Ships in the UC?

[Mafty]

So is there anything written about the strength of the ships in the UC? Obviously the mobile suits are the primary weapon, however you do see ships overpowering each other in battle. It seems as though many of the Earth Federation ships end up weaker (which is probably due to their age), but is their any info on which factions (Zeon, Crossbone, Zanscare) ended up with the most powerful mass produced ships?

[Seto Kaiba]

So is there anything written about the strength of the ships in the UC? Obviously the mobile suits are the primary weapon, however you do see ships overpowering each other in battle. It seems as though many of the Earth Federation ships end up weaker (which is probably due to their age), but is their any info on which factions (Zeon, Crossbone, Zanscare) ended up with the most powerful mass produced ships?

Little to nothing is said about the combat performance of the various warships in absolute terms in the official publications I have.

There are occasional remarks where combat performance is discussed in purely relative terms, but almost only ever against their contemporaries on the same or opposite side. It's also often not so simple as one class of ship just being all-around "better" either, coming down to differences that could lead to situational advantages or disadvantages. To give an example, when the Federation's Salamis-class and Zeon's Musai-class are compared it's often said that the Musai-class was a more effective warship because of its Mobile Suit carrying capability and ability to bring all of its main armament to bear on the same target. It is, however, also often said that the difference in firepower owes a lot to the Salamis-class's better field of fire. It has the same number of main guns as the Musai, but it has fewer blind spots in its coverage because of how those cannons are distributed, so it can't aim all of them at the same target but it's much harder to catch the Salamis in a position where it can't return fire the way you can with a Musai.

That's the kind of thing you usually get.

In the OYW era, it's pretty consistently stated that the Principality of Zeon's ships performed better in combat. The Federation's ships were older designs from a pre-Minovsky particle era and suffered a bit by having their precision radar-guided munitions rendered useless. In later eras, the question gets a bit woolier since it's commented on less and less. Often the Federation seems to be using the older, less advanced ships and Mobile Suits and compensating for their older equipment with numbers. Quantity, as they say, has a quality all its own.

[MythSearcher]

So is there anything written about the strength of the ships in the UC? Obviously the mobile suits are the primary weapon, however you do see ships overpowering each other in battle. It seems as though many of the Earth Federation ships end up weaker (which is probably due to their age), but is their any info on which factions (Zeon, Crossbone, Zanscare) ended up with the most powerful mass produced ships?

Little to nothing is said about the combat performance of the various warships in absolute terms in the official publications I have.

There are occasional remarks where combat performance is discussed in purely relative terms, but almost only ever against their contemporaries on the same or opposite side. It's also often not so simple as one class of ship just being all-around "better" either, coming down to differences that could lead to situational advantages or disadvantages. To give an example, when the Federation's Salamis-class and Zeon's Musai-class are compared it's often said that the Musai-class was a more effective warship because of its Mobile Suit carrying capability and ability to bring all of its main armament to bear on the same target. It is, however, also often said that the difference in firepower owes a lot to the Salamis-class's better field of fire. It has the same number of main guns as the Musai, but it has fewer blind spots in its coverage because of how those cannons are distributed, so it can't aim all of them at the same target but it's much harder to catch the Salamis in a position where it can't return fire the way you can with a Musai.

That's the kind of thing you usually get.

In the OYW era, it's pretty consistently stated that the Principality of Zeon's ships performed better in combat. The Federation's ships were older designs from a pre-Minovsky particle era and suffered a bit by having their precision radar-guided munitions rendered useless. In later eras, the question gets a bit woolier since it's commented on less and less. Often the Federation seems to be using the older, less advanced ships and Mobile Suits and compensating for their older equipment with numbers. Quantity, as they say, has a quality all its own.

There is one ship that comes up clearly when it comes to OYW.
The Gwazine class is said to be the strength of 8 battleships, and EFSF and Zeon only has Magellan as a battleship other than the Gwazine, so we can safely assume the strength of it is equal to 8 Magellans.
Though one can argue that it maybe a comparison to the previous generation battleship Zeon original had, and the Chivvay class was planned to be a battleship. But since that was always classified as the Chivvay class heavy cruiser, that seems to be more remote than comparing Gwazine to the Magellan. And they surely need a much more powerful battleship, they only got 8 Gwazines compared to EFSF which got closer to 100 Magellans.

Supposedly anyway, I personally like the Magellan design better like the Salamis, which has better coverage for their cannons.

[Kuruni]

For non-official POV, G Generation Series usually portray Zamouth Garr (F91) and Adrastea (Victory) as the most powerful battleships in UC era.

Outside of the games, we sadly don't known much about the Zamouth Garr other than that it's indeed powerful (and likely outclass every ship at the time). Tough, heavily armed, high MS capacity with 4 catapults for quick deployment. The Adrastea outclass it in everyway except catapult which it has none and just has MS get out by themselves. Itvalso supposed to carries significantly low supply and require intensive support for resupplying. Interesting enough, Adrastea has one small turret under its bow that can shoot underneath in flight mode, many of UC ships (including the Zamouth Garr) has none.

