DWR WAR DESTROYER ESCORT (DWR): Losses among the specialized escorts designed for duty along the Romulan border, particularly the small FFRs, prompted the construction of a small number of replacements based on the DWA. Like other escorts intended for use against the Romulans, these ships sacrificed drone racks for additional phasers. Aside from this change, they are identical to the more numerous DWA. The DWRs proved more survivable than the smaller FFR, and were considered an adequate replacement for the rare DER.

Additional Comments: This a design I came up with a few years ago, but never made an effort to propose. I'll admit, it has more relevance for me now as I'm playing a campaign as the Feds against the Romulans, and the year where I can build DWs is approaching. I've tried using the FFE against the Roms, alongside the FFR, and have found that the FFR really is better against this opponent.

I could see an eventual Fed decision to just go with a single escort type emphasizing drones, especially once fast drones become readily available. But there is a brief period from the introduction of the DWA and the general availability of fast drones where specialized Romulan border escorts have some definate utility. Based on a review of the MSC, the last Romulan border escort is the NER (produced in Y175). This ship would appear a year or two later (Y176-177).

I strongly suspect this has been suggested before, but I figured it doesn't hurt to throw the idea out there.

Thoughts?

By Daniel E. Bivona (Admiraldan) on Saturday, January 27, 2007 - 11:48 am: Edit

I think that this is a good ship... I was wondering why no one had propposed this before.

My only thought is do you think the Feds would have maybe put a Ph-G in one of the forward spots as opposed to all Ph-1's? Just a thought.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Saturday, January 27, 2007 - 12:06 pm: Edit

I wouldn't mind seeing "R" versions of any of the advanced escorts. For example, I still drool at the idea of an "R" version of the NAC ...

By Joseph R Carlson (Jrc) on Saturday, January 27, 2007 - 01:12 pm: Edit

Jeremy,

I noticed this ship on your website and have always liked it. Glad to see you posted it. A couple of comments.

All the DW variants only have three weapons in the forward postion so I think that would be the limit. Perhaps as an alternate weapons layout you could use the DWV arrangement. The two photons would be replaced by PH-G-FH; the PH-3s would be PH-Gs. The DWR would have 4xPH-1s, 4xPH-Gs, and 2xG racks.

By Jeremy Gray (Gray) on Saturday, January 27, 2007 - 01:32 pm: Edit

I'll admit, the weapon arrangement on the forward position looks a bit different than other DWs, bit it was simply a consolidation of similar weapons. All this really is a DWA with two ph-1s replacing the two of the forward racks. Nothing would physically change with the actual weapon mounts/positions, this is just an effort to clean up the SSD. I tried the other alternatives (just swaping out boxes), but the SSD looked ugly to me. In the case of the FFR, something similar was done, with all of the forward phaser-1s placed into a single "bank" on the SSD.

I didn't add any more Ph-Gs because the Feds never added Ph-Gs to any of their other R border ships. In every other case (NER, DER, FFR) the ship trades out two drone racks for two FH Ph-1s. I wanted to follow that pattern.

If the ship were going to get additional Ph-Gs instead of Ph-1s, I would think they would replace Ph-1s 5 and 6 (LS/RS). This follows the form the Feds used on all escorts with four gatlings. A bow mounted, FH-arc gatling or two would be great, but it just feels weird (too Hydran) to me.

I like this arrangment because, while it generally follows the pattern of previous Rom border escorts, it has a uniqueness about it:
NER: 4 Ph-1, 4 Ph-G, 3 DrnG
DER: 4 Ph-1, 2 Photon, 4 Ph-G, 2 DrnG
DWR: 6 Ph-1, 2 Ph-G, 2 DrnG
FFR: 5 Ph-1, 2 Ph-G, 1 DrnG
The high number of Ph-1s and the FFR-like phaser and gatling arrangment show a heritage and purpose similar to the FFR and keep the ship from looking too much like a poor man's NER.

The other arrangement I considered was just swapping the forward drones and phasers on a DWA, which would give it 5 Ph-1, 2 Ph-G, 3 DrnG. Lower number of phasers, so no better at crunching plasma than a FFR, but still not a bad arrangement for an escort.

I also briefly considered replacing ALL of the forward drones with phasers, but 7 Ph-1, 2 Ph-G, 1 DrnG looked absurd on a DW-size ship. I screamed "Munchkin" and never looked back.

(Ain't the DER a sweet ship? Too bad it is grossly underpowered for all those weapons.)

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, January 27, 2007 - 01:54 pm: Edit

I have listed this ship in the R11 outline, which is not a promise it will be there. It is, however, an obvious variant.