HOME | DD

Description

NOTE - I'm not doing the mecha of the Gundam multiverse; just the spacecraft. This is Mandel's Fighting Starships after all, not Mandel's Fighting Mecha. I'll let someone else take on that particular topic. (REM)

--------------------

XPS port by Metalscourge18XD of the GMOD version by Blaze, who by his own account ripped and ported them himself from various Gundam franchise video games. Irish originally created by Kazumi Fujita, based on both the earlier Magellan class by Kunio Okawara and the Argama class by Mamoru Namano for the original Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam anime TV series (or just Zeta Gundam or Z Gundam for short) and subsequently reused (sometimes in modified form) in other installments of the long-running Gundam anime franchise. Preview picture posed in XNALara XPS. You can get the XPS version from Metalscourge18XD's dA page at the link below:

For roughly four decades during the Universal Century Era, from about UC 0087 to about UC 0120, the Irish class assault battleship (sometimes called the Radish class after one of its more famous members) was the backbone capital ship class of all Earth Federation space forces. It was originally developed by the AEUG as a successor to the old Salamis Kai, and is best described as a successful merger of the old Magellan class space battleship with the more recent Argama class mobile suit assault carrier into a single design that contained as many of the best elements of both and as few of their weaknesses as possible. It later became part of the Earth Federation fleet after the AEUG merged with it once the Titans affair was resolved and following the successful conclusion of the First Neo Zeon War in UC 0089 (see appropriate Gundam sources and media for more info). Even after its presumptive successors Ra Clop and Ra Callum were eventually developed and entered service later on, Irish in both its original form and later variations proved so good that it was kept in service for as long as it could be kept up-to-date technologywise. Because of this many later historians consider Irish to be the best all-around Earth Federation capital ship class of the Universal Century Era, although some debate this and prefer instead designs that had more emphasis on mobile suit operations and fewer "ship of the line" characteristics.

The term assault battleship was coined to describe Irish and later designs based on or inspired by it, because that's exactly what it was. It was equal parts heavy firepower capital ship and heavy mobile suit assault carrier. Its one weakness was one it shared with the older and more famous Zeon Musai class light cruiser, in that there simply wasn't enough room on board given everything else it offered to mount an adequate close-in defense weapons battery. For that Irish had to depend on its mobile suits and the combat skills of their pilots. Most of the time this worked, but there were occasions where an Irish was caught without its mobile suits to protect it and suffered for it. Certain of the later minor in-service Irish variants both official and unofficial were essentially various means of grafting on some kind of basic close-in weapons battery at the expense/trade-off of other capabilities. Irish wound up being cheaper to produce at the time than its contemporary Argama, and that plus the overall excellence of Irish was why it stayed in the forefront of service for as long as it did, with Argama eventually fading into the background and with production discontinued following the First Neo Zeon War. At least three rebuilt and upgraded Irish class assault battleships were still in service with the Earth Federation and still serving as capital ships as late as UC 120, but further information on their later service history is not available at this time.

This is canon, as it was originally created for Zeta Gundam and has since been reused (sometimes in altered form) in other various Gundam franchise mecha.

ASIDE - If you had to pick just one Earth Federation capital ship class that could do as close to everything as possible in the Gundam multiverse, Irish or an Irish variant would probably be it. The only real issue there is the service entry date, which means you don't get it for the One Year War but you do get it for most of the later major conflicts in the Universal Century Era after that ... and maybe even later than those, should you find a means and a reason to resurrect/improve upon the design in some Gundam multiverse thread's future.

Description

NOTE - I'm not doing the mecha of the Gundam multiverse; just the spacecraft. This is Mandel's Fighting Starships after all, not Mandel's Fighting Mecha. I'll let someone else take on that particular topic. (REM)

--------------------

XPS port by Metalscourge18XD of the GMOD version by Blaze, who by his own account ripped and ported them himself from various Gundam franchise video games. Irish originally created by Kazumi Fujita, based on both the earlier Magellan class by Kunio Okawara and the Argama class by Mamoru Namano for the original Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam anime TV series (or just Zeta Gundam or Z Gundam for short) and subsequently reused (sometimes in modified form) in other installments of the long-running Gundam anime franchise. Preview picture posed in XNALara XPS. You can get the XPS version from Metalscourge18XD's dA page at the link below:

For roughly four decades during the Universal Century Era, from about UC 0087 to about UC 0120, the Irish class assault battleship (sometimes called the Radish class after one of its more famous members) was the backbone capital ship class of all Earth Federation space forces. It was originally developed by the AEUG as a successor to the old Salamis Kai, and is best described as a successful merger of the old Magellan class space battleship with the more recent Argama class mobile suit assault carrier into a single design that contained as many of the best elements of both and as few of their weaknesses as possible. It later became part of the Earth Federation fleet after the AEUG merged with it once the Titans affair was resolved and following the successful conclusion of the First Neo Zeon War in UC 0089 (see appropriate Gundam sources and media for more info). Even after its presumptive successors Ra Clop and Ra Callum were eventually developed and entered service later on, Irish in both its original form and later variations proved so good that it was kept in service for as long as it could be kept up-to-date technologywise. Because of this many later historians consider Irish to be the best all-around Earth Federation capital ship class of the Universal Century Era, although some debate this and prefer instead designs that had more emphasis on mobile suit operations and fewer "ship of the line" characteristics.

The term assault battleship was coined to describe Irish and later designs based on or inspired by it, because that's exactly what it was. It was equal parts heavy firepower capital ship and heavy mobile suit assault carrier. Its one weakness was one it shared with the older and more famous Zeon Musai class light cruiser, in that there simply wasn't enough room on board given everything else it offered to mount an adequate close-in defense weapons battery. For that Irish had to depend on its mobile suits and the combat skills of their pilots. Most of the time this worked, but there were occasions where an Irish was caught without its mobile suits to protect it and suffered for it. Certain of the later minor in-service Irish variants both official and unofficial were essentially various means of grafting on some kind of basic close-in weapons battery at the expense/trade-off of other capabilities. Irish wound up being cheaper to produce at the time than its contemporary Argama, and that plus the overall excellence of Irish was why it stayed in the forefront of service for as long as it did, with Argama eventually fading into the background and with production discontinued following the First Neo Zeon War. At least three rebuilt and upgraded Irish class assault battleships were still in service with the Earth Federation and still serving as capital ships as late as UC 120, but further information on their later service history is not available at this time.

This is canon, as it was originally created for Zeta Gundam and has since been reused (sometimes in altered form) in other various Gundam franchise mecha.

ASIDE - If you had to pick just one Earth Federation capital ship class that could do as close to everything as possible in the Gundam multiverse, Irish or an Irish variant would probably be it. The only real issue there is the service entry date, which means you don't get it for the One Year War but you do get it for most of the later major conflicts in the Universal Century Era after that ... and maybe even later than those, should you find a means and a reason to resurrect/improve upon the design in some Gundam multiverse thread's future.