About Char's Zaku II

[Geoxile]

Lt. Commander is above Captain in the navy by two ranks, Commander being the bridge.

In any case yes off topic, now back to it.

[Dendrobium Stamen]

Lt. Commander is above Captain in the navy by two ranks, Commander being the bridge.

In any case yes off topic, now back to it.

As a quick aside for future reference, a naval Captain is two ranks above a Lieutenant Commander - using the officer rank insignia of the Royal Navy for illustrative purposes, a Lieutenant Commander is officer grade #3, while a Captain is officer grade #5, higher numbers of course indicating higher rank. In army terminology, however, a Lieutenant Colonel is two ranks higher than a Captain; now using the rank insignia of the British Army, we can see that an army Captain takes the officer grade #2 spot, while a Lieutenant Colonel is grade #4. Easy mistake to make, but there's the charts for future reference

Anyway, back to topic... I've always wondered whether part of the myth that the Red Comet is three times faster than other Zakus is down to the speed with which he destroyed Federation ships at Loum? Of course, we do have dialogue establishing Char approaching the White Base at three times the velocity of a standard Zaku, but it's always fascinated me whether he's always been three times faster, or whether he was much more efficient as a ship-killer, then tuned his Zaku to match. Food for thought, I hope!

[SOCL]

Regarding the off-topic discussion: If I remember correctly, Char was a Lieutenant Commander at the start of the series (under Dozle) and then, following his ousting by Dozle over Garma, he was brought in by Kycilia. Somewhere along the way he must have been promoted to Commander because by the end of the series he is ranked a (Naval) Captain. I don't believe he was a Lieutenant at any moment during the series.

[hellbore]

I believe he was demoted to 大尉Taii before he arrived on Earth for failing to capture or destroy the Gundam. He was back up to 大佐Taisa under Kycillia though.

[speedstriker]

Anyway, back to topic... I've always wondered whether part of the myth that the Red Comet is three times faster than other Zakus is down to the speed with which he destroyed Federation ships at Loum? Of course, we do have dialogue establishing Char approaching the White Base at three times the velocity of a standard Zaku, but it's always fascinated me whether he's always been three times faster, or whether he was much more efficient as a ship-killer, then tuned his Zaku to match. Food for thought, I hope!

It's interesting since while I was playing around with some flight simulators and other piloting games, I noticed that the skills and maneuvers needed for efficient strikes on larger, slower targets and on smaller, faster targets not only require a different set of skills, but also the specializing of the machine. Going by the information on both Char and his Zaku, it would be quite accurate to say that he's definitely trained as a ship killer and tune his machine as such. In MS vs ship combat, it seems to me that a skilled pilot would choose to finish a ship with a one two punch with the first blow to the fuel tank/ammunition then to the bridge. Also considering that the ships' setup in UC suggest that ships are often bunched very close together, there would be no need to conserve your propellant before entering the combat zone since your primary concern with ships are the AA guns. In this case, going 3 times faster to catch the enemies off guard and not give them enough time to react coupled with the ability to control a tuned up vernier system that gives 30% more thrust to evade incoming AA fires would definitely seem like a dedicated ship killer to me.

The only reason that Char was also quite skilled as a MS vs MS fighter would be his deadly accuracy, which no doubt came from his background of aiming for the bridges of a ships.

On a side note, this tendency to use speed and accuracy even after the Feddies invented their MS doesn't seem like an exclusive character trait of Char's, but is rather a technique used by other older veterans who survived the first part of the war, like the Black Tri-Stars for example.