The Klingon Fleet

To understand the Klingon Fleet, it is helpful to understand the Klingon mindset and code of honour. Avoiding combat is unthinkable to a Klingon commander and as such the Klingon fleet can be relied upon to always put in an appearance when there is a fight in the offing. Additionally, a Klingon General would only consider withdrawl as the last option in a stand up fight. To withdraw would be a great loss of face in anything but the most extenuating circumstances - needless to say, the Klingons are not known to surrender at all.

The Klingon fleet is traditionally well balanced, being made up of a wide variety of varigated warship, ranging from the infamous Birds of Prey in the scouting and harassment role, all the way up to the new Negh'Var class battleships, which appear to be optimised for assault on planetary fortifications. The bulk of the fleet is made up of well tried and tested vessels like the K'T'Inga and K'Vort.

The Klingons prefer to to make starships in long production runs, and therefore make sure they have the design absolutely right before commencing production, and then continue producing it in revised form for decades. It is no coincidence that the B'Rel, K'T'Inga, Vor'Cha and Negh'Var have all been considered the best warships of their type at the point at which they were developed. The disadvantage of this system compared to Starfleet's policy of producing a great many designs in small production runs is that the basic design may swiftly become obsolete, leaving the Klingons with a mojor building program of out of date vessels on their hands. Fortunately, the quality of the Klingon refit program has largely avoided this scenario occuring.

Klingon Fleet Doctrine:

Although Klingon warships do have the facilty to carry out scientific work in the same fashion as their Federation counterparts, it is very much a suplimentary function and nearly all Imperial Klingon Fleet ships are warships.

To this effect, Klingon ships take a fundamentally different approach to warship design compared with the Federation. Klingon warships are designed to be stable gun platforms, capable of absorbing enemy fire and dealing it back in spades. They usually have a good spread of firepower and thick high density armour on even the smallest of ships. Federation ships, by contrast, tend to have their firepower concentrated forwards and depend of agility to bring it to bear and avoid incoming fire.

Ships of the Klingon Empire:

B'Rel Class Warbird and sub-types
K'Vort Class Light Cruiser
K'T'Inga Class Cruiser
Vor'Cha Class Battlecruiser
Negh'Var Class Battleship