7.6 Normandy Class Starfighter
The Normandy class starfighter was a refined, field-reconfigurable version of the Gallant class that came too late for the Romulan War, and the page also covers the post-war Powers class scout, one of the first designs to replace particle beam weaponry with fusion torpedoes after the war proved the ineffectiveness of particle beams against force-field screens.
Normandy Class Starfighter
Service Entry Date (Old Calendar): 2163These were little more than a refined version of the Gallant class taking into account lessons learned during the Romulan War. It still used the same GSC-890 jump drive engine; however, the rest of the craft was completely redesigned. The crew ejection module now included a more powerful homing beacon and built-in maneuvering thrusters with a limited fuel supply. The quad lasers were brought as close to the main hull as safety permitted. Finally, instead of the separated fighter/attack models, refined subsystems and a redesigned, elongated nose allowed for options packages to be fitted in the field for various mission configurations. The standard fighter version carried extra energy stores for the on-board lasers plus short-range ship-to-ship drones, ELINT versions carried a sensor and jamming pallet, and attack versions carried a full rack of fusion torpedoes. These three were the most common, although several others were also available.
Whether or not the Normandy class starfighter would have succeeded where the earlier Gallant and Arrow classes failed is a moot point. It came too late for the Romulan War and retired too early for subsequent action with the Klingons. All were removed from Star Fleet service and sold off for use in local system defense fleets by 2190. About 100 or so still exist today, either still in local fleet service or under private ownership by "classic starship" collectors.
Specifications
Length: 40 m. Beam: 12 m. Draft: 12 m. Mass: 95 DWT. Crew: 3. Range: N/A. Cruising speed: Warp 2.8. Maximum safe speed: Warp 3.3. Armament: 4 forward lasers (quad-mount), 12 ship-to-ship drones (fighter option only), 6 fusion torpedoes (attack option only).Powers Class Scout
Service Entry Date (Old Calendar): 2165One of the things that the Romulan War proved was the ineffectiveness of particle beam weaponry against starships with force field energy screens. Star Fleet's next class of scout ships, the Powers class, was one of the first post-war designs to take this lesson into account. It carried fusion torpedoes instead of a particle beam cannon as its heavy armament; hence its rather odd-looking configuration as opposed to following in the Mercury/Doppler design lineage. Also, as another design experiment, its sensor suite was mounted in three external pods that could be switched out at its home base or jettisoned in the field in an emergency.
The rather unremarkable service record of the Powers class was due more to the peacetime conditions in which it found itself than anything else. This might help explain why the Powers class was so quickly decommissioned in 2182, just one year after the older but longer-serving Mercury class scout. Most were quickly resold and reconfigured as interstellar police craft, in which role they served for another two decades. Only a dozen or so managed to escape the scrapper's torch at the end. All of these are either in the hands of private "classic starship" collectors or in use by independent merchants.