I never thought anything in particular about this little cared-about ship, but lately, it grew on me for some reason. After looking at it more closely, I think I really like this design. Small, compact, it looks like a bigger version of Defiant. The only problem is the scaling issue. Some list it at 300 some meters, which seems too big, others at around 170 which seems a little too small. Did anyone ever scale the Galaxy class escape pods to figure out the real size of her? If it's 170, what is the point of this ship? Is the Defiant replacement for it, or is she a cheap frigate easily replaced? What seems to be the fans opinion on these ships?
The 364 m for the Sabre is from the DS9TM, which seems to have copied the dimensions from the Norway class in that book, though they gave it around half the mass. The VFX supervisor on DS9 scaled it to 190m I think. Generally in games that it has appeared in it has appeared as a small ship roughly the size of the Defiant, which suggests that the TM dimensions are wrong or at least just widely ignored in non-canon.
It's quite possible the ship's size is along the lines of the Defiant if not a bit larger. As for it's purpose ... Well, I'd say it's possible it was meant to be a part of that 'new battlefleet' that Sisko mentioned at one point in DS9. It's not surprising SF would focus more in making smaller ships much more powerful because they take less time to construct in comparison to larger ships. The Sabre would likely retain some aspects of luxuries most likely or at the very least creature comforts for the crew ... but it would be barely a step up compared to the Defiant's interior most likely.
I saw that cutaway, how did you arrive at some of that stuff. Was there a thread discussion about it and the size? Also, the ship is slightly wider than it's longer, you have the width stated at 147, it should be slightly more than 172. Yeah, I just saw that on ditl. It seems a decent side. Yeah, I figured it's not 364, but it does beg a question why produce a ship the size of defiant and for the same purpose? Unless Saber is a long term mission version of Defiant. They might have crew comforts and even a holodeck, so that she can be sent out to patrol for months at a time. I don't think Defiants would do that. In turn she might not be as heavily armed. No quantums, abletiver armor or pulse phasers There is something about it. I used to think it was ugly, but now, it looks very logical, comfy.
I was first introduced to the sabre class and the steamrunner class in the computer game "Dominion wars". According to the game, it is lighter weight and has less armament and defensive capabilities than the Defiant, and I'm sure by it's use in the game that it actually predates the DS9 era, tho it is still in use around then.
Certainly the known Sabers seem to have lower registries than the known Defiants. And perhaps they are somewhat cheaper and faster to design and build since they look more conventional, with outrigged nacelles and the like. We don't know what sort of missions Starfleet assigns to its various ship classes; we only know the hero ships tend to do everything and then some. Possibly there's a very good niche for tiny and cheap and supposedly numerous ships like Saber, though... Oh, and count me in for the appreciation camp. It's nice to see some "workhorse" vessels that make do with less, while perhaps doing more. Timo Saloniemi
You're right. That's a typo in my LCARS script file. Thanks for catching it. It was probably supposed to be 174.9. But I just measured the schematic from Star Trek the Magazine, and that comes out to 173.6 for length of 172. I'll correct my figure. David Stipes, DS9 Visual Effects Supervisor, put overall length at 190 meters for this class.
I thought of the Saber class as a small combat/patrol ship predating the Defiant class. Basically a small frigate conducting those "coast guard" type missions along Federation borders such as intercepting contraband, search and rescue, and watching over borders. During wartime they would perform the roles of convoy escort and commerce raiding. They would have a few more creature comforts than the Defiant, but would still be small enough to be cheap to build. They would also be primarily based out of starbases rather than on "5 year missions". As an aside I do wish they had called them the Sabre class, I always preferred that spelling
A couple of threads ago, we mused over the New Orleans class frigates and decided that they could indeed be as small as 350 meters long or slightly smaller. If the Saber is less than 200 meters long, I'd like to call her a corvette, or perhaps an escort. Admittedly, the latter was a "cover identity" for the Borg-killing Defiant, but this doesn't mean that Starfleet wouldn't have had other escorts in its arsenal, perhaps ones truly dedicated to the escort mission. If so, it would make sense that those escorts would have resembled the Defiant at least roughly in terms of size and appearance... Timo Saloniemi
Here's a random fact: I counted the escape pods on the images of the model and if they are accurate there are 34 on the ventral side and 74 on the dorsal side. All located around the forward "saucer" of the vessel.
