At the turn of the 24th Century, Starfleet had three main classes of frigate: the Phobos class, Apollo class, and Okinawa class. Patrol forces, of which frigates are a large portion, are the mainstay of Starfleet, tasked with patrolling frontiers, guarding neutral zones, protecting commercial freighter traffic, and preventing piracy and smuggling. Often a frigate will be the first command of a Command-track Starfleet officer of rank Lieutenant Commander or Commander.

The Apollo class was conceived in the in the late 2290s from lessons being learned during the Tabula Rasa campaign, and it evolved into a design that would be Starfleet's principal Out-system Patrol Vessel (O.P.V.) going into the new century. Designed from the outset to fill in a newly-perceived gap in Starfleet's stable of starships, the Apollo's capabilities and mission role were designed around the so-called "5-S Criteria": Speed, Stealth, Sensors, Strike, and Specialisation. The Metar onslaught had exposed the fragility and porous nature of the Federation frontier once the border had been successfully breached, and while there was no way Starfleet could field enough ships to give total coverage of its entire frontier, certain massive gaps in the planetary and deep-space sensor nets needed to be addressed. The Apollo class frigate has since been rapidly introduced in large numbers to be Starfleet's tripwire and trap in the vast empty reaches of space between star systems and behind the Federation's border with her more belligerent adversaries.

Captain Adam Buckner of the Advanced Starship Design Bureau made his mark with this design, following in the illustrious footsteps of Admirals Probert and Sternbach before him. The general public was attracted to the large and prestigious designs such as the Excelsior, Ark Royal and Ulysses classes but Captain Buckner put the small but vital and widely varied roles of the patrol forces firmly back into the media spotlight and public consciousness. The popular Okinawa class multi-role patrol frigate needed an equally capable stable-mate and the Apollo class was designed for this purpose, much like the complementary roles of the 20th Century Sovremenny and Udaloy destroyer classes of the Soviet Navy.

The eventual layout of the Apollo's hullform utilised existing tactical systems as implemented on the extremely successful Miranda class cruiser, and a primary hull design heavily influenced by the still recent success of Project Excelsior, though considerably scaled down. Her nacelle design came from a mating of Excelsior technological development and the then-40 year old circumferential warp engine, giving rise to an all-new design of engine which lead to high sprinting speed at the cost of sustainable top-end speed.

Due to the similarity between much of the component parts of the Apollo class and other classes of starship already in service, the Apollo was rapidly prototyped, tested and entered into service. As with most Darwinian selection processes, a newer, hardier, more survivable frigate design emerged. Most of her trials and evaluations focussed on fully mapping her strengths, broadly similar those of the nuclear submarine classes of many worlds recent pasts: stealth; tracking targets while remaining undetected; signals, communications, and electronic intelligence gathering; covert special forces insertions; and precision strike missions.

The typical mission duration of the Apollo-class frigate is 3 years between refits. Their Commanding Officer usually holds the rank of Commander, though many talented Command-track officers have taken the conn as Lieutenant Commanders. The crew complement of an Apollo is usually around 115 personnel, which is up from her Okinawa-class stable-mate but still around half that of the Saladin-class escorts and variants she is now replacing. The sheer scale of the Federation border, with the convoluted three-dimensional nature of the boundaries, means that Starfleet has always played catch-up with policing numbers along its expanse. The Metar War showed the current frigate fleet was not up to the job on its own, and in addition, the end of the cold war with the Klingons exposed the corruption and black market trade that was thriving across all borders. In response to this, then Starfleet Commander-in-Chief William Smillie authorised a rapid build-up of all patrol and escort classes with the stated goal of closing down this illegal trade completely.

The stealth capabilities and advanced sensors of the prototype U.S.S. Apollo NX-9173 allowed her operational trials and evaluation to include intelligence-gathering missions on the Orion Syndicate. Able to remain undetected by the smugglers while still within her own effective sensor range, the Apollo was able to eavesdrop on their communications and, by use of pioneering warp signature identification software building on the work of Commander Uhura and Captain Spock's IFF software [see Starfleet Dynamics manual for specifics], positively identify ships and their direction of travel. Once the exchange was confirmed, the Apollo would sweep in, disable the surprised ships, and arrest the smugglers. The repeated success of this achievement sent shockwaves through the Syndicate and other criminal enterprises as well as impressing the Starfleet top brass. Even the Federation President was said to have asked Admiral Smillie just how quickly could these new frigates be built and deployed. It is said a Presidential Decree aided in prioritising the building of components and ships.

The Apollo class is continuing its cycle of production, intended to replace the aging Saladin design and its variants in their frontline policing roles. Apollo-class starships do not have the full range and capabilities of even their Okinawa-class stablemates, but as a specialised anti-smuggling vessel they can punch above their weight in the modern galaxy. Armed with fifty photon torpedoes and state-of-the-art phaser systems, along with the best sensors Starfleet could install, the Apollo-class was the Starfleet reply to Klingon Bird of Prey flotillas, the threat of ever-increasing Romulan border probes before the Tomed Incident, and the continually increasing sophistication of smugglers, pirates, and organised crime.

The Nirophian Corridor has a handful of these frigates assigned to patrol its 100-plus light year length. Beginning in early 2309 with the assigning of the Leander, Hermione, and Ajax to Starbase 77 to guard against the regrettable increase in attention from pirates and raiders brought on by the previous assignment of a Starfleet cruiser squadron, the second deployment from 2312 brought in the starships Achilles, Agamemnon, Cerberus, Chimera, and Electra. These ships supplement the presence of the Sheffield and lend a hand where needed. These are not diplomatic starships and have few of the luxuries of larger starships such as the Excelsior or Miranda classes. With the Corridor being the 'Suez Canal of the Federation', these Apollo-class frigates are needed to keep the spacelanes open for trade, and safe from the depredations of belligerents.



