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Romulan Ship Classes

Romulan Vessels - Reman Vessels - Unknown Romulan Class

Romulan Vessels

Name prefixes
IRW: Imperial Romulan Warbird
PWB: Praetorian Warbird (presumed)
"IRW" may have been used occasionally, although I only remember the Khazara in TNG: "Face of the Enemy" being called "Imperial Romulan Warbird". The "PWB" prefix appeared on a casualties list in the Dominion War. Since none of the prefixes is very prominent, I'm not using them in this list.

Bird-of-Prey	General description The Bird-of-Prey was first sighted in 2266 when a starship of this type crossed the Neutral Zone and attacked the Earth Outposts. The ship was equipped with warp drive and armed with a powerful plasma energy weapon, and it had the ability to cloak. While cloaked, the Bird-of-Prey was not capable of firing but still warp-capable. Article: Warp Drive and Romulan History	Known ships No name given
	Annotations 1) The Romulan BoP was designed by Wah Chang and appears in TOS: "Balance of Terror" and in "The Deadly Years" too. Lt. Stiles states that Romulan ships have a big bird painted on their hull. Since his information obviously comes from history books rather than from secret intelligence reports, the BoP must continue a Romulan tradition in ship design. 2) There is far more evidence supporting the existence of Romulan warp ships in 2266 and also in the Romulan War a century earlier than for the common notion that Romulans did not have FTL ships prior to their supposed alliance with the Klingons in 2268. Since Star Trek Enterprise this idea has been ultimately refuted. Read here. Even if the Romulan BoP in "Balance of Terror" were only capable of impulse speeds during the battle, this doesn't rule out that it has come from Romulus at warp. The identical ship is undeniably observable at warp speed in "The Deadly Years". 3) The name is obviously the only thing the Romulan BoP has in common with the Klingon BoP. In an early draft of "Star Trek III" Kruge steals his ship from the Romulans, but there is no mention that the Klingon BoP is actually a Romulan design too. 4) The Bird-of-Prey appears as an Easter Egg aboard the Narada. 5) In the remastered versions of the two TOS episodes the top side of the Romulan BoP was shown from previously unseen angles and was given a hull grid and a more metallic looking surface than we may have expected. The underside with the bird depiction still looks like in TOS but now possesses a subtle hull grid too. The BoP also appears in TOS-R: "The Enterprise Incident", here replacing one of the previously three D7 battlecruisers.	Class specifications Length: 131m

D7	General description The Romulans possess D7 cruisers of Klingon design around 2268. The Romulan D7 is outfitted with a cloaking device.	Known ships No name given
	Annotations 1) The real-world reason for using the Klingon ship in TOS: "The Enterprise Incident" is that the Romulan BoP looked rather clumsy and little detailed. Ironically, before the episode the ship appeared only in one brief scene in TOS: "Elaan of Troyius" as a Klingon design, so it was not yet firmly established as a Klingon ship. Anyway, "The Enterprise Incident" clearly calls the Romulan ships a "Klingon design". 2) It is obvious that the specs are the same as of the Klingon D7 ships. The only change I made on the schematic is that I removed the Klingon emblem (although the actual models in the episode might have had it). 3) We don't know how exactly the Romulans got their hands on Klingon vessels. It is only speculation that the Romulans and Klingons had a brief alliance around 2268. The D7 ships could have been captured by the Romulans as well. While three ships could be seen in "The Enterprise Incident", we don't know how many ships the Romulans acquired altogether, how long they have been in use, or what kind of influence the technology transfer had on later ships. By the time of TNG, the Romulan and Klingon design lineages seem to have diverged again. 4) For TOS-R: "The Enterprise Incident" the D7s were given a Romulan bird pattern on the ventral hull. Also, one of them was replaced with a Bird-of-Prey.	Class specifications Battlecruiser Length: 228m

D'deridex	General description The Warbird of the D'deridex class is a huge starship used by the Romulans in the 2360s and 2370s. The ship is twice as long as a Federation Galaxy class, with an advantage in fire power, but a lower maximum speed. The power source is an artificial quantum singularity. Gallery: Romulan Starships	Known ships Belak Decius Devoras Dividices Genorex Haakona Khazara Makar T'Met Terix
	Annotations 1) The D'deridex, designed by Andrew Probert, first showed up in TNG: "The Neutral Zone". At one occasion, the ship class was called a "B-Type Warbird" in TNG: "The Defector". Considering that this must be a Federation designation, while "D'deridex" is obviously Romulan, I assume they are equivalent names for the same class. "Warbird", on the other hand, may be a general designation for all big Romulan warships. 2) In TNG: "The Neutral Zone" it is stated that the ship is twice as long as a Galaxy class. The approximate length of 1200m is consistent through all reference manuals except for the unreliable DS9TM (here: 1041m), where several other ship lengths are off as well. Andrew Probert tells us that the actual design length is 1353m. 3) The Decius appeared as "Admiral Picard's" ship in an illusion created for Riker in TNG: "Future Imperfect". We may assume that a real ship name was taken from a databank or Riker's memory, though. 4) The Belak and the Makar were mentioned as part of the fleet to attack the Founders' homeworld in DS9: "The Die is Cast". The fleet consisted of nothing but Cardassian Keldon-class and Romulan D'deridex-class ships as could be verified from various different angles. It seems unlikely that there are ships of other classes we haven't seen.	Class specifications Length: 1353m

