Arguably the Saber Class is the federations B’rel. It’s cheap, quick to produce, agile, has a small crew, and has a decent armament. The Defiant Class is more like a heavy version of that.
Just as a matter of design...the Bird of Prey and the D'Deridex class...are stunning. It was one of the benefits of the Dominion War story arc that these ships were so often shown in battle. Just beautiful designs.
Actually you don't have to right off the sizes as inconsistencies (unless talking about the same ship in multiple scenes) Historically speaking, it's not unusual for naval designers to make multiple ships based on the same blueprints, increased in every dimension by some factor. For example, the general plans for the *Alaska* class large cruisers of the US Navy were designed by taking the *Baltimore* class heavy cruiser's design and increasing it by about 50% in every dimension. Given that the Klingons only use a handful of standardized designs after the formation of the KDF, that's probably what's happening here.
yeah the Klingon tech manuals outright state the klingons just decided to supersize the B'rel when making the K'vort. K'vort is a heavy cruiser with 700 crew with a lot of extra weapons and shielding. its easier for shipyard workers to produce when you have a standard design and just enlarge it a bunch then have multiple different designs that are different from one another.
@@toomanyaccounts I don't like using the tech manuals myself, they're *very* inconsistent with material on at the time, let alone going forward. I prefer using what we see on screen and cross-referencing with real world science or history to see parallels or where inspiration might have come from. Side Note: Related to the BoP sizing, the Duras Sister's BoP shows up in TNG and is nearly the same width of the saucer section of the *Enterprise* D. They were basically flying around in a K'vort. Which also means that the D's durability was insane since she took a lot of torpedo and disruptor hits directly to the hull instead of her shields which she'd normally rely on before going down. Even then, it was commented that one of the shots was apparently fairly lucky on the Klingon's part.
@@redshirt0479 the Duras bop which is a D12 was not the size of the saucer section. you are mistaken a camera perspective with the size of something. It is a 110meters since it was shown next to a runabout in the episode of DS9 when the Duras sisters show up there
@@toomanyaccounts TNG Firstborn came _after_ the DS9 episode featuring the runabout shot (which by your own logic, could just as easily be a trick of the angles involved) The last BoP we see them using before _Generations_ was one around the size of the D's saucer section. And the shot we see in the TNG episode makes it literally impossible for the BoP to be smaller as it's further from the camera than the _Enterprise_ and shown to be on the same plane as the saucer section. Edited to correct formatting.
@@redshirt0479 Firstborn once more perspective. K'vorts are shown in The Defector. They have a different wing structure. B'rel, D12 have a crew of about 12. K'vorts have a crew of 700.
Rick, I think there's an expansion video comparing and contrasting the Defiant and various Birds of Prey, in this. When I see the Defiant, I see two things: Yes, the Bird of Prey influnce from the Klingon Empire, but also some of the design philosophies of the original NX-01 (never mind real-world stuff like the NX-01 being thought up nearly a decade after the Defiant's conception.) It's almost like when Ben Sisko was designing his pimp-hand with which to beat the Borg, he took a long and hard look at a variety of worlds' shipbuilding. He used early, durable United Earth ideas like ablative/polarized hull plating, a very Klingon profile and weapon setup, probably a fari amount of Andorian philosophy of the same, as well as the more Andorian bridge setup seen more commonly in the TOS era, but all while sticking to the Starfleet shipbuilding creed of a somewhat multipurpose starship that *can*, somewhat competently, still perform science and humanitarian tasks if need arises.
One of the most interesting things of Klingon / Romulan ship design was a result of practical changes in plot or models due to the necessity of the moment. It then becomes necessary to "kit bash" something to make it fit. The Klingon Bird of Prey is one of those classic examples. Moving the enemy in Star Trek III from Romulans to Klingons resulted in a lot of Romulan features being pushed onto the Klingon mindset. This included cloaking devices, although the inability of such ships to fire when cloaked (ignoring that one version in a later movie) was a way for a proper Klingon to "save face" as it were because your enemy had to see you before they died. The real question was whether it fit the "culture" of the Klingons and that answer is a lot more nuanced. In the TOS era, planetary invasions were the norm, and the D7 with the ability to house marines might have been a better model compared to the smaller crewed BoP. But the BoP is more suitable to "raiding" missions, which might better suit the warrior than the larger ships which were more relegated to diplomatic missions after the forced peace treaty with the Federation (and what good is a diplomatic mission, the last one only resulted in a ton of tribbles).
I've always wondered if the Romulans gave the Klingons cloaking technology in order to help them in their war against the Federation only to regret it later. Both cultures have cloaked ships called 'Bird of Prey'. Yes, I know the background reason why but it's still unexplained in Lore.
There was at least one TOS episode where the Romulans had D7 Battlecruisers; that seems to imply that there was some kind of technology exchange between the Romulans and Klingons.
@@qawamity Romulans use both Bird of Prey and Warbird. Warbird is usually used for the dominant of the time starship class of the Romulans. For most of the 24th century that was the D'deridex-class.
@@qawamity The last explanation, but it has changed, due to Discovery, is that the Bird of Prey is originally a Romulan design. They sold the design, for better warp technology, because the Romulans lost a war with Earth, and was falling behind in warp technology. Klingons are poor on innovation, but gain new technologies by conquest. They probably felt their technology was stagnating, and also see the Federation as a threat, and was desperate to make a deal to gain some new technology. The original story, was that the Klingons stole the bird of prey from the ROmulans, but because the back story would clutter the movie, they just made it a Klingon ship to start with, and heck with naming convention. I believe this was from the search of Spock.
I also wonder if the BoP's flight mode wing configuration might help make the ship's warp bubble more efficient, allowing it to have a discus shaped warp bubble that was full of ship rather than a round one that was mostly empty
I was going to say this; check out the Klingon Bird of Prey Owners' Workshop Manual. It explains the B'Rel uses 'Warp Wings' where the Klingons use a laminar structure instead of coils to do the same job.
I think the other reason for the pivoting wings on the BOP, is to vary its gun fire concentration, focussing it either wider for larger targets, or narrowing it for smaller ones!
