Sunday, January 10, 2016

Akira Class

General Information
Accommodation: 500 crew (100 officers, 400 enlisted); 4,500 evacuation limit
Classification: Heavy Cruiser/Support Craft Carrier 
Production Start Date: 2373 (Uprated)
Production End Date: Still in Production
Expected Hull Life: 120 years

Dimensions
Length: 464.43 m
Width: 316.67 m
Height: 87.43 m
Decks: 19 (Primary Hull – 16, Torpedo Pod – 3)
Mass: 3,058,000 metric tons

Warp Speeds
Standard Cruise: Warp 7
Maximum Cruise: Warp 9
Maximum Rated: Warp 9.99 (for 36 hours) 

Armament
3 x Type-XII phaser arrays (1 dorsal, 2 ventral)
15 x Burst-fire torpedo tubes (5 pod-mounted forward-facing, 3 pod-mounted aft-facing, 3 forward-facing, 2 port-facing, 2 starboard-facing)

Defensive Systems
Auto-Modulated Shield System
Heavy Duranium/Tritanium Double Hull
10 cm Microfiber-reinforced Ablative Armor
High-Level Structural Integrity Field

Auxiliary Craft
1 x Arrow-class Runabout (Captain's Yacht)
20 x Orcus-class Starfighters
6 x Type-8 Shuttlecraft
6 x Type-9 Shuttlecraft
4 x Type-11 Shuttlecraft
2 x Danube-class Runabouts
6 x Sphinx Work Pods
4 x M1-A1 Work Bees

Transporter Systems
4 x 6-person General Use
4 x 22-person Emergency Use
4 x Cargo

Refit Cycle
Minor: 1 year
Standard: 1 year
Major: 20 years 

Notes
1.) Production start date is based on reasonable speculation as to when upgrades would become standard to the class.

2.) Expected hull life, phasers, warp speeds, defensive systems, and transporter systems upgrades based on initial series of Sovereign-class starships.

3.) The exact class of starfighters carried on each Akira varies, and is based on the purview of the ship’s commanding officer.

4.) The Arrow-class runabout is not standard to this class of starship. For ships without an integrated captain's yacht, the commanding officer may choose which class of shuttle they desire for the shuttle given to their personal use. Prior to 2378, the most commonly chosen are Type-11, Arrow, and Danube.

5.) The location of the torpedo tubes varies depending on source. An article on the Akira in Star Trek: The Magazine said all the tubes in the weapons pod (of which there were 7) faced forward, with three more forward-facing tubes located under the shuttle bay, two starboard-facing, two port-facing, and one more forward-facing tube apparently just below the deflector. The deck plans by Strategic Design had a total of 11 tubes in the weapons pod, five forward-facing and six aft-facing, with three more forward-facing tubes just under the shuttle bay (for a total of 14); they left the port- and starboard-facing tubes off the plans entirely. As the side-facing tubes are considered canon, I included them. However, it made absolutely no sense to me for there to be zero aft-facing torpedo launchers, so in order to remedy what I believed to be an oversight on the part of the ship's designers but also include the number of torpedo tubes given in the STM article and on DITL (15), I used the number of pod-mounted forward-facing tubes on the SD deck plans, reduced the plans' aft-facing tubes in the pod to three, and removed the tube below the deflector.

6.) The number of decks also varies depending on source. DITL gives 19 as the number (cited as coming from a backstage source), ACTD gives 18 as the number as does the deck plans by Strategic Design, but the MSD below shows a total of 20. I chose to go with 19 decks since backstage sources are for the most part considered canon by fans.

7.) After the Dominion War, Starfleet concluded that with the massive losses in the starfighter corps, having them on starships was essentially futile. They were too easy a target to pick off for the enemy in space battle, but were still considered exceptional additions to the defensive measures of planets in atmospheric combat, and even as temporary assistance to starbase defense until larger starships could arrive. Thus, a redesign of the Akira took place, with much of the forward and mid-ship hangar reconfigured into crew and guest quarters as well as additional scientific and technical facilities. Regular shuttle egress was left to the rear, where the hangar was enlarged to accommodate some of the loss of space.
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These specifications were taken from the deck plans by Strategic Design, the Daystrom Institute Technical Library (www.ditl.org), and A Call to Duty: ASDB (http://techspecs.acalltoduty.com/akira) and may not match other sources.