Dreadnought
In starship classification, a dreadnought was a type of heavily-armed starship.

Dreadnoughts
The   was an example of this type of vessel. ()

In 2370, the Maquis captured a defective Cardassian ATR-4107 missile. B'Elanna Torres spent nearly a month reprogramming its computer and upgrading its systems, and eventually named it Dreadnought owing to its formidable nature. ()

The   was an example of this type of vessel in the alternate reality. ()

Appendices

Background information 
There are only three known direct on-screen references to a dreadnought; one comes from the radio chatter in the first Epsilon IX scene in . The dreadnought named Entente, was derived from Franz Joseph's Star Fleet Technical Manual, which also states that it is a Federation-class dreadnought. The outline of a three nacelled Federation-class ship is briefly glimpsed in  computer screens on the . Another is Dreadnought, the name B'Elanna Torres chose for the captured ATR-4107 missile in . The third comes from , where the USS Vengeance was identified as a Dreadnought-class warship.

Starfleet dreadnought type ships in general were known not only for their heavy firepower, armor and shielding, but also for having a more extensive & comprehensive Electronic Warfare capability than other Starfleet warships, for example Federation-class vessels were known to be equipped with a holographic decoy system that could fox even sophisticated sensor systems, while the Star Empire-class had a holographic camouflage system that could disguise the ship as another ship altogether, among other things. The increased EW capability that UFP dreadnoughts demonstrated was apparently not only a function of more space available to fit in various systems but also a power budget that left even Federation heavy cruisers in the shade.

Apocrypha 
Dreadnought-class is briefly mentioned by William T. Riker in the novel Dark Mirror as a starship class that is the closest analog Starfleet has to the heavily-armed and armored version of the  from the mirror universe.

The game Star Trek Online uses the term "Dreadnought" as a distinct type of ship, usually combining the durability and movement characteristics of Cruisers with the tactical focus of Escorts. Starfleet's Dreadnought Cruiser is represented by the  from the TNG episode . Other playable ships belonging to different factions in the game are also classified as "Dreadnought", including the Scimitar-class warbird, the Jem'Hadar battleship (though the game calls it a "dreadnought carrier"), the Xindi-Aquatic cruiser (also reclassified as a dreadnought carrier), the non-playable Voth city ship, and other game-exclusive designs. Dreadnought ships are also equipped with combat-capable hangar bays and can launch fighter ships in battle.

External links 
 
 

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Spacecraft classifications