Salamis Kai-class

The Salamis Kai-class cruiser is a fictional space battleship that served the Earth Federation of the Universal Century timeline of the Gundam metaseries.

Technology and Combat Characteristics
The Salamis Kai-class cruiser is a refit of the original Salamis-class cruiser that incorporated design features from the Pegasus-class Albion and the failed 0083 refit. The refit design successfully increased the cruiser's firepower and ability to field and support mobile suits.

The bow of this ship was widened to incorporate an internal mobile suit hanger that includes facilities and equipment to properly store, supply, and repair mobile suits. The system was far more efficient than the old method of strapping the mobile suit to the outside of the hull, though it restricted the number of mobile suits per cruiser to four machines. The hanger entrance was situated at the top of the hull, on the edge of a new flight deck from which mobile suits were launched and retrieved. The flight deck included a single launch catapult that allowed the mobile suit to quickly accelerate without the use of its thrusters, thus saving fuel. Because of the placement of the hanger and flight deck, one of the single-barrel beam cannons had to be removed.

On the original Salamis cruiser two sub-bridges were mounted on the port and starboard sides of the ship's hull, placed there on the theory that should the primary bridge ever be destroyed it would be a simple matter to keep control of the ship by having surviving officers redirect command and control to at least one of the sub-bridges. However these sub-bridges proved to be just as easy a target as the main bridge against the attacks from small, fast, and agile mobile suits. On both refit designs the sub-bridges were removed in favor of increasing the cruiser's firepower.

The sub-bridges were replaced by two 2-barrel mega particle cannons as anti-ship weapons and four single-barrel machine gun turrets for increased anti-aircraft and anti-mobile suit combat, giving the refitted cruiser a total of six additional weapons emplacements. Although gun emplacements have been increased the external missile pods were completely removed, leaving only the eight internal missile launchers.

Armaments

 * 2-Barrel Beam Turrets
 * On the Salamis Kai-class, the two sub-bridges from the original Salamis-class are replaced by a pair of 2-barrel mega particle guns mounted on rotating.


 * Single Barrel Beam Turrets
 * The primary weapons of the of the Salamis Kai-class, maintained from the blueprints of the original Salamis are five single barrel mega particle cannons mounted on rotating turrets. This number is one less than the number of cannons in the same placement as the original Salamis and the 0083 refit. One of the original six cannons is removed from the dorsal bow hull to make room for the mobile suit flight deck. Four of the cannons are positioned on the port and starboard sides, two aft and two forward, while the fifth cannon is on the dorsal aft hull above the engines.


 * 2-Barrel Machine Gun Turrets
 * The Salamis Kai-class is equipped with six 2-barrel machine gun turrets, kept from the original schematics, and are used as anti-mobile suit defenses.


 * Machine Gun Turrets
 * On the Salamis Kai-class four additional single barrel machine gun turrets are added, placed around the base of the command tower.


 * Internal Missile Launcher
 * The Salamis Kai-class is equipped with eight internal missile launchers.

History
At the end of Operation Stardust the Earth Federation Admiralty decided to abandon the 0083 variant of the Salamis-class cruiser in favor of refitting the vintage Salamis-class cruiser. During this second round of refits between UC 0083 and UC 0088, the Salamis-class received the equipment fit that would serve it through the rest of its commissioned career.

This version, known as the Salamis Kai-class cruiser, came into production beginning in UC 0083 and remained in continuous production for many decades. The Salamis Kai-class cruiser proved highly successful after its deployment and composed the bulk of the fleet through the end of the first Universal Century and the first half of the second. The first major conflict that these ships would be involved in is the Gryps Conflict where these ships would form the bulk of the fleets of both the Earth Federation Forces/Titans and the Anti Earth Union Group, the latter of which captured many ships from the Earth Federation.

In UC 0093 the Earth Federation introduced the new Clop-class light cruiser as the intended replacement for the Salamis Kai-class. However while the new Clop-class was a faster ship with superior mobile suit handling facilities and anti-mobile suit combat abilities, its anti-ship combat abilities were significantly reduced from its predecessor. The Earth Federation Admiraltys desire to keep its heavy anti-ship combat ensured that the Salamis-Kai-class cruiser would serve as one the Earth Federation Forces' primary battleships all the way into the war with the Zanscare Empire in UC 0153, about 70 years after its initial introduction.