Why no artillery in Gundam?

[Seraphic]

This is something I've been curious over for a long time.

To me, artillery barrages seem like they would be extremely effective against mobile suits, since they're large targets and are often deployed in groups. It's also difficult for them to find cover. On top of that, the artillery shells may be invisible to the MS until they hit since they aren't obviously flashy like a beam bolt.

Oh, and don't dare to tell me it's because of Minosvky interference. Not when things like beam snipers, GM Sniper II's, and 180mm cannons exist. Artillery often fires on targets outside of their visual range anyway. All they need to know is the coordinates of their target, and they can set the trajectory of their attack.

And as a little side thing, how big do you think an MS-scaled artillery gun would be? (For instance, you know how an artillery gun is operated by a handful of personnel? How big would the gun have to be if its operators were GMs, Leos, Zakus, or something?) Yeah, I know it would look a little silly. You can just have a normal crew operating a bigger gun.

In my memory, the only artillery gun I've seen in Gundam is the Noventa Cannon in Gundam Wing. That was a badass gun.

edit: fixed dumb typo

[Doctord]

Would the assault onthe mountain by guntanks count as artillery in 08th ms team? Or the guns at Jaburo attacking the zeon.

[Geoxile]

Well given, most modern howitzers use digital mapping and targeting in conjunction with a map and coordinates given by the people with the right access.

Guntanks are artillery

[Seraphic]

I suppose the guntanks should technically count, but I was thinking of a more traditional artillery gun. Still, a gun on tank treads is pretty useful.... They just aren't used with as much prominence as they could be, I think. Can guntanks hit targets outside of visual range? I think what happened in that scene was that a figher pilot spotted one of Zeon's hangar entrances and relayed the coordinates to the guntank. He actually would have killed Norris's entire team if it weren't for the doors closing just in time.

I'll have to apologize, otherwise. I never saw any Jaburo episodes. It's a terrible shame, I know. What were Jaburo's guns like?

Any other examples? Things of larger caliber than Guntank's cannons? Oh, and let's try not to confuse artillery guns with defensive turrets or something. If possible, I'm asking about manned guns used for artillery roles.

[Gaiden1992]

There's also the Xamel. It's probably the closest you'll get to artillery in Gundam besides the Guntank.

[Black Knight]

As you noted, effective use of artillery requires effective communications. This is what Minovsky interference denies the EF ground forces. Certainly, there are ways to get around it; fixed fortifications, such as Jaburo, can use wired (either copper or optical) comms in order to pass targeting information back and forth. But during mobile operations, mobile suits can shift position too quickly for artillery to respond.

Keep in mind, too, that even when only shooting a handful of miles, it can take 15-30 seconds for the shell to transit from the barrel of the cannon to its target. In a fluid setting, without good comms, that's going to make life difficult.

Then, too, the only way to be consistantly on-target (with 155mm shells, "on target" is considered to be within 50 meters) on the first shot is to have a working GPS at both the observer's location and at the gun line, and a laser range-finder. Otherwise, the standard formula is four shots, assuming the first was within 400 meters of the target. But since each gun must be adjusted between those shots, not to mention the call for adjustment being sent, it can take three to five minutes to walk the rounds on target, before you get your first volley. Call for fire isn't as easy as most people think.

Without effective comms, you're reduced to WWI-style pre-planned bombardments, which take a lot more ammo & arty pieces in order to accomplish, and are still less effective.

Even using a cluster round like DPICM (dual purpose intermediate cluster muitions, IIRC; been awhile since my CFF classes) need to get within 100 meters before they start volley-fire, which only saves one ranging shot from the standard formula.

Also, self-propelled artillery has been around since at least WWII. The US Army's M109 is the current standard 155mm arty weapon for its mechanized forces. It just can't shoot on the move, too much recoil from that massive gun.

[Majin Tenshi]

I think one of the MS IGLOO episodes covers this exact subject. They had a gun that could fire a ship sized beam. The problem was between Minosvky interference and I suspect low level deflection, targeting was extremely difficult. The cannon only managed to connect with one ship ( but oh what a hit ) while a team of zakus was far more effective.

Another issue is that artillery is most effective when it can arc from cover and there is ground to impact. This keeps the emplacements safe and causes the shell to be an area effect around the point of impact. A colony's spin won't give you an arc, and if you throw to many heavy shots around you'll blow the walls (I'm always impressed at how not-horrified the characters are by that happening). In open space, well, someone else already established that the shots aren't that accurate and there won't be any cover.

