Camouflage.

[Robo Jason Mk1]

On the other hand mobile suits like the gundam, and by extension the ground gundam, and char's light red MS, would not ave garnered as much of a reputation among the enemy if it was harder to see. The mobile suit's coloring only added to its reputation since it was easy to identify as that unit. this was probably one of the reasons those paint jobs where carried over to other units like the ground type gundam effectively giving them some mild boost to their shock effect. After all, how many times are units identified by their coloring?

(on a completely unrelated note: I can't spell visibility right.. )

That is a Very turn of the century idea. Very Richthofen. Yet as with that, things do change.


And as for a BTW, what happened to stealth technology? I mean I know in UC Radar is out, yet in most other gundams Radar is still an option, why no stealths, as in today's F-22's, F-35's and PAK-FA's

[SonicSP]

^Maybe mobile suits don't fit the shape to implement it perhaps?

[Robo Jason Mk1]

^Maybe mobile suits don't fit the shape to implement it perhaps?

Shape is nothing. You have stealth that dose not even look like a Plane(F-117,Tacit Blue), or Ship(Sea Shadow) and we have smooth MS's and angular MS's, both can have stealth.

[RGM-79 GM]

I think he might have meant that they don't have room for it basically. Also I doubt they would put stealth systems on the MS. Since the ships would need it much more and it would be more useful on a ship then compared to a single MS.

[HalfDemonInuyasha]

Or it would end up being too costly and/or too big/power-hungry for earlier MS as I'm sure such systems like the Bigro's Minovsky Particle Scattering System was.

[Yazan Gable]

In situations where a large transport is involved like the Big Tray or White Base, they can detect the enemy mobile suits and their general location with their sensors which renders camouflage unecessary. If they're going to be revealed before the enemy can even get close enough to ambush, camouflage has less of a point. And if they are planning on using a long-range weapon like a 180mm Cannon or a Magella Top, they'll probably be far enough away to not need the camouflage and will reveal their position if anyone notices where the shots are coming from. In a case not involving something as sophisticated as a Big Tray, White Base, or Sudori, a hover truck could detect them as shown in 08th MS Team. In the case of the GM Sniper with olive paint, it's job is to stay far away in the cover of trees with additional camo attached. It needs all this because it's meant for sniping far away targets with an extremely conspicuous beam rifle. Desert Zakus and GM Cold Climate Types have a paint job to fit with their specialization, but that is more of an add-on to the functions already present in the suit which allow it to perform in their areas.

In regards to space combat they will definitely have a ship with them to detect enemy forces which renders the camouflage pointless. If the enemy deployed dummy balloons or are in an asteroid field, shoal zone, or debris field, camouflage is still unecessary since all that cover is there to hide them. In an open space, their thrusters (and beam weaponry if they have them) will give them away. Whenever pilots get blindsided in space it's usually either because cover was used or because they came at them from above, below, or behind.

[RGM-79 GM]

In general the ships, atleast early in UC, really couldn't detect them until they were pretty close. Their sensors really didn't work much better than MS sensors IIRC. They had longer range but didn't work well IIRC. I don't remember a single time where a ship detected enemy MS at long range. A few mid range IIRC but mostly short range.

The Cold Climates paint doesn't really go with a snowy area. It is better than most other MS in terms of paint for terrain but not really gonna do anything in a snow environment, like in 0080. To me it looks more like the paint would work in an urban area than a snowy one.

While I do think you are overestimating the ship's sensors I do agree camouflage is pointless in space. Said that on the other page.

[toysdream]

A lot of One Year War mobile suits, especially on the Zeon side, have terrain-specific color schemes that are supposed to blend into the local environment. (As with the Zaku Cannon, which kept getting repainted as it was redeployed in desert, forest, and urban areas.) Camouflage seems pretty useless on something as big and noisy as a mobile suit, and these color schemes aren't the kind of trick-the-eye, break-up-the silhouette camouflage used in the real world, but perhaps they're helpful for fooling high-altitude observers like recon planes and satellites?

-- Mark

[Yazan Gable]

From what I remember with White Base, they usually detected the enemy moments before the attack started, but not early enough to fully prepare, so I do concede that they weren't as powerful as maybe the Z-era ships had. As for the paint on the Cold Climate Type, I believe they painted them up only as an after-thought rather than actively trying to have them blend in well. The paint isn't going to help much in the case of GMs defending a base as they were in 0080 and wouldn't help either in a barren snowy area unless it was a heavy snow storm, in which case heat sensors would detect the units. I believe it is more like toydsream said in that the paint was more for non-concentrated, very-long range recon. I also believe they painted up the Zaku Cannons for the same reason the GM Sniper was painted up: for long range continuous firing with additional cover to hide positioning and a conspicuous weapon.

[HalfDemonInuyasha]

And you also had ones like the upgraded Desert Zaku's and the Dowadge units in ZZ since they were also meant to be buried in the sand for ambush attacks, so it helps to blend in a bit more for a better chance at a more successful ambush.

[Yazan Gable]

The Zeon remnants had them painted as such more likely to make spotting the units from afar more difficult when they were hiding. I don't think that the camouflage was seen as very important since the Red and Blue Teams were painted up in their respective colors.

[RGM-79 GM]

Well I'm not trying to say that camouflage would make them invisible to enemies and at close range, even on infantry in real life, camouflage is rather useless. I'm mostly talking about for long range stuff. Like in 08th MS team when Terry and Karen were shooting at Topp and the Dell. They had trouble targeting them from 10km when they didn't really blend in and their outline wasn't really broken up. Now I'm sure that was in part due to their sensors having a range of 5km IIRC but if the outline of the Zakus had been broken up it would make it even harder to target them. This would really only help with long range shots and detection at long range. At mid range it could help if they are not already seen but would be largely useless if they have already been seen but could make it harder for enemy units to target them. At close range it would be useless whether they are seen or not most likely. It could help a little bit with making it harder to target them but I doubt it would help much. If they are being targeted from long range then it would help and if they are undetected at long range it would help. Mid range would only be good if they are undetected.

