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With the surge in Klingon and Romulan military activity in the recent months, coupled with the recent "Drozana" and "Vault" incidents now deemed classified by Starfleet Intelligence, it is my belief that Starfleet has demonstrated the benefit of increased numbers of smaller more efficient vessels in the fields of exploration, defense and scientific study. To add to this, it is my carefully considered opinion that Starfleet is sorely lacking in Multi-role vessels to perform these duties.

The Klingon Empire has maintained their venerable Bird of Prey designs for the aforementioned purposes; such vessels are capable of exploration, scientific study (if the Empire were ever inclined to make it a priority) and extreme heavy combat. The Klingons have made this possible by purposefully configuring their Bird of Prey vessels with no specific role in mind, allowing for extreme flexibility in handling all potential situations.

It is also because of the capabilities of Bird of Prey which has led me to conclude that Starfleet requires a specific counter to that vessel. My proposal is for the design of a "Scout Class" Cruiser to act as a front line multi-role vessel, with versatility as the core design element rather than increased specialization.

It has been proven in recent history that the Starfleet doctrine of maintaining large powerful specialised cruisers on long duration missions of exploration has been a failure. Such vessels have not had the facilities to take full advantage of scientific studies their crews have been charged with, and their combat capability is best utilized in fleet actions with support vessels. The failure of the Galaxy class in its multi-mission explorer role, with the loss of no less than three of the initial six vessels constructed in the first ten years of the design's 100 year lifecycle, is a clear example that Starfleet can ill-afford to build and maintain many large expensive Starships with large crews including families, when the risks of space exploration are so high.

To this end, I have looked to Starfleet's long history to determine the most effective design for a long range Scout class Cruiser capable of fulfilling the requirements outlined above. It is my firm conviction that vessels of the Constitution class design will make an ideal platform for this role. My reasoning is as follows:

The Constitution class is an extremely rugged and robust vessel design, with nearly fifty years of experience in handling the unknowns of interstellar space. The vessel was designed to operate independently for up to five years without refuel or resupply, which demonstrates effiiciency on the level of modern Star Cruisers. But more than this, every single minute detail of the performance and limits of the design has been studied, tested, and directly experienced by Starfleet crews throughout her long service life. Starfleet knows the full extent of her design capabilities, making the vessel extremely cheap to build, upgrade and maintain in the field.

I would also like to dispel the myth of obsolescense shrouding this design. Many Starfleet Admirals have claimed that the Constitution class is a relic of a bygone age, that it is not up to par with modern ship designs, that it may even be dangerous to assign a crew to a vessel of such an old design. My response to these naysayers is to remind them that we do not live in the 20th century - a point in history long remembered as a time when advanced hardware was designed with planned obsolescence in mind to fuel an outmoded economic system that did not economize - and resources were wasted on vehicles and hardware that was intended to break down to maintain cyclical consumption.

This has not been the case for modern hardware for the last 300 years. The Advanced Starfleet Design Burau has always been forward-thinking when designing starships and the Constitution class was no exception when commissioned in the 2240's. She was already far ahead of her time in terms of hull design, warp field efficiency, structural strength and computational systems. Moreover, she was designed to be upgraded constantly with modular parts that could be replaced with ease, like all vessel designs to come after. Her successor, the Excelsior class is still a fleet mainstay after 130 years of service, and has been upgraded to modern capabilities with little difficulty.

It is for these reasons that I make my proposal for an improved Constitution class Scout/Explorer light cruiser. As a member of the Starfleet Corps of Engineers, I have studied the Constitution design intimately and believe its capabilities can be improved beyond the limited patrol vessels in service today.

The weapon system hardpoints can be upgraded from four to six, divided equally in the fore and stern arcs. This represents the theoretical limit of the vessel's power distribution and structural support systems, even with modern power transfer conduits and distribution nodes.

