Bartolk

Unit type: cruiser
Manufacturer: Atlantic Federation
Dimensions: length 188.4 meters
Armament: 2 x 2-barrel 280mm cannon, all fore; 10 x 20mm vulcan gun, 5 port, 5 starboard; 4 x 8-tube missile launcher, 2 fore, 2 aft
Powerplant: 4 x gas turbine, total output rated at 62300 kW
Performance: cruising speed 30 knots
Propulsion: 2 x screw drive
Hangar capacity: 2 mobile suits

Bartolk-class ships were originally commissioned by the Old Earth Federation as relatively low-cost, high-firepower surface combatant to battle growing unrest among a number of states in the early UC 130s. More than seventy years later, many surviving hulls of this class were brought back into service by the Atlantic Federation and were employed on a fleet scale once again.

Showing their age badly, the Bartolk employed by the Federation was heavily modified to make it a more useful and functional vessel in an age where mobile suits are more common than ever. The manually-directed antiaircraft cannons were replaced with automated vulcan guns, with missile launchers installed in mounts at the bow and on either side of the stern to improve surface-to-air capability. Finally, the main cannon armament was reduced from eight to four by way of removing the rear-facing turrets, allowing a landing pad and a small hangar capable of fitting a pair of mobile suits to be created. With a reasonably high speed and heavy armor protection, Bartolks - usually paired with Daughtress Flyer mobile suits - became the bane of renegades and pirates operating in the South Atlantic.

With the collapse of the Atlantic Federation, many Bartolk-class ships wound up in the hands of successor states and other operators, legitimate or not. Perhaps the biggest irony, more than a few eventually came to be used by pirates and other brigands operating on the seas, who valued their speed and firepower for much the same reasons as the Federation.