Klingon Bird-of-Prey schematic

[Bill Morris]

I'm not sure what goes where, and the only schematics I could find were Gilso's old redo of the Jackill cutaway and an even less helpful one from Star Trek Unnamed, which assumes a much smaller ship. So what's in that room above the bridge, and what about warp coils, etc., etc. Any ideas?

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

Stick the warp coils in the radiator baffles?

 

[Cary L. Brown]

The BOP is a pretty cool-looking ship, but not necessarily a good "practical" design.

Most people don't see just how bad it is at first. You need to really pay attention to how the "meshing fins" have to mesh together. Not only do you not have the ability to use the are "outside the hull" in the fins, but realize that the fins penetrate fairly deeply INTO the hull as well.

It's actually damned difficult to find space inside that ship's hull for the "George and Gracie" tanks.

That said... the head clearly contains the bridge, the torpedo launcher and an ammunition "carousel," and (unofficially) the main element of the cloaking device. Additionally, I would assume that any remaining volumes in the head would consist of sensors and so forth.

The "wings" are pretty wasteful, though definitely "cool" features. There doesn't seem to be any REAL purpose for those wings. Its not like you need them for atmospheric flight (see: shuttlecraft), and in space combat distances, the addition spacing between the cannon is inconsequential. So... what purpose do they serve?

It's pretty clear that the aft end of the main hull has two different "glowy" bits. I assume that the yellow-orange row is the impulse engine, and that the red "curve" above that is the heat rejection system for the m/am reactor. This leaves a question about what the two "prongs" to either side of the m/am reactor and impulse engine are. THOSE, I suspect, are where the warp-drive elements are.

There are two "gizmos" attacked to the wings. I tend to think that those are probably the fusion reactors. However, they could be the "warp field generators" instead.

Ultimately, the BOP is a pretty bad design from an engineering standpoint. But it sure does look good on-screen.

 

[Bill Morris]

Okay, I've nailed down the location of the warp coils and impulse drive. This llink has thumbnails linking to large meshes. The one from aft-dorsal shows three trucated pyramids above the rear of the impulse array. The warp coils are in three rows in front of those instead of in exterior nacelles. They were labeled as such in Star Trek: The Magazine but only in a dorsal view. This mesh clarifies where they go in the MSD figure.


http://www.meshweaver.com/frames/Portfolio/htms/bop.htm

Then, the photos below show the landing struts and gangway.

 

[Bill Morris]

Stick the warp coils in the radiator baffles?

Actually, that may not be a bad idea. The figure below is from the same source as the side view I followed to make the outline above. Although it's slightly inconsistant, it does serve to show, as Cary L. Brown pointed out, that there's a lot of volume to those radiator baffles. If they act as warp field coils, then that solves the question of radiation hazard, with living quarters (on the battle rather than cargo version) of the BOP, and that of interior space, as well. Between the sets of baffles is a bubble of major space within the vessel, and the baffles could be attached to hull plating shielded with a layer of osmium alloy or something to make that area safely habitable.

Or those two large humps are the equivalent of warp nacelles but with cooling baffles on the outside and three plasma exhaust valves in the center just above the impulse exhaust. And the articulation fulcrum of the wings would be at or near that rectangle shown to the right of the label "WING" in the figure below.

 

[Timo]

...So, which part of the ship did Kirk blow open so that the whales could swim out?

It makes sense for the ship to have a sizeable cargo area with a prominent "assault ramp" if she's already known to be military and landing-capable. Indeed, the very mission of the ship could be to deploy a maximum amount of ground combat gear and personnel, with the weaponry at the forward pod (and indeed said pod) added as an afterthought. But it doesn't seem as if Kirk opened the same aft ramp he used for exiting and entering the ship himself - that would have been a bit too small for the whales, and didn't seem to benefit from an explosive-bolt split of the sort we saw in the movie. Yet it does seem the opening was on the underside of the ship.

Or was it? The stern was underwater, so the whales could well have swum out from a dorsal opening, too. And the orientation of the camera (and of Kirk) in the murky water could have been confusing and misleading, and turbulence could even have caused air bubbles to go the wrong way...

But if we assume Kirk blew open a roof hatch (the same that allowed in the plexiglass sheets?), we have precious little room for one on the model. Less than the width of the aft ramp, in fact. So perhaps we should assume that the whole belly could be opened for offloading ground combat vehicles and the like.

There's an obtrusive central bulge there, though, one that is often seen emitting a tractor beam in the later shows. But here, as with the Defiant, we might argue that it's in fact practical and customary to have a tractor beam turret mounted so that it peeks through the seam of ventral cargo hatches. That way, it can tractor in all sorts of cargo even with the hatches closed - and can retreat higher up when the hatches are opened, to pull the cargo the final few meters.

Should the whale tanks be at the very bottom deck? Or should we assume that there is a high, multi-deck bay there for military cargo such as large assault vehicles, and that the floors and catwalks within would fall away and allow the cargo out (even from two or three decks up) when Kirk emergency-blows the hatches?

One final consideration: is there really a top hatch, too? Or did Sulu just lower the sheets to the grass next to the ship (but still within the cloaking field, which Scotty had configured as a protective bubble rather than a skintight camo suit for the occasion), after which the internal cranes of the ship (the already described tractor beam turret) lifted the load to the cargo area through belly doors, and finally gently lowered them to the prepared slots on the whale tanks? We don't need to believe that the scene of Sulu's chopper lowering the sheets was simultaneous with the scene of Kirk and McCoy observing the sheets sliding to their slots - there could have been several minutes between those scenes.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Timo]

A separate post for assorted other ideas, so that the above one doesn't get an ugly "edited" tag and make people think I can't get my thoughts together on one typing session...