One reason for the articulated wings could be, that lowering them brings the wing mounted Disruptors closer together and making it easier to hit smaller targest which are to close for the probably gimbald Disruptors to hit them. That's at least how I explain it to myself having played way to much _Elite: Dangerous_ and having faces this issue in the game as well.
If I recall correctly, one of the main reasons for the Defiant to be as small and overpowered as it was were Starfleet's ideas on how to use it, in swarms against Borg ships. They were tiny, 50 man crewed ships which were as powerful as a cruiser of the line, but due to the engineers being too overzealous, it took a while for them to figure out exactly how to overcome a number of design issues, which were mostly resolved through the NX-74205 Defiant's use in the Dominion War and the logs from Chief O'Brien and Nog helped a great deal. After that, I believe the Defiants were used as a much more numerous patrol and escort to bolster the fleet after the Dominion war.
6:00 Grilka's crest is a circle with nine wedges, or "chevrons", evenly spaced around it's circumference. Granted it's a solid circle, but if the form of the original inspiration was forgotten due to hundreds or thousands of years since the artifact was discovered, one could make a case that Grilka's House once uncovered a Stargate in their backyard. Do Klingons have backyards?
The way it's used really makes the personalization aspect work. The Klingon ship aesthetic is always the "trash compactor at warp" look coupled with seedy space bar lighting, so you can be told it's their latest and greatest or a decrepit relic and the audience can imagine it going either way easily enough. Even if you reuse shots. The downside was that it was always tell-don't-show since you had to have it explained if it was trashed because it's decrepit or trashed because it's Klingons. And, yes, Klingon readers, I am saying your fleet looks like a fleet of garbage scows piloted by the most smooth-headed collection of petaQ you could scrounge up in this galaxy.
I always headcanoned the K’Vort as the battleship/troop transport variant unable to move its wings, the B’Rel as the light cruiser variant with just cruising and combat roles, and the D-12 as the 12-man scout ship with all three modes for use in atmosphere and subterfuge missions.
I love the idea that these ships are sometimes made for a certain captain in mind, kind of ties in with their warrior heritage as well as the real world influences. You mentioned them having samurai qualities in a previous video and it's like a custom made sword, crafted for them and in doing so the shipwrights would be well regarded by captains; every great warrior needs a well made weapon after all! I like a small bit of lore gives a lot of character!
One other thing with the wings shifting that could be a reason for them moving is that it's a thing about convergance points for its weapons. The closer together the guns are, the closer the target they're aiming at for a single target
A old second hand Bird of Prey would make a great ship for a *Firefly* style of independent small freighter. [*Such as the ones purchased by those Ferengi raiders in the TNG episode _Little Rascals]._ It would be a interesting departure to set a show in the Trek universe with that sort of ambience … no great galaxy ending catastrophes to avert, just trying to survive _outside the safety_ of the heart of the Federation. In the middle part of season 1 of Picard (once they boarded the La Sirena) they kind of got a bit of that mood, with _no StarFleet support_ and on the raggedy edge with their heist on Freecloud, it's the sort of thing you could imagine Mal and the Serenity's crew pulling off (almost like they were the writers inspiration?). Voyager also had a few episodes in that style, mostly with Paris and Kim and/or Neelix. There are a hell of a lot of possiblities for such a series concept, and the best part is the World Building is already established… in fact the audience can already know more than the characters about a situation or plot point without exposition. *The Birds of Prey were sold without weapons but with cloaks intact (apparently the Ferengi bought identical weapons on the open market… and even the same tactics as were used in the aborted _Yesterday's Enterprise_ timeline). Fit it with phasers for versatility (and shooting behind you while running) and you've got a great little pocket rocket for high end cargo. In fact it would make a great buy for any species that was starting out in the interstellar community. A species that's at about Humanity's level at the time of the NX Enterprise buys them, and then reverse engineers the tech. But then in a while there's all that lovely salvage left over from the Dominion War anyway. The Marquis could have had fun if they bought them, and what if the Romulans got some for false flags? They are worth the cost just for their cloaks, but it's still a good hero ship for a small crew.
Assuming the disruptors swivel up/down, maybe the wings swivel to aid in disruptor targeting i.e. dog fights, target angles, shot placements, etc. Probly helps during quick & sharp turns/maneuvers/strafes.
Regarding the multiple modes used (aka attack mode, flight mode, landing mode) - I recall reading somewhere that the fins on top of the wings are cooling fins. So i always thought that the Bird of Prey goes into attack mode and puts down the wings to increase the surface of the cooling fins to make it capable of putting out the most energy it can to use for weapons and shields. Whereas in flight mode such a large amount of energy isn't needed and in fact counter productive because it would make it easier for an enemy to detect the vessel when cloaked.
Hi, Rick :) My favorite BOP variant is Klaa's ship from ST 5. The gunnery periscope makes good eat a new because it slaves weapons control to the capital win, negating a need for an extra gunner. This points out to me that Klaa is young,inexperienced, and quick to go rogue, explaining why he got a smaller, underpowered ship.
Great video! The BOP is one of my favorite ships as well..... Also, in attack mode, the BOP can concentrate its disruptor fire at short range better than in flight mode. Think of it like S-foils on an X-Wing.....
I so love B'rel class. In STBC i often flown this Bird of Prey with quite a success using decloak, discharge disruptors at sensors and cloak back method. Unless enemy was lightning fast with response, counterattack was almost impossible. Such an irony, that best results were often archieved using this kinda cowardly rogue/style tactic of blinding your enemy and then finish them of once their sensors were disabled.
Actually when the wings are down on the bird of prey during battles, ingenious design there's a focus point with the weapons hitting the same spot on an enemy ship which causes even greater damage than being spread out.