Perhaps "escort" is an actual starship type in the Trek Universe, much like Frigates, Destroyers or Cruisers are types in our modern navies. If so the "escort" type may be classed by size and general mission parameters which would make the Saber and Defiant both escorts. They seem generally similar in size and both are more combat oriented. Though I really see the Defiants as more like pocket battleships than anything else.
If we accept the less-than-200-m scaling, then those are probably one-person pods. Makes sense that there'd be a hundred of them, then... Indeed, "escort" is a valid type of vessel in 20th century naval parlance, too. And in the WWII context it does refer to vessels that are even smaller than destroyers (the term "frigate" was something of a British idiosyncracy at the time, other navies spoke of small destroyers or destroyer escorts, and then of even smaller escorts). One wonders if Starfleet uses the designation out of historical habit, or because its escorts are indeed ships meant for escort missions. I'm not convinced that Starfleet's destroyers have been designed to destroy... The Saber would be a nice counterpart to the small Klingon BoP, though, and we've seen the Klingons use BoPs as convoy outriders with good success. Timo Saloniemi
I also thought of something else. If she's a ship for border patrols and escort duties, etc, the way she operates must be a lot different from what we've seen. Being assigned to a remote sector and patrolling the border or escorting slow freighters can't be very exciting, especially in a small ship. I'd imagine the crews are assigned on a short term basis, say 6 months, then a long shore leave afterward and a minor refit of the ship. May be they would go on another one or two 6 month missions, and then, majority of the crew would be reassigned to another ship. May be even the officers who would get promoted, and once in a while the captain would get a command of a better vessel. The new crew would be green; raw cadets from the academy and freshly enlisted crewman. This is where they would gain some experience before moving on. I can see only the best from the academy getting assignments like the Enterprise.
In WWII, reservists and merchant sailors were employed a lot in the escort missions, manning the smallest and least seaworthy (but also the most affordable) types. We might postulate that the Saber is a reservist type for Starfleet, too, quickly produced to "civilian" standards (hence the atypical angular shapes) and quickly crewed out of reserves. OTOH, those compact vessels might have some sort of an important peacetime role to play, too. Perhaps they serve as traffic control and law enforcement ships most of the time, and go to war with crews consisting of police officers? After all, all police work in the UFP seems to be conducted by Starfleet... Timo Saloniemi
Well I also prefare the Saber class. I just think she looka a lot nicer . As for the term Destroyer for a type of ship the term is an abbreviation of Torpeado Boat Destroyer.
Well, I always thought that the Sovereign, Akira, Norway, Steamrunner and Saber class ships were all supposed to be Post-Wolf 359 vessels designed for the more battle-oriented Starfleet that we ultimately saw in DS9 and FC. The Sovereign being a Battleship, the Akira a Heavy Cruiser, the Norway a Cruiser/Destroyer, the Steamrunner a Frigate and the Saber a light Cruiser.
I've always considered the Akira to be an older generation than the rest of the FC group, made pre-Wolf 359 because it shares more design elements and aesthetics with the Galaxy and Nebula than the others (not to mention the registry numbers). Then again, my only explanation for seeing it in 1996 rather than earlier is because Starfleet always seems to have a ton of off-screen classes But that's just me. I would hazard a guess and say that elements of the Norway, Saber, Steamrunner, and Nova classes were brought together to create the Sovereign. As for the Saber, I've always equated it to, say, a Nissan Sentra or Honda Civic: cheap, sleek, swift, quick, dependable, and very-very lightly armored.