Legend or LUNACY!? Story of One-Wing Klingon D-11 Destoyer Design!

[@jasoncaldwell5627]

I think it was a warp field experiment. Some genius Klingon engineer found a way to use a hull with radically imbalanced mass to push the warp field further ahead of the ship in a technology similar to transwarp. This allowed the "one wing" to attain high warp speeds over long distances- but limited the mass of the hull, resulting in a small, underpowered destroyer- but a fast one!

[@Joshf4phan]

FASA loved their lemon designs back in the day, and while it's been near thirty years since I played the TCS so I don't remember the balances in that game, old school Battletech had plenty of outright stinker designs and most designs had some notable flaw or weakness. It read as a way to demonstrate real-world difficulties in engineering and producing designs and how very few high-end craft came out without something lost in the design tradeoffs. The single wing certainly sticks out as one of the most memorable designs and I kind of love the little thing.

[@avenuePad]

I also thought of Battletech when looking at this monstrosity of a ship. Although, Battletech had some great original designs, while FASA designs always came across as half-baked...no pun intended. As a kid I was always intrigued by the original new starship designs by FASA. But when I'd actually see the lead figurines, I always felt somewhat disappointed. Though there are exceptions, of course.

[@darklordofsword]

*One Winged Angel in Klingon plays in the background...*

[@Tryambakam108]

In the original Klingon.

[@alienfromlhs1140b]

one klinged angel

[@mill2712]

Solo wing destroyer.

[@dezkeiz4946]

@@mill2712

[@IronWarhorsesFun]

the OG Klingon!

[@katieblackmore2004]

As a 44 year old fan of the table top starship FASA game you mentioned, i love the lore and overall feel of that game. I wish people still played it. When you played that game, then added the role playing game, with the crew members, that could beam aboard ships and the maps you bought for that were massively detailed, it was incredible. Take a mission from the brief book, you could have a 3 hour table top starship battle, where you had too cripple a ship and beam aboard, then start a whole new phase using crew member aboard a ship or planet, and the games used too fly by. Games these days just don't have the atmosphere of FASA star trek games. I had some select favourite ships from that era... Federation, Chandley Frigate or Loknar Romulan, Winged Defender Gorn, BH-2 Orion, Wanderer Class Klingon, D10 I would not use nor do i remember this D11 class haha, but it is.... interesting. Maybe the designer had a tad too much Romulan Ale and fell asleep mid design.

[@FekLeyrTarg]

Your lore on the D-11 reminds me on how the SuvwI'Qeh (or Warrior's Anger) class Command Cruiser from "Klingon Academy" came to be. It was at first a custom refit of a K'T'Inga developed by its commander to take revenge on someone (I don't remember all the details right now). That refit proved to be so successful that more SuvwI'Qehs were built.

[@dhum2770]

I was waiting for you to name the 'aggressive shooting' Captain - Captain Clint Eastwood (or something similar), like you did with Captain Tom Sellek last month...

[@claian12]

It reminds me of those asymmetric catarmarans (if that's what those are even called), where one hull is significantly smaller than the other.

[@andrewbutton2039]

There was me thinking klingon shipyards received a requisition with "20x D-4 wing L" and assumed the requisition was for 20 left D-4 wings and not a typo.

[@keithulhu]

The story I read in the Klingon Ship Recognition manual, which was a joke that circulated in Starfleet circles, was that a Klingon shipbuilder had fallen behind in constructing the two-wing design and in order to fulfill the contract and spare his life, he completed it minus the starboard wing assembly

[@jhallam2011]

First nice that you shout out appreciation for your Patrons and second I love ships that are unusual and unique. Nice story you came up with

[@brianmartin6016]

One of my favorite Klingon starships...I guess it was the funky design and light armament that made it somewhat of a challenge to captain! But for convoy escort within the Empire and to subdue a smaller planetary rebellion with a squadron of these ships; the Empire found it cost-effective.

[@terranempire2]

So is there a 11D Other wing out there?

[@resurrectedstarships]

Logic would suggest there should be a reversed version. Thanks for this, I relaly appreciate it!

[@sw-gs]

Damaged ship that lost one of her wings and was left like that to scare off enemies by showing her battlescars... that's frightning thought. I imagined that thing is really what Klingon would do on battlefield when for example his hand would be heavly damaged and useless, he would cut it off and mount Mek'leth to stump.

