With the advent of the Dominion threat, the Federation ramped its starship production up to the highest level ever. Vessels are currently pouring out of the shipyards at an unprecedented rate, and production in every area is almost constantly breaking all previous records. Unfortunately, in the chaos caused by the heavy losses sustained during the early phase of the war it has all too often proved difficult to co-ordinate this effort. As a result, significant numbers of vessels have remained uncompleted because the production of, for example, Intrepid class saucer sections has not matched the production of Engineering hulls for this class. In addition, many ships have sustained battle damage of such a nature that one or more sections have been almost completely destroyed whilst leaving others relatively untouched.
With typical ingenuity, production managers have responded to this state of affairs by turning out of their yards a variety of ships which can only be described as the "Frankenstein's Fleet" of Starfleet. Starfleet has for many years insisted on a high degree of modularization and flexibility in its designs. Intended to allow the ships to be easily maintained whilst underway, the practice also allows components of one starships to be transferred to another with relative ease. The Frankenstein Fleet has once and for all showed the value of this capability.

No two Frankenstein ships are exactly the same, but several major groups have emerged. The so-called Griffin class was the first of these. The USS Griffin was born when the Brektel shipyard was attacked by a wing of Jem'Hadar attack ships. The yard suffered heavy damage, including the total destruction of twelve Intrepid class Engineering hulls. The Saucer Sections, which where not yet attached to the hulls, survived the raid intact.

Under normal circumstances production would have been delayed by at least twelve months whilst new hulls where constructed. However, the yard manager was not prepared to wait that long. The Brektel system contains a graveyard in which are stored several dozen obsolete starship hulls; these where salvaged, disassembled, and fitted to the waiting saucer sections. The engineering hulls used where from a group of craft retired circa. 2250; the nacelles where procured from Constitution refits which last saw service over seventy five years ago. The nacelle struts where purpose designed, but to save design time these where simple scale ups of no less than the struts of a Danube class Runabout!

The USS Griffin was launched within four months of the attack, and another twenty five ships followed her over the next eight months. The bizarre nature of the class has led to many oddities; most notably in the torpedo armament. The Intrepid has two forward torpedo tubes located in the engineering hull and two facing aft at the rear of the saucer. The replacement engineering hulls have a single aft firing tube; the Griffin therefore has three aft firing tubes but no forward firing torpedoes at all. The tubes are a mix of old and modern, while the phaser armament is comprised of both phaser banks and modern arrays.

The ships various fields had to be reconfigured, and this has led to a significant drop-off in normal performance. The ships are thus relatively slow and not terribly manoeuvrable - or as the Griffin's helm officer famously commented, "they skim through space in exactly the same way that bricks don't". The shields, IDF and SIF systems are also affected somewhat, but in these systems some degree of compensation can be achieved by running the systems above normal operating levels. This has resulted in a relatively high component turnover time, requiring more frequent refits. In the long run the hull life will be drastically reduced by this mistreatment, but these ships are not designed for the long run.

In action the Griffins are never going to equal the likes of a fully integrated Miranda class, and three of these ships have been lost in action. Nevertheless, several have scored victories - none more impressive than the single Griffin which managed to destroy a Cardassian Galor class warship in a one-on-one engagement just inside the Dominion border. This accomplishment, which earned the Captain a Medal of Honour, silenced the critics and proved that these bizarre ships had earned their place on the front lines.

Little certain can be said regarding the future of the Griffins. If any of them survive the war it is unlikely that they will continue in their present form. Some have suggested that the Intrepid hull sections should be removed and completed as full ships of that class; but there would be considerable practical difficulties with this, and sadly it is more likely that those Griffins which escape the Dominion will likely return to the graveyard from whence they came, this time for good.