Drone	General description The Romulan drone is an unmanned vessel that is remote-controlled using a telepresence unit. For that purpose it is equipped with an array of subspace transceivers in the form of many spikes. The pilot using the RC interface must be a telepath. A holographic skin may be applied to the drone to mimic the appearance of any other vessel, leaving only the Romulan power signature as a clue of its true identity. The drone is armed with beam weapons, extremely maneuverable in combat and capable of self-repair. It can reach speeds in excess of Warp 5.	Known ships No name given
	Annotations 1) In the Andorian trilogy beginning with ENT: "Babel One" the vessel was called a "marauder" by Starfleet, whereas the Romulans referred to it as "drone". Two of them were encountered, and both were destroyed at the end of "The Aenar". The drone is a very small ship. Although Trip and Malcolm spend some time exploring its interior, it must be less than 40m long compared to other vessels and particularly to Enterprise. In this respect it is a bit ridiculous that the drone is meant to be a "modified warbird" as stated in the episode. 2) The CGI model is a modification of the "Flea ship" from VOY: "The Fight": Considering that the model has likely been considerably refined for close shots, we need to wonder why no new ship was built to portray such a prominent vessel of a major race.	Class specifications Length: approx. 35m Max. speed: Warp 5

Early Bird-of-Prey	General description This ship type has cloaking and was in service as early as 2152. Article: Warp Drive and Romulan History Gallery: Romulan Starships	Known ships No name given
	Annotations 1) John Eaves designed the early BoP to appear in ENT: "Minefield" as a homage to the above TOS Bird-of-Prey. The Art Department originally included the typical bird painting on the underside that Romulan ships are supposed to have (TOS: "Balance of Terror"), but they were asked to remove it. The hull color is just as green as on 24th century Romulan ships (and on Klingon ships too). The rather modern looking nacelles were rounder in the first pass, as John Eaves tells us. They are similar to those on the Klingon Raptor class. A technology exchange? 2) It should be unmistakable now that Romulans were supposed to have warp drive ever since they encountered humans. 3) It is irritating to see that the ship already has cloaking, although this will be something surprising over 100 years later in "Balance of Terror". The plot of "Minefield" wouldn't have required cloaked ships at all. 4) Regarding the size of this vessel, Rob Bonchune's size chart has it at about 165m. However, since 130m would correspond much better with the structure of the 23rd century version, I will stick to this size.	Class specifications Length: approx. 130m

Mine	General description In the 22nd century the Romulans deployed cloaked mines like this one to secure planets claimed by their empire. They were equipped with a sophisticated anti-tampering mechanism.	Known ships No name given
	Annotations The mines appeared in ENT: "Minefield". They were equipped with a cloaking device but could be made visible using Daniels' equipment that already served to penetrate the Suliban cloaking in "Shockwave". It was not entirely clear in the episode whether the Romulans themselves built the minefield. Yet, bearing in mind that the cloaking of their vessels (see above entry) was even more advanced, it is very likely that the mines belonged to them.	Class specifications None available

Science ship	General description The Romulan science ship is a small vessel whose purpose is not further specified. Gallery: Romulan Starships	Known ships No name given
	Annotations 1) The science ship appeared only in TNG: "The Next Phase" and is a redress of the Romulan scout (see below). The beak and tail sections were modified, while the center of the ship seems to have remained the same. This is why I assume that the center section, encompassing the warp engines, is actually the same size on the real ships. It may be a modular concept that can be adapted to different purposes. On the other hand, the whole ship seems to have been flipped upside down, as the two ridges on the ventral and dorsal side indicate. The shorter ridge was on the top of the scout ship, but is at the bottom of the science ship. Moreover, the color was changed from intense green to a faint bluish green. 2) The particular science ship in TNG: "The Next Phase" had an experimental phase cloaking device. It is well possible that this was the only ship so equipped, and that after its failure (and the Federation knowing about it) the project was discontinued.	Class specifications Science ship Length: 95m

