GROUMAL-CLASS CIVILIAN FREIGHTER
WEAPONS & DEFENSIVE SYSTEMS
STANDARD SHIELDING SYSTEM A class of shielding system utilized by most non-military civilian craft. More powerful than structural shielding but less effective or durable than advanced regenerative, auto- modulating or advanced metaphasic systems. Also used on older military/exploration vessels. SPIRAL WAVE BANKS (4) A common form of weaponry used by the Cardassian Union. It acts as the primary armament for most Union military and civilian vessels. While fairly effective against moderately-shielded capital ships or smaller support craft, it is a recognized fact that these disruptors lack the refinement or sheer power of their Klingon and Romulan counterparts; perhaps this failure is due to the hybrid nature of the engineering, which blends tried-and-true disruptor technology with a marked variant of Federation phaser technology. Intended to provide the user with both firepower and expanded capabilities, the system unfortunately also suffers from several engineering and power-management issues that could not be adequately addressed. Strictly speaking, no element of the disruptor can be considered a true phaser. However, the spiral wave technique, an innovation in energy compression and emission, supplies the package with a more impressive output than was previously the case, effectively doubling its lethal efficacy over short and medium ranges. The increased output had deleterious effects on the actual machinery of the disrupters; making preventive maintenance of the effected systems a high priority allowed the Cardassian Union military to outfit most of its vessels with this armament. Although not as powerful as the heavy disrupters of the Romulan Star Empire or the Type IX arrays of Starfleet, these weapons can be extremely destructive when used appropriately. It is possible that, with the inclusion of high powered phaser banks in larger Union military craft, spiral wave disrupters will become a thing of the past; for the time being they remain the classic armament of Cardassian vessels. |