Combat Abilities
This shipclass is heavily armed for combat with a single 250mm rapid fire gun for long range attacks on enemy ships, as well as three 25mm anti-air gatling guns to shoot down incoming missiles of enemy mobile suits. Its largest type of weaponry are however its missile launchers, which include 18 anti-ship and several anti-air missile launchers, capable of unleashing a large number of missiles on enemy warships and mobile units. It can reach speeds of more than 50 knots.
Besides these fixed armaments, the Aegis-class also serves as a pocket carrier cruiser(although a small one), capable of carrying three Helis and three MBF-M1 Astray units, which are launched from its three flight decks.
History
The Aegis-class cruisers serve as the backbone of Orb Union's naval forces. Based on a trimaran construction in which the ship's hull is divided into three sections, the ship is used primarily for guarding Orb's territorial waters. Although these ships aren't designed to support mobile suits, flight-capable machines such as the M1 Astray Shrike can be temporarily tethered to their decks for deployment in battle. In terms size they can be best compared to a light cruiser or flotilla leader of the World War I or II era. However the weapons systems of the class of ships are excellent considering its size, its vertical launch missile system is shown to easily destroy general purpose mobile suits, its primary 250mm gun can fire numerous shells at ranges of excess of 32 km such as specialized fragmentation burst or armor-piercing shells, and its anti-ship missile are shown to be effective. However these missiles are usually shot down before they could reach their target. This could be most likely be attributed to the effectiveness of the target's CIWS than any problems with the missile itself. Although not shown in actual combat or training, it's proper to assume that this ship also has torpedo tubes along with an anti-submarine warfare suit.
These cruisers were used during the First Alliance-PLANT War as command & control ships with the Kuraomikami-class destroyer serving as the primary surface combatant vessel (PSCV). They were deployed in large numbers during the Earth Alliance attack on Orb, during which many of these ships however fell victim to the new Gundam mobile suits of the EA. The Aegis-class cruiser was still in service in CE 73 during the Second Alliance-PLANT War. Many of these vessels were part of the large Orb fleet which fought alongside the Alliance fleet in two battles against the ZAFT battleship Minerva. During the second battle however, many of these ships were sunk by the ZGMF-X56S Impulse Gundam. When ZAFT attacked Orb during the Second Alliance-PLANT War, these ships were again deployed to defend the country as they did three years ago.
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