Kruge's bridge in ST3 was vastly different from the bridge in ST4, yet there's no indication (other than what we see) of a major modification being performed between the movies. It might be assumed, then, that Kruge commanded from some sort of a "battle bridge" within the aft hull, perhaps a command center usually dedicated to controlling the ground combat operations the ship would have been specializing in. I vaguely remember the old SciPubTech poster indeed showing a separate bridge like this within the forward half-dome of the aft hull. Perhaps it would be a good idea to do the same here, too?

In "A Matter of Honor", the means of transfer between decks wasn't 45-degree ship's ladders, but vertical ordinary ladders. Unless the liaison officer was deliberately giving Riker the difficult route, I think we might just as well believe in vertical ladders. And disbelieve in turbolifts, which make little sense in such a small vessel, and have never been shown to be a feature of any BoP in TNG or DS9, IIRC.

The choice of 110 meters for the ship's length can be made to fit most BoPs seen, although the one from ST3/4 may be smaller still; the ones in "Way of the Warrior" fleet action were really tiny, perhaps 50 m; and 200 m might be better for the Rotarran and her ilk. In any case, I guess the varying crew sizes can easily be explained by varying missions, and the aft hull can be expected to be highly reconfigurable. Perhaps the oft-seen mess halls are permanent fixtures on the upper part of the secondary hull - or perhaps they are temporary, set up in the cargo areas as needed?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Bill Morris]

I guess it would be a crime not to show the whales. I'll change that to B'rel class and make it the "HMS Bounty," as the Crew of the 1701-A called it. The orginal Klingon name is apparently unknown. Overall length is 109 meters.
So then, where do the whales go? I'm reducing the deck heights slightly to fit better with the structure of the ship, which will make the average length of an adult humpback just over three deck heights, and in my second post above there's a link to a bunch of large CGI images from various angles. And it turns out that there is a hatch large enough for the whale tank and space within the ship for it, and the tank can be lowered right into it with a chopper. It's that big hump at the rear of the neck. As you can see in the CGI images, it's also very wide and could accommodate a tank 24 feet tall. I don't know the size of the tank in the movie. Anyway, George and Gracie would have to swim out from one of the three giant hatches shown on that hump.

 

[Anticitizen]

As for the wings... I say they're just purely decorative. What, Klingon starship designers aren't allowed to make things look cool?

 

[Timo]

I'll change that to B'rel class and make it the "HMS Bounty," as the Crew of the 1701-A called it. The orginal Klingon name is apparently unknown. Overall length is 109 meters.

Old nitpick: B'Rel is what Worf called those huge things that bested the E-D in "Rascals". They were the same huge things that had bested the alternate universe E-D in "Yesterday's Universe", as they used the same stock footage with the same spatial relationships vs. the E-D of known size.

So perhaps B'Rel is the putative bigger BoP, and K'Vort is the small/medium ship most often seen? I mean, K'Vort was the altenate universe name for the biggies, but it is also the name that has appeared in conjuction with the Rotarran in some DS9 graphics. So apparently the alternate universe does some things in an alternate manner...

I like the planned placement of the cargo/whaletank area. Plus sides: it fits. Minus sides: it's not on the ventral side so Kirk's dive and the escape of the whales looks funny; and it displaces Kruge's bridge from its best possible location...

Wings are good for a ship intended to make a landing in combat. The usual forcefield magic that turns bricks such as Starfleet shuttles into aerodynamic craft may be too unreliable or unstealthy for the Klingon mentality.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Bill Morris]

A little more goofing around. Okay, still K'Vort classs, then. Don't these things have any turbolifts or freight elevators?

 

[Timo]

I'd argue not, as Klingons are known to prefer hardships (even imposing artificial ones on themselves). Internal personnel lifts would be about as common as mattresses on those ships; cargo needs might better be served by badass cranes/tractor turrets that can handle outsize items.

The landing leg arrangement remains elusive, as the matte painting from ST3 seems to feature a setup somewhat different from the model or the ST4 partial sets...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Cary L. Brown]

I'd argue not, as Klingons are known to prefer hardships (even imposing artificial ones on themselves). Internal personnel lifts would be about as common as mattresses on those ships; cargo needs might better be served by badass cranes/tractor turrets that can handle outsize items.

The landing leg arrangement remains elusive, as the matte painting from ST3 seems to feature a setup somewhat different from the model or the ST4 partial sets...

Timo Saloniemi

So, are we coming to a consensus that the BOP must have been constructed on Gallifrey?

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

So, what would be a logical location for the time rotor, then?

 

[Bill Morris]

Heres an update. Do have have the bridge in the wrong place?

 

[Bernard Guignard]

Heres an update. Do have have the bridge in the wrong place?

I think that you've got something here keep up the great work

 

[Bill Morris]

Thanks. Here it is, done and labeled:

http://lcars24.com/schem36.html

 

[Praetor]

I like the outcome.

 

[Bill Morris]

Thanks. I had forgotten to include a targ.

 

[Unicron]

I guess it would be a crime not to show the whales. I'll change that to B'rel class and make it the "HMS Bounty," as the Crew of the 1701-A called it. The orginal Klingon name is apparently unknown. Overall length is 109 meters.

The FASA RPG, debuting before TNG and the eventual canon names, suggests D'Gavama, which literally translates as "bird of prey." The design was originally built by the Romulans, who gave some hulls to the Klingons as part of their alliance, and the name is a carryover from the Romulan version which was named for the V-8 cruiser seen in TOS. When the Klingons decided to scale the design up (which they weren't supposed to do under the alliance), they built a cruiser version (Z'Gavva or "stronger bird") and a frigate version (Z'Gavasta or "great bird").