[@jps30]

I could see the story of repairing a ship like this happening and that design just getting added to the recognition manual. Could have been spotted multiple times and not realized to be the same ship, especially if it was quicker than realized. If it was an actual design, then I see it coming from war time demand. You have production making set parts but can make three ships out of two, it might be worth it.

[@earnestbrown6524]

That how the story goes but the truth is the Head of the house in charge employed his brother-in-law to build the wing factories and he made them both the same. Came up with the D-11 as cover.

[@S1337theoddoneout-ip9xc]

Man, that D-11 sounds like a express ticket to Sto'Vo'Kor. If you go into battle on a D-11, you know you'll be dinning with Kahless that same day.

[@MaxWriter]

"So, why - dear god - why design this?" LOL

[@Gigas0101]

The story you came up with feels very similar to what this ship made me think, One-Wings were stopgap ships meant for rapid response and defencive operations. I hope we see more of 'em in the future, as the asymmetry gives them a unique feel compared to other ships in Star Trek.

[@Mr00Ted]

Ah, the story of the one-wing F-15, but in the Original Klingon

[@phillipmorel5116]

At the very mention of kor I was like well that makes sense

[@Zeithri]

I mean its' Kor. He became a Dahar Master for a reason. Doubt he'd play dirty.

[@Peregrine57]

It looks like it *wants* to work, but being made out of spare parts is holding it back. Something of that general profile could absolutely work. Turn the bridge module 90° counter clockwise, think of something better to do with the nacelles, and have the secondary hull be a sort of under-slung weapons platform, and you've got a bonus second design as well.

[@tarkas566]

The graphics are great and your backstory for the D-11 is fun, but you might be interested to know that one of the STCS websites includes a "two-wing" ship very like the original Finalizer design, known as the D-19 Great Wing light cruiser. I've always liked the D-11; it does look silly, but that's part of its appeal. I remember seeing a model of it (about the same size as the original AMT D-7 kit) at a model show, and was impressed with the workmanship. I also have two D-11s in my wargaming fleet, courtesy of Shapeways, plus two "right-handed" versions -- basically, a mirror image of the original -- that I christened the D-11R. The four make an entertaining-looking squadron on the table.

[@chrisbyrnes8758]

FASA has always been skilled at coming up with really interesting designs that "made sense at the time" in the setting... as opposed to min/maxed super weapons with a built-in win button.

[@MatthewCaunsfield]

Thanks for shedding some light on this very unusual design! 😊

[@doc_sav]

This is actually pretty dope

[@barrybend7189]

Hey could you please look into the D6/ K'oro'Tinga from Star Trek Online?

[@CommodoreTy]

Looks like the were building a D7/K'T'Inga and stopped construction half way through

[@TheRealNormanBates]

1:11 ah ah ah! The photon torpedoes are on the upper pod. The old Connies only had 3 phaser banks: 2 on the upper port and starboard saucer and 1 on the lower saucer facing forward. I know TOS showed the photons coming from the lower sensor array, but I think that was done for filming convenience. I still wish there was a breakdown video of the K’tinga to show it’s true size.

[@Archie2c]

Love the Chandley at the beginning

[@ronwit]

My take on all of this. After the four years war, which is the whatever war in Discovery and other takes on this era, both empires discovered that the ships on both sides were obsolete. Those that survived the war and those that didn't needed replaced. About this time a technological revolution had taken place that resulted in the D-7 and Constitution class ships. Some fan sources point to the dilithium focus antimatter reactor and its associated warp drive. The Connie engines were considered to be self contained. During the wars only the Enterprise and the Connie herself were finished. The Connies were slow to build and too expensive. The Feds were churning out the engines and saucers fast enough but the secondary hull with all its structural bracing was the bottleneck. Someone came up with the idea of connecting these two elements with a hull built with the older tech. This was the Ares class from Axanar. Intended as a stop gap these ships were quickly replaced after the war. The Franz Joseph designs came about when it was realized that you could just wield the engines to the saucer and go with that. When the refit era came along all of these interim designs were replaced with Mirandas. The D-11, after Kor's victory, the Klingons, also needing lots of replacement ships as well, decided that the D-11s could be built on the cheap and if used wisely could fill holes in their battle line. As the above battle showed, they were worse than useless in combat and were quickly replaced when better ships became available. The Fat Man, the Klingons were originally the Soviets/Russians, they never throw anything away. The Fat Men were an older model of ship refitted with the new technology, what SFB calls a monitor. Intended as a mobile base, they were intended to motor up to a defensible position and hold it. But if caught out of position, as above they were vulnerable, as shown in its video. Also they were originally found to be very under gunned for their intended role.

