Soyuz Class - Specs

Universe :	Prime Timeline
Affiliation :	Federation
Class Name :	Soyuz Class [1]
Type :	System Defence Craft
Unit Run :	USS Soyuz - Retired [1] NCC 1941 USS Bozeman [1] - Retired plus 130 others built in total. 8 have been lost in all. 124 have been retired from service.
Commissioned :	2270 - 2278, remained in service until 2288 [1]
Dimensions :	Length : 243 m [2] Beam : 150 m Height : 63 m Decks : 18
Mass :	310,000 metric tons
Crew :	130
Armament :	4 x Type VII phaser bank 18 x Type VI phaser bank, total output 22,500 TeraWatts
Defence Systems :	Standard shield system, total capacity 540,000 TeraJoules Standard Duranium Single hull. Standard level Structural Integrity Field
Warp Speeds (TNG scale) :	Normal Cruise : 5 Maximum Cruise : 6 Maximum Rated : 8 for 1 hours.
Strength Indices : (Galaxy class = 1,000)	Beam Firepower : 450 Torpedo Firepower : - Weapon Range and Accuracy : 65 Shield Strength : 200 Hull Armour : 10 Speed : 535 Combat Manoeuvrability : 6,640
Overall Strength Index :	226
Diplomatic Capability :	3
Expected Hull Life :	50
Refit Cycle :	Minor : 5 year Standard : 5 years Major : 30 years

Notes

In the late 2260's the Federations outermost colony worlds began to suffer significantly at the hands of raiding parties. Some of these were the usual mix of mercenaries and criminals, but at least some of the most serious attacks were strongly suspected to have been carried out by Klingon forces eager to test themselves against Federation targets.

In response, Starfleet deployed extra starship assets to the colony worlds, but this was never going to be a practical proposition; many of these worlds had populations in the thousands, and it was simply not worth keeping even one starship in a system to protect such a target. Starfleet wanted to produce a new class of ship for colony defence, but the resources to set up a new production line were simply not available. The Soyuz class was fielded as a compromise solution. By basing the ship on the already successful Miranda class Starfleet avoided much of the design and set-up costs, while a pool of personnel familiar with the design already existed.

The basic Miranda design was modified in order to make the Soyuz as easy to build as possible. The colony defence role called for the ship to be based in one system for long periods of time, rather than conducting extended patrols; any combat would likely be at impulse speed and would take place within a single system also. The typical raiding party would be equipped with relatively light weapons and defences, but the Soyuz would need to have a considerable reserve of offensive firepower to deal with Klingon opponents. Starfleet decided to delete the roll bar mounted photon torpedo pod from the design and replace it with a pair of turrets mounting twin heavy phasers; this would provide excellent firepower at close range while allowing the complex systems and personnel associated with long range torpedoes to be removed.

Other measures to reduce the cost of the Soyuz included reducing the overload capacity of the engines so that Warp 8 could only be held for one hour, rather than the twelve hours of the standard Miranda. The diplomatic facilities reduced from Grade 4 to Grade 3, and the scientific facilities were eliminated. On the other hand, at a late stage of the design it was decided to add several long range sensor pods to the ships hull. This was intended to give the Soyuz a good degree of early warning capability against incoming raiders, and to allow them to act as traffic control centres for the space around a colony.

The Soyuz class was rushed into service in the early 2270's, and was a considerable success. Within a year of the service debut of the first batch of ten, the number of raids on Federation colony worlds had fallen to less than one quarter its previous level and over a dozen raider ships had been captured or destroyed.

With the raider threat greatly reduced, Starfleet began to look for other uses for these ships. Some Soyuzs served as border patrol craft, servicing remote outposts and policing spaceways. The most notable action undertaken by any Soyuz class vessel came in 2278, when the USS Bozeman was able to prevent an attack on Starbase 12 by a Klingon battlecruiser; the Bozeman was believed destroyed during the action, [3] but in 2368 she emerged intact from a temporal anomaly - narrowly avoiding a collision with the USS Enterprise-D. [1] Captain Bateson, who had become a hero for his actions in saving Starbase 12, remained in Starfleet. He was assigned command of a second USS Bozeman, [3] which later participated in the action against the Borg invasion of 2373. [4]

By the late 2280's the Soyuz had become something of a victim of its own success. The raiders who had been attacking Federation colonies had been largely driven out of business, while Federation expansion meant that many more regular Starships were passign through the border areas. With its mission largely unnecessary, the last of the Soyuz class was retired in 2288. [1]

Colour key

References

#	Series	Season	Source	Comment
1	TNG	5	Cause and Effect
2			Speculative	The Soyuz model was a re-use of the standard Miranda model with a few add on pods, so should be classed as having the same length.
3			Ship of the Line
4			Star Trek : First Contact

Comments

The Bozeman remains our only sight of a Soyuz class ship. At first I took these to be a simple Miranda-variant, but the episode "Cause and Effect" and the Encyclopeida does give it a class designation, so I decided it was a separate design descended from the mirandas.

The Bozeman seemed to have a heavy phaser armament, something backup up by the DS9 Tech Manual which says that they had some Type X phasers. The system defence craft idea is designed to explain why you would want a ship with heavy phasers, no photon torpedoes, enhanced sensors and Miranda-level shields and other systems.

The story about Bateson saving Starbase 12 comes from Diane Carey's book "Ship of the Line" - one of the few times I have included an idea from one of the novels. One bit of controversy stirred up by First Contact is the identity of the Bozeman which fought against the Borg. When the E-E crew is listening to Starfleet chatter during the initial contact with the Borg we hear a message addressed to the Defiant and Bozeman. The voice which replies sounds a hell of a lot like Kelsey Grammer to some people, me included! It seems unlikely that Starfleet would find any use for the Bozeman, given that they have been long retired. "Ship of the Line" offers a solution by stating that this is a second USS Bozeman, and I have gone along with this.

The idea of the Type X phasers going into DS9 also comes from the DS9 TM. I find it very hard to believe that the Soyuz class was originally fitted with weapons this heavy - in fact, I find it hard to believe that the Type X even existed when the Soyuz class was built! I mentioned the idea of a refit to get around this problem.

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Last updated : 29 Mar 2014

Series :	TNG Season 5
Episode :	Cause and Effect

Source :	Speculative
Comment :	The Soyuz model was a re-use of the standard Miranda model with a few add on pods, so should be classed as having the same length.