My fan theory about the Bird of prey size inconsistency. Is that each klingon house builds its own Birds of Prey to different specs but still shared some parts and lay out
On the lowered Wings - I personally believe that this is done to move the Mass of the wings closer to the axis of rotation, thus having less inertia when trying to change direction - meaning more unstable and therefore more maneuverable. In regular travel this instability could induce navigation errors, so they are spread out
I could honestly see Sisko going to the Klingons and asking "how would you guys design a ship to fight the Borg" and then just taking the ideas they gave him of a smaller and more maneuverability focused ship thats loaded to the teeth with weapons
3:02 i would automatically assume the attack position is to change the angle of attack of the guns. When in flight mode all the guns are firing from the same plane, once in attack mode you have fire converging to a singular point from below port and starboard and from central above creating a triangular impact point, allowing for more accurate fire and also meaning variations in the hull or target because of undulations are removed, if you have a sensor array sticking up where you want to hit for example having all the weapons on the same plane would increase the chance of the array being in the way and therefore increase the number of shots you need to get to the actual target you are aiming at. with the weapons spread to fire from three very different starting points and then converging on the point you want to hit, then the array in our example would only be likely to block one of the three weapons and less likely to obscure multiple. plus with incoming fire coming from three clearly different triangulated points weapons fire is less likely to get in the way of each other only converging at the point of impact. So an harder hit, more accurate, harder to defend against because of multiple angle attack.
The K'vort class were actually cruisers that copied the shape of a B'rel. However it was found they had no advantage over the K't'inga class or the vor'Cha class, especially as they had no torpedo launcher covering the aft firing arc.
it is outright stated that the k'vorts use basically the same hull design just upscaled and many of the same components as the B'rel with more larger weapons and more weapons mounts. This was to get the new class out there quicker and make manufacturing easier. There is actually real world examples of navies doing this. if the design works why fix it when it isn't broken?
The Bird of Prey is a near perfect attack vessel. Having battle cloak while exceling at both bnz and turn-fighting, and being armed to the teeth, it is any raider's wet dream.
The Klingon Bird of Prey, one of my favorite sci-fi ships, the bad guys usually have the coolest ships. I'm hoping to find an extra- large model of one to buy.
With the wing position for the 2 lower position being flight and attack. The reason flight is flight I believe is for aero dynamics and energy use. The reason attack is tattck mode. you move the cannons closer together thus having a more concentrated firing cone to do more damage.
The design files, at least for older variations, are probably not hard to get a hold of. And knowing the Klingon attitude towards engineers, probably not so demanding for a shipyard to produce a good copy of the ship.
I always thought of the Defiant Class as the Federation making its own Bird of Prey to better coordinate joint efforts with the Klingons and also to fight The Dominion and Borg alongside their Klingon friends as optimally as possible.
I like to think of the B-Rel as like a german tanks , they look the same for decades , but no two B-Rell's are the same with each one using different tech from different eras. One time travels , one kills the enterprise D etc. All very different from each other.
Bit of trivia, the Bird of Prey was designed to be a Romulan ship for Star Trek 3. But when they switched the antagonists to Klingon they kept the ship.
I like the beta canon lore that the Bird of Prey was originally a Romulan design that they sold to the Klingons, thinking it was a failure. Which would have been delicious irony later on, and a counter balance to Klingons selling D7s and related technology to the Romulans.
@@chonconnor6144 Yeah I thought about it after I made this comment and realized that it would basically be Firefly in a Bird of Prey. So it's already been done sort of.
@@qdllc Yeah...beta canon says that the Klingons and Romulans traded ships and weapons back and forth (sometimes grudgingly), which ended up with things like Romulan D7's with raptors painted on their bellies.
Coolest ship in Trek, in my opinion. In terms of looks, anyway. Romulan D'deridex--which shares some of the design elements with the bird of prey--is a distant second.
More an ex post facto justification, but about those variable wings... Attack position gives more variety in weapon attack angles. While the weapons are all aiming at the same target, attack position gives the best chance at hitting a target that is actively evading, because those three lines of fire make plotting a course that doesn't have an enemy beam or projectile in it more difficult. Flight position would have the two wing mounted cannons and the nose weaponry effectively on the same plane, making it more likely to completely dodge their fire.
Wing configuration is irrelevant at warp speeds but having them horizontal (aka cruise configuration) is more efficient as well as giving it a less pronounced silhouette. But having the wings down alter the center of gravity allowing much more maneuverability during battle situations
I really wish the TNG producers had the time/money to come up with a new design for the K’Vort class Battlecruiser. Seems beyond silly there is a much larger ship class out there that’s externally identical to the BOP. As Rick said, the BOP is highly manoeuvrable, which is essential when all your weapons are forward facing. A huge 350m ship with gigantic forward cannons and no real coverage elsewhere seems silly to me. As do the giant windows that are strangely in the same place as the small windows on the BOP. I really hoped for the remaster it would be replaced with something like an intermediate design between the K’Vort and Vor’Cha. Perhaps with more of a general BOP type shape to pay homage to the compromise they were forced to make back in the 80’s
except this sort of upscaling ships to make a new ship class is done in the real world. often the hull is enlarged slightly or multiple times then additional things such as more crew capacity, weapons and other systems is added. this is often done to make it easier to make the new ship class at the same shipyard since the ship builders were familiar with the hull design which is often the major part of a ship and hardest to build.
I'm of the opinion that a small attack ship like this is a premier way of building your warfleet in ST. Almost every fleet possesses an equivalent to one and are the best way of turning your industry into deployable, effective, fleet power. The Main Battle Tank of space, if you will.
I played quite a bit of Star trek Conquest on the Wii and when playing as Klingons I would literally not build anything else. They were cheap, effective and easily replaced on the occasions their Manoeuvrability couldn’t compensate for their lack of durability. The other races equivalents just weren’t as good.
hmm this video and the recent look into the klingon side of STO have me wondering: What are those ribs on top of the connection point between the hull and wings for? Cant just be the hinges or for stability... they wouldnt need a million of those for each wing then. Maybe they are heat radiators? more surface area to disipate heat... would make sense for a smaller weapons orientated ship like the B'Rel ... and would lead to the same explanation as the Star Wars Xwing unfolding its wings to attack. Moveing the wings down would expose more of the radiators to disipate heat from firering the large canons. Haveing them around might also going into cloak easier as they would allow more energy to be disipated before you go into cloak makeing that easier probably
Doesn't bringing the wing tips down and closer together concentrate fire power thusly doing more damage in a focused area like a rival ships specific systems? I think attack configuration might be as easily explained as that.