[Mafty]

Thanks for the information, I agree that there's less ship info compared to mobile suit info(Understandable considering mobile suits are the core of the franchise).

The Federation is almost always behind the enemy faction in terms of ship/weapon performance, especially considering Zeon is the faction that invented the Mobile Suits to begin with.

The Musaka class was made as a rival to the Clop,

Spoiler

Indeed in CCA we see the Musaka fleet lay waste to the Earth Federation Luna II fleet.

The Zamouth Garr as a flagship is also understandably very powerful, particularly considering the Earth Federation fleet is largely composed of decades old equipment.

The Adrastea seems like it would probably be one of the most powerful, seeing as it is a fortress of a ship that can operate both on Earth and in space.

As for the Federation the Pegasus class appears to have been the strongest, followed by the Doggosse Giar , which really seems like a successor to the Pegasus class.

[Seto Kaiba]

The Federation is almost always behind the enemy faction in terms of ship/weapon performance, especially considering Zeon is the faction that invented the Mobile Suits to begin with.

This, of course, comes with the reasonably logical explanation that the Earth Federation's armed forces are a continuously maintained military that isn't on a perpetual war footing. Defense spending is harder to justify if there's no war brewing, so the Federation Forces are frequently caught on the back foot with older equipment because war never conveniently comes just as they're upgrading.

The various fascist regimes that emerged in the colonies and beyond tended to only last a couple of years, and often met their end in the very war they invested so heavily in the buildup for:

• Principality of Zeon (10 years)
• Neo Zeon (8 years)
• Reborn Neo Zeon (0.75 years)
• The Sleeves (4 years)
• Mars Zeon (42 years, mostly in isolation)
• Cosmo Babylonia (5 years)
• Jupiter Empire (~16 years)
• Zanscare Empire (4 years)

Each of those powers built up an armed force very quickly and in expectation of having to fight the numerically superior Earth Federation Forces, so their equipment tended to be of correspondingly higher quality since it wasn't possible to match the Federation Forces in sheer quantity. None of them, save perhaps for Mars Zeon, lasted long enough as governments to have to confront the gradual obsolescence of their equipment and all those cost and logistical headaches which come from modernizing a large standing army.

The same is also broadly true once you get past the end of the Universal Century calendar and into the Reguild Century, thanks to the rise of SU-Cordism and the AG-Tech taboo stagnating Earth's technological progress while the spacenoids living in Towasanga on the moon are under no such restriction. It wasn't until the Rose of Hermes blueprints were leaked and development resumed in Ameria and a few other places that Earth had much of a chance against Towasanga's plans to conquer Earth.

[yazi88]

The Ra Cailum class of ships seems to be pretty reliable overall. It has good firepower and seems to be faster than most other Federation ships, and its mass produced too, and has a well size mobile suit carrying ability.

The Clop class ships have better speed compared to the Salamis class as a light cruiser, but its pretty poor weapons wise as it is less armed than the Salamis.

Let's not forget about the Titans either as they were funded by the Federation for quite a number of years, and those Alexandria class ships had high firepower and superior mobile suit carrying size compared to the Salamis class ships. The Dogose Gear and its successor General Revil were one off ships but also moronically powerful yet.

[MythSearcher]

TBF, hard for EFSF.

When they changed to the Clop class, they had to replace 400 ships, that's not even talking about changing all of their ships, obviously they still have certain number(likely also in hundreds) of Salamis Kai, which served until at least 0153 and not mothballed, but with upgrades and modernisation. None of their opponents need to build that many. I doubt they need to build even 100.

The Clop class ships have better speed compared to the Salamis class as a light cruiser, but its pretty poor weapons wise as it is less armed than the Salamis.

Clop also have less internal volume than the Salamis Kai for MS. To be fair, they improved the engines so they can operate for longer at faster speeds, but still.
and we don't seem to see Clops upgrading to using beam shield.

[yazi88]

Clop class can carry a few more mobile suits than the Salamis Kai class, so that's one of its advantages along with being faster. Its also longer too length wise than the Salamis Kai so that holds up about right for it being able to carry more mobile suits.

The Reinforce is based on the Clop class too and its better in every way although that seems to be a very limited production ship.

[MythSearcher]

Clop class can carry a few more mobile suits than the Salamis Kai class, so that's one of its advantages along with being faster. Its also longer too length wise than the Salamis Kai so that holds up about right for it being able to carry more mobile suits.

The Reinforce is based on the Clop class too and its better in every way although that seems to be a very limited production ship.

Salamis Kai is only 4m shorter than Clop. Also, Clop's front catapult portion is way too thin and cannot house MS. About 2/5 of the ship has almost no internal structure other than some missile launchers and 1/5 of it can hardly fit anything inside other than maybe the catapult structures.
Reinforce still has the superfluous front portion that served whatever unknown function.
Space Ark might be better in concept because that part has been enlarged and the missile launchers placed further front.

