Musai-Class Light Cruiser

The original Musai-Class Light Cruiser variant carried five MS-05 Zaku Is or MS-06 Zaku IIs battle mechs 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 battle mechs (rather than for their initial purpose of carrying the battle mechs to the surface of the Earth) brought the mecha-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 mech catapults mounted on the upper port, upper starboard and lower faces of its hexagonal mech hangar. Captian Vorstagg commanded a modified Musai I with a custom command bridge. Unfortunately, the original Musai-class ships had one major flaw: they lacked any type of Anti-Aircraft/Anti-Battle Mech defense systems. This flaw would return to haunt the NEOs in the latter half of the One Year War, when the Federal Forces deployed their own Battle Mechs.

Towards the end of the One Year War, however, the Musai had to be reorganized, and the NEO engineers remodeled the three-turret based cruisers into a two-turret model. This was due to the fact that the NEO forces were mostly now using the far more efficient battle mechs. This caused a problem though for the standard Musai model: The new mechs 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 Battle Mech units, while the Komusai could hold one of the "heavy" type mechs. However, the two turret models could also now hold four "standard" type Zaku IIs. Despite not being able to carry the heavy mechs, this didn't cancel the three-turret variant as they still continued service until the end of the war at Tanelorn.

Musai class
Unit type: light space cruiser
Manufacturer: ?
Operator(s): Earth Federation
First commissioned: July UC 0075
Ships commissioned: ?

Unit complement:
Battle mech x 4 (?)
Komusai shuttle x 1

Armament:
2-barrel main gun turret x 3
2-barrel secondary gun turret x 2
small missile launcher x 10
large missile launcher x 2

Class type: Light Cruiser
Class namesake: Musai
Launched: July Universal Century 0075
Preceded by: N/A, first NEO Light Cruiser class
Succeeded by: Endra-class cruiser

Ships of the line:
Camel, Falmel, Kuwamel, Swamel, Tokmel, Primus, Baromel, Remul, Brave

General Characteristics
Displacement: Original: 26,200 tons
Length: Original: 234 meters
Width: Original: 140 meters
Height: Original:62 meters

Armament:
3x 2-barrel beam turrets
2x Large missile launcher
10x small missile launcher

Mech Hangers: 1
Mech Capacity: 3-5
Other: 1x Komusai shuttle
Powerplant: Minovsky-Ionesco Fusion Reactor ?