Maqadishu
Owner: Earth Union
Location: Earth, Equatorial Africa
Add-Ons:
- Unknown
Mobile Suits (???):
- Unknown
Mobile Armors (0):
-
Defenses:
- Unknown

The Maqadishu fortress is a genuine article that has withstood the test of time – originally built by the Earth Federation over a century prior (using the English spelling “Mogadishu”) it was re-militarized after the Interregnum by the Atlantic Federation military, and then fell into the hands of the militant Al-Ghazi Brigade after the collapse of that government. Originally intended to protect Africa from enemies approaching from the Indian Ocean to the East, the aged but still well-reinforced fortress is now the headquarters of the Al-Ghazi group.

Built into the side of a craggy cliff overlooking the sea on one side, the ruined city of Mogadishu on another, and deep jungle along the other two, the base itself is intended to be incredibly perilous to assault from air, ground, or sea. Countless mines – some of which are actually mobile suit torsos with barely-functioning reactor cores that are intended to be remotely exploded – have been ditched throughout the jungle and in portions of the ruined city where they appear to simply be more wreckage from the countless battles that have been fought in the mostly depopulated area, while approach from the sea is made difficult by the rocky shore. The cliffs have been cut apart into a spiderweb of access tunnels and passages, with the base’s mobile suit hangars jutting out of the rocks with reinforced apertures specifically intended to allow garrisoned mobile suits to use them as pillboxes of sorts. The lowest portions of the fort have a number of moon pools that allow submarines and marine mobile suits to enter or access the base, though these can be sealed off by means of a series of large steel doors down an access channel.

Since its occupation by al-Ghazi, the Maqadishu fortress has undergone a series of “renovations” that have made it even more of a virtual pincushion of gun batteries and emplacements. A large number of railguns looted from former ZAFT installations elsewhere in Africa have been added in disappearing turrets that are rolled out from their blockhouses to fire, while a large array of missile batteries are positioned to allow them to discharge ASROCs for use against targets approaching from the sea. The monstrous Noventa Cannon, miraculously still operational after years of poor maintenance, still crests the top of the base’s elevation, although the turret now bristles with antennas and other sensor aerials as the Maqadishu base must now be able to scan for itself due to the loss of the sensor triangulation positions elsewhere in Africa.

As a headquarters, the fortress is a less than perfect installation. While extremely formidable towards resisting enemy attack, it also lacks the internal space for large command and control centers, and the electronics and systems are badly dated. It is also difficult to enter or exit the base easily with no provisions for transport aircraft or large ground vehicles, so most functions must be carried out via submarine.