The Bigness of Things

[HalfDemonInuyasha]

Cool! the Xamel is quite a beast compared to the other suits. And the tall Zeong just looks ridiculous. No wonder they left the legs off...

Well, officially, it was simply because Zeon was losing and they were desperate to field whatever units they could to hold back the Federation, thus they ended up throwing out Char in the Zeong before it was actually completed. (80% without the legs, but still "100%" in terms of space combat)

If it were to be completed, the Zeong would've been one of the first of the giant MS to be made.

[toysdream]

Another mobile suit lineup for your perusal:

http://www.ultimatemark.com/gundam/imag ... nicorn.jpg

Thanks to Muser for scanning all these older mobile suits from the Unicorn mecha book!

EDIT: And here's one using the Master Grade line art:

http://www.ultimatemark.com/gundam/imag ... arison.jpg

-- Mark

[Attomoku]

Interesting, I always thought the Shamblo was somehow taller in relation to most the other suits

[toysdream]

The Shamblo is only about 30 meters high, and just under 80 meters long in cruising mode, which actually makes it a fairly big for a mobile armor. (Most of the One Year War models were about 60 meters long.)

-- Mark

[latenlazy]

Yep, the perspective issues are pretty crazy! Ultimately, you'd need to draw new art from scratch. But at least the handful of cases where we have profile views (as for the Xamel, The O, and the Baund Doc) give us a more objective double-check.

Meanwhile, I've figured out where the original Gundam 0083 ship comparison chart got most of its ship silhouettes. The Gwazine, Musai, Zanzibar, Magellan, and Salamis all seem to be traced from the side views provided in Gundam Century, and so I've added in a couple of the other side views from this book - a large size Salamis, the Dolos, and a Musai with HRSL capsule. Now we're really building up a menagerie!

-- Mark

Why not use the old Gundam Project linearts to scale mobile suits? My memory tells me that those were drawn with relatively the same perspective (Wow, how long ago that was...), which would make them the largest collection of lineart drawn in the same perspective.

[toysdream]

Dusting off this old thread to add some new infographics...

Since we've been having these discussions recently about Zeta Gundam, I've been thinking again about the ships from that series. In the case of this series, we started off with a pretty straightforward size comparison chart:

http://www.ultimatemark.com/gundam/imag ... ison01.jpg

The Salamis Kai is basically the same length as the original Salamis, with the addition of protruding antennas on the end of its catapult deck. According to the EX Model Argama, the AEUG flagship is 341.7 meters overall, which seems to have been computed using this comparison chart and the assumption that the original Salamis is 288 meters long.

Based on this chart, the Alexandria seems to be just over 330 meters long, and quite massive compared to the Argama. But this chart also indicates that the Alexandria's main gun turrets are considerably bigger than the identical-looking turrets on the Salamis Kai, which seems odd. We also have the example of the Gaunland from Victory Gundam, which is 354 meters long including protruding forward antennas and a rear catapult deck. By the looks of it, these features might account for as much as 50 meters of the Gaunland's overall length.


So here's a wacky experiment:

http://www.ultimatemark.com/gundam/imag ... ison02.jpg

In this chart, I've scaled various ships from Zeta and ZZ based on their common features. The Alexandria is scaled to match the turrets of the Salamis Kai, and ends up being about 300 meters long. Since the original Dogosse Gier line art includes a comparison with the Alexandria, we can add it to the lineup as well, and it looks to be just over 600 meters (the same length that the Gundam Unicorn novel claims for the General Revil). This makes the Alexandria about as massive as the Argama and Radish, which seems appropriate.

Moving up the chart, we go from cruisers to battleships. The Magellan, at 327 meters, is thus longer than the Alexandria. I've scaled the Radish to 323 meters, the length given in the recent "Ship & Aerospace Plane Encyclopedia," which makes it just about as long as the Magellan. Its rear gun turret (marked in green) is thus the same size as that of the 380-meter Nagel Argama.

On the right, we have some Axis ships. The overall length of the Gwanban is 415 meters, and I've scaled the Endra to try and match the sizes of the gun turrets, mega particle cannons, and Komusai. As a result, the Endra becomes tiny - only about 270 meters, two-thirds of the 410 meter figure that's sometimes cited. The mobile suits that Nagano drew into the original line art seem way too small, and based on these, the 410 meter figure seems more appropriate. In this case, we may as well scale up both ships by 50 percent.

I have mixed feelings about that idea, though. On the one hand, it makes the Gwanban much more impressive. On the other hand, it makes the Endra absolutely huge - about as a big as the old Gwazine class, which is amazing given how many of these ships Axis produces, and far too large for a mere cruiser. I think I prefer the Musai-esque dimensions shown here.


