Federation attack fighter The Federation attack fighter was a type of small starship employed by Starfleet as an attack fighter during the Dominion War . ( ) History . Originally a light courier , these ships were first used in combat by the Maquis as attack fighters during their insurrection against the Cardassian Union . In 2370 a pair of such ships were upgraded , armed , and used by former Starfleet officer , Lieutenant Commander Calvin Hudson , in an attempted attack on a Cardassian weapons depot on Bryma , beginning the Maquis uprising . They were engaged by Benjamin Sisko on the forcing them into a strategic retreat . ( ; ) Large numbers of fighters were used by Starfleet in the Dominion War . During Operation Return , eight successive waves of fighters were sent to attack the Cardassian ships of a Dominion fleet , hoping to provoke them into breaking formation and creating an opening for the Federation fleet . ( ) This ship type was also used as an Academy flight trainer by Starfleet Academy . ( ) Tactical systems . Although not originally designed for combat , the ship that became known as the attack fighter was capable of being modified to carry an impressive arsenal . Designed for a civilian role , and sized similarly to the starfleet Runabout , the original design was only lightly armed , primarily intended for personal and cargo transport . When used by the Maquis , the fighters were armed with whatever weapons were available ; there was no standard design , and various ships were modified in different ways according to the skill of the available engineers and the materials at hand . On most upgraded models , the improved weapons , engines , and shields took up most of the room on the ship , reducing the habitable space to just the cockpit . The first examples of the ships used by the Maquis were armed with Pygorian weapons , including photon torpedo es , pulse cannon s , ship - mounted high - energy disruptor s and particle accelerator s ; these were used when an attack was planned at a weapons depot on the Bryma colony . ( ) Later in 2370 , another set of ships were , according to Gul Evek , armed with photon torpedoes and type 8 phaser s acquired from an unknown source . ( ) When used by Starfleet from 2374 onward , the ship was equipped with several forward torpedo launchers and at least one phaser bank with two forward emitters . Captain Keogh referred to these vessels as " lightly armed shuttlecraft s , " compared to the Dominion ships he expected to face . ( ) In keeping with it ' s heritage , the ship was also used as a testbed and as a way to utilize foreign and salvaged equipment , and various runs of the ship were produced with experimental , improvised , and / or nonstandard weaponry . Appendices . Background information . The fighter cockpit interior , seen in " The Maquis , Part II " , was a modification of the Type 15 shuttlepod set . It was reused later from onwards to represent the Type 18 shuttlepod cockpit . In the script of " The Maquis , Part II " , the phasers used by the Maquis attack fighter are identified as the pulse cannons mentioned earlier in dialogue . The initial phaser blasts in the episode however seems like regular phaser fire from the extended bank under the nose of the ship . Photon torpedoes are seen being fired from the tube at the nose of the ship . When the torpedo tubes are damaged , the fighter opens fire with pulse cannon phasers from two wing mounted banks that are not visible on the model . Visual effects in " Preemptive Strike " show phaser fire pulses coming from the wings , where there are on each wing . Phaser fire is also seen coming from the front ends of the embedded warp nacelles . These banks seem to be targetable , instead of firing straight ahead like the Pygorian pulse cannons in " The Maquis , Part II . " The script of " Sacrifice of Angels " states that the attack fighters were firing a barrage of quantum torpedo es when attacking the Dominion lines . The effects used for the phasers and quantum torpedoes of the fighters in this episode were not what is normally associated with these Starfleet weapons . The torpedo launcher s were mounted on the wings and on the nose of the ship . In some shots , the wing torpedoes seem to be launched from the same spot where the pulse cannons were located in " The Maquis , Part II . " In others , they seem to be coming from the three small visible tubes on each of the wings . These tubes would seem to be much too small to launch full - sized torpedoes . In one shot of " Sacrifice of Angels , " one of the fighters is seen firing a bluish - white beam from the one of the two forward phaser emitters , on the extended phaser bank , under the nose of the ship . When a fighter fired the phaser from the same location in " What You Leave Behind , " the regular Starfleet phaser effect was used . For information on the studio model , see here . Apocrypha . According to " Star Trek Online " , the mentioned , but not seen , in was the class name for this ship type . According to Original Starship Collection , the fighter is 25 meters long , and has 2 pilots . It is capable of warp 9 .