Musai-class

In the Universal Century Gundam timeline, the backbone of the Principality of Zeon's space fleet is the Musai-class light cruiser. It was the first warship designed to carry mobile suits for the Zeon, and had a "Komusai" landing capsule that could (and often did) carry additional mobile suits. There were several models of the Musai produced during the war:

Original Musai-Class Light Cruiser
The original Musai-Class Light Cruiser variant carried five MS-05 Zaku Is or MS-06 Zaku IIs mobile suits and supported them with a battery of three mega particle cannon turrets. This is the version seen most frequently during the One Year War. Earth Federation soldiers referred to this style of carrying as "three in the back and two under the hood." Using the Komusai pod bays to carry operational mobile suits (rather than for their initial purpose of carrying the mobile suits to the surface of the Earth) brought the mobile suit carrying capacity of the Musai up almost to the same standard as the much larger EFSF Pegasus-class assault carrier. The standard Musai had three mobile suit catapults mounted on the upper port, upper starboard and lower faces of its hexagonal mobile suit hangar. Char Aznable commanded a modified Musai I with a helmet-shaped command bridge. Unfortunately, the original Musai-class ships had one major flaw: they lacked any type of Anti-Aircraft/Anti-Mobile Suit defense systems. This flaw would return to haunt the Zeon in the latter half of the One Year War, when the Federal Forces deployed their own Mobile Suites.

Towards the end of the One Year War, however, the Musai had to be reorganized, and the Zeon engineers remodeled the three-turret based cruisers into a two-turret model. This was due to the fact that the Zeon forces were mostly now using the far more efficient MS-09R Rick Dom mobile suit. This caused a problem though for the standard Musai model: The Rick Dom were far bulkier, making it impossible to fit three of the units inside the already cramped hangar. By remodeling the hangar and removing one of the mega beam cannon turrets, the hangar could hold two of the new "heavy" type Dom mobile suit units, while the Komusai could hold one of the "heavy" type mobile suits. However, the two turret models could also now hold four "standard" type Zaku IIs. Despite not being able to carry the Rick Dom mobile suits, this didn't cancel the three-turret variant as they still continued service until the end of the war at A Baoa Qu.

By U.C. 0087, most of the surviving original Musai-Class Light Cruisers had been upgraded into the Musai Kai-Class Light Cruisers, by the Zeon forces at the mobile asteroid Axis. However, little is known of this upgraded Musai type. It uses the three turret design of the original Musai and the original Komusai shuttle. However, it now mounted two additional single turrets for additional firepower and had better engines. It is unknown how many MS they could carry, but it can easily be said that they were capable of carrying at least five of the new Gaza-C Mobile suits: three in the hangar and two on its Komusai shuttle.

Late Production Type
The Musai-Class Light Cruiser Late Production Type was a considerable upgrade that combined the original's firepower with the refit's mobile suit complement and acceleration - and as an additional bonus, the Late Production Musai's drastically widened the aft hull near the bridge. This allowed the Zeon engineers to move the mobile suit hanger from the bow to two hangers on each side of the bridge with improved launch facilities that allowed the Musai to handle four of the much larger Rick Doms or MS-14 Gelgoogs, as compared to the refitted original Musai and the Final Production Type's carrying capacity of just two. The Late Production Types were also the first in the Musai line to feature anti-air and anti-mobile suit machine gun turret defenses, as well as adding two additional two barrel mega particle guns to cover the rear and underside of the ship. However, only a few Musai Late Production Types were built before operational setbacks forced the Zeon naval forces to switch to the less capable but less expensive and easier to construct refit of the first Musai-Class design. Most of the Late-Type ships fled with the Delaz Fleet at the end of the One Year War and returned (and eventually sunk) during Operation Stardust.

Final Production Type
The Musai-Class Final Production Type had an improved hull design and upgraded engines. This rare version was a subtype ship design of the original Musai Light Cruiser that was in production during November and December, as resource restrictions forced the Principality of Zeon to eliminate its ambitious plan of replacing all the original, refitted originals, and the only slightly improved Final Production Type Musai designs with the drastically upgraded Late Production ships. The Final Production Musai was cheap to mass produce and yet effective in task of making both sides naval forces more even in numbers. It had two catapults in its mobile suit hangars. While some of the ships carried groups of four MS-06F Zaku IIs, other ships carried two of the heavier MS-09R Rick Dom or MS-14 Gelgoog mobile suits. Like its One Year War cousin, this Musai type does not have any anti-aircraft/anti-mobile suite defense.

Fate of the Musai
The Musais of all variants acquitted themselves well in the One Year War and afterwards during Operation Stardust. Examples of the Musai continued to fly in the postwar Republic of Zeon fleet until Zeon rejoined the Earth Federation in U.C. 0099. Afterward, all remaining ships were mothballed in U.C. 0100 and were sold and scrapped after that, with the last ship leaving for the breakers by U.C. 0120.