Observations & Thoughts on Gundam 00 Ships [Series & Movie]

[Deathzealot]

Hello all, I recently started to get into Gundam after a long hiatus after being upset with stuff from Gundam AGE. I started my dive back into Gundam with going back to Gundam 00 due to myself having the entire SyFi Channel Showing of the series saved on my DVR , and I started to think about some of the ships in the series. I know I posted a thread about the Baikal-Class Cruiser awhile ago from the second season but I have since gotten a better idea on the ship and acceptance of it having one, technically two, main guns. Now I since started to think the other ships shown in the series, and thought I would post a thread here about my thoughts on them here on Mechatalk due to much I enjoy similar threads from toysdream about thoughts on the various different variants of the Salamis Class. Not to mention not to many thread about 00 ships on this site. Therefore without further ado I shall start this off.

[NOTE: I would attach screenshots to make my point, but I like to mention that right now I am dangerously close to my Bandwidth limit therefore can't watch anymore videos online. Therefore if anyone wants too feel free to add some in your posts. I also like to mention that I shall try to use images taken from online already. Thank you.]

Baikal Class Battlecruiser

The iconic A-LAWS Cruiser from the Second Season and one of my favorite Gundam Ships. Like mentioned I have gotten a better understand on the data about the ship since I posted that old thread. Basically it sports not one turret in front of the command tower but two duel-barrel turrets which looks weird. Even though these gun look like the new standard cannon of the ESF-Army (Bah!) and A-LAWS Fleet we see other ships in the fleet sporting similar looking weapons. The Ural Class being the main one, and later the Nile Class from the Movie. It also sports forty or so other fixed guns, that confused me, and others I am sure, during some scenes in the series showing a Baikal throwing up more beams then just the main guns. Basically these guns are the CIWS or rather Anti-Mobile Suit guns for the ship and don't have the power really to punch holes in distant enemy battleships that is left to the main guns. Granted these guns don't really help when the Gundams come calling.

While I am quite use to ship sporting more guns (ala Sally Kai), the idea of the Baikal Class is different due to its design philosophy. As evident by this quote from the Baikal Class page on Gundam Wiki:

The hull of the ship is long and slender, making it faster and less of a target against enemy fire. ESF engineers (previously from the Union) took inspiration from ancient Greek and Roman maritime battleships: a light fast attacking vessel carrying a small armed force.

Don't know if it is "Canon" or official due to Gundam Wiki sometimes say something different from Official sources, but it does neatly explain the ship in a nutshell if I think about it. It packs a heavy punch in its heavy missile capacity and sports a "small armed force" of mobile suits.

That brings us neatly to its mobile suit capacity, six mobile suits which is kinda of different from other Gundam ships, only ZAFT ships from SEED are the same in this. Also unlike ZAFT which operate in three teams of two, mostly, the A-LAWS operate in two teams of three as shown in the first episode of the Second Season where Barrak's Team launches. I have repeatedly heard from other like toysdream that this set-up is not all that great in the long run. I at first thought this was something the A-LAWs did and the ESF regular forces where different. However as shown in a scene in the movie which had a Baikal, or Volga don't remember, lowering its mobile suits to launch. It had two of the Commander Type GN-XIVs and four Regular Type GN-XIVs. This means that the regular forces had the same organization, two teams of three. Granted it is still a peacetime force, but still it is kinda of different.

Moving on, the official size of the ship is something I never really believed due to being similar in mission to the Salamis-Kai, but now I believe it does make sense since it is so slender it has to be a bit longer then normal to make room for everything. Especially since the mobile suit hanger takes up about half the ship according to the lineart of the ship. Therefore makes some kind of sense for such a long ship.

With that said I like to finish this section up with an interesting thought I had since I found an image of a few Baikal Class ships without its side pods [*][/url]. Now I know this could have been a goof on the animator's part god knows we have enough of those in other animes, but personally I believe these ships are of a variant design that sports an extra set of main guns on either side in place of the pods. Then again maybe not since there is nothing else supporting it, but an interesting thought I had after I saw that image and re-watched that episode a couple more times.

