BRAD'S COMMENTS:  The Cardassians, who first debuted in ST:TNG, were initially an ensemble bad guy, later elevated to near-Klingon status by the ST:DS9 television series.  In both TNG and DS9 we see precious few types of Cardassian ships (ditto for the Klingons) but the ships we do see appear to follow a definite design pattern, as different from the other major Trek races as anything else introduced in that time frame.  The Galor Class is the benchmark Cardassian ship, sporting an almost aquatic shape with prominent "wings" to port and starboard (home of its warp engines?) as well as a slender main hull that tapers to the rear until it ends in a forked "tail".  Like Klingon ships, the Galor has a prominent command and control structure mounted on the very bow of the craft, with some indications that this structure can detach from the rest of the hull and is self-sufficient in times of emergency.  Weaponry appears to be primarily beam-oriented, with much of the Cardassian fighting footage from TNG and DS9 showing the Galor emitting disruptor blasts from a primary hard-point just under the bridge.
     I've seen various size interpretations, but overall it seems the Galor is much smaller than the big capital ships of the other main governments of the TNG era--It's roughly the same size as an Excelsior Class.  Seeing as how it is about as ubiquitous in the Cardassian Union as the Excelsior is in the Federation, I extrapolate that the Galor is an older design with a lengthy history, roughly equal to the Excelsior series in potency and capability, continually upgraded over time so as to remain viable in the Cardassian inventory.  There is also evidence that the Galor underwent one major re-fit and re-design period, resulting in the similarly-shaped but much beefier Keldon Class of warships.
     As always with these TNG-era craft, I'm hungry for hard data.  I invite any and all fans with hard data obtained from official source to send this information to me so that I can make changes or revisions to these page(s) so that they might more accurately reflect the ships as they actually exist in Trek canon.  Until then I will continue to synthesize as best as I can, with the limited amount of data that I've got.

* Denotes completely hypothetical model number and stats, devised by Brad R. Torgersen.

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