A Brief History of the Pointer-Class (UESC-10) Corvette
The Pointer-class Corvette - UESC-10 - (2133 - 2156) was initially conceived as a fast, heavily armed and armored escort ship for Earth-based convoys, colony ships, embassies and the like. It was among the first vessels constructed by the new Earth Star Fleet, and its lines reflect an attempt by engineers to impress Earth's neighbors and intimidate her aggressors. For an escort craft, she is large, 40% of the volume and mass of the fleet's flagship of the time, the Neptune-class. Of the original production run of 144, 39 were lost in service, 73 were decommissioned and sold to private concerns, while the remaining 32 were retooled for use as patrol craft, aiding in interdiction efforts in the Earth-Alpha Centauri corridor.
The Pointer-class featured a fusion reactor yielding twice the output power as its larger cousin, the Iceland-class Cruiser, needed for its large weapons pods and impulse engines (the most advanced ever installed into an Earth Star Fleet craft of its time). The delta-v of the Pointer-class showed in design studies and in the field that it could far outperform even a Vulcan D'Kyr-class in combat maneuverability and speed tests.
The downfall of the Pointer-class came due to mismanagement rather than poor design. Its primary use, that of escorting convoys and colonies, exposed its crews to larger doses of radiation than was expected by the designers. The warp nacelles were placed unusually close to the habitat of the craft, which in its planned use would not have been a health problem. As it was, the Pointer-class was intended to operate at shorter runs at higher warp factors (1.6 and higher), but as it happened, the convoys it ended up being assigned to escort were notoriously slow and poorly maintained.
Many of these craft were simply incapable of speeds beyond Warp 1.2, so the Pointer-class vessel would be forced to fly longer-duration missions at slower Warp speeds, exposing its crews to unacceptable doses of radiation. Additionally, oftentimes a Pointer-class crew would be required to render technical assistance to convoy engineers, as the understanding by the latter of their own ships' capabilities and limitations was often poor.
A later attempt at an upgrade was made at the inception of the Earth-Romulan War, the UESC-12, where uprated (Warp 3.9) nacelles were moved to a safer distance from the habitable-section of the ship, out on the ends of its wings. Additionally, the by-then underpowered fusion reactor was replaced with a second-generation Matter-antimatter reactor, its plasma cannons were replaced by Phase cannons, and its spatial torpedoes swapped for variable-yield photonic torpedoes. This upgrade was only attempted in 4 remaining vessels, and it was never widely used in the War.
Posted by Fleet-Admiral Michael T. Colorge (Member # 144) on :
Got pix?
Posted by Irishman (Member # 1188) on :
That's what I'm working on. It's a Sternbach design from the Space Flight Chronology. It's never been really fleshed out, so I'm taking a stab at it.
The history was the first part to put together.
Posted by Sarvek (Member # 910) on :
The history of the Pointer Class sounds quite interesting and would fit into the ENTERPRISE time line and design era. I can not wait to see your pix. Posted by Irishman (Member # 1188) on :
That's what I was shooting for. Something that honors what Rick Sternbach, but updates it to take Enterprise into account. Some things are a reach I understand, but it was fun to put together.
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