Sure, both sides had plenty of land and space specific stuff, but I bet they tried to throw money towards things they could use on all fronts whenever they could.


Edit: I think gaiden was trying to link this http://www.mahq.net/Mecha/gundam/0083/yms-16m.htm

[Black Knight]

Actually, in microgravity, artillery ought to be more accurate than on Earth, for the simple fact that gravitational effects are easier to calculate in advance than the vagaries of Earth's atmosphere. Plus, in space, it's not necessary to use radio communications to establish the gun's own position; passive optical sensors tied to a navigational program can take star sights and use that to pinpoint their own location.

The problem then becomes figuring out the location of the target. Again, however, this makes artillery of less use on the battlefield, where things are constantly moving, than against strategic targets, such as, say, the MS factories on Grenada, or any particular colony in Side 3, or, for that matter, Luna II and surviving Federal-controlled colonies. Colony orbits should be quite predictable, as it takes so much effort to move them and re-establish a safe orbit around a given LaGrange point. But there's no reason why, with sufficient effort, the cannons on Luna II couldn't bombard the Granada factories or colony-sized targets in Side 3 (or Solomon and A Baoa Qu), even though they're on the opposite side of the planet.

This was my biggest problem with the Earth Alliance in the CE shows (and ZAFT, indirectly); the OMNI Lunar bases were perfectly capable of wiping out every single PLANT given a decent hand-held calculator. And ZAFT should have realized that, and made more of an effort to conquer the moon and less of trying to subject the nations of Earth by force.

[Toxicity]

There is also this guy from Gundam 00.

[Black Knight]

Yes, but it was about as much an "artillery" MS as the Guntank line. Both lack the high-angle indirect fire which is the hallmark & strength of modern artillery. The days of direct-fire artillery left before reliable breach-loading artillery was invented, except for specialist roles like anti-tank guns in WWII, which was itself quickly replaced by man-packable rockets.

We don't see a lot of "artillery" or "cannon" MS variants because they don't really bring a lot to the table which can't already be accomplished by giving your choice of general-purpose MS a big direct-fire weapon like the Leo's Dobergun or the 175mm Magella Top cannon or the 08th MS Team's 180mm cannon.

[Kuruni]

For IGLOO's Jourmungand, it's also suffer from long cool down, low mobility, hard to defense and, if JA wikipedia is right, it use large Minovsky reactor as "ammo' which cost equal to 3 Zaku IIs.

[Zerosystem]

As well as MS Igloo's Jormungand, the last episode of MS Igloo 2 features Feddy Big Tray and Heavy Fork landships providing cover fire and Zeek Dabude landships lobbing heavy artillery shells at Feddy forces.

The Feddy landship force appeared to prefer the tactic of continuous shell lobbing, whereas the Dabude class ships delivered high explosive shells every once in a while. Either side tried to make use of tactical artillery strikes to great effect, with the Feddy landships taking out a fortified bunker position and the Dabude class landships managing two near misses to the Feddy Commander's guard force.

[mcred23]

In my memory, the only artillery gun I've seen in Gundam is the Noventa Cannon in Gundam Wing.

IIRC, there are only a few times we really see artillery in UC. Once is in 08th MS as several people have mentioned, when we see the MP Guntanks (And later on, I believe the Big Tray as well) firing against Zeon forces in basically the same role as normal artillery. Another is in MSG, where I believe there are several shots of normal artillery pieces lined up among Federation units prior to Operation Odessa, although I don't think we ever see them used on screen.

[Attomoku]

The thing is that we are rarely shown major actions from a command or frontline perspective. It could be that they have a ton of artillery but we never see it because we are stuck in a limited perspective following the latest federation prototype on the run behind enemy lines, or watching the duel between a Gouf custom and an EZ8, or that its a limited in and out type strike operation, or they are running low on supplies like Ramba Ral. Add into the fact that most of most Gundam series takes place in space/colony where artillery is nigh useless and its no wonder we rarely see standard artillery.

[mcred23]

Quite true as well. Other than Odessa, which we don't see much of anyway, there aren't many conventional operations at all in Gundam (And what with recent retcons, such as in IGLOO 2, that could be changing for Odessa ), further adding to why we don't see much artillery. Post-OYW, everything moves on to MS and beam weapons, further rendering artillery basically useless (Nevermind the lack of mass combat on Earth where it could be os use).