Speaking of Axis ships, and scaling based on shared features:

http://www.ultimatemark.com/gundam/images/gwadan640.jpg

Here, I've scaled the Gwadan so that its external fuel tanks are the same size as those of the original Gwazine. This makes the Gwadan about 640 meters long, which seems fairly plausible, but the catapult decks and launcher turret seem too small for its mobile suits. Its gun turrets also look quite puny compared to those of the Gwazine. On the other hand, if we scale it up by 50 percent, it's just ridiculous:

http://www.ultimatemark.com/gundam/images/gwadan960.jpg

As a compromise option, here's the Gwadan scaled up by 25 percent (in other words, so that its fuel tanks are 25 percent large than those of the Gwazine). This seems like a reasonable compromise; we can now imagine mobile suits fitting in its catapults, and it's somewhat larger than the Dogosse Gier, as the animation suggests:

http://www.ultimatemark.com/gundam/images/gwadan800.jpg

In this scenario, the Gwadan would be about 800 meters long. That's still pretty humongous, and it makes the Gwazine and Gwanban look dwarfish by comparison.

-- Mark

[InjuredPelican]

Thanks for all of the interesting information.

Having the little MS as comparison sure makes my eyes go wide. It must take years to build these monstrosities, especially the simply massive Gwadam. Perhaps this is off topic, but has there ever been any sources on the length of time it takes to build these ships?

[HalfDemonInuyasha]

Then consider the fact that some ships end up mass produced...

I wouldn't be surprised if the Gwadan (and Gwanban and other ships) was being built even before the end of the One Year War, though chances are the Zeon remnants started building it as soon as they got to Axis after the war...especially when you consider their lack of easy resources and the months at a time it'd take for ships to go back and forth and whatnot.

[Gelgoog Jager]

According to Mark's timeline, by february 11th, U.C. 0082, at least 2 Gwanban ships would have already been completed: that's the departure day of the Axis Advance fleet whose flagship is the Gwanzan, a Gwanban class battleship.

[toysdream]

It does take a while to build these things, although probably not as long as it takes to build ships in real life. According the MSV books, the construction of the original Pegasus ships began in February of U.C. 0078, so it took about a year and a half to finish the first batch. But obviously the rest of them went more quickly, and it only took about six months for the Federation to build a bunch of new Salamis and Magellan ships. Like so much else about the One Year War, that's a little faster than would really be plausible.

I also note that the development of the Dolos class began in December of U.C. 0078, so these two massive carriers were finished in less than a year.

As for the Gwanban, recent sources have claimed that these ships were actually built during the One Year War. I imagine Axis would have its hands full building all those Gwadans and Endras! All the more reason to think that the Endra is actually pretty small, rather than a massive Gwazine-sized dreadnaught.

-- Mark

[InjuredPelican]

It makes me wander if the Federation has a secret bunch of work slaves they use to build things so quickly. Of course having such a horrible war last only a year is just as implausible. But I suppose its speeds up things to aid in story telling, which is the most important thing in the end.

[HalfDemonInuyasha]

And then there's testing and other things alongside that construction time coupled with having to probably go back and fix/improve things, which would add more time.

[balofo]

mark,

what about the mega particle cannons that are supposed to be housed in those yellow circles in the axis ships, are they supposed to look like the ones on the argama? in sd g gen f, the animation from one of these ships is a dual argama mega particle cannon. i can confirm they are never used onscreen in the anime series

[toysdream]

No idea what the mega particle cannons on the Axis ships would look like, I'm afraid. Perhaps these were inspired by those of the original White Base...


Meanwhile, I came across a couple more scale lineups in the "Ship & Aerospace Plane Encyclopedia". These ones are from V Gundam:

http://www.ultimatemark.com/gundam/imag ... ison01.jpg
http://www.ultimatemark.com/gundam/imag ... ison02.jpg

These generally correspond to the official specs, with a couple of exceptions. Here are the same charts with detailed line art swapped in. I sized up the Gaunland and Reinforce Junior by 10 percent, and the Amalthea by 30 percent, to match the official specs:

http://www.ultimatemark.com/gundam/imag ... son01b.jpg
http://www.ultimatemark.com/gundam/imag ... son02b.jpg

For once, I think the official specs make more sense than the comparison chart. Key features of the scaled-up Amalthea - the bridges, the gun turrets - are now the same size as those of the Squid, and the Reinforce Junior seems in proportion to the Reinforce and Squid. Here's a combined chart with all the ships in the same scale:

http://www.ultimatemark.com/gundam/imag ... ison03.jpg

I do think the Cailum class looks a little big, with features like the gun turrets and propellant tanks roughly 25 percent larger than those of the Clop class, but the original comparison chart and the official specs both insist it's this big compared to the Clop.

