Norway Class

Norway
Affiliation	United Federation of Planets / Starfleet
Year Beginning Service	2330's
Design Specifications
Ship Type	Frigate
Length	365 meters
Beam	226 meters
Height	53 meters
Crew	400
Tactical Specifications
Armament	6 Type IX Collimated Phaser Array, 2 Photon Torpedo Launchers (Both Forward)
Defenses	Deflector Shields
Engineering Spefications
Top Speeds	Warp 7.0 (Standard Cruising), Warp 9.0 (Maximum Cruising), Warp 9.7 (Maximum Attainable)
Impulse Engines	Two Impulse Systems

History

The Norway class was approved for construction in 2344 and five keels were laid. They were commissioned starting in 2347. The Norway class, along with the larger Akira, was a mainstay during the Dominion War. Its speed and firepower made it an excellent match for the Galor class cruisers from the Cardassian Union. Oftentimes, the Norways would make a quick attack run by the Galor, allowing the Akiras to sneak in and deliver a crushing torpedo attack.

Design Specifications

Design

The Norway class has one of the thinnest profiles of any ship in the fleet, with a draft of less than 53 meters. The front of the ship is triangular in shape, with two slender booms that extend fo the back. The boom then fan out towards the bottom to provide the attachment point of the nacelles. The entire design maintains a highly efficient warp profile, allowing the ship to attain and maintain excellent speeds, though she is slightly slower than most of her peers. Frigates are not known for the luxury of their fittings, and that theme continues with the Norway. Though more comfortable than those on the Akira or Steamrunner, they will not be confused with the more spacious quarters of the Galaxy and Nebula classes. However, the Norway does carry a number of suites for use by diplomatic personnel, and has excellent conference facilities. The class is quite popular with her crews. As stated in the design objectives above, the Norway mounts an impressive scientific and survey suite for her size.

Engineering

The Norway class mounts the warp nacelle styles that were used by most starships that were under one million metric tons. The running of the plasma conduits from the warp core to the nacelles severely reduced the room available in the booms, but this was considered a worth trade-off to maximize space inside the primary hull. Performance is very good, with a top speed of Warp 9.7 and a maximum sustained cruising speed of Warp 9.0.

Tactical

As opposed to the torpedo-heavy load carried by the Akira, the Norway mounts only two torpedo launchers. It does, however, have a highly flexible phaser system composed of six separate Type X phaser strips placed across the topside of the hull. This layout was necessitated by the design of the hull. However, standard phaser emitters could not be fitted due to space considerations, so the emitters were laid end-toend instead of side-to-side. Though still capable of the full 5.1MW per emitter, firing-times are about two-thirds of that of a normal Type X emitter due to hear-dissipation issues. In general, it is expected that the ship will either use the weapons at full power for short duration, or run at lower power for longer duration. The ship carries standard deflector shielding and a TACAR fire-control suite, both mainstays of Starfleet.

Computer Systems

Original plans were to mount the M-12 Isolinear I computer, but instead the M-14 Isolinear II model was fitted, the extra power being deemed necessary for her exploration roles.