Angelic Dawn Pirate Ship Overview

"These six ship classes are the main ships in use by many of the pirates of the Earth Sphere around the time of the Bloody Valentine War. While a few where converted civilian ships like earlier pirate ships during the previous Pirate Crisis, many more are converted military ships. This is mostly thanks to the general chaos of the Bloody Valentine War which sees a variety of damaged warships falling in the hands of the pirates..."

- Taken from Jane's Space Ships and Warships, CE72 Edition

Bandit Class Pirate Raider
The basic pirate ship that makes up the majority of any pirate fleet alongside the Bandito Class Attack Transport. The Bandit is heavily based on the Drake Class Frigate of the Earth Alliance which has its missile pods replaced with large cargo pods which can carry the stolen cargo. The armaments of the Bandit Class is still similar to that of the base Drake Class just with some changes thanks to the Bandit being primarily a pirate ship not a missile equipped frigate. Therefore you can expect vastly different weapon loadouts like the replacement of the CIWS Gun with older lightweight railgun turrets or older types of anti-air machine guns.

Bandito Class Pirate Armed Transport


Another of the basic Pirate Ships found in Pirate Fleets and are usually based on old Mercury Class Transport or the similar Majestic Class. These attack transport would often follow behind a Bandit and Brigand Class pair where it would take all of the supplies from the disabled target. Other times they are used in pairs for lightly armed targets. The armaments of the Bandito Class is only a trio of outdated anti-air machine guns of whatever model available at the construction or general refit of the ship.

Sloop Class Pirate Transport


While the Pirates sported the small and light Bandito Class Armed Transports they needed a larger ship design that could follow behind the more heavily armed pirate ships to take on the loot from any captured transports. While normally they would just send over prize crews to take control of the transport and then take it with them this couldn’t be done anymore thanks to many private companies and the Transport Guild starting to bug their ships which alert any nearby allied warship in range of the capture.

Therefore the Pirates would need a larger transport able to send over boarding parties and then take the loot off the ship soon after. At first some pirates would use the easily available Walter Class Heavy Transports but these are were way too bulky and slow to be used as the Pirates wanted to therefore several pirate leaders started to look for a new transport they could their hands on to use when a mysterious group handed over several transport of a unknown make which they would convert into the new Sloop Class Pirate Transport.

The new Sloop Class would sport a duel-hull design never before seen in any normal transport design. One half would be a large cargo bay and the other half would be the crew spaces plus various support functions. The cargo side would be equipped with a magnetic clamp system that attaches to target ships and then brings them alongside the Sloop where the pirates could start looting the ship.

Generally the Sloop sports a main gun a low-end Railgun turret backed up by several angled guns for use against attacking mobile suits and sports a high-end engine that makes the Sloop quit fast for its size. Combined this ship with Bandit and Corsair Class Pirate ships taking out any escorts along with disabling the target ship the Pirates would start to become very successful much to anger of several groups including the Transport Guild and the Black Knights Taskforce.

Brigand Class Pirate Carrier
One of the only pure carrier ships any Pirate sports in their fleets, and is often used as command ships for pirate leaders thanks to this fact. It is heavily based on the cheap Danube-C Class Carrier developed out of the Danube Class Modular Support Ship introduced by the PLANTs. It is usually equipped with either a Type-0A Hanger Pod off a Laurasia Class Frigate or the slightly larger Type-IVC Hanger Pod of the regular Danube-C Class. These hanger pods allows the pirates to carry around six mobile suits or twice that in mobile armors, vastly more than any other ship in a Pirate Fleet. Other armaments include a trio of anti-air guns or lightweight railgun turrets depending on the general preference ship’s owner or master.

Cutthroat Class Pirate Missile Cruiser


A larger pirate combat ship that is often used as command ships for pirate leaders of larger pirate fleets instead of the smaller Corsair Class Pirate Cruiser or Brigand Class Pirate Carriers. These cruisers are often modified examples of either a Ford Class Heavy Cruiser, or Nelson Class Cruiser and equipped many slap-on exterior missile launchers allowing them to take on heavier opponents like light military escort ships. However these missile launchers are not often able to fire or have the ammo needed depending on several issues like general maintenance or the availability of ammo needed for the launchers. Even then these are often the most lethal of any pirate ship thanks to the heavy missile launchers, only the slightly smaller Corsair Class is as lethal thanks to it being mostly a direct conversion of a military-scale ship.

Corsair Class Pirate Cruiser
One of the more lethal of any pirate ships in the service of the different pirate fleets thanks in part to it being a direct variant of the popular Nike Class Cruiser. Not to mention having plenty of parts needed to keep these ships in service due to the general use of the design by many across the Earth Sphere. Thanks to this the Corsair is not often given slapped on weapons or changing its weapon loadout due to the general availability of both ammo and spares for these weapons. It is thanks to this that the Corsair Class have started to generally replace the older Cutthroat Class and may even replace the smaller Bandit Class in time. The increase of these ships in pirate hands are mainly due to the general adoption of the newer Nike Kai Class Cruiser the successor of the older Nike Class.

General Pirate Conversions of Other Ship Designs
While these six ship classes would serve as the major backbone of any major pirate group in the Earth Sphere. Several smaller pirate or rouge groups would see conversions of other ships like military ships. This would be most well seen with the Red Dawn Pirate Group, and the Bloody Dragons a Rouge Mercenary Group which sport military design combat ships. With the Red Dawn sporting a single converted Agamemnon Class Command Carrier and the Bloody Dragons a single Laurasia Class Frigate. Other ships that are converted to pirate ships are the Long Island Class Light Carrier, Halsey Class Tactical Destroyer, and Luna Class Corvettes. However even then these are very rare cases with the vast majority of the known pirate groups using the main six pirate ship classes.