Author:  Created:  Rating: JOHN Jul. 31, 2004, 01:43PM   1 Ratings     12345     Federation Destroyer By John James IF LIKE me you buy your Micro-machines from e-bay you end up with lots of duplicate Federation ships. Not wanting the hassle of re-auctioning surplus ships and being too lazy to hunt down old FASA or Citadel models. I soon realised the bits can be used to make new ships. Another thing that annoyed me was that my original series games looked dull with multiple Constitution classes taking on several identical Klingon D5's or Romulan Warbird's. From memory I had somewhere seen a frigate or destroyer class ship. The Star Trek Encyclopedia has a destroyer class vessel which more or less consisted of an Enterprise saucer and neck with a single engine nacelle underneath. What could be easier? Background Now for some boring history. The Saladin was the Destroyer version of the Hermes class scout. The class was 50% more powerful than the similarly sized Larson class. The Saladin was often deployed in Destroyer groups to hunt down enemy shipping. These groups were frequently led by a Cygnus class command ship. A number of vessels of this class were refitted to an experimental configuration with a neck mounted deflector dish, instead of the original that was mounted below the primary hull. This modification improved reliability of the deflector system, but did not affect combat performance. This modification was also made to some Hermes class Scouts, and the remaining Cygnus class Couriers. The Four Years war demonstrated the need for small Command ships to lead Destroyer groups. A number of Cygnus class Command Couriers were hastily refitted and upgraded to a Command Destroyer specification. These ships were subsequently classified as Destroyer Leaders, and were assigned to lead Hunter Killer destroyer squadrons OS Saladin and Cygnet Destroyer leader What you need: OS Enterprise Sharp hobby knife Superglue Flying stand Paint: Light grey, red. Pin Vice or small drill Model The model isn't difficult to make, what is hard is cutting the model bits accurately so it fits together smoothly. A steady hand is needed. Anyway, first cut off an engine nacelle with the knife and trim off any rough bits. Don’t worry if you muck this up are you have a second nacelle handy. Second cut off the saucer & neck from the body. Make sure the neck cut is nice and flat so the nacelle will be horizontal. If it isn't 100% don’t worry the ship will look fine from a distance. Ok next glue the nacelle at the bottom of the neck. [If your unconfident with superglue do a practise dry run with blue tack to get used to fitting the Tra-da you have a Federation destroyer. Now drill a hole underneath the nacelle as far forward as possible. As the model is top heavy it will tend to fall over forwards. Drilling the hole near the front of the nacelle will balance the model. If not stick a blob of Milliput under the base! Saladin II The dish is glued halfway up the neck Hermes Destroyer leader A second deflector dish is added on top the saucer facing the rear. Drill a hole glue in 4mm of wire. Glue on the dish Detail Any unsightly gaps or splashes of super-glue can be covered with a light grey paint. A red strip is painted on the blank side of the nacelle. Now what about that nifty bronze satellite dish? If you are advanced modeller you can chop off the dish from the body. Full off the central knob on the underside of the saucer. Drill a hole, glue in a about 5 mil or wire or plastic rod then glue on the dish facing forward. I can forgive you if you find you have glued the model to your tweezers to your finger's and have turned the air blue with swear words.. I scratched out the 1 on 1701 and a few letters from Enterprise cheesy I know The result I call NCC 170 USS Terrapin and nobody has noticed. If you really are an accuracy nut you can scrape off 1701 and Enterprise and use a fine graphics pen to write in your own name and serial number. There is a company which does decals - see Star Ship news website. Movie Era Destroyer Exactly the same instructions apply to this model except you glue an Enterprise A or Reliant nacelle instead and don’t bother with the silly metal dish! What you need Original Series Enterprise 1701 1 Nacelle (Reliant or Enterprise A) Same materials Light blue paint Flying stand The beauty of this model is that the OS size dish is smaller than the Enterprise A and quite smaller than the Reliant, so the finished model does look like a smaller class of ship. I'm geeking again aren't I? Again chop of the saucer neck and super glue a nacelle underneath. The easiest Nacelle to use is a Reliant one. Again fill in any gaps with light blue paint. Drill a whole underneath for the stand. Paint the saucer light blue and use a Rotring fine point to write in any name and number. Gaming Well that concludes John's modelling lesson, hopefully you can now have a few destroyer class ships kicking around your games. They should be faster than the Enterprise Cruiser with less weapons and less damage boxes. You might also design specialised ships, e.g. a torpedo boat class, which has only has photon torps, minelayers and minesweepers. In a campaign destroyers can be used for long range scouting, reconnaissance, or picket duty around a battle-fleet or squadron. The background suggests commerce raiding. There is an OS scenario on the Felixian To Bodly Go article called balancing the Terror in which includes a Frigate called the USS Atlanta. Now what to do with all those other spare nacelles and parts? Well you could have a go at making Loknar Class Frigate from an Enterprise and the Miranda/Reliant prototypes, but I'm going to be lazy and buy the resin models instead. FT statistics Destroyer Mass 32 Cost 107 Hull 9 (Average) Thrust 6 FTL 1 Fire Control 2 Class 2 Beam Batteries (FP/F/FS, 6-arc) 1 Pulse Torpedo Tube (F) Destroyers have Thrust 6 and no screens (all ships are assumed to have some shields or screens, but the weakest ones are represented by the base value of Level 0 screens) Visual reference: Starship Modeller Website Original series destroyer http://www.starshipmodeler.com/reviews/scoutdes.htm Movie Era Scout/ destroyer http://www.starshipmodeler.com/trek/ac_scout.htm JOHN - Download a few excellent Star Trek ship stats and post a few good links and FT Star Trek sites. That ok?  Public Comments Please log in to post a comment    Created  Comment  Jun. 26, 2008, 06:26PM  By: CAPT.BUBBLES Micro Machines are great for this. I've made quite a few ships from my extras. One that I especially like is the Wilkerson Destroyer from the old FASA game (I have the Ship Rec. books - that's what I use to copy from). Short version how-to - Take the Constellation Cruiser. Cut off the engines. Use one set of the double engines turned so they are over/under. Glue onto the saucer. Repaint to cover the seams. I'm new on this site. After I explore a bit and figure out how to post pics I might start a thread on some of the ones I've done.

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