CLASSIFIED

"Raptor" escort intelligence report.
All specifications are estimates unless otherwise indicated.

General Specifications:
Length: 193m
Width: 200m
Height: 85m
Max Warp: 9.3 (est.)
Cruise: 8.8 (est.)
Max Impulse: 0.97 lightspeed (est.)
Crew: Unknown. Estimated requirement = 20, maximum capacity = 100

Armaments: Unknown. Ports for eight disruptors and an equal number of torpedoes visible in forward view. One very large weapon of unknown type also visible in forward view. SAPINT sources indicate this weapon is either a Romulan version of the Dominion's polaron beam or a highly improved version of the Romulan plasma weapon. Similar sources indicate the Raptor may also have aft-firing disruptors and/or torpedo launchers.

Type: Heavy escort vessel.

About ship: The Raptor is a small, agile, heavily-armed vessel. SAPINT indicates that when the Romulan Senate approved cooperation with the Federation by supplying a cloaking device to be installed in the Defiant, they did so only with the understanding that the military would design and construct one or more vessels capable of countering it. This strategy was "insurance" in case the Defiant's anti-Borg mission profile turned out to be a ruse to acquire Romulan technology.

The Raptor is somewhat larger than the Defiant, powered by an artificial quantum singularity. It's armaments provide approximately twice the firepower of the Defiant. The hull appears to have borrowed some construction techniques from the Gorn, including supplementary phased array sensors within the hull matrix and utilizing overlapping ablative armor panels. The main weapon is unknown at this time, and is theorized to be either a long-ranged polaron beam or a short-ranged (but greatly improved) plasma stream weapon, based on the excess power generation of the vessel. Current intelligence is unclear as to whether the Raptor has any aft-firing weaponry, but it is presumed that there are some defensive armaments in that quadrant, most likely one or two disruptors and/or torpedo launchers.

The Raptor's hull configuration adheres to standard Romulan design doctrine except that there is no forward command section. Instead, the command section is buried within the hull, as is the practice with newer Federation warship designs. The efficiency of this spaceframe is slightly better than larger Romulan designs, rendering it slightly slower than the Defiant in cruise, but slightly faster at maximum velocity.