Finally, let's combine the late-model Federation ships with their Zeta and One Year War brethren:

http://www.ultimatemark.com/gundam/imag ... son02a.jpg

I also threw in the Gundam Unicorn version of the Nahel Ahgama, with rather strange results. The key features of this ship, such as the gun turrets and the engine blocks (whose detailing is identical to that of the Cailum class), are only 2/3 the size of those on the Cailum. Does this mean that the Cailum is oversized, and should only be about 320 meters? Or is the Nahel Argama undersized? If we knocked down the Cailum so that its key features were the same size as those of the Clop, and then scaled up the Nahel Argama so that its key features matched those of the miniaturized Cailum, we might get more reasonable numbers.

EDIT: Actually, I just did a quick pass at this based on the Gundam Unicorn novel line art. The results are too messy to post right now, since I don't have clean images of the Unicorn versions of the Clop and Cailum, but in a nutshell I scaled all these ships so that the gun turrets and engine blocks were the same size. Then, assuming the Clop is still 292 meters, the Cailum and Nahel Argama both come out to 380 meters. So it looks like Katoki was working on the assumption that the Cailum class is using the same parts as the other ships, and is about 25 percent smaller than the V Gundam specs would indicate.

-- Mark

[Wingnut]

More goodies! I do firmly believe you can't really get a true scope of how big something is until you compare it to something else you're familiar with.

[InjuredPelican]

Maybe I should know them by sight, but is there anyway to label the ships in your last comparison chart? The largest one is really blowing my mind. When you only see the objects in the series from a mobile suit's perspective, its easy to forget just how large all of the ships are.

[ShadowCell]

Top down on the left: the Alexandria and Dogosse Gier from Zeta, the Nahel Argama from ZZ, the Irish from Zeta, the Magellan from Mobile Suit Gundam, the Argama, Alexandria, and Salamis Kai from Zeta, and the Salamis from Mobile Suit Gundam. Top down from the right: the Nahel Argama from Unicorn, the Ra Cailum from Char's Counterattack, the Gaunland from Victory, the Clop from Char's Counterattack, and the Reinforce from Victory.

I don't suppose that book has some lineart of those Zanscare motorcycle battleships with the wheels folded up, does it?

[toysdream]

I'll do up a labeled version of the chart shortly. This is turning out to be pretty illuminating, so I think it might deserve the extra effort.

Meanwhile, I noted above that Katoki's ship designs for Gundam Unicorn suggest that the Cailum is a lot smaller than V Gundam led us to believe. I want to put together a chart of the Unicorn designs alone, since Katoki seems to have tinkered with the proportions a bit, but in the meantime here's another revision of the big chart in which I've shrunk the Cailum by 20 percent so that its gun turrets, bridge, and propellant tanks are the same size as the equivalent features on the Clop. This would make it roughly 380-390 meters long, and already the size comparison to the other battleships is looking much more rational.

http://www.ultimatemark.com/gundam/imag ... son02b.jpg

-- Mark

[toysdream]

Aaaaand one more thing:

http://www.ultimatemark.com/gundam/imag ... vil400.jpg

This is a crude cut-and-paste attempt at a size comparison based on Katoki's drawings of the Federation ships from Gundam Unicorn. Here, I've scaled everything based on common features like the engine blocks, propellant tanks, bridge, and gun turrets. If the Clop is 292 meters long, then the Nahel Argama would be 380 meters, which is perfect. The Cailum looks about 365 meters long, including a couple of trailing antennas on its rear deck, but frankly the catapult decks, machine gun turrets, and bridge look a little puny to me; I feel like it should probably be a little bigger, more like the 385 meters or so I arrived at based on the CCA line art.

The big surprise, though, is the General Revil. Here, it's scaled based on the gun turrets, but the anti-air machine guns and hangar doors also seem proportional to the other ships. Lo and behold, that would make it about 400 meters long, just like the Birmingham from Gundam 0083!

If the General Revil is really 600 meters, as claimed in the novel text and suggested by the Dogosse Gier line art, it would look like this:

http://www.ultimatemark.com/gundam/imag ... vil600.jpg

In this version, the main gun turrets are 50 percent bigger than those of the Cailum and Nahel Argama. This certainly gives the General Revil nice big hangars and catapult decks, but they really look too big compared to the other ships.

As with the previous example of the Gwadan, I'm kinda torn here. Something halfway in between looks right to me:

http://www.ultimatemark.com/gundam/imag ... vil500.jpg

At 500 meters, the General Revil still has oversized gun turrets, but the hangars and catapult decks look proportionate to those of the Nahel Argama. But unlike the 400- and 600-meter lengths, there's no existing source that claims these ships are in the 500-meter range, so this is purely a matter of taste.

EDIT: And just to complete the menu of options, here's the General Revil at 600 meters and the Cailum at 487 meters. Now both ships have scaled-up cannons, propellant tanks, etc relative to the Nahel Argama and Clop. But I've got to admit that the Cailum's catapult decks look more proportionate, though. This would basically be the "official" size comparison.

http://www.ultimatemark.com/gundam/imag ... lum487.jpg

-- Mark