I don't think enough is ever made of how absolutely _tiny_ the classic Bird of Prey is compared to other ships: from bow to stern, it's smaller than the Defiant, and that thing is *cramped*! Klingons definitely don't bother wasting space!
The Defiant is hardly cramped, it's bigger than 2 Arleigh burke class destroyers but with only a crew of 50 total. 150 in an "emergency" while a burke carries nearly five times the crew normally. It's another issue with star trwk and crew sizes, the Enterprise D is so huge that with all 2000 people walking the halls it would still be a very empty place, and even the Defiant is woefully under crewed. How is even that small ship possibly crewed with just 50 people? We regularly see 7-8 people on the bridge, a similar number in main engineering. If that's ALL the positions you need filled then we have almost exactly enough crew for a 3 shift rotation. But that means nobody is actively manning the torpedo room or the medical ward or filling any other positions on the ship. That also means that across the 4 or 5 decks (depending on the drawing you look at) if 18-20 people are on duty and their shift counterparts are in their bunks there's like 10 people you might run into while going from engineering to the bridge. It's definitely not cramped lol.
My main klingon on sto uses the fleet b'rel with 3 terran heavy duel disruptor cannons,gravimetric torp,and the martok turret with another terran turret. Thing is a mosquito compared to the t6 battleships lol but man,does it hit hard.
The only thing cooler than 3 Bird of Prey using Wolfpack tactics is 3 Defiant Class using Wolfpack tactics. I hate that we never got to see that in DS9.
Yeah but 2 defiants and an akira is nothing to scoff at either lol, taking on 3 warbirds and a hijacked prometheus without even blinking, while picard on a galaxy had a staring contest with 2 warbirds and needed 3 BoPs to make it an even fight
Wings on F14 and Tornado are variable geometry due to differences to aerodynamics between subsonic and supersonic flight. They are NOT for flight or attack. Narrow trianglular wings are more efficient in supersonic flight but have a much higher stalling speed which leads to poor manoeuvrability at subsonic speeds and require long runways for take off and landing. Wide wings behave in the opposite way. Variable geometry wings allow you to change mode switching from supersonic to subsonic flight at the expense of added complexity and weight. There is no aerodynamics in space flight.
Another theory that I have on the variable wings is that it allows for the ship to group it's shots better, as the guns now have better overlap in their firing angles. But honestly, the idea that it is a statement of intent feels ten times better. Red Alert? No! Flappers down!
@@kineuhansen8629 Vor'cha in the eu the lead designer was that female klingon scientist from an episode of tng. also it has holdecks, and replicators that were acquired by trade with the federation so it doesn't take so much space to store food on.
OMG, the Defiant-class IS just the Bird of Prey, done Federation-style, isn't it? They even gave it a cloaking device!
Maybe, but can it do that iconic Klingon maneuver of flying into a sun while trapping pursuing ships in the stars gravity well?
Hahahahhahaha
Arguably the Saber Class is the federations B’rel. It’s cheap, quick to produce, agile, has a small crew, and has a decent armament. The Defiant Class is more like a heavy version of that.
You should watch Venom Geek Media's video about the Defiant. It gives some clues about where some of the ideas and design bits came from.
To be fair, the Romulans were doing it first
I do love me a Bird of Prey. It's a visually pleasing ship and it always feels like a threat
Just as a matter of design...the Bird of Prey and the D'Deridex class...are stunning. It was one of the benefits of the Dominion War story arc that these ships were so often shown in battle. Just beautiful designs.
Actually you don't have to right off the sizes as inconsistencies (unless talking about the same ship in multiple scenes)
Historically speaking, it's not unusual for naval designers to make multiple ships based on the same blueprints, increased in every dimension by some factor. For example, the general plans for the *Alaska* class large cruisers of the US Navy were designed by taking the *Baltimore* class heavy cruiser's design and increasing it by about 50% in every dimension.
Given that the Klingons only use a handful of standardized designs after the formation of the KDF, that's probably what's happening here.
yeah the Klingon tech manuals outright state the klingons just decided to supersize the B'rel when making the K'vort. K'vort is a heavy cruiser with 700 crew with a lot of extra weapons and shielding. its easier for shipyard workers to produce when you have a standard design and just enlarge it a bunch then have multiple different designs that are different from one another.
@@toomanyaccounts
I don't like using the tech manuals myself, they're *very* inconsistent with material on at the time, let alone going forward. I prefer using what we see on screen and cross-referencing with real world science or history to see parallels or where inspiration might have come from.
Side Note: Related to the BoP sizing, the Duras Sister's BoP shows up in TNG and is nearly the same width of the saucer section of the *Enterprise* D. They were basically flying around in a K'vort.
Which also means that the D's durability was insane since she took a lot of torpedo and disruptor hits directly to the hull instead of her shields which she'd normally rely on before going down. Even then, it was commented that one of the shots was apparently fairly lucky on the Klingon's part.
@@redshirt0479 the Duras bop which is a D12 was not the size of the saucer section. you are mistaken a camera perspective with the size of something. It is a 110meters since it was shown next to a runabout in the episode of DS9 when the Duras sisters show up there
@@toomanyaccounts
TNG Firstborn came _after_ the DS9 episode featuring the runabout shot (which by your own logic, could just as easily be a trick of the angles involved)
The last BoP we see them using before _Generations_ was one around the size of the D's saucer section.
And the shot we see in the TNG episode makes it literally impossible for the BoP to be smaller as it's further from the camera than the _Enterprise_ and shown to be on the same plane as the saucer section.
Edited to correct formatting.
@@redshirt0479 Firstborn once more perspective. K'vorts are shown in The Defector. They have a different wing structure. B'rel, D12 have a crew of about 12. K'vorts have a crew of 700.
This ship demonstrates perfectly the peace seeking nature of klingons...
Peace through superior firepower that is
peace through power!
Si vis pacem, para bellum - a Klingon (probably)
Peace is for the victorious!
The only acceptable kind of peace
If u ever playing Klingon in a star trek rts ( the name slips my mind) everytime you capture a zone ' finally more breathing room'
Rick, I think there's an expansion video comparing and contrasting the Defiant and various Birds of Prey, in this.
