Saber Class - USS Apache, NCC-61491

The basic mission brief for what became the Saber Class was well documented. This class had to be small, under 200 meters in length, armaments were to be heavy, at minimum two aft and two forward torpedo tubes with multiple phaser banks. The Design had to be sleek and fast - at minimum a sustainable warp factor of 9.8. To top everything off its shield capacity had to be nearly double that of the Excelsior. The reaction from ASDB was a complete negative. The Vulcan Design agency stated 'to sustain such a high warp factor while keeping the shields running at such a high level of performance would be an illogical premise'. Even the famed San Francisco Fleet yard design team returned the project with the statement 'a ship with this brief would be theoretically impossible with current technologies'.

From that point began what has been called 'one of the weirdest projects in Starfleet's history'. ASDB's Design team relocated themselves to the old San Francisco construction facility and work began. A two hundred strong team of engineers were assigned to the project. After nearly 3 years the basic ship was finished. All components were laid in place. At this point ASDB had reprimanded the Design team fifteen times for breach of procedures and had even closed the project down for a month. The major problem was that most of the design work had to be done 'on the fly' without the correct developmental work or proper testing. With the ship in basic configuration and ready to test ASDB finally put their foot down after inspecting the completed work. It was the decision of the inspection team that the spaceframe was not space worthy.

On the following Sunday, the majority of the Engineering team was ordered to return to Utopia Planitia for reassignment. But Admiral Vol, Commander-in-Chief of Starfleet, vetoed this and ordered construction continued.

The Saber is as nearly perfect for its intended purpose. In scouting missions it has proven itself over and over again as an extremely fast and maneuverable ship with enough firepower to make a clean get away. The only major problems reported stem from the unique application of dual warp cores.

There have been several major complaints from engineers about the Saber's twin warp core configuration. The problem lies in balancing the two warp cores plasma flow so that they are able to run in tandem. ASDB claims to this day that the Dual warp core was the major reason why they did not want to approve the design of this class. From a chief engineers stand point you either love the design or you absolutely hate it.

The Saber Class of starship is a highly successful class which is easy to build thanks to its small size. With a projected turnover of three years it is one of the simplest designs in the fleet. Twenty vessels were originally ordered by Starfleet for the pathfinder project. This order was eventually increased to a total ship alotment of 214 Saber Class starships in active Federation Service. Current production number totals at this moment stand at 271 with a total of 57 ships decommissioned, lost, or destroyed.