Columbus-class

The Columbus-class was a line of transport ship produced by the Earth Federation. These were built as supply ships but were converted into fighter carriers, and later into mobile suit carriers.

History

The Columbus-class ships served as supply ships for the Earth Federation prior to the One Year War. When the war broke out, many of these ships were converted to serve as fighter carriers for the FF-4 Toriares and FF-S3 Saberfish spacefighters.

After the Earth Federation started mass producing mobile suits late in the war, many Columbus-class ships were converted to carry and resupply mobile weapons from the GM and Ball lines. Some were modified to transport the Public-class gunships into battle.

During the New Desides rebellion of UC 0088, Columbus-class transport ships were used by both the Earth Federation and New Desides forces. A modified Columbus-class ship was used as a control ship for both Solar System superweapons.

The Columbus-class ships remained in service until as late as UC 0096 where they were deployed during the Laplace Incident.

Design

The Columbus-class transport ship was designed to supply the Earth Federation fleets in space. These transport ships had a pair of large cargo bays for transferring large quantities of supplies. When the One Year War broke out, this capacity made the Columbus-class ships ideal for transporting spacefighters and mobile suits.

As the Earth Federation already had many of the Columbus-class transport ship in service, it was easier to refit them rather than to design and manufacture a dedicated mobile suit transport ship. However, being modified from their original purpose meant that these ships performed poorly. They had no armaments and had to be accompanied by an armed escort.

The underside of the Columbus-class ships were refitted to allow multiple GM units to refuel and resupply quickly in the field.

Notable ships

• Columbus
• Beehive

Behind the scenes

Yoshiyuki Tomino was the principal mechanical designer. Kunio Okawara assisted by cleaning up the design.

Appearances

Anime

• Mobile Suit Gundam
• Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin
• Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt
• Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn

Manga

• Mobile Suit Gundam 0079
• Mobile Suit Gundam: Outer Gundam
• Mobile Suit Gundam MSV-R: Legend of the Universal Century Heroes
• Mobile Suit Gundam MSV-R: The Return of Johnny Ridden
• Mobile Suit Gundam MSV-R: The Troublemakers
• Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt (manga)

Novel

• Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn (novel)

Games

• Mobile Suit Gundam: Encounters in Space
• Mobile Suit Gundam: Pilot’s Locus
• Mobile Suit Gundam: We’re Federation Hooligans!!
• Mobile Suit Gundam: The Blue Destiny
• Mobile Suit Gundam Battlefield Record 0081: The Wrath of Varuna