The '''Gal'leath''' class battleship (known as the '''Explorer''' among the Imperials) was the first major interstellar vessel developed by the [[Tau]]. Compared to the average speed of an [[Imperial]] ship in the warp, the Explorer could barely approach a fifth of this speed. It is also significantly less well armed, and armoured, compared to most battleships. It does have a massive cargo capacity however and is much cheaper to produce than other ships of similar tonnage. Indeed, it was only the advent of war with the [[Ork]]s that finally made the Tau design an alternate vessel for interstellar combat, a role to which the Explorer is ill suited to undertake alone.^1,2