Constitution Class Insignia Recognition Chart

[Viper Aviator]

I developed this chart to show the different ship's insignias for the 12 original Constitution Class Starships. I based each design on the ones that were done back in 1980 for the U.S.S. Enterprise Officer's Manual by Geoffery Mandel and illustrated by Geoffery Mandel and Doug Drexler, with the exception of the Enterprise, Constellation and Exeter since those insignias were actually seen on screen.

Another thing that I did was try to offer an explanation on the numbers lower than 1700 since the Constitution was the lead ship of the class. So as a result, I reasoned that ships's with 17xx numbers would be new builds and that ships of the 10xx and 16xx were older model ships that were refitted to Constitution class specifications, A theory that I have is that the Constellation Class was built before the Constitution but still had the same dual hull, dual Warp Engine configuration, so they could easily be updated and refitted to the new Constitution standards and Starfleet decided to keep the original names and NCC numbers for record keeping reasons instead of issuing new ones.

[The Cat]

I love the graphic, and your reasoning behind the starships/refits makes a lot of sense to me.

[Viper Aviator]

Thanks Cat, I thought it was the most logical way for me to go to try and offer an explanation.

Please hold the Spock jokes LOL

[beeblebrox666]

When the old TOS kit was used in Doomsday Machine, they hadn't yet added alternate ship markings to the decals if I remember right. So the Constellation could have been 1017, 1710, 1170, 1107, 7110, 7011, etc. But I like your explanation better.

[The Cat]

You're right, Jerry. All they did was swap the numbers around. But I've always wondered, where the hell did they get all the extra letters for CONSTELLATION?!?

[Viper Aviator]

You know Cat, you bring up a great point I never considered that aspect of the decal rearranging. But knowing the technology of the time, I bet they used a stencil and a paint brush. Also with regards to the ship's insignias, Gene Roddenberry sent out a memo that stated that the arrowhead insignia must be used on all uniforms seen in the show, but unfortunately, only Bob Justman saw it and it was not passed on to William Ware Theiss. So as a result we ended up with individual ships ingnias.

They did try and fix the mistake in Court Martial. If you remember, Kirk was speaking with fellow officers in the bar who were obviously not assigned to the Enterprise and they were donning the arrowhead insignia on their uniforms.

[Viper Aviator]

UPDATE 03/12/2014:

Based upon the links that p51cmustang from Deviant art provided in the comments section, I have changed the NCC numbers for the USS Hood to NCC-1703, the USS Lexington to NCC-1709 and the USS Potemkin to NCC-1657. Also, I have reorganized the insignias to keep them in numerical order.

This change reflects what the cannon numbers should be based on what was seen in the TOS Digitally Remastered.

[Trekriffic]

I like these a lot. And your reasoning for the ship numbers lower than 17xx makes good sense too.

[srspicer]

Ditto Trekriffic, nicely done. It would be interesting to create models/designs of the pre-refit ships, even though they were still a similar configuration.

[SCI-FI]

Agreed. Would love to see their original appearances (different enough to justify Kirk's "only 12 like her in the fleet" comment).