When I see the Defiant, I see two things: Yes, the Bird of Prey influnce from the Klingon Empire, but also some of the design philosophies of the original NX-01 (never mind real-world stuff like the NX-01 being thought up nearly a decade after the Defiant's conception.) It's almost like when Ben Sisko was designing his pimp-hand with which to beat the Borg, he took a long and hard look at a variety of worlds' shipbuilding. He used early, durable United Earth ideas like ablative/polarized hull plating, a very Klingon profile and weapon setup, probably a fari amount of Andorian philosophy of the same, as well as the more Andorian bridge setup seen more commonly in the TOS era, but all while sticking to the Starfleet shipbuilding creed of a somewhat multipurpose starship that *can*, somewhat competently, still perform science and humanitarian tasks if need arises.
Honestly the Federation taking the BoP as the basis for their dedicated anti-Borg attack ship makes all kinds of sense.
One of the most interesting things of Klingon / Romulan ship design was a result of practical changes in plot or models due to the necessity of the moment. It then becomes necessary to "kit bash" something to make it fit. The Klingon Bird of Prey is one of those classic examples. Moving the enemy in Star Trek III from Romulans to Klingons resulted in a lot of Romulan features being pushed onto the Klingon mindset. This included cloaking devices, although the inability of such ships to fire when cloaked (ignoring that one version in a later movie) was a way for a proper Klingon to "save face" as it were because your enemy had to see you before they died.
The real question was whether it fit the "culture" of the Klingons and that answer is a lot more nuanced. In the TOS era, planetary invasions were the norm, and the D7 with the ability to house marines might have been a better model compared to the smaller crewed BoP. But the BoP is more suitable to "raiding" missions, which might better suit the warrior than the larger ships which were more relegated to diplomatic missions after the forced peace treaty with the Federation (and what good is a diplomatic mission, the last one only resulted in a ton of tribbles).
I agree, I never liked the fact, Klingons used Cloaking. Cowards to hide from your enemies.
I've always wondered if the Romulans gave the Klingons cloaking technology in order to help them in their war against the Federation only to regret it later. Both cultures have cloaked ships called 'Bird of Prey'.
Yes, I know the background reason why but it's still unexplained in Lore.
There was at least one TOS episode where the Romulans had D7 Battlecruisers; that seems to imply that there was some kind of technology exchange between the Romulans and Klingons.
@@adamstringer7092 they were allies at one point. obviously there was going to be some trading.
I thought the Romulan vessels were called "War Birds"?
@@qawamity Romulans use both Bird of Prey and Warbird. Warbird is usually used for the dominant of the time starship class of the Romulans. For most of the 24th century that was the D'deridex-class.
@@qawamity The last explanation, but it has changed, due to Discovery, is that the Bird of Prey is originally a Romulan design. They sold the design, for better warp technology, because the Romulans lost a war with Earth, and was falling behind in warp technology. Klingons are poor on innovation, but gain new technologies by conquest. They probably felt their technology was stagnating, and also see the Federation as a threat, and was desperate to make a deal to gain some new technology.
The original story, was that the Klingons stole the bird of prey from the ROmulans, but because the back story would clutter the movie, they just made it a Klingon ship to start with, and heck with naming convention. I believe this was from the search of Spock.
I also wonder if the BoP's flight mode wing configuration might help make the ship's warp bubble more efficient, allowing it to have a discus shaped warp bubble that was full of ship rather than a round one that was mostly empty
One of my favorite ships!
2:45 Actually, the Klingon BoP tech manual outright tells us that the "feather" plates on the surface of the wings ARE the ship's warp coils.
I thought they were the heatsinks for the warp coils.
I was going to say this; check out the Klingon Bird of Prey Owners' Workshop Manual. It explains the B'Rel uses 'Warp Wings' where the Klingons use a laminar structure instead of coils to do the same job.
BoP is OP. Killed God in 1 shot. Plz nerf.
I think the other reason for the pivoting wings on the BOP, is to vary its gun fire concentration, focussing it either wider for larger targets, or narrowing it for smaller ones!
That actually makes sense given the varying sizes of ships in the KDF
My favourite Star Trek vessel, and one of my very favourites across *all* science fiction ecosystems. I want one. I really do.
B'Rel, the secret weapon of Greenpeace against whale hunters everywhere.
OMG. So true! I can imagine they'd order a dozen of them if that were possible.
One reason for the articulated wings could be, that lowering them brings the wing mounted Disruptors closer together and making it easier to hit smaller targest which are to close for the probably gimbald Disruptors to hit them. That's at least how I explain it to myself having played way to much _Elite: Dangerous_ and having faces this issue in the game as well.
If I recall correctly, one of the main reasons for the Defiant to be as small and overpowered as it was were Starfleet's ideas on how to use it, in swarms against Borg ships. They were tiny, 50 man crewed ships which were as powerful as a cruiser of the line, but due to the engineers being too overzealous, it took a while for them to figure out exactly how to overcome a number of design issues, which were mostly resolved through the NX-74205 Defiant's use in the Dominion War and the logs from Chief O'Brien and Nog helped a great deal. After that, I believe the Defiants were used as a much more numerous patrol and escort to bolster the fleet after the Dominion war.
A warrior's ship!
I agree
@@KhemistryIBMOR I didn't know you were a Trekkie....
Qapla!
@@doncalypso All my life!
@@KhemistryIBMOR 🤘🏾✊🏽
Klingons and the Bird of Prey are my favorites from the Trek universe. Have been since I was a kid.
Same for me!
Rick, i share your love for the holy trinity of Trek ships, D'deridex, B'rel and Excelsior, they boast some irresistible curves :D Cool vid, thanks :)
They are hot as hell
6:00 Grilka's crest is a circle with nine wedges, or "chevrons", evenly spaced around it's circumference. Granted it's a solid circle, but if the form of the original inspiration was forgotten due to hundreds or thousands of years since the artifact was discovered, one could make a case that Grilka's House once uncovered a Stargate in their backyard.
Do Klingons have backyards?
Well of course they do, where else is your pack of war Targs (sp?) supposed to poop at?
Yea, yours!