Apollo class frigate specifics:

Primary Hull:

01 Main Bridge; Captain's Ready Room.

02 Senior Officers' offices; Briefing Room; Shuttle Bay.

03 Officers Quarters; Senior Crew Quarters.

04 Main deck - Navigational Deflector; Sickbay; Transporter Rooms; Crew Quarters; Quartermaster's Office; Impulse Drive; Main Engineering; Security Section.

05 Torpedo bays (fore and aft), Tactical Sensor Arrays; "Snooper" Eavesdropping Sensor Arrays.

06 Navigational Sensor Arrays, Deuterium Tanks.

Length: 210 metres

Beam: 116.21m

Height: 37.55 metres

Crew: 115 [15 officers, 100 enlisted]

Cruising Warp 7 [OCU]

Max Warp 11 [OCU]

Maximum Speed: Warp 9.2 for 12 hours (new scale)

Armament: 21 triple type-7 phaser banks; 4 photon torpedo launchers

Defences: Deflector shields





Apollo class [Note: not an exhaustive list.]

Name	Starship Registry	Notes	Author's Notes
Apollo	9173	Prototype.
Achilles	11771
Abderus		Companion of Hercules
Aegis		Shield of Zeus
Aeolus	42041	King of the Winds
Agamemnon	11638	King of Argos
Ajax	11574	Cortin Zweller's first assignment in 2327.	TNG "Tapestry"
Amazon	11
Andromeda	11047
Antaeus	11	Wrestler slain by Hercules
Aphrodite	11
Arachne	11
Arethusa	11038	Nymph changed to fountain
Artemis	11712	Diana the Huntress
Aurora	11	Eos
Avalon	11	Isle where King Arthur is laid to rest
Bacchante	11069
Callisto	11	Arcadian nymph
Cassandra	11	Daughter of Priam
Cassiope	11	Mother of Andromeda
Castor	11
Centaur	42043		DS9
Cerberus	11221
Cerynitis	11	A sacred stag
Chalybes	11	Race of iron forgers
Charybdis	11475
Chimera
Chloris	11	Flower goddess
Clement	12537		TNG "Lower Decks"
Cyclops	11
Cygnus	11
Danae	11247
Deianira	11	Wife of Hercules
Diomede	11016
Dido	11037
Dionysus	11	Bacchus
Electra	11227	Daughter of Oceanus
Epeus	11	Maker of the Trojan Horse
Eurydice	11
Gage	11672	Lost at Wolf 359.	DS9 "Emissary"
Galatea	11699	Statue of Pygmalion
Gorgon	11
Hector	11	Champion of Troy
Hephaestus	11	Vulcan
Hercules	11
Hermione	11458	Daughter of Menelaus
Hippolyte	11	Queen of the Amazons
Icarus	11
Iolaus	11	Nephew of Hercules
Ixion	11
Jason	11	Destroyed by the Dominion
Leander	11109	named for a class of RN frigates.
Medusa	11
Menelaus	11300	King of Sparta
Minotaur	11
Naiad	11039
Nestor	11
Olympia	11
Pandora	11
Penelope	11127
Persephone	11
Perseus	11
Phoebe	11042
Pholus	11	A centaur
Polyphemus	11	Companion of Hercules
Scylla	11171	named for the Daughter of Minos
Sphinx	11
Syrinx	11	Nymph turned into reed.
Thor	11
Wells

Author's Notes:

The designation Apollo class for this particular Star Trek model is conjecture from the era that the model is from and the obvious design gap. U.S.S. Centaur, as shown in DS9 episode 'A Time To Stand' featured this kit-bash of the Excelsior and Miranda class models. The DS9 Technical Manual did not give a starship class designation, but many fans including Nick Cook and myself both consider this to be the Apollo class that have starship registries in the 11000-range. Starships from this class include: Achilles, Ajax, Clement, Gage, T'Pau and Agamemnon. Many names are taken from mythology which, in conjunction with the registry numbers from around the Excelsior period, make the Centaur NCC-42043 compelling as Apollo class.

One of the greatest debates about the Centaur was the size. The DS9TM states 381 metres which makes her Excelsior saucer sized hull and nacelles with an impossibly big bridge and torpedo pod, not to mention top windows that would be three decks in length(!). A smaller size which is compatible with the dorsal windows, bridge and torpedo pod is the alternative chosen here and also finally agreed upon by Bernd Scneider of Ex Asteris Scientia - 210 metres as opposed to 381. While originally opposed to the 210m frigate and preferring the 381m light cruiser, a conversation with the Centaur's creator has firmly ended the debate. Adam Buckner designed the ship from the outset to be scaled to her Miranda hull pieces as a small, fast, deep space prowler.

From Bernd Schneider's website, the comparison to Reliant sized parts gave a total of six decks. This matches up with the eleven decks that the Miranda class has. This is a frigate, not a cruiser-sized object and the saucer section is small. The ship will only have the bare basics for science and research, being geared more for the practical purposes of border patrol and anti-smuggling duties. This is very similar to the Royal Navy River-class Offshore Patrol Vessels (O.P.V.) Tyne, Mersey, Severn, and the larger Clyde. These ships look after the merchant trade that keeps the Federation going, they stop the smugglers, the pirates, the drug and people traffickers. These are the equivalents of the Australian Navy Armidale class - just like HMAS Hammersley in Sea Patrol.

Stephen L.'s fantastic website was one of the strongest sources of reason for the scale of the ship. Although Stephen himself goes for the 381 metres long argument, the size of the bridge, torpedo pod and windows on the dorsal do not add up - or scale up - at all.