The ARMD Class Space Carrier (ARMD being an acronym for Armaments Rigged-up Moving Deck) is a human built warship designed as space carrier for variable fighters and other U.N. Spacymecha.
Built by OTEC Company, the ARMD carriers featured OverTechnology with gravity control systems, a reaction heat pile system and even a fold drive (though this hyperspace navigation system was never implemented in actual combat). At 0.4 km in length, the ARMD carriers were much smaller than the large SDF-1 "Macross" and both ARMD-01 and ARMD-02 were originally meant to dock with the larger craft when the ship achieved orbit during its maiden voyage.
As a carrier vessel, the ARMDs held numerous ships and mecha. ARMD-01 held 78 SF-A3 Lancer II space fighters and 270 QF-3000EGhost drone fighters (as well as an unknown number of VF-1 variable fighters) just prior to Space War I (the events of Super Dimension Fortress Macross).
In addition to several hundred fighters, the ARMD carrier was armed with many weapons including beam cannons, small anti-aircraft cannons and missile launchers as well as several anti-ship medium sized and large missiles with multiple reaction warheads.
The ARMD possessed many large vernier thrusters nozzles positioned all over the craft. These powerful thrusters granted the ARMD excellent maneuverability in space and also proved very useful for combat engagement and evasion.
In real life this ship was designed by Miyatake Kazutaka in the early 80s for the first Macross TV series. The ship was renamed the Armor Class Space Carrier in the Robotech adaptation from 1985.