The way it's used really makes the personalization aspect work. The Klingon ship aesthetic is always the "trash compactor at warp" look coupled with seedy space bar lighting, so you can be told it's their latest and greatest or a decrepit relic and the audience can imagine it going either way easily enough. Even if you reuse shots. The downside was that it was always tell-don't-show since you had to have it explained if it was trashed because it's decrepit or trashed because it's Klingons.
And, yes, Klingon readers, I am saying your fleet looks like a fleet of garbage scows piloted by the most smooth-headed collection of petaQ you could scrounge up in this galaxy.
Thanks for the point about the defiant, I was just gonna mention that, haha
This has been one of my fav ships for a LONG time now :)
This is by far the most badass ship.
I always headcanoned the K’Vort as the battleship/troop transport variant unable to move its wings, the B’Rel as the light cruiser variant with just cruising and combat roles, and the D-12 as the 12-man scout ship with all three modes for use in atmosphere and subterfuge missions.
I love the idea that these ships are sometimes made for a certain captain in mind, kind of ties in with their warrior heritage as well as the real world influences. You mentioned them having samurai qualities in a previous video and it's like a custom made sword, crafted for them and in doing so the shipwrights would be well regarded by captains; every great warrior needs a well made weapon after all! I like a small bit of lore gives a lot of character!
One other thing with the wings shifting that could be a reason for them moving is that it's a thing about convergance points for its weapons. The closer together the guns are, the closer the target they're aiming at for a single target
A old second hand Bird of Prey would make a great ship for a *Firefly* style of independent small freighter.
[*Such as the ones purchased by those Ferengi raiders in the TNG episode _Little Rascals]._
It would be a interesting departure to set a show in the Trek universe with that sort of ambience … no great galaxy ending catastrophes to avert, just trying to survive _outside the safety_ of the heart of the Federation.
In the middle part of season 1 of Picard (once they boarded the La Sirena) they kind of got a bit of that mood, with _no StarFleet support_ and on the raggedy edge with their heist on Freecloud, it's the sort of thing you could imagine Mal and the Serenity's crew pulling off (almost like they were the writers inspiration?). Voyager also had a few episodes in that style, mostly with Paris and Kim and/or Neelix.
There are a hell of a lot of possiblities for such a series concept, and the best part is the World Building is already established… in fact the audience can already know more than the characters about a situation or plot point without exposition.
*The Birds of Prey were sold without weapons but with cloaks intact (apparently the Ferengi bought identical weapons on the open market… and even the same tactics as were used in the aborted _Yesterday's Enterprise_ timeline). Fit it with phasers for versatility (and shooting behind you while running) and you've got a great little pocket rocket for high end cargo.
In fact it would make a great buy for any species that was starting out in the interstellar community.
A species that's at about Humanity's level at the time of the NX Enterprise buys them, and then reverse engineers the tech. But then in a while there's all that lovely salvage left over from the Dominion War anyway.
The Marquis could have had fun if they bought them, and what if the Romulans got some for false flags?
They are worth the cost just for their cloaks, but it's still a good hero ship for a small crew.
I like to think the reason why it can move its wings is so it can fit inside a shield bubble and have less target surface.
Makes sense.
Assuming the disruptors swivel up/down, maybe the wings swivel to aid in disruptor targeting i.e. dog fights, target angles, shot placements, etc. Probly helps during quick & sharp turns/maneuvers/strafes.
I always loved this ship, at one point unique in its planet-landing abilities.
Interesting speculation on the function of the "wings" too
Maybe. But I doubt they served any aerodynamic function.
Regarding the multiple modes used (aka attack mode, flight mode, landing mode) - I recall reading somewhere that the fins on top of the wings are cooling fins.
So i always thought that the Bird of Prey goes into attack mode and puts down the wings to increase the surface of the cooling fins to make it capable of putting out the most energy it can to use for weapons and shields.
Whereas in flight mode such a large amount of energy isn't needed and in fact counter productive because it would make it easier for an enemy to detect the vessel when cloaked.
Hi, Rick :)
My favorite BOP variant is Klaa's ship from ST 5. The gunnery periscope makes good eat a new because it slaves weapons control to the capital win, negating a need for an extra gunner.
This points out to me that Klaa is young,inexperienced, and quick to go rogue, explaining why he got a smaller, underpowered ship.
Great video! The BOP is one of my favorite ships as well.....
Also, in attack mode, the BOP can concentrate its disruptor fire at short range better than in flight mode. Think of it like S-foils on an X-Wing.....
Lowering the wings also brings the wing disruptor cannons closer together, allowing for easier convergence of fire.
I so love B'rel class. In STBC i often flown this Bird of Prey with quite a success using decloak, discharge disruptors at sensors and cloak back method. Unless enemy was lightning fast with response, counterattack was almost impossible.
Such an irony, that best results were often archieved using this kinda cowardly rogue/style tactic of blinding your enemy and then finish them of once their sensors were disabled.
Actually when the wings are down on the bird of prey during battles, ingenious design there's a focus point with the weapons hitting the same spot on an enemy ship which causes even greater damage than being spread out.
My fan theory about the Bird of prey size inconsistency. Is that each klingon house builds its own Birds of Prey to different specs but still shared some parts and lay out
On the lowered Wings - I personally believe that this is done to move the Mass of the wings closer to the axis of rotation, thus having less inertia when trying to change direction - meaning more unstable and therefore more maneuverable. In regular travel this instability could induce navigation errors, so they are spread out
My favourite star trek ship design of all time. Sleek elegant & deadly.
I could honestly see Sisko going to the Klingons and asking "how would you guys design a ship to fight the Borg" and then just taking the ideas they gave him of a smaller and more maneuverability focused ship thats loaded to the teeth with weapons
Gush away! And if you'd like to gush away on the D7 or especially the K't'inga, I'm here for it!