Onto a couple ships from the movie...

Nile Class Battleship

Now this new ship introduced in the movie has since recently become another of my favorites in recent months. It is a heavy carrier, and battleship rolled into one. According some sources it carries 21 GN-XIV Series Mobile Suits which is kinda weird and is one of the few ships I have seen that carries a odd number of mobile suits. It launches them with three catapults a first for Gundam 00 ships, since I have yet to see any Baikal Class use its catapult. Also something interesting that a friend pointed out to me, is that with every catapult launch a single team of mobile suits have launch. This allow teams to launch at the same time instead of waiting around for the rest of the team to launch, which is an interesting feature.

The weapons of the ship look similar to the main guns on the Baikal Class, just placed in singles instead of pairs like on the Baikal. These weapons look to have similar firepower to the ones on Baikal with what little we have seen of them. This gives the Nile some impressive firepower and whats better is that it basically sports three-sixty degree sphere of firepower due to the placement of the guns. However other then those guns and a pair of "flak cannons" it doesn't have anything else. Unlike the Baikal which sports its missile launchers and its secondary fixed laser cannons.

Moving onto the size of the ship, according to the sources I have found there doesn't appear to be an official size for the ship. We do know that it appears to be longer to the Baikal as in these two images:[*][/url][*][/url] I really don't have the skills of others like toysdream in comparing sizes but I would guess the length of the Nile around five hundred to five hundred twenty. As for the width and height I wouldn't even try to guess but I can say it does seem to be quite larger then the Baikal Class.

That said I believe that is it for the Nile, now onto another new favorite of mine.

Volga Class Space Carrier/Battleship

The Volga Class is second of the three(four) new ships and first of the two modified ships introduced in the Movie. It basically takes the Baikal Class and adds a pair of hanger-attachments to either side of the ship along with a connecting spar that runs behind the superstructure. These attachments add another hanger, and looks like another pair of main guns underneath the catapults of the hanger. Though these guns look to be fixed forward and not a movable turret unlike the original main guns. As shown in this image: [*][/url]. Even then this gives the Volga three times the beam firepower of the original Baikal. The Volga also sports several more of the fixed laser guns on the attachments, I count six on either attachment using this image: [*][/url]. Three on either side of the attachment. I can't see any on the bottom of the attachments. However I wonder if these guns are replacements for those on the pods which are blocked by the new attachments.

That said we don't have an official number of extra mobile suits carried by the new hangers, though I am guessing to be three each giving the Volga an ms count of twelve. Since I can't see these new hangers carrying six machines. However I maybe wrong and I can't find any screenshots that show a Volga launching its MS from those hangers. Even then it does make sense going with other data we have in that the EFS-Army uses teams of three mobile suit.

Moving on from Mobile Suits I like to mention that in the movie we finally get to see the Baikal Class Shuttle Hanger with the Volga carrying Kati and Patrick to the Celestial Being. I at first thought it took up the entire bottom "superstructure" but it appears the hanger is behind this secondary superstructure. It also appears to only carry one shuttle due to the size of the hanger, though it may have room to store another shuttle in the ship's hull itself. But I don't think it needs more then one shuttle.

To finish this final section, I like to mentioned that it appears that they didn't just plonk the attachments on a Baikal Class and call it day. For it sports an enlarged bridge that is stretched forward a bit and a few more stations. These two images are great for comparison: [Baikal][Volga].

With all that said folks I shall leave you with these three ships, and I shall post later looking at the Ural Class, Virgina Class, and the Artorious with maybe a special appearance of the Laohu. Hope you enjoyed my blabbering about some of my favorite 00 ships. Thank you.

