Klingon ship in service since that can fire while cloaked, and its standing assumption is that the rule holds for every Klingon type, including those described in section 4.

5.4 The cloak and the Federation

Under the Treaty of Algeron of 2311 the Federation agreed with the Romulan Star Empire not to develop or use cloaking technology. The Klingon Empire is not bound by that treaty and keeps its cloaks. This means that on the Romulan border, the Klingons and the Romulans both have cloaked ships, and the Federation does not. See Romulans and the Federation.

6. Klingon Ships on the Romulan Border in 2393

On the stretch of the Romulan Neutral Zone held by the Narendra Command, Starfleet crews will most often meet Birds-of-Prey on patrol, alone or in pairs, and Vor’cha attack cruisers leading small squadrons, sometimes with Morqath-type escorts. A Negh’Var on this border is rare and usually means a general has come to see for himself. Duqral-type cruisers have been reported, but seldom.

Starfleet guidance for crews meeting Klingon ships on this border is simple. Assume a Klingon ship may be present even when none can be seen. Remember that a Klingon ship that decloaks near a Romulan vessel or post may be about to fire, and that a Klingon captain’s idea of a proportionate answer to a provocation may not be Starfleet’s. Hail, log, and report. The Klingons are allies, and their ships are some of the best the Federation has ever flown beside; they are also the ships most likely to start a fight on this border that neither the Federation nor the Empire wants. See The Klingon Defense Force, The Klingon Frontier in 2393 and The Romulan Side of the Zone.

7. See Also

The Klingon Empire · The Klingon Defense Force · The Alliance with the Federation · Klingons and Romulans · The Klingon Frontier in 2393 · Language, Names and Ranks · Romulans and the Federation · The Romulan Side of the Zone