3:02 i would automatically assume the attack position is to change the angle of attack of the guns. When in flight mode all the guns are firing from the same plane, once in attack mode you have fire converging to a singular point from below port and starboard and from central above creating a triangular impact point, allowing for more accurate fire and also meaning variations in the hull or target because of undulations are removed, if you have a sensor array sticking up where you want to hit for example having all the weapons on the same plane would increase the chance of the array being in the way and therefore increase the number of shots you need to get to the actual target you are aiming at. with the weapons spread to fire from three very different starting points and then converging on the point you want to hit, then the array in our example would only be likely to block one of the three weapons and less likely to obscure multiple.
plus with incoming fire coming from three clearly different triangulated points weapons fire is less likely to get in the way of each other only converging at the point of impact. So an harder hit, more accurate, harder to defend against because of multiple angle attack.
The Klingon bird of prey is one of my favorite ships in star trek!
The K'vort class were actually cruisers that copied the shape of a B'rel.
However it was found they had no advantage over the K't'inga class or the vor'Cha class, especially as they had no torpedo launcher covering the aft firing arc.
it is outright stated that the k'vorts use basically the same hull design just upscaled and many of the same components as the B'rel with more larger weapons and more weapons mounts. This was to get the new class out there quicker and make manufacturing easier. There is actually real world examples of navies doing this. if the design works why fix it when it isn't broken?
The Bird of Prey is a near perfect attack vessel. Having battle cloak while exceling at both bnz and turn-fighting, and being armed to the teeth, it is any raider's wet dream.
The Excelsior is my favorite Federation design. Has since the first time I saw it in ST III.
Great video Rick! Nice to see the B'rel get some love. :)
The Klingon Bird of Prey, one of my favorite sci-fi ships, the bad guys usually have the coolest ships. I'm hoping to find an extra- large model of one to buy.
With the wing position for the 2 lower position being flight and attack. The reason flight is flight I believe is for aero dynamics and energy use. The reason attack is tattck mode. you move the cannons closer together thus having a more concentrated firing cone to do more damage.
The Klingon Bird of Prey is the AK-47 of Starships. Even a Ferengi can buy one.
The design files, at least for older variations, are probably not hard to get a hold of. And knowing the Klingon attitude towards engineers, probably not so demanding for a shipyard to produce a good copy of the ship.
You mention longevity and I immediately thought of the B-52.
I assembled a kit Bird of Prey and the referred to the rounded interleaved humps above the wings as cooling fins.
Great show today my friend.
Thank You taking the time to make great show for all the Star Trek people.
One of my favorite ships.
I always thought of the Defiant Class as the Federation making its own Bird of Prey to better coordinate joint efforts with the Klingons and also to fight The Dominion and Borg alongside their Klingon friends as optimally as possible.
The Defiant was an advanced prototype. Much smaller than a bird of prey. But it had a warp core and phaser cannons equivalent to a full size starship.
I like to think of the B-Rel as like a german tanks , they look the same for decades , but no two B-Rell's are the same with each one using different tech from different eras. One time travels , one kills the enterprise D etc. All very different from each other.
Fun fact, the Klingon BoP was originally going to be a Romulan ship.
Bit of trivia, the Bird of Prey was designed to be a Romulan ship for Star Trek 3. But when they switched the antagonists to Klingon they kept the ship.
I loved the small digs throughout the video.
My favorite ship.
I like the beta canon lore that the Bird of Prey was originally a Romulan design that they sold to the Klingons, thinking it was a failure. Which would have been delicious irony later on, and a counter balance to Klingons selling D7s and related technology to the Romulans.
Ka’pla great but I’m in love with the d-7. When the d-7 is coming head on it looks like one of them little bow legged bull bogs.
Fav Star Trek ship!
How cool would a spin off show be, with a mian character akin to Han Solo flying around doing sketchy stuff on a stolen Bird of Prey
No, I think a nonsensical prequel with terrible characters and a ludicrous fantasy plot would be better.
@@chonconnor6144 Yeah I thought about it after I made this comment and realized that it would basically be Firefly in a Bird of Prey.
So it's already been done sort of.
i love the b'rel, it's my favorite klingon ship
If my memory serves correctly there was the L42 class with about 12 or so crew, and the D10 class with about 110 crew.
It's a good thing the producers of Star Trek III didn't go with their original plan of making this a Romulan ship
IIRC, Romulans copied the Klingon ship design in a TOS episode.
@@qdllc Yeah...beta canon says that the Klingons and Romulans traded ships and weapons back and forth (sometimes grudgingly), which ended up with things like Romulan D7's with raptors painted on their bellies.
So if they made toy Birds of Prey for Klingon children to play with, would they be called "Kidz BoP"?
Nice
Coolest ship in Trek, in my opinion. In terms of looks, anyway. Romulan D'deridex--which shares some of the design elements with the bird of prey--is a distant second.
More an ex post facto justification, but about those variable wings... Attack position gives more variety in weapon attack angles. While the weapons are all aiming at the same target, attack position gives the best chance at hitting a target that is actively evading, because those three lines of fire make plotting a course that doesn't have an enemy beam or projectile in it more difficult. Flight position would have the two wing mounted cannons and the nose weaponry effectively on the same plane, making it more likely to completely dodge their fire.
My favorite starship class in the entire Trek franchise 😁
Like the T-34 tank, good all rounder, easy to mass produce, simple to run with a small crew.
I think they made the BoP bigger over time as the 24-century version is wide enough to look menacing when facing a Romulan warbird.
you should do a video or even mini-series about the various types of Bird of prey, especially with the variety seen in STO!.
Wing configuration is irrelevant at warp speeds but having them horizontal (aka cruise configuration) is more efficient as well as giving it a less pronounced silhouette. But having the wings down alter the center of gravity allowing much more maneuverability during battle situations
Am I the only one whom when ever I see this ship, I just hear the Klingon theme from Star Trek the Motion Picture and forward till the new shows?
For me it's the D7/K'tinga that gets the Jerry Goldsmith (TMP) Klingon theme, and the BoP gets the James Horner (TSFS) version.
I really wish the TNG producers had the time/money to come up with a new design for the K’Vort class Battlecruiser. Seems beyond silly there is a much larger ship class out there that’s externally identical to the BOP.
As Rick said, the BOP is highly manoeuvrable, which is essential when all your weapons are forward facing. A huge 350m ship with gigantic forward cannons and no real coverage elsewhere seems silly to me. As do the giant windows that are strangely in the same place as the small windows on the BOP.
