Guide:Almeida
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| Almeida | |
|---|---|
| Class Overview | |
| Category | heavy (later multimission) cruiser (later transport) |
| Operational | 2168-2188 (2206 in the SMM) |
| Constructed | 12 |
| Dimensions | |
| Length | 153.3 m |
| Beam | 62.4 m |
| Height | 34.1 m |
| Mass |
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| Performance | |
| Cruise Speed | w 3 |
| Max Speed | w 5.9 |
| Endurance | 5 years (w/ combat module or survey module I) |
| Complement | |
| Officers | 18 |
| Enlisted |
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| Tactical Systems | |
| Beam Weapons |
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| Missile Weapons |
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| Shields |
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| Transporters |
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| Auxiliary Craft |
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| Historical | |
| Ships of Note |
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| Canonicity | |
| Design | HCFP, Michael Morrissette |
| Name | HCFP, Michael Morrissette |
| History | HCFP, Michael Morrissette
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In the aftermath of the Romulan confrontation, Starfleet had more scars than medals to show for its
years of service. The transport and scout fleets were decimated. The remaining force was biased
towards single-purpose offensive units of scant strategic value. The once considerable Vulcan and
Andorian strength was depleted, in practice leaving humans alone to hold the dented shield and
sword. And for all its glories, the war had resulted in precious little of the usual postbellum
commodities of added intelligence, gaining of resources or lessening of threat.
More damning than all this was the psychological impact. Earth and her allies had persevered, at a dreadful cost – but they had not triumphed. Two immaterial witnesses stood testimony to this: the presence of the despised Neutral Zone, and the absence of heavy cruisers in the UFP Starfleet. The surviving Terran Tritons and (non-Columbia sub-class) Enterprises were all decommissioned for extensive overhauls and refitting, while the fatigued Vulcan T'Khut fleet, for the past half a century more a political force than a true military one, had in further symbolism been ordered to distribute its armament and powerplants for use in fortifications at the Romulan border. The flag of the Federation was carried by the Helena class medium cruiser Parakeet, a travesty so embarrassing that nobody dared bring up the issue of renaming the vessel after something more dignified.
Similarly lacking in courage were the factions that wanted to see a strong Earth military take the helm of this limping and leaking Starfleet; advocating equipping for another war would have been political suicide. Instead, the Committee for Starfleet was bombarded by proposals for trailblazing ‘multi-use’ technologies, bold in scope but often falling short of strategic significance. Rising considerably above others was the Aurora Design Bureau entry for a combined combat, exploration and support vessel, a modest design that would utilize modularity for coping with its multiple missions. In it, the Committee saw a sufficiently balanced solution to quality and quantity problems, and in 2165 ordered twelve vessels to be built as the backbone type of the Federation Star Fleet’s first ship generation, with twelve more as an option. Development of warp 7 superships was put on the back burner for the time being.
Reasons of prestige more than performance or dimensions dictated an initial heavy cruiser designation for USS Almeida (NCC-xxx), completed in slightly less than three years. At 230,000 tons of total mass, the 150 m vessel was something of a lightweight, especially in relation to her internal volume. Built along Merchant lines, even if to a more modest scale, she featured a simple load-bearing box hull with eight lightly braced decks, plus another two on a command superstructure atop. Also much like her mercantile counterpart, the Almeida mounted her two warp engines high, had a combined engineering center abaft for impulse and warp power generation, and featured a ventral stern cut in which cargo modules could be accommodated. Military missions were realized by tinkering with the relationships between the various components. The PB-10 engines were 80-kiloton monsters capable of warp 5.9, and the LG-A powerplant featured dilithium foci. The add-on modules formed but a fifth of total volume at best, while the spacious bow sections could accommodate significant internal cargo and some supercargo in addition to the 93 crew.
There was no hull armor on the vessel, her passive protection now resting solely on forcefield generators. Basic armament consisted of two twin banks of late war standard Lockheed 150/1.2 lasers, slaved to a relatively austere sensor and computer system. Somewhat heavy and cumbersome for the self-defense of a transport, they would come on their own when accompanied by a dedicated combat module instead of a generic cargo compartment. Such a module would add tactical sensors and computers, feature two more banks of heavy lasers, and incorporate lateral launchers for torpedoes, without creating major mass penalties. Alternately, a survey pod could be carried, either in the form of a cargo container refitted with sensors, labs and survey gear stowage, or as an independently operable, separable vehicle that would perform planetfall at the target world.
Swiftly mass-produced and delivered in its entirety by 2172, the class performed up to specifications in every technological respect. Starfleet soon found out the hard way that this was far from sufficient, though. As conflicts around the young UFP dwindled down, the hybrid cruisers were largely liberated of their defensive obligations and set free of their assigned patrol areas. But therein lay major logistics problems: hyper-complex itineraries were needed to provide an Almeida with the right mission pod at the right time and place for survey or supply operations, and these were always thrown into chaos when an unexpected evacuation sortie or priority shipment displaced an Almeida mission in space or time. By 2178, six of Star Fleet’s ten combat pods were stranded at faraway starbases, four of the original six survey landers stuck at starports near the core worlds, and there was a constant shortage of cargo containers at the frontier. No other ship type was fully compatible with the modules, even though assorted transports could haul them as inert cargo to desired locations, at the expense of more useful loads.
The paradoxical inflexibility of the hybrid configuration seemed like a damning fault at first. Yet improved planning was about to solve the problem at least partially when the truly critical shortcoming was exposed. The dilithium foci of the Almeida powerplants were declared unsafe in the aftermath of Enterprise accidents, and a deadline of 2188 was set for their retirement. Starfleet dutifully scaled down Almeida operations, and by the dictated date was ready to sell the final hybrids to commercial operators. Instead, it was decided they would be refitted with peristaltic feeds and downrated to warp 4.0; the erstwhile cruisers became full-time transports, serving Federation interests in the SMM until 2206.
Gallery
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Bow -
Dorsal -
Stern -
Ventral
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Notes
- The NCC registries applied to this class have been deleted, as their range in the 100s was too low for ships that had not operated prior to the founding of the UFP.