With modern materials used in vessel construction, I believe the hull strength index of the Constitution class can be improved from a rating of 19,500 to 30,000. There is also enough internal volume to accommodate a crew of 500 for long duration missions, indeed this was the standard compliment for the Refit Constitution class during the 23rd century.

Taking advantage of advances in modern Impulse, RCS, SIF and IDF technology, combined with the sturdiness of the vessel design, I believe the Constitution class is capable of an improved turn rate of 10 degrees per second while retaining its inertia rating of 40 points. An impulse modifier of 0.17 is also possible due to the vessel's small size and mass when compared with larger, heavier cruisers.

In keeping with the aforementioned need for versatility, the bridge layout will allow for universal stations for one commander acting as the first officer, a lieutenant commander as the second officer, and two lieutenants. The generalization of the design upgrade should allow for three science, tactical and engineering consoles each.

It is my conclusion that these are the absolute upper limits to the versatility of the Constitution class spaceframe and are achievable with existing technology at a fraction of the cost of designing and testing a new vessel from the keel-up.

The primary role for which I believe the Constitution class would be ideally suited as a Scout Cruiser, is that of a destroyer - specifically to counter threat of the Klingon Bird of Prey. This is not entirely without historical precedent; the British and American navy utilized small agile destroyers to hunt down German U-Boats with depth charges to protect the much larger and more vulnerable transports, cruisers, battleships and carriers.

As Starfleet is still prohibited from developing cloaking technology of its own (and I need not go into the tactical implications of this), I believe new countermeasures are essential to maintain tactical parity with the Klingon and Romulan empires.

It is my contention that a modern system is needed. Limited success has been seen in the Tachyon Detection Grid, now a standard electronic warfare package on all Nebula Class vessels. However, this requires a small fleet of starships to be truly effective. I believe a "single ship" solution is not only possible, but vital to maintaining the continued safety of Federation fleets.

Again, we have the luxury of historical precedent to aid us in this goal. The crew of the U.S.S Enterprise NCC-1701-A used a very effective method of detecting and tracking a cloaked vessel during the Khitomer peace accords which they successfully prevented from becoming a "Khitomer Incident". The Enterprise crew devised a way to track the impulse exhaust of a cloaked ship through a modified torpedo, augmented with equipment to detect and identify gaseous anomalies. Through this method, the Enterprise was able to launch a torpedo which accurately tracked and detonated in close proximity to a cloaked Bird of Prey, enabling the Enterprise and Excelsior(NCC-2000) to target and destroy the ship.

Such a weapon is easily within the realm of possibility for any starship captain with the right tools, the imagination, and the available time in a crisis situation. However, I believe this is a tactic which would most benefit from becoming a standardised system for a small, fast cruiser serving as a front line scout vessel and fleet escort.

I propose the design of a tactical console to be integrated into Constitution class systems to reconfigure standard ordinance into a "Depth Charge Torpedo", capable of tracking and detonating in close proximity to a cloaked vessel. The initial proximity detonation would unfortunately be unable to cause extensive damage to the cloaked ship, but should be sufficient for a positive target lock. (Of course such a modification would be impossible to implement on certain ordinance like the Tricobalt torpedo which requires most of its internal volume be devoted to the warhead alone.)

Finally, there are unconfirmed reports from a "source" within Starfleet Intelligence which state that the Klingon Empire has replicated the Bird of Prey design which is able to fire weaponry while cloaked. Being such a small and versatile ship (unlike the Reman Scimitar class) the Klingon Empire will surely be able to produce these ships en masse in a very short amount of time. If these reports are to be taken seriously (and I shall confirm this if Starfleet Intelligence deems them classified), then it is my contention that the need for a cheap, efficient scout class starship capable of destroyer duties to protect our fleets on the front lines should be of vital importance to Starfleet Command.

It is my deepest wish that you will consider my proposal, and forward my detailed report to the Advanced Starship Design Bureau at the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards on Mars for further investigation.