The USS Defiant fires her quad Pulse Phaser Cannons.

Pulse Phaser Cannons

Shortly after the Battle of Wolf 359, where it became painfully aware to
Starfleet that their weapons weren't cutting it against the Borg, a crash
program to create better weapons was initiated. The immediate results
of the program were Pulse Phaser Cannons, and the Quantum Torpedo.

The pulse phaser concept may seem revolutionary, but it's actually old news.
The Constitution-Refits carried them, but they were slowly phased out in favor of
more flexible continous-fire phasers. The reason was because the pulse phaser concept,
while devastating in the amount of damage it did to an enemy ship's shields, just
wasn't as adaptable and adjustable over as wide a range of frequencies and modes
as the new continuous fire phasers.

As Starfleet shifted from a combat force to a peacekeeping/exploration force after the
2270's, shipboard phasers were called on to perform increasingly diverse missions,
such as drilling mineshafts in planets, communication beams, and various other tasks.

Another reason for the shift was that it was easier to target small, fast moving ships
with the new type phasers, as opposed to with the pulse phasers, where you had to
'walk' the beam onto your target.

The new phasers worked fine, until the Borg attack of 2367, and the hostilities with the
Dominion starting in 2370. The continuous phasers had shown themselves to be
ineffective on both Borg and Dominion vessels. Obviously, something else was needed.

That 'something else' turned out to be the pulse phaser. New research was begun, and the
results were incorporated into the U.S.S. Defiant. The results exceeded Starfleet R & D's
wildest expectations. The dreaded Dominion Attack Vessels, which had withstood repeated
phaser fire from a Galaxy's Type 10 phasers, were blown apart in seconds by the new
phasers.

Despite the resounding success of the PPC, Starfleet decided to go with a more conventional
phaser bank design, the recently minaturized Type 12 Planetary Defense Phaser, for it's future
starship classes.

However, Admiral Alex Sutton, the newly-installed head of Starfleet R & D, saved the pulse phaser
concept from another ignomious death, by developing the Type 14 pulse phaser for the Sovereign-II
subclass. Currently, only one ship, the USS Hood, carries it.

END LCARS BRIEFING
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