Bohr class starship
Designer: Robert C. Dunehew E-mail [email protected]

Bohr class

Inscription on Commissioning Plaque:
"They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea."

-- Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

Armaments: Two heavy laser cannon turrets, fwd,
plus one accelerator cannon fwd.

Type: Exploration Cruiser

Status: 12 produced. Production began in 2182 and ran for 24 years. Four were lost in exploration, three went missing in action, four were decommissioned and mothballed at the Jupiter boneyard in Sol system, one is awaiting restoration at the Zephram Cochrane Memorial Space Museum in orbit at Alpha Centauri III.

About Ship: The Bohr class was designed as a large, longer-ranged vessel to replace the Daedalus class as the main exploration vessel of the fleet. The Bohr was essentially an enlarged Daedalus and incorporated very little new technology other than an uprated warp drive and a new type of impulse engine. The Bohr class also carried four shuttles as opposed to the one shuttle carried by the Daedalus.

The larger dimensions of the Bohr class starships allowed the installation of more extensive science facilities. The main sensor/main deflector array was nearly as large in diameter as the main hull of the Daedalus class ships, and the amount of dedicated lab space was at least quadruple that of the older Daedalus class vessels. Four panels adjacent to the 3-deck bridge module housed extra sensors and the dome atop the bridge module was a secondary sensor array as well.

The Bohr class's clear advancement over the Daedalus lay in it's propulsion system. The small annular fusion drives were replaced by a larger fusion drive mounted just above the column that joined the engineering hull and primary hull. This drive produced far more power more efficiently than any older design, and used less fuel to do it, as well. The warp drives were likewise a more efficient design, allowing the Bohr class to not only travel twice as long as a Daedalus class ship before requiring replenishment, but to travel faster than any other ship being produced by Starfleet at that time.

Although the Romulan wars had ended only 20 years earlier, Starfleet concluded that with new diplomatic procedures in place, few of their ships would ever have to fire shots in anger. The Bohr's armaments were rather limited as a result. The forward lasers were quite a bit heavier than the ones installed in the Daedalus, but the combined firepower was only twice that of the older ship. This apparent lack of offensive capability was somewhat offset by the inclusion of the newly-developed accelerator cannon weapon. When the Federation encountered the Klingons, Starfleet decided that the Bohr class was, in fact, undergunned. An attempt to add additional armaments was only partially successful, replacing the sensor module aft of the bridge with a dual-emitter heavy laser array.

As newer, better-armed and more efficient vessels were in development or entering production, the Bohr class ships were gradually phased out of front-line service. The remaining ships were eventually mothballed. One continued in use as a classroom for Starfleet Academy. This vessel was retired after 75 years' continuous service and donated to the Zephram Cochrane Memorial Space Museum in orbit at Alpha Centauri III, where it currently awaits restoration.