Scout	General description The scout is a small Romulan starship that can be operated by as few as one person. Gallery: Romulan Starships	Known ships No name given
	Annotations The scout ship was designed by Rick Sternbach and only appeared in TNG: "The Defector".	Class specifications Scout Length: 89m

Shuttle	General description The Romulan shuttle has about the size of a Federation runabout. Like all known Romulan ships, it possesses a cloaking device.	Known shuttles No name given
	Annotations The shuttle only appeared in DS9: "In the Pale Moonlight".	Class specifications Length: 24m

Shuttles on Romulus, visible in "Star Trek: Nemesis"
None of these shuttles is clearly identifiable. Shuttle #1 seems to be a re-use of the Qomar ship 4. In the same picture we can see two shuttles, #2a and #2b, that are obviously identical. Their design may be new. Shuttle #3 could be the shuttle that also appeared as a Xindi-Primate shuttle. #4a and #4b look a lot like the Devore shuttle or the Aeon type. Finally, shuttle #5 may be the same design as #1.

Valdore type Brown variant	General description The Valdore is a large Romulan ship type of the late 2370s. The class name is unknown.	Known ships Valdore
	Annotations 1) The Valdore type is the design of two Romulan Warbirds in the Bassen Rift in "Star Trek: Nemesis", of which the one commanded by Commander Donatra was verbally identified as "Valdore". John Eaves may have the laid out the ship intentionally to resemble the Klingon Bird-of-Prey, considering that the BoP was originally meant to be a Romulan ship. But it makes no sense at all in retrospect now that we know that the Klingon BoP is in reality a genuinely Klingon design (ENT: "The Expanse").  2) The high-resolution image of the Valdore comes from the IGN website. 3) The size figure comes from the movie's ship scale sheet. 4) While the Valdore herself is green like other Romulan ships too, the sister ship in "Nemesis" was given a brown hull. The possible reason was to allow a differentiation of the two vessels of which presumably only the Valdore survived, albeit with very bad damage. Maybe the two ships belong to different production batches or to different branches of the Romulan military. Yet, we may decide to disregard the subtle color divergence which may be partly due to light scattering in the nebula.	Class specifications Length: 604m

Reman Vessels

Reman ships, as they appear in "Star Trek: Nemesis", obviously have a design lineage very different from usual Romulan ships. There is no satisfactory explanation in the movie.

Scorpion	General description The Reman Scorpion fighter is a small craft with two seats. It is equipped with a disruptor cannon.	Known shuttles No name given
	Annotations The fighter appears in "Star Trek: Nemesis" and seems to be a design previously unknown to the Federation. As Data finds the name in the databank of the Scimitar, the impression is created that "Scorpion" is the official class name, rather than a (human) nickname of the design - unless he swiftly translated the name of a Romulan animal resembling a scorpion.	Class specifications Fighter Length: approx. 7m

Scimitar type	General description The Scimitar is a huge vessel built by the Reman rebels on a secret base. Apparently superior to any ship of either the Federation or the Romulans with 52 disruptors and 27 torpedo banks, the Scimitar is capable of firing while cloaked. It is also equipped with a thalaron emitter, a weapon that destroys any organic tissue. The thalaron emitter is activated by unfolding the wings of the vessel. There is at least one large shuttlebay with dozens of Scorpion-class fighters.	Known ships Scimitar
	Annotations 1) The Scimitar appears as Shinzon's ship in "Star Trek: Nemesis" and is called a "Reman Warbird". It was designed by John Eaves. The irregular shapes are borrowed from the Breen ship and the Son'a vessels and the overall structure resembles the Jem'Hadar battleship. Together with its countless aggressive spikes and moving parts, this is an overall uninteresting and unsound design in my view. 2) The size figure comes from the movie's ship scale sheet (see the Valdore above).	Class specifications Length: 890m

Unknown Romulan Class

Pi, scout ship, crashed on Galorndon Core in TNG: "The Enemy"
We may assume that it is of the same class as the scout that appeared in TNG: "The Defector", but this is only speculation.

PWB Koderex, Romulan vessel on the casualties list of the Dominion War in DS9: "Image in the Sand" and "The Siege of AR-558"

Gasko, Romulan vessel that located the Rio Grande flying without pilot in DS9: "Paradise"

Talvath, science (spy?) vessel, commanded by Telek R'mor in 2351 (VOY: "Eye of the Needle")
We may assume that it is of the same class as the science ship that appeared in TNG: "The Next Phase", but this is only speculation.

PWB Tomal, Romulan vessel on the casualties list of the Dominion War in DS9: "Image in the Sand" and "The Siege of AR-558"

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