This seemed like a weird CE related ship oversight

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Mu La Flaga
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This seemed like a weird CE related ship oversight

So this is simply it with regards to the ArchAngel class ships built during SEED.
I always wonder come CE 73/Destiny, if the Earth Alliance put alot in to Phantom Pain and all that.
How come the Earth Alliance never made another ArchAngel class ship or 2-3?
They would've been better then some of their other carrier ships if they wanted an option.

So it just seems like a weird oversight, because as good as the Girty Lue is/was.
It couldn't do atmospheric re-entry nor had higher level firepower cannons.
Like the Lohengrin/Taunheiser cannons.
Or more resilient armor protection, which both the 2 ships in the class had on them.

Anyone got any thoughts?
I just think it was just a stupid oversight maybe with a change in leadership after Azrael died and Djibril took control of runing things.
Blazer-X
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Re: This seemed like a weird CE related ship oversight

I would think part of it has to do with Girty Lue having Mirage Colloid, which was useful given that Phantom Pain is a shadow/"unaffiliated" part of the Earth Alliance military.
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Mu La Flaga
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Re: This seemed like a weird CE related ship oversight

Well my point was more, why didn't the Earth Alliance make more ArchAngel class ships in Destiny?
I realise yes the Girty Lue has a role, but as I noted in my post, it lacks certain things.
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PowerdGNFlag
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Re: This seemed like a weird CE related ship oversight

The case of the Archangel-class is worse. The Archangel was the EAF's biggest defector in the first war, and it was responsible for turning the tide of the war against them, destroying the other ship of the class (Dominion), and finding a place in the Orb military structure. Fielding another of its class would be a reminder of that. Also, since its primary function (as mothership of GAT-X prototypes) has been completed, there's an additional disincentive to pursue further production.

Probably the same reason the Federation stopped producing Aheads after the dissolution of A-LAWS. The Ahead series were excellent MS, even going up to par with the Gundams (with competent piloting), but the series was seen as the symbol of the A-LAWS regime, so despite its good properties which should make it worth keeping, the Federation shelved it in favor of developing the older GN-X series for short-term production and making the Susanowo the basis of their next-gen machines.
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iguanaman8989
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Re: This seemed like a weird CE related ship oversight

I'd say it's fairly comparable to the Earth Federation's practices post-OYW. Yes, the White Base and all it's relatives were incredibly useful ships, but they were all too expensive (Argama and Nahel Argama don't count, they weren't made for the EF). Fine for a flagship, where you want to show off, but too much of an initial cost to field an entire fleet of, and presumably too expensive to maintain for general use (with all the specialized features).
Juumanistra
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Re: This seemed like a weird CE related ship oversight

Because only the heroes are allowed to have battlecarriers. Any further discussion on the subject is pointless, because there's no in-universe justification for the Atlantic Federation not laying down more Archangels.
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ShadowCell
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Re: This seemed like a weird CE related ship oversight

never mind a couple of plausible ideas already advanced in this thread, of course...

Anyway, I would think the Junius Treaty would've had something to do with the lack of Archangel-class ships too. ZAFT would've known all about the Archangel-class ships at the time the treaty was negotiated, but they would've known nothing of the Girty Lue-class, which would account for why the Alliance abandoned the first class and proceeded with the second.
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yazi88
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Re: This seemed like a weird CE related ship oversight

Well, it ain't like the Minerva has gotten other ships in the line either.
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Brave Fencer Kirby
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Re: This seemed like a weird CE related ship oversight

The main reason behind the lack of further Archangel class seems to be the fact that the Earth Alliance has de-emphasized mobile suits in general after the First Bloody Valentine War. They still have lots of them, of course, but they're basically just deploying swarms of Windams rather than fielding any new, advanced units. Their emphasis instead is clearly on mobile armors -- all of their new technological advances are put into the Zamza-zah, the Gells-ghe, and the Destroy, and those units are shown forming the core of the OMNI formation every time they show up.

This actually seems to work pretty well, too -- I'm not sure we hear anything of the Zamza-Zah before Shinn kills it, but we are told that the Gells-Ghe successfully repels several attacks on the Lohengrin Gate, and the Destroy carves a bloody swath through Europe before being stopped. That suggests that OMNI's new mobile armors are quite good at dealing with ZAFT's regular forces -- it takes an ace pilot in a Gundam to bring them down. Unfortunately for OMNI, they don't have any Gundams of their own (other than the trio they stole) to counter ZAFT's.

But yeah. The Archangel is a great ship for a special ops unit -- a highly capable vessel able to bring a complement of highly capable mobile suits anywhere on Earth or in space while still holding its own in a ship-to-ship fight -- but it's probably too expensive for mass production (special armor technology? not one, but two Lohengrin cannons?) and OMNI's strategic priorities after the First Bloody Valentine War have clearly shifted away from the sorts of units that would be able to make good use of the Archangel design anyway.
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Juumanistra
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Re: This seemed like a weird CE related ship oversight

There have been viable theories other than heroes' invocation of The Rule of Cool postulated in this thread? As all I've seen are "they were too expensive" and "they hurt the 'Lanties' feelings", both of which are deeply flawed.

The "they were too expensive" argument might be plausible if the Archangel was a wartime extravagance akin to, say, the Dora and Gustav 88cm railway guns. But they really weren't. Ships are riddled with long lead-time components: The power plant(s), engine(s), main battery, and major electronic systems all require ordering many, many months before they are in fact intended to be installed. This is doubly the case with a systems testbed, which is essentially what the Archangel and her sister(s) were. The decision to lay down the Archangel was in all likelihood made in the 66-67 CE timeframe, with actual construction likely beginning no later than 68 CE. Perhaps even earlier, if we assume that a substantial retrofitting of a three-quarters completed vessel so as to integrate an N-Jammer ECM suite and other lessons learned once the shooting of the Bloody Valentine War started.

But ignoring the particulars of shipbuilding, the logic of "they were too expensive" misses the damn point. Absolute cost isn't of much use in determining something's military utility: Carrier aviation is a titanic monetary sinkhole, and yet it has been the benchmark of blue water naval might since 1942. What matters is cost relative to the other options available. To return to carrier aviation, it is persisted with despite the immense costs because of its stupendous stand-off range (which cannot hope to be matched by gun-carrying ships) and the general susceptibility of ships to airborne attack. In the space superiority context, the Archangel repeatedly was exposed to substantive enemy fire from mobile suits and hostile ships, and managed to continually hold her own. As opposed to the legion of faceless Drakes and Agamemnons, who were one-shotted. (Because the purpose of non-hero ships is to die horribly, to prove the (not-)Zeeks are a fo' serious threat, yo.) To justify not building more Archangels while continuing to build new Drakes and Agamemnons -- which is the only assumption which can be made given the raw numbers of them in Destiny -- would require either an exceptionally low all-in cost for the other vessels (which is highly unlikely given their size) or an exceptionally high unit cost on the Archangels (i.e. the equivalent of the USN trying to build a ship with a unit cost of $250,000MM, making the scenario equally unlikely, as the project would never have been greenlit in the first place).

The problem with PoweredGNFlag's thesis, meanwhile, is that it requires the 'Lanties to have the Idiot Ball surgically implanted into their brain. Well, this is SEED we're talking about, so all Americans--er, I mean 'Lanties--are genocidal idiots, so stupidity from them is a given. But this requires stupidity even within the context of the Cosmic Era setting. It would require the 'Lanties to purposefully disregard a proven combat platform with an excellent track record under fire out of deference to a politically sensitive issue. As all 'Lanties are genocidal idiots, that requires far too much nuance -- and might make the 'Lanties vaguely sympathetic -- for such to be the case.

Look, there's nothing wrong with the heroes getting a Cool Ship simply because they're the heroes. (Well, aside from being incredibly lazy writing.) But trying to apply logic to come up with a justification beyond that -- when it so clearly is the case -- is a fool's errand. Because it invariably highlights just how lazy the writing is and the usual lack of attendant world-building.
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ShadowCell
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Re: This seemed like a weird CE related ship oversight

Try reading the thread, Juumanistra. If you do, you'll even notice that I pointed to a theory that is explicitly tied to background material for the show. The only thing you're really relying on here is "SEED is stupid," and, really, you could make that argument about any Gundam show.

Nor does it make much sense to dismiss the point of "maybe they cost too much" when the whole question of the thread is why more of these ships wouldn't have been built, and there are tons of examples of real-world military weapons that don't get built because they were more expensive to produce than they were useful to possess. Not to mention it's hardly something that's unprecedented in Gundam, either. And everyone else has been talking about that in this thread too.

If all you want to do is sit here and whine about SEED being stupid because you can't be bothered to think about it, then kindly stop posting.
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Re: This seemed like a weird CE related ship oversight

The Junius Treaty would be a good pointer towards the halting of the design production. If the design was verboten, move along to something new. My money is on the reason that because Archangel had defected to Orb, and Orb & ZAFT personnel had been all over it, the design was now compromised. What's the use in spending mega-bucks on warships that the enemy had learned about to such detail? (And we're talking Coordinators here, they could sketch out a working blueprint from memory.) This was even lampshaded in GSD when Athrun was called upon to contribute information about the ship when ZAFT actively tries to destroy it & Freedom.
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yazi88
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Re: This seemed like a weird CE related ship oversight

I guess 1 reason might be that the Archangel wasn't exactly a fast ship cause in SEED the Nazca Zaft ships could easily catch up to it. Its a very weak example though.

PR might have a lot to do with the Archangel class as the original ship defected and the 2nd was commanded by Blue Cosmos head honcho near the end of the war...

Atmospheric re-entry capable ships for OMNI/Alliance be damned!
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Dark Duel
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Re: This seemed like a weird CE related ship oversight

I guess 1 reason might be that the Archangel wasn't exactly a fast ship cause in SEED the Nazca Zaft ships could easily catch up to it. Its a very weak example though.
I seem to vaguely recall that idea being specifically contradicted by dialog very early in Seed, IIRC between Heliopolis and Artemis, when someone comments that while the AA is a fast ship, so is the Nazca-class, or something to that effect.
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Brave Fencer Kirby
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Re: This seemed like a weird CE related ship oversight

Zeonista wrote:The Junius Treaty would be a good pointer towards the halting of the design production. If the design was verboten, move along to something new. My money is on the reason that because Archangel had defected to Orb, and Orb & ZAFT personnel had been all over it, the design was now compromised.
That's reasonable, but it just shifts the question. Instead of "why didn't they build more Archangels?", the question becomes "why didn't they apply the technology of the Archangel to a new ship class?". There's the Girty Lue, but that's a plausibly-deniable specops stealth carrier, not a ship of the line. It would have been reasonable for the Earth Alliance to make a mass-production version of Archangel -- the GM to its Gundam, as it were. By changing the design, they would negate any specific weaknesses Orb or ZAFT had been able to uncover, by they'd still be able to use the technology itself to their advantage.
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Zeonista
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Re: This seemed like a weird CE related ship oversight

Brave Fencer Kirby wrote:
Zeonista wrote:The Junius Treaty would be a good pointer towards the halting of the design production. If the design was verboten, move along to something new. My money is on the reason that because Archangel had defected to Orb, and Orb & ZAFT personnel had been all over it, the design was now compromised.
That's reasonable, but it just shifts the question. Instead of "why didn't they build more Archangels?", the question becomes "why didn't they apply the technology of the Archangel to a new ship class?".

That is a proper question in response, and the idea of building many simplified Archangel class to crush ZAFT with mighty MS battle carriers is worth pursuing, in the abstract. After all, Minerva was about half an Archangel, and managed to do reasonably well on her own. :) For all we know, such ships were actually being constructed during the course of GSD, but none of them were completed due to story events. Your own earlier post on Mobile Armor development, plus a growing proliferation of powerful beam weapons sited at Federation bases, reasonably suggest an emphasis on divergent development for EFF strategy, and the means to implement it.
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Re: This seemed like a weird CE related ship oversight

Brave Fencer Kirby wrote:That's reasonable, but it just shifts the question. Instead of "why didn't they build more Archangels?", the question becomes "why didn't they apply the technology of the Archangel to a new ship class?". There's the Girty Lue, but that's a plausibly-deniable specops stealth carrier, not a ship of the line. It would have been reasonable for the Earth Alliance to make a mass-production version of Archangel -- the GM to its Gundam, as it were. By changing the design, they would negate any specific weaknesses Orb or ZAFT had been able to uncover, by they'd still be able to use the technology itself to their advantage.
reasonable but not convincing. if a hardware was proven to be so effective in the field, it's only logical if you would want more of it, better if possible OR more in number for slightly less effective tradeoff, but I don't think it's logical to go all economical and having things not even half the effectiveness of the original. Design compromise doesn't seem to be all that important to barred an effective design from production line. What design compromise risk can be negated by layout redesign that should be done anyway given the Archangel as the class leader, to fix things like inadequate/ineffective design/layout. But hey I can totally digest why we don't see them in action it's because they took their sweet time in maturing the new redesign and the conflict already ended before the ship is finished.
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Dark Duel
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Re: This seemed like a weird CE related ship oversight

Brave Fencer Kirby wrote:That's reasonable, but it just shifts the question. Instead of "why didn't they build more Archangels?", the question becomes "why didn't they apply the technology of the Archangel to a new ship class?"
Tangerine wrote:reasonable but not convincing. if a hardware was proven to be so effective in the field, it's only logical if you would want more of it, better if possible OR more in number for slightly less effective tradeoff, but I don't think it's logical to go all economical and having things not even half the effectiveness of the original. Design compromise doesn't seem to be all that important to barred an effective design from production line.
What Kirby's talking about has happened in the real world. Take the massively-expensive Seawolf-class SSN, the most advanced and quite possibly the most expensive hunter-killer submarine ever built.
Only three of them were ever built, but the technological innovations that were created for the Seawolf class were carried over to a new, smaller, more affordable class of submarine, with still more new technologies added - the Virginia-class.

But it's not something that you see happen often in Gundam, and it's not something that happened in Seed.
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Tangerine
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Re: This seemed like a weird CE related ship oversight

Dark Duel wrote:What Kirby's talking about has happened in the real world. Take the massively-expensive Seawolf-class SSN, the most advanced and quite possibly the most expensive hunter-killer submarine ever built.
Only three of them were ever built, but the technological innovations that were created for the Seawolf class were carried over to a new, smaller, more affordable class of submarine, with still more new technologies added - the Virginia-class.

But it's not something that you see happen often in Gundam, and it's not something that happened in Seed.
I actually said the unconvincing part for the Seed universe since we don't see it happen in animation. sorry for not being clear about it. but then, your real world example isn't the err.. convincing one. a massively expensive, advanced unit yes. but not anywhere stated highly effective bordering on game-changing hardware. However, contrary example did exist. The ever successful yet previously deemed expensive M1 Abrams. What it did it in gulf war proved its effectiveness. and now if you could, you don't build lesser tanks with lesser design don't you? Instead, it's the other country that followed suit and made their respective hardware with similar high specs. That's usually the case for a very successful formula, you make better of it in this case the M1A2, not diluted the formula and produce lesser bred. OFC, if another party tried to imitate and produce lesser bred (like how diesel was used and not turbine like M1) that's not really our concern since in Seed there's only that 2 or 3 major factions that fought against each other.

Real world example for your case seems to fit spec-ed down automobile from concept car to mass produced models. because it's more affordable to end users. in military terms I don't see that's the usual trend although it happened frequently especially with body armor or personnel related gears when price vs protection vs quantity is always the issue. Besides, spec-ed down military hardware usually happens because of it being exported to make it cheap and highly profitable while not as effective as the original. that's not really the case in seed universe so there's one less reason not to make a lesser variant.
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Brave Fencer Kirby
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Re: This seemed like a weird CE related ship oversight

I'm not sure what you're talking about -- cheaper-but-less-capable versions of military hardware happens all the time in Gundam, usually in the form of an experimental Gundam to a mass-production version (eg, Strike Gundam to Strike Dagger). We don't usually see the same thing applied to warships, true, but that's largely because warships don't get as much attention as mecha in general.
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