The Dominion approach to shipbuilding is akin to their policy regarding those who man them, the Jem'Hadar - designed to be effective fighters who can nevertheless be built in the largest possible numbers at the highest possible rate. Their
ships are highly modular in design, allowing them to be built in sections at the kinds of facilities which would normally only be capable of constructing shuttlecraft. These sections are then assembled at larger facilities.
This approach allowed the Dominion to build up the number of ships in the Alpha Quadrant with amazing speed, and to replace huge losses relatively quicly once the war was under way. Fortunately, the method is not without its drawbacks;
the presence of many major joints in the body of their ships tends to lead to weak spots, most especially when those ships are produced under conditions of great urgency. The interior connections required to unite the various systems into an integrated whole also tend to overcomplicate the machinery, leading to lower reliability in peacetime and complicating repairs of battle damage. Nevertheless, the Dominion war machine was a fearsome one and many analysts
considered it unbeatable even by the combined might of the Federation, Klingon, and Romulan fleets.
Various forms of information gathering allowed Starfleet to gain a reasonably accurate picture of the size of the Dominion fleet. There is also a fair certainty about the losses inflicted during the war, while
the capture of at least two Dominion ships - one reasonably intact, [1] the other in ideal condition [2] - has allowed Starfleet to get a very good idea of the capabilities of their ships. The following data can therefore be regarded as being quite accurate.
The Dominion outnumbered the Klingon/Federation alliance from the beginning of the war, and although the addition of the Romulan forces helped even the odds somewhat [3] the Dominion still had seven ships for every four allied ones. The allies were nevertheless turning the tide of the war ever more in their favour, [4] until the addition of the Breen forces swung the balance back. [5]
In the aftermath of the Breen's introduction of the energy damping weapon, the Klingons could field only 1,500 ships against a combined fleet of 30,000 - odds of twenty to one. [2] Although this situation improved once the Federation had acquired an example of the Breen weapon, [2] the numerical odds were still heavily against the allies.
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