[SonicSP]

I would be careful with that Gundam Wiki quote, it doesn't sound official and I have a feeling I knew who wrote that down. I also have a feeling it doesn't have any citations to go along with it. That sounds more like an editor's opinion (I have a feeling I know who it is) and using real life similarities to the craft. I'm 95% sure it's made up and I know my Wiki well.

Still, the quote probably explains it well from an unofficial observers point of view.


I'm interested about whether you have anything to say about some other ships in 00.

[Deathzealot]

Yeah kinda figured that but like you mentioned it does make sense though.

As for other ships I have some thoughts of the Virgina Class and the Laohu I just need to get them all together and ready. However do you have any other ship you want me to add.

[SonicSP]

Mostly Ptolemaios ships since that's the one I pay attention too. And maybe Gadelaza too. It may be classified as a Mobile Armor but its larger than some ships and holds a lot of MS sized Fangs here.

On the subject of 00's ships, I've always been curious on what the advanced GN-based ones actually run on. Tau Drives as power plants are very likely but Im curious about their fuel source. Do they just store electricity? Take power wirelessly on the Solar Energy System (like the Enacts do and the Flag theoretically could do)? Have their own miniature Solar Energy System? No source book translated have noted it I recalled.

They don't really emit particles as thrusters for one (though that itself doesn't indicate whether the propulsion system is GN based or not). Interestingly, their weapons also lack the GN moniker (the word "laser" is in their names) and in many S2 episodes are yellow colored.

I've also been curious on GN Laser weapons on Celestial Being Colony (the turrets as well as the main cannon), on what differs them from other GN Beam Weapon. They certainly don't act like actual lasers which should move at light speed. Answers aren't given here either so there's no official answer but I wonder. So far, "laser" weapons in 00 seem to be a ship or colony thing excluding Masurao's small lasers which are mentioned to be for anti-personal purposes.

[Deathzealot]

As far I as know the Season-2 Ships, mainly the Baikal Class, sports an hybrid drive system. It is mainly using Plasma for propulsion according to what I know, plus some GN-Drives to power the GN-Missiles, and other stuff on the ship. This due to the GN-Drive Tau needing some form of regular electricity to power up the Drive therefore it needs a regular ship reactor to do this.

The main gun of the ship, the 10m Duel Laser Cannon, is a bit different for it doesn’t sport GN in its name. In fact I believe it is just a normal Laser Cannon that is only based on beam cannons and isn’t powered by a GN Drive at all. For one it isn’t firing Red Beams like a GN-Powered Mobile Suit, for like you said it fires a yellow/gold beam at enemies. The smaller fixed lasers are the same. These I believe are just simple lasers taken from research into Laser Weapons. Also like I mentioned they seem to be the main weapon of many other Federation Ships including the Ural Class Carrier, and apparently the Guyana Class Landship.[Ural Firing][Guyana Cannon] However something very interesting is that I just compared images from the series and the movie. While the Series has the beams golden, the movie however has them a gold-red looking similar color to the GN Missiles fired by Federation Ships. [*][/url][*][/url] An interesting change which could mean that the Federation has started to power their ship weapons with GN Drives. Though in some shots of the Volga Class I have found they are still firing the Golden Beams from its own Beam Guns, but in others it look a bit red. Strange.

Now according to some stuff I heard the Nile Class is one of the few that is all-out powered by GN-Drives in a similar set-up to GN Laser on the Celestial Being. This is mainly due to it using Trans-Am as a Long-Range Propulsion System, which has given a few ideas for story post-Season 2. Not to mention the red-gold beams it fires from its weapons in the image I earlier attached.

As for the Laser on the Celestial Being I don’t really know anything about the laser just that the main laser is the show’s Evil-Guy Weapon of Doom. The smaller laser do look like they are similar to the fixed lasers on the regular ships, just a bit larger and are used for defensive purposes.

That said I shall get together some stuff about the Ptolemy, and Ptolemy II with a special appearance of the CBS-68 if I have room for it. Hopefully this answers some questions you have Sonic.

