Nimitz class


The Nimitz-class was a type of 23rd century Federation capital ship in use during the 2250s and 2260s. (DIS: "Battle at the Binary Stars", SNW: "Wedding Bell Blues")


History

The USS Europa served as Admiral Anderson's flagship during the opening conflict of the Federation-Klingon War at the Battle of the Binary Stars in 2256. During the battle, the ship was rammed by a cloaked Klingon destroyer. As this was occurring, the crew evacuated the ship, while the warp containment fields were intentionally collapsed, resulting in the destruction of the Europa, as well as the attacking Klingon destroyer. (DIS: "Battle at the Binary Stars")

Later in 2256, an unnamed Nimitz-class starship was docked at an orbital facility hosting a high level flag officer meeting. (DIS: "Choose Your Pain")

The Nimitz-class continued to be utilized into the 2260's, where they saw a refit of the warp propulsion systems. This included new contemporary cylindrical nacelles.

At least four ships of the class were stationed at Starbase 1 for the Federation Centennial in 2261. (SNW: "Wedding Bell Blues")

Technical data

Overall, the class had a compact design, with integrated primary and secondary hulls. The main bridge module was housed on top of the dorsal rollbar, instead of the more traditional spot on top of the saucer module.

Ships of the line were armed with multiple phaser turrets and photon torpedo launchers along the saucer hull. Ships of the class were also equipped with tractor beam emitters along the hull.

The Nimitz-class line is noted for being one of the small number of Federation classes that had more than two nacelles, along with her sister ships in the Cardenas-class and Radiant-class lines. (DIS: "Battle at the Binary Stars", SNW: "Wedding Bell Blues")

Ships in class

Named
Name Registry Notes Status Date
USS Europa NCC-1648 Destroyed 2256


Unnamed

Appendices

Appearances

Background information

Eaves' concept art
Passaro's CGI models of the design on the cover of their own dedicated magazine covers in their canon (r) and apocryphal (l) livery appearances

The Nimitz-class was identified via the Europa by designer John Eaves. [1] Eaves also named the class, which was later confirmed [2] after being revealed on StarTrek.com. [3](X)

Preliminary concept designs for the "Starfleet admiral ship" was depicted as the USS Nimitz (NCC-5572). The ship, or in this case the class, was "named after World War II fleet admiral Chester Nimitz." (Star Trek: The Art of John Eaves, p. 193)

The successor ships to the United States Navy's USS Enterprise (CVN-65) aircraft carrier were also Nimitz-class ships and were named after the same man.

Eaglemoss Collections released the USS Europa display model as part of their Star Trek: Discovery The Official Starships Collection model/magazine combo partwork publication on 21 August 2018, featuring input from designer John Eaves, and listing the ship as 383.3 meters in length. The article was republished as part of Star Trek: Discovery Designing Starships in September 2019.

The Nimitz-class appears in the 25th century-set game Star Trek Online, as a cosmetic "skin" for the playable Europa-class (β) starship, and has as such likewise been released by Eaglemoss in their non-canon Star Trek Online Starships Collection sister partwork publication in December 2020.

In both instances it was Fabio Passaro's Meshweaver Productions that provided the CGI model conversions from the original production software packages (Autodesk Maya in Discovery's case), into LightWave 3D, Eaglemoss' software package of choice, to make the models suitable for both print publications, as well as for turning them into the CAD files needed as templates for the display model manufacturing. [4] [5] [6]

Apocrypha

Star Trek Online has given an in-universe explanation why the 23rd century Nimitz-class and 25th century Europa-classes resembled each other so much. See: here

Further Reading

External link

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