[@merafirewing6591]

I had a Star Wars ad in a star trek themed video.

[@MoxieRiley]

Amazing video! 🖖🖖

[@apotheases]

Interesting lore and background.

[@kaisershipyards]

What fun times we live in that we can see great videos like this :)

[@SeaforgedArtifacts]

Very intrigued by one off Klingon ships

[@lexington476]

Its a Discount D-7 🙂?

[@RRVCrinale]

Did you know there are three kinds of Klingons? Those who seek strength, those who live for pride, and those who can read the tide of battle. ...and him?

[@IronWarhorsesFun]

so basically Kor went "DRIVE ME CLOSER I WANT TO HIT THEM WITH MY BAT'LETH!" with his damaged ship?

[@ExiledPiasa]

Ooh… how about a SW Dreadnaught based ST ship w/warp ring tech? Or, a Federation class done up w/SW tech?

[@lonestar_iconoclast]

I'm loving the modified Klingon Battle Anthem playing in the background throughout this video! The original by James Horner(?) was always kind of sick, even though it was drawn out by the V'ger theme in parts. Need more of this anthem in canon Trek. About the ship: we already know that kitbashing was a thing with the producers of _Star Trek,_ so it doesn't surprise me a TTRPG took that and ran heavy with it. Some of these goofy, even silly, ship designs have proven some excellent material for better, more progressive ship builds. We can haz moar, plz?

[@s3p4kner]

The model was damaged and the studio, out of time and money, just went with it anyway? "No-ones gonna notice" becomes a cult classic. lol

[@jimhouse3081]

1:34 is that blender you are using?

[@savage-goose]

To me the most reasonable explanation is economies of scale. Every ship built cannot be the biggest and fastest, and in most navies you see here in the real world, the majority of ships are some kind of middle of the road compromise. If you had an existing design you liked, and wanted more of them but at a reduced cost, it would be cheaper to take that ship and remove components/capabilities and utilize existing manufacturing/tooling processes, versus designed a dedicated "middle of the road" platform, building the tooling/manufacturing/etc. That's my thinking here.

[@MrDDiRusso]

One of the more interesting designs.

[@dawfydd]

If i was designing this rather than one wing, i'd just hollow out the wings leave only what space is most required for the engine and nothing much else, perhaps even bring the structure in slightly at the engines to make it more snub. For my story about the one wing i'd rather than make up that say it was a complex design for a purpose the center - somewhat engine allowed more precise short jumps so they could jump past a blockade to quickly dispatch shuttles and other troop transports while most federation ships not having aft torpedos would need the time it took to turn the ship around and with shield focused aft it could take at least a torpedo before it then jumped out of range. Not strictly faster, in fact slower than most other ships its size the short hops it could do meant whenever assigned within a fleet it could jump behind enemies while the fighting kept going forcing federation captains to make the choice to keep weapons on the more powerful in coming ships or deal with those behind them. The reason these ships stopped being used for its main purpose and got used as backup and transport only ships is because the Federation started putting more aft torpedo launchers on the rear firing arcs of ships, two torpedos would knock one of these ships out of the game. So Klingons went back to hit and run tactics drawing federation captains out of planetry orbit in order to land troops with another ship and had little use left for what became a weak light cruiser :p But thats just me

[@starshipreviews]

So it basically starts out as a Klingon version of the HMS Zubian from the First World War before spinning off into her own class? I like that idea a lot!

[@moxica93]

Love the looks back at classic FASA - which is canon to me! :) Can't wait to see the FatMan in action!

[@sbuds3236]

Hi. Like your work. What software do you use?

[@Schindlerphoto]

I actually liked the D-11, I used to always use them in my Klingon fleets!

[@Tyr666Thor]

I do like the idea of this being a cheap ship that takes advantage of it having less volume and mass to be a decent substitute for larger more expensive ships needed in more desperate stations.

[@thegreenmanofnorwich]

I mean I hate it, but I do like the attempts at asymmetrical designs, and your work is excellent

[@lynngreen7978]

The SRM tells that the designer was late, and turned in a half ship.