[SonicSP]

Do you know which the name of the book or source mentioned the reactor thing? What type of reactor would this be?

[Deathzealot]

Honestly no I don't but I do remember reading about it here on MechaTalk somewhere though. One of the 00 Mecha Threads if I remember right. The bit about the Tau Drives needing to be recharged/kickstarted is from Season One when it was mentioned somewhere. It is for this reason why ships can't be fully powered by Tau Drive especially with it carrying Tau-equipped mobile suits which needed to be charged.

[SonicSP]

The part about Tau Drives needing a starter and and charged is mentioned in 00V Throne Veranus chapter and a lot of other places like 2nd Mechanics book in addition to being shown in animation.

The reason why I'm suspicious of a nuclear reactor (I'm gonna assume that's what you meant when you said reactor) being used is because of the fact that nuclear technology was altogether discontinued and banned due to a nuclear accident in the ME a long time ago as noted in one of the 00N chapters as well as the 00 World Report book (all of the world's fission materials were buried in the Taklamakan Desert as well). The sources so far doesn't make any special distinction for fusion or fission either, just that nuclear altogether is banned.

In addition to the sources saying the above, there also hasn't been any mention of any fusion or fission reactors either either for normal civilization uses or in the military in any of the sources. There's even still had wars fought over fossil fuels less than ten years ago; specifically how the ME countries wanted to keep whatever's left of their fossil fuel economy running (which the Elevators would have ruined if completed and did after they were).

That's the interesting question I'm raising about a lot of 00's ships, is that for a lot of the mass productions ones, their energy or fuel source is unknown. None of the English translated source materials that I've come across have noted it including some like 2nd Mechanics that had covered the ships. Its an interesting question that makes one wonder what they run on. It's probably not that important for when those that are near Earth since they could theoretically rely on the wireless energy transmission from the Solar Energy System (like the Enacts do) or even easily recharge for electricity at a base once in awhile.

It does becomes a more important question to pondor when we consider that some of the trips that are taken by Kim's Nile-class or Solbraves' Artorious in the movie are pretty far and took a long time. Personally, my speculation would be that the long distance one would just get energy from the sun and convert it into electricity to power their Tau Drives while some of the non-long distance once might run on some very powerful batteries. If any of them do use plasma thrusters, they might run on hydrogen for those just like the Flags do to power their plasma engines.

[Deathzealot]

That is quite true, but didn't really mean nuclear reactor just a reactor. Therefore I apologize for not making that clear. However like SEED before it Gundam 00 is not very clear on what really powers their ships besides mentioning plasma thrusters. I would think some sort of Hydrogen-Cell is the power plant for the ships but really I really don't know anything about power generation outside stuff like ICE and Nuclear Reactors. Then again we might have a Fusion Reactor for the ships. /shrug/

We just don't really know we can only guess. However I would lean towards Fusion for unlike SEED there is nothing else saying they don't have Fusion if I remember right. While the 00 world may have given up Fission and gone all the way with Solar Power they still might use Fusion for stuff like Spaceships. That is my theory.

[Strike Albion]

I've been meaning to post in this topic for a while, sorry it's taken so long, and whilst I have more to say at the moment I'd like to discuss the Nile-class. Now from what we've seen it only has the 10m-Grade guns and the 'GN Flak Cannons' however in G Generation Overworld the Nile also has GN Missile Launchers, fired from the center of each 'engine pod', and a pair of main guns in the bow. Now, sure, G-Gen ain't always a credible source of information however I took another look at Final Mechanics and it sure looks like the Nile has more weapons than we currently know about however as I'm unable to do so I was wondering if someone could translate the Nile's page?

Nile-Class

From the looks of the page it does say something about the supposed cannons in the bow and also something about 'pop-out' GN guns for point-defense. Might say something about the three pods containing missile launchers too.