"Barn Owl" light cruiser intelligence report.
Star Fleet Intelligence (SFI) has given this report a 78% reliability rating.

General Specifications:

Length: 118m (Estimated)
Width: 157.5m (Estimated)
Height: 17m (Estimated)
Max Warp: 5.8 (Estimated)
Cruise: 5.0 (Estimated)
Max. Impulse: 0.5 lightspeed (Estimated)
Crew: 70-125 (Estimated)

Armaments: Four lasers (2 fwd, 2 aft); 1 plasma stream projector (fwd), later upgraded to a plasma cannon.

Type: Light Cruiser

About Ship: In 2160, the Romulan Star Empire (RSE) had suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the United Earth forces. It had expended every effort to secure a victory, yet it's superior numbers of ships had been defeated by a small fleet which was much slower at sublight speeds. While the Romulan weapons were more powerful at shorter range, their long-distance weaponry was on a par with the Earth's weapons. Romulan defenses were unprepared for the Federation's use of stealthy missiles. These could not be easily detected until it was nearly too late to take defensive action.

When the treaty ending the war had finally been negotiated, the Romulans began a slow reconstruction of their fleet. Vast amounts of resources had been expended to counter the Earthling threat, resulting in large numbers of ships that were, in the final balance, obsolete even before they were produced. An entirely new fleet would be required before the Romulans could once again venture forth to bring victory to the Empire. The process of recovery was very slow. The first new warship to be constructed following the war did not enter production until 2238, and it incorporated every lesson learned at the hands of the humans.

The main lesson learned was that the battle went not to the swift, but the stealthy. If the humans could build stealthy missiles, the Romulans would go them one better and make their ships invisible. Developing an appropriate technology to do this took many years of accelerated research. The "Barn Owl" (Romulan Designation unknown) was the first Romulan vessel to be equipped with a cloaking device. This device had a very high energy requirement, and could only be operated continuously for a few hours before requiring maintenance. Reliability of the early models was a problem as well. These devices were prone to sudden failure, and frequently required extensive repairs before being brought back on line. The doctrine developed to use this device was for a ship to close to point-blank range before decloaking and attacking. It would have to decloak first, since the cloak rendered targeting sensors inoperative. Once decloaked, the Barn Owl's close-in weaponry would theoretically cripple any but the largest vessel with the opening volley.

The Barn Owl's armaments consisted of four lasers and a plasma stream projector. Four lasers allowed the Barn Owl to threaten an opposing vessel while approaching or departing. For close-in work, there was a plasma streaming weapon more powerful than any used during the war. The lasers were inneffective beyond 10,000 km, and the plasma streaming weapon would be useless beyond 3,000 km.

Warp efficiency was greatly improved by moving the nacelles away from the thrustline, but this negatively affected sublight performance as the subspace field distortion effect worked best with the nacelles bracketing the center of mass. Both sublight and warp performance were hindered by the Romulan's inability to construct a matter/antimatter warp core that met their standards for reliability and safety. The fusion warp core was therefore rather large, occupying nearly 30% of the ship's interior. This disadvantage was offset by the ability to divert the core's full power to the plasma streaming weapon when additional firepower was desired. Feedback through the plasma conduits could damage the warp core if this level of power was maintained for more than a few seconds, however.

When the Barn Owl began entering service in 2240, the Romulans decided to hold them in reserve until a ship capable of challenging the Federation's ships could be constructed. In 2259, the Barn Owls recieved an improved plasma weapon, the plasma cannon. This was a lower-powered version of the weapon used by the Bird of Prey which crossed the Neutral zone in 2266. Despite having a similar configuration and size, the Bird of Prey is not derived from the Barn Owl. No Barn Owl was seen until 2268, by which time it had been relegated to patrol and escort duty. What little is known about it has been derived from SAPINT sources almost exclusively.