[@TheRealNormanBates]

I would also imagine the D-11 being used for new, aspiring officers as a means of testing their ingenuity and intelligence (ie the final test of military school, such as the application of strategy and tactics). I still see the Klingons more in line with 1930’s Japan than stupid Vikings, so I could even see 1 or a wing of D-11’s with a D-7 or K’tinga in cloak or hiding, to either bait an enemy into a false sense of superiority (and a trap) or the command would observe to see what new officers could do with a ship that even looks like it has one arm tied behind it’s back.

[@JoeyJoejoe-sq9io]

I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. Great vid as always.

[@xheralt]

Klingons like one-sided battles.

[@charleslee8505]

So I got a question is since everybody likes quirky ships one of my favorite quirky ships is the USS wasp have you done anything about the WASP just for curious

[@atomicninjaduck9200]

The Klingons lost a lot of resources to the four-years war, so they simply started cutting D-7s in half and calling it a new ship!😅

[@thomaszinser8714]

Ah, a Trek version of the Zubian, by your retelling. I have to say, I approve.

[@jaredcolon4535]

I'd like to contact you about doing a custom CGI but I don't see an Email

[@srilemobitelsrile8809]

Is it possible to request 3d model for printing on Patreon?

[@noanswer1864]

I feel like this exists due to boasting. Either someone said they could cut the cost of the wing sections by half, or someone said they could win with one wing left in the shipyard at the wrong meeting.

[@randms2fake]

I don't really see why the head cannon story would be necessary when the standard reasoning seems good enough. That it was cheap, low power warship first meant to be used for scout duties and to keep worlds under empire's rule in line. But due war attrition then forced to take part in war against Federation.

[@Jakedarkforce]

The one wing kinda reminds me of the single nacelle federation ships. Little goofy.

[@chrisbritt4266]

I remember that from that game I missthat Star Trek game

[@IAmTheAce5]

Typical- takes credit for a great victory after their victim had already won a lopsided fight against more enemies, never to be remembered.

[@petrameyer1121]

Your firing arcs are incorrect! The disruptors cover 1f/p, 1a/s. So it actually does cover 360° but is unable to bring both weapons to bear on the same target. Later models added another frontal disruptor and later even front and aft firing photon torpedos.

[@resurrectedstarships]

I know I know but it makes no damn sense!!!!! :D

[@petrameyer1121]

@@resurrectedstarshipsWell it covers all arcs at least.

[@trekwars5400]

If there was a budgetary cost problem, this would be bringing the cost of this low maintenance ship buy 1/3.

[@shaalis]

It's a Klingon police ship!

[@dragonsword7370]

... I'd be afraid of this, in a "dog fight" ship combat setting. This thing, looks so maneuverable up close from it being so um, "wobbly." Center of gravity being less of an issue for dogfighter, or "bat'leth fighting range ships. If it's not stealthier than your normal D7ish classes, then it could die just trying to get close enough to blade range. Hrmm. This is confusing.

[@davidgriego549]

This is one strange ship

[@trekwars5400]

This could be Japanese 0 version of the Klingon Empire.

[@the7observer]

MOTHER OF GOD

[@floydlooney6837]

I want symmetry in my space ships! Symmetry! lol

[@thomasjmitchell2306]

This ship looks nasty!

[@ashtiboy]

so hey when are your going to cover battltech, battle star galtca, warhamer 40k, and a few other sci fi fracnches and have them fight eacth other in crossovers what if senarios.

[@resurrectedstarships]

I would like to do some BSG soon.

[@highlander723]

But why dear God why....

[@jonskowitz]

I still liked my theory... Which doesn't sound far off from reality 😆 ... Why do i suddenly hear Bavarian music? 😘

[@Archie2c]

People watch science fi and forget there is no up down right or wrong it's 3 dimensional so it's not like flying where you have to have aerodynamics as long as the thrusters or engine makes it go your fine.

[@BenTheTiger131]

I love D7 Battlecruiser because it’s classic/iconic, D11 looks ugly and the Klingons must have been drinking too much.

[@acebrandon3522]

Daddy likes.

[@bmobert]

Hate the ship. Love the lore. Lovely fx. ... Fugly ship. Just fugly.\ Thanks for the vid!

[@-JA-]

🫢👍

[@warhawk4494]

Wtf

[@Vandelberger]

Seems like a bad budget cut.