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OK,i concede that the cannon name is romulan,but i love the name 'rihannsu', anyways enough warbling.
Alot of people seem to think that via 'message in a bottle' or the loss of the d'ridthau holding the cente of the alliance line in 'what you leave behind' that romulan hull plating and shielding is not particularily good, can anyone justify that assumption, romulan withdrawls in some episodes are surely more to do with the romulan psyche or agenda than fearing attrition?

The two Norexean warbirds in Nemesis seemed to have little or no shields and they got knocked out in 4 hits indicating shit hulls.

Aye, the fact that the E-E took numerous hits to its unshielded hull from those same weapons and only suffered minor hull damage quite clearly points to the Romulans armouring their ships with balsa wood.
Hell, the fact that the Scimitar's hull was so much more fucked up than the E-E's after they rammed also points to that.

Hell, the fact that the Scimitar's hull was so much more f***ed up than the E-E's after they rammed also points to that.

Actually, thats just simple physics. A saucer shape is (almost) always stronger than a box shape of the same material.

Oh, right.

However, the Valdore and the other ship getting torn apart to easilly points to either...
1) Romulan ships have hulls made of paper (ok, a slight exageration)
2) Shinzon was holding back against the E-E and went all out against the Romulans

And I am not trying to start another debate over 2...

To end this. History has shown that the RSE has (compared to the UFP) very powerful weapons but poor armour and shielding. The RSE fairs well in sneak attacks due to superior weapons tech but fairs poorly in drawn out battles as they cannot withstand the same amount of damage that they can deal out.

Romulans - Glass canons.

Seems so. They can dish it out but they can't take it.

I think part of the confusion stems from this: nobody is saying that the D'Deridex (for example) only has shields equivalent to a Strarfleet shuttle; rather, it seems that the D'Deridex has weaker shields than a Starfleet or Klingon vessel of the same size and/or role.

Off the top of my head, I'd mark them about the same as an Ambassador class.

About the same as a Neb, going by "Message in a Bottle". Both ships seemed to go down to the Prometheus' firepower about as quickly as each other. The Warbird may be a bit stronger, given that it was also under fire from an Akira and two Defiants, but that's levelled out by the fact that it was definately destroyed while the Neb was only damaged and driven off.

Fair point.

I could believe that.

And pretty much no ships we see have good hull armour but the Defiant and Sov, everything else just has a standard hull.