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Description

A custom model by me created with parts from Captain Mojo's various Klingon CG starship parts toolkits and with both extra bits and selected custom textures from the efforts of Dave "First Fleet" Metlesits. Additional background information comes from me and both my old Klingon supplement to my Federation Spaceflight Chronology (FSC) and my later Guide to the Klingon Fleet (GKF). Based on the original D-5 "war cruiser" design as created by Stephen V. Cole and his associates at the Amarillo Design Bureau (ADB) back in the day for the Star Fleet Battles (SFB) tabletop sci-fi war game. Preview picture posed in XNALara XPS. NO MODEL DOWNLOAD.

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As noted before, the TOS/TAS era Klingon D-5 Hak'hyl "new" light cruiser (NCL) quickly became one of the darlings of both the Imperial and various House fleets in all SFB-influenced threads of the Trek multiverse. It could be built in less time than a regular battlecruiser, it carried practically the same armament, and the fact that it was made from similar components meant it could be customized and further modified in much the same way as those could. The only things it didn't have in common were operating range and ability to stay on station for extended periods (Hak'hyl's limits were far shorter), but the Klingons came up with their own way of dealing with those and I've described it elsewhere. Back to the subject. Given its popularity it should come as no surprise that Hak'hyl variants soon appeared among the various House fleets tailored to their specific needs or desires. It should also be noted that even the Imperial fleet got into the Hak'hyl variant act as well as the era rolled on, and again for the same reasons. I'm not going to deal with each and every TOS/TAS era Hak'hyl variant ever made (consult the original SFB materials or their many fanon spin-offs), but I am going to touch on three of what I consider to be the more important ones. I'll let you folks deal with your faves among the rest as you may.

This second major Hak'hyl variant on which I'm going to focus came late in the TOS/TAS era and followed on the events of the Organian Incident or Four Day War as it's sometimes called (TOS "Errand of Mercy"). Of course all of you know what happened there so I'm not going to rehash it here. Once the smoke and dust had cleared somewhat from that and the Klingons reassessed their situation, they decided to scale back their more aggressive stance in the face of possible Organian intervention on the matter (*). Among the many other alternative and less overtly aggressive measures they took was to upgrade their existing D-5 Hak'hyls in order that they could better compete with the superiority of their Federation counterparts as demonstrated during that short-lived affair. The quickest way to do this was to swap out the existing Q-4 Lecthu type command boom with the more capable one first developed for the D-6 Raxor and then later refined slightly and resued for the D-7 Klolode, given that the boom interlocks were identical (Hak'hyl's had come with its Dupat based engineering hull), so that's what they did. All Hak'hyls in Imperial fleet service eventually got the upgraded boom swap by the end of the era, but this was not done among all House fleets for two main reasons. First, the Imperial fleet had a surplus of older D-6 Raxor type booms from decommissioned ships, battle wreck salvage, etc. so for them it was a fairly straightforward move. The various Houses didn't have as much of a surplus of these (the lesser Houses none at all), so they had to make do as they could.

In the above preview piccy you see two slightly different forms of the late TOS/TAS era command boom upgrade for Hak'hyl. The one at the bottom was the most common, with the older model D-6 Raxor command boom fitted. Note the "snout" of its older model photon torpedo system, which was one of the visual trademarks of the D-6 Raxor. The one shown on top was not common and shows a Hak'hyl upgraded with a newer model D-7 Klolode command boom. Most of these were reserved for new build Klolodes and were very hard to come by, so consequently most of this alternate form of the boom upgraded Hak'hyl were exclusive to Imperial fleet service -- with only a few winding up with the wealthier Houses. Everybody else got the D-6 Raxor boom upgrade. Statwise there was no difference between the two, and in terms of combat performance the only real difference was that the older photon torpedo system fitted on the D-6 boom had slightly slower loading and firing times than the newer system on the D-7 boom. Both could use the same torpedoes, so it more or less wound up being a difference that didn't make much of a difference in the long run. Oh, and before I forget in both cases the boom upgrade being installed had to be shortened somewhat for balance reasons to better work with Hak'hyl's somewhat smaller Dupat-derived engineering hull (remember FASA's Kl'sarza? - ed). These shortened D-6/D-7 style command booms would become one of the chief visual characteristics of later Hak'hyls.

In closing I'd like to point out that there were a limited number of new build Hak'hyls produced during this time. The Klingons didn't dare to build too many of them for fear of ticking off the Organians; however, they did get a few out. This was essentially Hak'hyl with the newer D-7 boom upgrade and all other in-service refits and upgrades up to that point, but with one additional and important change. These had standard S-2 warp engines like Raxor and Klolode instead of older model S-1s as with the original Hak'hyl (NOTE - This is the SFB TOS/TAS D-5 Hak'hyl as commonly depicted by fans in the past). Again, production had to be limited and this particular Hak'hyl sub-variant was strictly an Imperial thing at the time; however, it did help pave the way for what was coming with Hak'hyl in the TMP era. Before we get to that, however, there's one more important variant on the TOS/TAS era Hak'hyl I'd like to visit, and that will be coming up next time.

This is based on a semi-canon concept (the original D-5 from SFB).

'IwlIj jachjaj!

(*) for an interesting alternate Trek multiverse thread take on what might have happened in this event see the old James Blish novel Spock Must Die.

