Gladius Class

Designed to support the War Bird Class Destroyer and other larger Romulan vessels, the Gladius was also intended to replace the interim KR Series Finch Class Frigate. Fitted with both the old Cohesive Fused Deuterium Irradiation Cannon and the new Type L Plasma Torpedo, the Gladius punches well above her weight, although she is not designed for direct combat.

## Development

In 2266, after the Neutral Zone Incident, the Romulan Star Navy began to come to the same conclusions as the Klingon Defence Force had some 20 years earlier. They needed a lighter ship to service as the eyes and ears of the fleet, and to screen heavier vessels as they recharged their Plasma Torpedos. Romulan Technology of the time was firmly Fusion based, having rejected M/AM Power after a series of disasters in the 2170s. It was rapidly becoming apparent however that M/AM power was the future, and that fusion based ships simply couldn't compete, especially with the rate of technological development being seen in the Federation at that time.

Fortunately, the Klingon Empire had also realised that the Federation was now their prime adversary, and the two powers had entered into a political and technological alliance in 2249. The technological exchange portion of the new Klingo-Romulan Alliance lasted until 2278, during which time, the Klingon Empire gave several classes of ship to the Romulan Star Empire in return for the secrets of Cloaking Technology. Although neither side was entirely honest, trading second-rate examples of M/AM power and Cloaking Devices respectively, the benefit to both powers was immediately clear. Klingon warships were rapidly refit with Cloaking Devices, and the Romulans now had reliable, albeit foreign, M/AM power.

Although the first Klingon warships traded to the Romulans in 2250 were of the old D6A Kl'ar (Leader) Class, a type of older Heavy Cruiser, the Star Empire requested smaller, faster vessels for use with the RSN until new Romulan designs could fill the requirement. This led to the transfer of several flotillas of F5 pIH (Suspicious) Class. Initially these ships were operated "as-is", with Klingon weaponry and systems, albeit fitted with a Romulan-Type Cloaking Device. After the planned invasion of the Federation was cancelled in 2267, and in light of the Federation capture of an operational Cloaking Device in the Enterprise Incident of the same year, the RSN began to upgrade all their KR Series warships to use Romulan standard technology, including weapons systems. The pIHs in RSN service were upgraded to carry a Cohesive Fused Deuterium Irradiation Cannon in a weapons rollbar almost identical to the type fitted to the F5B pIH (Suspicious) Class of the same period. (It seems likely that although the Klingons provided older, F5 pIH (Suspicious) Class warships, they did provide the plans for the newer F5B variant). After having most of her systems replaced with their Romulan counterparts, the Romulan pIH was rechristened the Finch Class. Romulan Sensor systems were considerably more powerful than Klingon ones, and required greater power to operate. This led to a compromise where overall shield strength was lowered in order to provide power to sensors. It was hoped that with a powerful Romulan-Type Cloaking Device and the new more powerful sensors allowing the Finch to dictate where and when combat occurred, the reduction in shield strength would not be a critical weakness.

In addition, several were converted to carry extremely powerful sensor arrays in lieu of the CFDIC. These became known as the Finch-S Class Scout Frigate.

Whilst the Finch was a useful addition to the Romulan Star Navy, there was concern in the Senate that the Star Empire was becoming dependent on Klingon military materiel and neglecting the development of native technology as a result. A new technological programme was launched to provide new, entirely Romulan warships for the RSN. This design programme became known as the Ornith Series, and one of the first designs to be approved was that of a Frigate. This late 2260s design had a number of flaws however, namely that she still relied on fusion power, and lacked any weapon more formidable than the increasingly obsolescent Cohesive Fused Deuterium Irradiation Cannon. Production of the new design was put on hold until a number of concurrent programmes in the fields of weaponry and propulsion could bear fruit.

In 2275 Romulan engineers produced a working, reliable M/AM powered warp drive. Priority was given initially to refitting the Cricket Class Destroyer, resulting in the War Bird Class of 2278. Once this programme neared completion, all effort ways turned to introducing new, powerful, M/AM powered designs. The first of these designs was a revived and updated version of the 2269 Frigate design. An unexpected side effect of M/AM research was that the technology designed for plasma flow to warp nacelles could also be employed to refine and perfect a lighter, less power hungry version of the Plasma Torpedo. Previously, plasma flow had been too inefficient to make a reduced power version viable, but now a torpedo with approximately 1/3rd the yield and power requirements of the standard Plasma Torpedo and capable of being charged in just over half the time. Whilst less efficient overall than the existing Plasma Torpedo, this new Light Plasma Torpedo did allow a weapon of significant power to be fitted to smaller and lighter vessels. In this role, the new Type L Plasma Torpedo Tube came to replace the old CFDIC as the weapon of choice on light Romulan designs.

In 2279 however, there was still some concern that the Light Plasma Torpedo would prove ineffective in combat, and so the new Frigate design, now known as the Gladius Class, was fitted with both the new Type L Plasma Torpedo Tube and the old CFDIC. This provided a back-up in case of failure, and gave a formidable punch to the new light warship. She also mounted two of the new primary weapon of the Romulan Star Empire, the Klingon-derived Disruptor Cannon.

A further development of the Gladius, fitted with extremely powerful sensors in the place of her secondary and heavy weapons, entered service shortly after the Gladius herself, officially termed the Gladius-S Class Scout Frigate.

## Operational History

The Gladius entered service rapidly and by the outbreak of the 4th Gorn-Romulan War in 2282 had all but replaced the Finch Class in frontline usage. However, she actually saw use only in the closing days of that conflict, as most formations along the Gorn frontier were reserve forces still equipped with the older Frigate. The true bloodying of the Gladius and the Gladius-S Class came in the Organian Conflict, proving to be excellent scouts and screening forces for larger Romulan warships.

She continued in this role through the War of Pacification, and was even rumoured to be part of a support fleet allied to Melkor during the Klingon Ormong of 2291. During the General War of 2292, she once again encountered Gorn starships, although in the light attack and escort role she had begun to be replaced by the cutting edge Preax Class Escort.

## Apocrypha

After her involvement in the Praxis Incident of 2293 was revealed, the Romulan Star Empire began to once again withdraw behind her borders, withdrawing from galactic affairs again all together in the aftermath of the Tomed Incident in 2311. Even before this time, Romulan tactics had begun to turn away from fleet engagements and back to single "lone wolf" warships, now of a gargantuan size dwarfing the Crickets and Capsize Classes of old. The Gladius and Gladius-S still performed valuable screening roles, as well as being useful at patrolling the long frontiers of the Star Empire. She reportedly did not leave RSN service until the 2320s when replaced with the next generation of light Romulan warships.

## Specifications

* **Class:** Frigate
* **Hull Type Designation:** RFF
* **Length:** 121m
* **Crew:** 60
* **Warp Nacelles:** 1

* **Maximum Sublight Speed:** 3975 k/s (39.75 Mk/s)
* **Cruise** **Warp Factor Speed:** wf 7.0
* **Safe** **Maximum Warp Factor Speed:** wf 8.1
* **Hull Rating:** 180 HSF
* **Shield Rating:** 195 FSP

* **Sensor Rating:** 1000 SRU

* **Armament and Equipment:**
	+ Primary
		- 2 × Disruptor Cannon
	+ Secondary
		- 1 × Type L Plasma Torpedo Tube
	+ Heavy
		- 1 × Cohesive Fused Deuterium Irradiation Cannon (CFDIC)
	+ Advanced
		- None
	+ Equipment
		- Tractor Beam Emitter
		- Romulan-Type Cloaking Device
		- Tal Shiar Transporter Pad
		- Probes

## Ships in Service (2292)

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