I really hoped for the remaster it would be replaced with something like an intermediate design between the K’Vort and Vor’Cha. Perhaps with more of a general BOP type shape to pay homage to the compromise they were forced to make back in the 80’s
except this sort of upscaling ships to make a new ship class is done in the real world. often the hull is enlarged slightly or multiple times then additional things such as more crew capacity, weapons and other systems is added. this is often done to make it easier to make the new ship class at the same shipyard since the ship builders were familiar with the hull design which is often the major part of a ship and hardest to build.
I'm of the opinion that a small attack ship like this is a premier way of building your warfleet in ST. Almost every fleet possesses an equivalent to one and are the best way of turning your industry into deployable, effective, fleet power.
The Main Battle Tank of space, if you will.
Or a wet navy destroyer, like the U.S. Arleigh Burke class. Fast, nimble, and armed to the gunwales.
I played quite a bit of Star trek Conquest on the Wii and when playing as Klingons I would literally not build anything else.
They were cheap, effective and easily replaced on the occasions their Manoeuvrability couldn’t compensate for their lack of durability.
The other races equivalents just weren’t as good.
a ship must be stronger than anything smaller, faster than anything bigger and cheaper than anything of similar size.
Shields up!! Angry bois approaching off the port bow.
Thank you for this video
hmm this video and the recent look into the klingon side of STO have me wondering: What are those ribs on top of the connection point between the hull and wings for?
Cant just be the hinges or for stability... they wouldnt need a million of those for each wing then.
Maybe they are heat radiators? more surface area to disipate heat... would make sense for a smaller weapons orientated ship like the B'Rel ... and would lead to the same
explanation as the Star Wars Xwing unfolding its wings to attack. Moveing the wings down would expose more of the radiators to disipate heat from firering the large canons.
Haveing them around might also going into cloak easier as they would allow more energy to be disipated before you go into cloak makeing that easier probably
Those bits were heat exchangers around the impulse engines, IIRC.
I've long liked the warp wings idea in beta canon.
The big difference between a BoP and the Defiant class is that the Defiant also had a dorsal phaser array.
3:27 Well so much for everything I was just typing out about intimidating profiles.
Aren't intimidating profiles something you'd find on a Klingon dating site?
Doesn't bringing the wing tips down and closer together concentrate fire power thusly doing more damage in a focused area like a rival ships specific systems? I think attack configuration might be as easily explained as that.
Great video as always!
I don't think enough is ever made of how absolutely _tiny_ the classic Bird of Prey is compared to other ships: from bow to stern, it's smaller than the Defiant, and that thing is *cramped*! Klingons definitely don't bother wasting space!
Said the guy onboard the Negvar.
I wonder how it compares to a Runabout, actually, considering a great deal of the BoP's size is it's wings...the habitable space is pretty miniscule.
The Defiant is hardly cramped, it's bigger than 2 Arleigh burke class destroyers but with only a crew of 50 total. 150 in an "emergency" while a burke carries nearly five times the crew normally.
It's another issue with star trwk and crew sizes, the Enterprise D is so huge that with all 2000 people walking the halls it would still be a very empty place, and even the Defiant is woefully under crewed.
How is even that small ship possibly crewed with just 50 people? We regularly see 7-8 people on the bridge, a similar number in main engineering. If that's ALL the positions you need filled then we have almost exactly enough crew for a 3 shift rotation.
But that means nobody is actively manning the torpedo room or the medical ward or filling any other positions on the ship.
That also means that across the 4 or 5 decks (depending on the drawing you look at) if 18-20 people are on duty and their shift counterparts are in their bunks there's like 10 people you might run into while going from engineering to the bridge.
It's definitely not cramped lol.
one thing i would love to lern about in sto is starfleet weapons
My main klingon on sto uses the fleet b'rel with 3 terran heavy duel disruptor cannons,gravimetric torp,and the martok turret with another terran turret. Thing is a mosquito compared to the t6 battleships lol but man,does it hit hard.
The only thing cooler than 3 Bird of Prey using Wolfpack tactics is 3 Defiant Class using Wolfpack tactics. I hate that we never got to see that in DS9.
Closest you got to that was in Voyager.
Yeah but 2 defiants and an akira is nothing to scoff at either lol, taking on 3 warbirds and a hijacked prometheus without even blinking, while picard on a galaxy had a staring contest with 2 warbirds and needed 3 BoPs to make it an even fight
I believe the b'rel wings move position similar to the f14 tomcat or panavia tornado, one for flight one for attack.
Wings on F14 and Tornado are variable geometry due to differences to aerodynamics between subsonic and supersonic flight. They are NOT for flight or attack. Narrow trianglular wings are more efficient in supersonic flight but have a much higher stalling speed which leads to poor manoeuvrability at subsonic speeds and require long runways for take off and landing. Wide wings behave in the opposite way. Variable geometry wings allow you to change mode switching from supersonic to subsonic flight at the expense of added complexity and weight. There is no aerodynamics in space flight.
Another theory that I have on the variable wings is that it allows for the ship to group it's shots better, as the guns now have better overlap in their firing angles. But honestly, the idea that it is a statement of intent feels ten times better. Red Alert? No! Flappers down!
The forward facing weapons seem like a huge disadvantage that could be easily fixed with tech
my favorite klingon ship is that big battlecruiser from ds9 cant remember the name and
_Neghvar,_ I think...
@@doncalypso Negh'Var from ds9 and the Vor'cha-class are my favorite klingon ships from canon
@@kineuhansen8629 the Vor'cha look like Federation ships with a Klingon twist...
@@doncalypso i think i read that one of the two ship was inspired by fedration design like engines but i dont remember
@@kineuhansen8629 Vor'cha in the eu the lead designer was that female klingon scientist from an episode of tng. also it has holdecks, and replicators that were acquired by trade with the federation so it doesn't take so much space to store food on.
When it comes to sizes it is said that this ship can be manned by a crew of 6 to upwards of 36 being the largest.🤷🏾♂️
The BoP is too cool a design to ever stop manufacturing. 🙂🖖
Man of culture here.