As it does with everything else, the Dominion maintains a one size fits all, monolithic approach, to warfare. Before the start of the DOMINION WARS the approved tactic was to send in the small attack fighters to 'soften' the enemy vessels and batter down their shields. Then the large Heavy Cruisers would be brought in to either board and subdue enemy ships or just blow them away. When no Heavy Cruisers were available the Jem'Hadar would often just ram the enemy ships with their attack fighters. In the early months of the war, in spite of the mining of the Bajorian Wormhole this traditional tactic was feasible. But in the ensuing months; ships ,and soldiers, were being lost at such a prodigious rate that they could not be replaced fast enough. That this held true after the Wormhole minefield was brought down was in part due to the success the Federation/Klingon Alliance was having destroying K-W facilities. The Dominion decided that a heavily armed light cruiser, which could be built and deployed rapidly to support the attack fighters, would eliminate the need for ramming.

This would eliminate the largest single cause of ships and crews in long-drawn out battles, which were becoming more and more the standard.

Since there was a definite gap between the role of the Attack Fighter-class and the Battle Cruiser-class, it was decided that filling this tactical 'hole' with a light strike cruiser would minimize losses and reduce pressure on K-W production and its supply lines. The Strike Cruiser was built around a new epimilate-serrated armor, which gave it a pronounced level of resistance to enemy fire. This improved durability was what the Strike Cruiser needed when serving as fleet defense or tactical interceptor. To be able to engage the enemy before it penetrated Dominion fleets, or K-W installations, the Strike Cruiser is equipped with 'burst' impulse drives to provide a brief tactical advantage and while attacking multiple vessels. Another technological improvement was that of an external long-range cloak detection system, which could detect Klingon and Romulan cloaked ships, at much greater distances than before.