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Description

A custom model by me created with parts from Captain Mojo's various Klingon CG starship parts toolkits and with both extra bits and selected custom textures from the efforts of Dave "First Fleet" Metlesits. Additional background information comes from me and both my old Klingon supplement to my Federation Spaceflight Chronology (FSC) and my later Guide to the Klingon Fleet (GKF). Based on the original D-5 "war cruiser" design as created by Stephen V. Cole and his associates at the Amarillo Design Bureau (ADB) back in the day for the Star Fleet Battles (SFB) tabletop sci-fi war game. Preview picture posed in XNALara XPS. NO MODEL DOWNLOAD.

LINK TO EARLIER ARTICLE IN THIS SERIES:

As noted before, the TOS/TAS era Klingon D-5 Hak'hyl "new" light cruiser (NCL) quickly became one of the darlings of both the Imperial and various House fleets in all SFB-influenced threads of the Trek multiverse. It could be built in less time than a regular battlecruiser, it carried practically the same armament, and the fact that it was made from similar components meant it could be customized and further modified in much the same way as those could. The only things it didn't have in common were operating range and ability to stay on station for extended periods (Hak'hyl's limits were far shorter), but the Klingons came up with their own way of dealing with those and I've described it elsewhere. Back to the subject. Given its popularity it should come as no surprise that Hak'hyl variants soon appeared among the various House fleets tailored to their specific needs or desires. It should also be noted that even the Imperial fleet got into the Hak'hyl variant act as well as the era rolled on, and again for the same reasons. I'm not going to deal with each and every TOS/TAS era Hak'hyl variant ever made (consult the original SFB materials or their many fanon spin-offs), but I am going to touch on three of what I consider to be the more important ones. I'll let you folks deal with your faves among the rest as you may.

This second major Hak'hyl variant on which I'm going to focus came late in the TOS/TAS era and followed on the events of the Organian Incident or Four Day War as it's sometimes called (TOS "Errand of Mercy"). Of course all of you know what happened there so I'm not going to rehash it here. Once the smoke and dust had cleared somewhat from that and the Klingons reassessed their situation, they decided to scale back their more aggressive stance in the face of possible Organian intervention on the matter (*). Among the many other alternative and less overtly aggressive measures they took was to upgrade their existing D-5 Hak'hyls in order that they could better compete with the superiority of their Federation counterparts as demonstrated during that short-lived affair. The quickest way to do this was to swap out the existing Q-4 Lecthu type command boom with the more capable one first developed for the D-6 Raxor and then later refined slightly and resued for the D-7 Klolode, given that the boom interlocks were identical (Hak'hyl's had come with its Dupat based engineering hull), so that's what they did. All Hak'hyls in Imperial fleet service eventually got the upgraded boom swap by the end of the era, but this was not done among all House fleets for two main reasons. First, the Imperial fleet had a surplus of older D-6 Raxor type booms from decommissioned ships, battle wreck salvage, etc. so for them it was a fairly straightforward move. The various Houses didn't have as much of a surplus of these (the lesser Houses none at all), so they had to make do as they could.

In the above preview piccy you see two slightly different forms of the late TOS/TAS era command boom upgrade for Hak'hyl. The one at the bottom was the most common, with the older model D-6 Raxor command boom fitted. Note the "snout" of its older model photon torpedo system, which was one of the visual trademarks of the D-6 Raxor. The one shown on top was not common and shows a Hak'hyl upgraded with a newer model D-7 Klolode command boom. Most of these were reserved for new build Klolodes and were very hard to come by, so consequently most of this alternate form of the boom upgraded Hak'hyl were exclusive to Imperial fleet service -- with only a few winding up with the wealthier Houses. Everybody else got the D-6 Raxor boom upgrade. Statwise there was no difference between the two, and in terms of combat performance the only real difference was that the older photon torpedo system fitted on the D-6 boom had slightly slower loading and firing times than the newer system on the D-7 boom. Both could use the same torpedoes, so it more or less wound up being a difference that didn't make much of a difference in the long run. Oh, and before I forget in both cases the boom upgrade being installed had to be shortened somewhat for balance reasons to better work with Hak'hyl's somewhat smaller Dupat-derived engineering hull (remember FASA's Kl'sarza? - ed). These shortened D-6/D-7 style command booms would become one of the chief visual characteristics of later Hak'hyls.

In closing I'd like to point out that there were a limited number of new build Hak'hyls produced during this time. The Klingons didn't dare to build too many of them for fear of ticking off the Organians; however, they did get a few out. This was essentially Hak'hyl with the newer D-7 boom upgrade and all other in-service refits and upgrades up to that point, but with one additional and important change. These had standard S-2 warp engines like Raxor and Klolode instead of older model S-1s as with the original Hak'hyl (NOTE - This is the SFB TOS/TAS D-5 Hak'hyl as commonly depicted by fans in the past). Again, production had to be limited and this particular Hak'hyl sub-variant was strictly an Imperial thing at the time; however, it did help pave the way for what was coming with Hak'hyl in the TMP era. Before we get to that, however, there's one more important variant on the TOS/TAS era Hak'hyl I'd like to visit, and that will be coming up next time.

This is based on a semi-canon concept (the original D-5 from SFB).

'IwlIj jachjaj!

(*) for an interesting alternate Trek multiverse thread take on what might have happened in this event see the old James Blish novel Spock Must Die.

NEXT ARTICLE IN THIS SERIES: