What defines Mass Production?

[MythSearcher]

Really when you look at it the scale of many UC wars should be relatively the same. They often involve a faction fighting against the Earth Government, over a period of weeks or months across several battlegrounds. They are often somewhat evenly match in terms of soldiers, if not technology. For instance Zeon was One Side compromised of enough soldiers to fight against the entire Earth Federation. Likewise AEUG and Karaba managed to amass enough force in a combination of former Federation and Zeon, to go up against the Titans and the Greater Earth Federation itself. Even many resistance movements manage to amass plenty of soldiers and equipment against the EF(for example the Second and Fourth Neo Zeon movements). It reaches the point that by UC 153 we have another full Side (Side 2 in this case) against the League Militarie and Federation. You'd actually think controlling Earth, the Moon and many Space Colonies would give the Earth Federation bigger numbers that a particular Side, however it is shown that the Federation simply declines into irrelevance in the later years, with less resources they are willing to allocate to threats.

OYW has highest MS to ship numbers and highest ship numbers.
Once after that, all anime are only small conflicts compared to OYW.(0083 is the only one with similar ship numbers but mostly aren't in combat but destroyed under the blast of GP02A's atomic bazooka.)
We only see similar on screen fleets/MS because it focused on the big battles.

[Mafty]

That makes sense as most of the wars are kinda smaller afterwards (though the Gryps Conflict seems like it would be bigger). Is there any info on the MS to Ship/Ship numbers in the Zanscare war? I remember reading somewhere it was considered the biggest war since the OYW.

[Underrated GM Custom]

Now that we are talking about mass production anyone know how many MS-06F Zakue II got made in total. That was the main mobile suit for Zeon for most of the war and even when the Gouf, Dom and Gelgoog got made the Zaku II still made up most of the Zeon MS force. I know that the One Year War is inspired by WW2 so it makes sense that the Federation would create so many GMs in a short amount of time, during WW2 the USA war industries could produce small arms, tanks, planes, ships by the thousands in just weeks completely overwhelming it's enemies. In a way the Allies and the Federation swamped the Axis and Zeon in the last segments of their respective war

Mark did a really comprehensive post a while back showing the various production numbers for OYW Mobile Suits. Publications often contradict each other but he went to the trouble of showing various different numbers with sources. Here's the thread: https://www.mechatalk.net/viewtopic.php?t=11881

For the Zaku II the numbers bounce between 2000, 4000, and 8000.

[MythSearcher]

That makes sense as most of the wars are kinda smaller afterwards (though the Gryps Conflict seems like it would be bigger). Is there any info on the MS to Ship/Ship numbers in the Zanscare war? I remember reading somewhere it was considered the biggest war since the OYW.

There was none.

As you can see, most of the detailed settings are only done in early UC, they don't bother writing those for late UC likely because:
1) they are not as popular and wouldn't sell as much.
2) since they are not as popular there are less people interested enough to write about it.(a lot of the early UC settings adapted fan speculations because those fans became employees)

But you can kinda guess with the capacity of the ships.
You do not have large cap carrier like ships like the Dolos or Columbus. You also don't get MS strap onto ships and just ship out without caring for the field resupply. So you probably will still have a lower MS to ship ratio. And unless they have much higher ship numbers, it will be hard to have more MS on the field because of that.

[Mafty]

Makes sense, especially because the ships are relatively smaller by the time of late UC; The Pegasus class could understandably hold a lot of units; ships half its size understandably would hold much left. Also even bigger ships like the Adrastea have smaller hangers.

[Underrated GM Custom]

Funny you mention that since the Pegasus class is usually shown with a small carrier capacity of 6 which is pretty small given its over 250m in length. Sometimes it is listed with a capacity of 12 though. Later AEUG / Titans / Londo Bell ships have a much larger capacity such as the Ra Cailum holding almost 20.

Here's an older thread that talks about MS Carrying capacity which is a fun read.
https://www.mechatalk.net/viewtopic.php?t=13646

One thing to note is that ships sometimes have a "combat load" where they can carry more MS than what they are spec'd for, think stuffing them in like a tin can which makes maintenance a nightmare for the deck hands. I've experienced my fair share of that during international exercises . We see an example of this where a Salamis has to carry additional MS in Zeta.

[Mafty]

Thanks I really like the amount of info Mark's able to bring to the series background (I actually own his old Gundam guide)Makes sense the Gryps War era Argama Class could hold (according to some sources) 12 units: it is the flagship of the AEUG, and we see numerous Nemo's and Rick Dias's along with the Gundam's during the battles. The same is true of the Ra Cailum as its the flagship of Londo Bell. Since Gundam does fall onto the several special units change the tide of the war storyline trope often, we don't often get to see a full compliment of suits on one of the main ships. Also the Combat Load can even be seen in CCA where we see a Jeagan attached to the bottom of the Ra Cailum; given the dire nature of the battle, it seems as though they attached new Jegan units for the final battle.

[MythSearcher]

Funny you mention that since the Pegasus class is usually shown with a small carrier capacity of 6 which is pretty small given its over 250m in length. Sometimes it is listed with a capacity of 12 though. Later AEUG / Titans / Londo Bell ships have a much larger capacity such as the Ra Cailum holding almost 20.

Here's an older thread that talks about MS Carrying capacity which is a fun read.
https://www.mechatalk.net/viewtopic.php?t=13646

One thing to note is that ships sometimes have a "combat load" where they can carry more MS than what they are spec'd for, think stuffing them in like a tin can which makes maintenance a nightmare for the deck hands. I've experienced my fair share of that during international exercises :lol:. We see an example of this where a Salamis has to carry additional MS in Zeta.

Makes some sense because ships won't really sink in space, thus carrying a higher capacity only means you have a lower acceleration.
Whether you have the full capability to maintain that much units is less of a problem if you run a sweatshop and think of units as disposable. In a big battles, not all of them come back for maintenance all at once, and well, not all units come back for maintenance at all.
Units coming back for maintenance can also always just wait outside as well, unlike planes coming back to an aircraft carrier will have to land immediately, MS can either just float around next to the ship in the case of having enough remaining propellant, or just sit in a net waiting to be towed inside the hangar. In the case of having enough propellant, picking up a new weapon and start to defend the ship is also an option.

[Mafty]

Plus zero gravity means up and down don't apply, as seen in the Ra Calium having an "upside down" hangar on the bottom of the ship(you can also see this in colony interior port ports where there are seats and consoles on both the floor and celling). As for the additional units; if AE made more Jeagan units , then having spares would be easier for surviving pilots in damaged units to simply replace the unit, rather than having it repaired (you can actually see this happen more than once in Victory Gundam, and it also explains (SPOILER) how nobody notices Hathaway stealing a Jeagan unit).

[Underrated GM Custom]

True, higher capacity means lower acceleration, it also means more fighting forces which I think would be a worthwhile trade haha.

The AEUG seemed to be pretty short on pilots (although later manga entries tend to reverse that) so I don't think their strategists would be comfortable thinking of those units as replaceable. OYW GMs though, absolutely.