[Yazan Gable]

The Zakus used by Topp and Dell were already painted for the environment they were in. It's also been agreed that at long range camouflage it helps a little, as was the case with the Zeon remnants in ZZ, Zaku Cannon, GM Sniper Type, etc.

[crashlegacy14]

You're forgetting it takes more time to pain patterns on mobile suit then solid colors, especially on something as big as a mobile suit. that alone could restrict the use of patterns that would "break up the silhouette."

... and that's totally all I really have to say. (I think that's a first right there.)

[RGM-79 GM]

The Zakus used by Topp and Dell were already painted for the environment they were in. It's also been agreed that at long range camouflage it helps a little, as was the case with the Zeon remnants in ZZ, Zaku Cannon, GM Sniper Type, etc.

Their Zakus were painted for the desert like Odessa, where they just left, not the jungle they were in. I know it has been agreed about long range. I was just saying what I meant it would be useful for since some people seem to think I meant it would be useful at all ranges.

crashlegacy14 I'm not forgetting that. Camouflage can be solid colors or patterns in Gundam for the most part they don't use either. For the Feds more than Zeon, usually, their MS are more flashy and have bright colors that are similar to what was worn during the US revolutionary war by the British. Zeon MS are usually green or gray with a few odd ones. I can understand why they wouldn't use patterns as it is going to be harder to paint but they also don't use solid colors much. Olive drab, gray, brown, or tan would all be pretty good solid colors yet they are rather rare.

[Yazan Gable]

With regards to the GMs, the bright white and red was more about them worrying about getting their mobile suits deployed and fighting rather than getting them painted up for Earth combat. Also consider that with the Ground Type GM they had it a faded orange and tan to tone down the colors; the GM Sniper was olive drab for the mission it had on earth, the Ground Type Gundam was more faded and toned down to not draw as much attention as the original. What I'm trying to say is that at first they were busy just getting GMs on the battlefield but once they were in position to retake lost land, they could begin creating variations on the GM and Gundam which leads to specialized GMs and the prototype Gundams.

[RGM-79 GM]

Yeah but the basic GM was made after the Ground GM, officially not series wise obviously, so the reason really can't be that it was due to them wanting to get them out asap, and then worrying about painting the specialized ones afterwards, due to them being made afterwards. I mean if that was the reason why GMs were painted red and white wouldn't the same thing apply to the Ground GM, Ground Gundam, and GM Sniper? That being that paint isn't worried about as they want to concentrate more on production. Even then they wouldn't need to paint them red and white. Quickest way would be to not paint them, which is unlikely, but a faster way then red and white is just on solid color over the whole unit which they didn't do. So I don't think getting them out quick was the reason. I mean they didn't even really change their paint for the GM IIs so I still doubt that was the reason. The AEUG had green while the Feds still had red. In their defense though one reason they might have gone with paintjobs like that for MS that can be used in space is due to their needed reliance on visual sensors it would probably make them easier to spot if they got stranded away from the ship. Finding them would be unlikely but them sticking out would make it a bit easier then if they blended in.

[Yazan Gable]

I don't see how or why they would make a Ground Type GM before a regular GM. If that were the case, the model numbering would state the Ground Type GM as RGM-79 and the regular GM as the RGM-79[S] (for space). I'm basing my positions from the original series in that the GM wasn't introduced until the invasion of Jaburo.

[mcred23]

With regards to the GMs, the bright white and red was more about them worrying about getting their mobile suits deployed and fighting rather than getting them painted up for Earth combat.

That's more the case for the original Gundam (And likely Guncannon and Guntank as well, although that isn't as spelled out/discussed), where its bright colors were for demonstration purposes, and are simply never repainted. With the basic GM, I'd think it's red and white color scheme was basically ment to scare Zeon soldiers into thinking it was the Gundam. It's obviously not exactly the same, but it's close enough, and since I seem to recall the Gundam usually referred to as white above its various other colors, I'd think the sight of the basic GM would scare or confuse some Zeon soldiers at first. After that, with suits like the GM II, I'd think that the colors were simply associated with the GM series, and simply kept as tradition, since real camo on giant robots is rarely very effective and painting them makes them look nicer (And as RGM-79 GM, the member, notes, the reliance on visual sensors in the UC world may also be factor).

For the various pre-production suits, namely the RGM-79[G] and RX-79[G], though, that doesn't work, as both were produced and deployed around the time Amuro first used the Gundam, so the fear factor probably wasn't the reason for their colors. Their color schemes strike me as something of a middle ground between the bright colors of the White Base suits and more toned down colors we'd actually expect, so perhaps they were given these basic color schemes just as fillers, since the Federation might not have been sure which region they would be sent to.

I don't see how or why they would make a Ground Type GM before a regular GM. If that were the case, the model numbering would state the Ground Type GM as RGM-79 and the regular GM as the RGM-79[S] (for space). I'm basing my positions from the original series in that the GM wasn't introduced until the invasion of Jaburo.

This post should explain that. Although we don't see the basic RGM-79 design in the original series until Jaburo (Which takes place on November 30th), they'd already been in use in some places prior to that (Notably after Odessa, a few weeks prior to that) and had obviously been in production for some time.

[Yazan Gable]

My mind is blown.