[yazi88]

Official stats wise Clop class can fit 5-6 units while Salamis Kai can hold 4 units.

Space Ark is almost the exact same size as Clop class, its just without the radiator fins so no change there for holding units and changing its thrusters layout and having less thrusters compared to the Clop class.

[MythSearcher]

Official stats wise Clop class can fit 5-6 units while Salamis Kai can hold 4 units.

Space Ark is almost the exact same size as Clop class, its just without the radiator fins so no change there for holding units and changing its thrusters layout and having less thrusters compared to the Clop class.

Being able to fit more MS does not contradict with having less internal volume.
We just don't know the efficiency in packing MS into the ships and usage of space of each of the ships.

Space Ark's catapult portion is thicker than Clop, at least on the art.

[Underrated GM Custom]

The carrying capacity of the different ships tends to vary quite a bit depending on the source and even the animation. It is further obfuscated when a source doesn't mention if the number of MS is it's standard carrying capacity or its absolute maximum capacity which is often referred to as a combat loading. For instance in Zeta Gundam we see that the Salamis Kai can take on additional MS when the need arises, but is likely designed to hold a smaller number for ease of maintenance efficiency.

Mark did a post on how MS Capacity has varied on different tabletop games along with some discussion regarding other sources. It's an outstanding thread and I refer to it often when I'm curious on the carrying capacities of the various UC Warships. You can read it here: viewtopic.php?t=13646

[Mafty]

Also sometimes the animation itself is rather vague. For Instance the Argama has the Zeta Gundam, Gundam MK II, Hyaku Shiki, and Methuss as part of it's regular units. However it also seems to have a random amount of Nemo's and Rick Dias's for the additional Red Shirt pilots as well as any main character who steals one. It seems unlikely there would be too many spare units during active combat (the easy theft of Mobile Suits is another matter entirely).

In general, however it seems most smaller ships hold around 6-8 units, while the bigger main ships hold closer to 12, and the enormous ships like the Dogosse Gier and Gwanban can hold up to 30.

The other issue is that little is actually said about either the Space Ark or the Reinforce; we don't know if they were one off units , or modified regular units(Given the amount of random unit specific Flagships Gundam has, it's not impossible to think this is were the Reinforce came from).

[MythSearcher]

Mark did a post on how MS Capacity has varied on different tabletop games along with some discussion regarding other sources. It's an outstanding thread and I refer to it often when I'm curious on the carrying capacities of the various UC Warships. You can read it here: viewtopic.php?t=13646

Also note that the Sentinel Salamis kai and Magellan kai are different from the Zeta or 0083 ones, Magellan kai in Sentinel can carry MS(with actual maintenance capabilities and the only Magellan able to do so) and Salamis Kai seems to be longer than the Zeta ones as well.

[Underrated GM Custom]

Yes indeed, the Sentinel Kai variants are better suited for carrying MS. Do you recall where you read that the Magellan Kai is the only Magellan with maintenance / repair capabilities? As I recall the original Magellan had internal storage space and I had thought it was repurposed as a Hangar for ball types. I need to rewatch MSG TV because I think there may have been a scene with RB-79s coming out of the Magellan's storage.

[MythSearcher]

Yes indeed, the Sentinel Kai variants are better suited for carrying MS. Do you recall where you read that the Magellan Kai is the only Magellan with maintenance / repair capabilities? As I recall the original Magellan had internal storage space and I had thought it was repurposed as a Hangar for ball types. I need to rewatch MSG TV because I think there may have been a scene with RB-79s coming out of the Magellan's storage.

I didn't read it anywhere but none of the materials stated the original Magellan nor the Winson plan modified OYW Magellans have carrying capacity. The 0083 ones are also pretty much that, like the Birmingham, EFSF still didn't have the mentality to use MS carrying warships as their main capital ships.(even the 0083 Salamis Kai aren't MS carrying) and both Zeta and ZZ do not have Magellan class or any modified versions.
The ones that "carry" MS to the battlefield in FG are carrying them outside and that isn't really serving as MS mothership type of carrying.
Having Balls coming out doesn't mean they are MS capable. Balls do not need the cooling equipment as MS do because they don't have thermal-nuclear generators and a lot less waste heat, thus they are used on ships that don't have those equipments. But as MS Igloo shows, EFSF is desparate enough that they have Salamis that have outside hangars for Balls as well...
But yes, we see GM coming out of Magellan in FG, but that doesn't match with any description in settings and likely just stored and not maintained inside a Magellan as we don't have scenes where GMs going back to a Magellan to get supplied and maintained. They just stuff as many units as they can to carry them to the battlefield.

[Underrated GM Custom]

Ah I see what you mean, so basically they can combat load in the hangar/storage but have no actual ability to do technical maintenance or provide power/cooling for Mobile Suits that are in a non-operational status.