[Brave Fencer Kirby]

To me, artillery barrages seem like they would be extremely effective against mobile suits, since they're large targets and are often deployed in groups. It's also difficult for them to find cover. On top of that, the artillery shells may be invisible to the MS until they hit since they aren't obviously flashy like a beam bolt.

You basically answered your own question right here. Gundam shows are about giant robots fighting other giant robots. The reason they don't use artillery is because watching artillery blow up giant robots by the score isn't as fun as watching giant robots blowing each other up.

BK makes a good argument for why they wouldn't be used "in the field", but there's no reason why you couldn't use them defensively. In battles like Odessa, the defender can have their shots pre-zeroed on a certain position and start raining death down on the attackers as soon as they reach that point. This would have been especially useful to the Federation in the early days of the Earth invasion...

[MrMarch]

Mass artillery, and especially strategic bombing, would make ideal counters to mobile suits in spite of all the minovsky technobabble. One doesn't need a lot of tech to make them effective, especially against such large targets. But this is one of the conceits of giant robot shows, real or super: combined arms would prove most effective against any giant robot. The simple fact of the matter is rarely (if ever) is any one piece of military hardware deployed alone. Wars, especially conducted on the scope as shown in most anime, would involve numerous pieces of military hardware all working in conjunction with each other...hence, "combined arms". At best, giant robots would be one part of combined arms, not the be-all-end-all of military might.

Another robot show conceit is robot bias, pitting giant robots against conventional fighters, tanks, helicopters and ships to display robot superiority. If the fictional universe was written in an internally consistent manner, all that conventional hardware would enjoy the same technological advances as any giant robot. Deploying an A-10 Tank Killer against a giant robot is ridiculously anachronistic. To make sense, the tech should be equal and what you should get is an A-11 Mech Killer with a beam cannon mounted on it's fuselage

[domtropen]

At least in 08th MS team Guntanks are indeed artillary pieces. And we also see the effect of massed jet coreboosters attack Also for aircraft in MSg there are various [ridiculously designed - but still there] aircrafts that can be used for ground attack and bombing: dodai, gaw, dopp, flymanta, don escargot, depp rog.

[Iruga]

What are we considering artillery here, mobile armour/suits with any long range weapons or mobile suit/armour who are part of the dedicated support role like the guntank.

I think that you can classify weapons in those two catergories and to that end i see the leo and serpent in the former catergory while something like the tragos would be in the latter.

[Seraphic]

You basically answered your own question right here.

I do that a lot--usually intentionally so people can see my train of thought. Thinking aloud, right?

You have a lot of good points, Black Knight. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. While calculating trajectories in space would be a lot easier, I find that the vast distances to the targets and the huge amounts of empty space between targets would make mass shelling attempts very lame. Artillery shelling depends on being able to hit ground or attack the environment sometimes to be effective. (I've heard once that the American navy once used their naval guns to literally change the landscape of an island occupied by Japan before they made landfall. That sounds freaking insane.) And by its nature, an artillery gun isn't something to use inside of a colony. You sometimes use it effectively by attacking your target's general area, and you'd basically be blowing a hole in the colony with every shot. Even if you hit a MS directly, you're still liable to punch right through it and hit the colony wall again.

A second reason why I wouldn't use shelling in space is because targetting would have to rely on optical sensors, but that's the exact spectrum range that Minovsky interference would screw up. =/ You notice all the massive missile shelling in CCA, but they hardly hit anything unless it was a giant rock.

As mentioned before, what I find attractive about an artillery gun attack in a MS scenario is that the gun has an arcing trajectory, so it can shoot around the terrain basically. MS would have no cover from that. And if your gun is good enough, you can shell the MS well outside of their counterattack range. And while they're weakened from taking artillery fire, send in your own MS or something. Combined arms, like MrMarch said. (And I would love to see an A-11 MS killer!) =p

What are we considering artillery here, mobile armour/suits with any long range weapons or mobile suit/armour who are part of the dedicated support role like the guntank.

I think that you can classify weapons in those two catergories and to that end i see the leo and serpent in the former catergory while something like the tragos would be in the latter.

Mostly, I just wanted to discuss a simple artillery gun, and not a "mobile weapon" but those seem to be very rare cases in Gundam. For the hell of it, you can just discuss anything that can employ artillery-based tactics.