Jet fighters no more, why stop using them?

[Brave Fencer Kirby]

The only problem with that idea is that we rarely-if-ever see flight-capable MS being used that way. While we do see Goufs riding into battle on Dodais, flight-focused MS like the Asshimar are mostly used as aerial combatants, not to fly to a battlefield and then land and fight on the ground. Of course, it may be the case that the "fly yourself to the battle and then fight on the ground" design paradigm ended up not being a viable one. Just because it didn't work out on the front lines doesn't mean that the flight-type variants of OYW MS weren't designed with that in mind, it just means they didn't actually get used that way.

[MythSearcher]

The only problem with that idea is that we rarely-if-ever see flight-capable MS being used that way. While we do see Goufs riding into battle on Dodais, flight-focused MS like the Asshimar are mostly used as aerial combatants, not to fly to a battlefield and then land and fight on the ground. Of course, it may be the case that the "fly yourself to the battle and then fight on the ground" design paradigm ended up not being a viable one. Just because it didn't work out on the front lines doesn't mean that the flight-type variants of OYW MS weren't designed with that in mind, it just means they didn't actually get used that way.

Which would make sense since utilizing everything on the battlefront to further you military strength is desirable, MSs on Dodais would be much better performing than MSs on legs.(which defeats the whole purpose of MSs on Earth, they can just strip the legs off the MSs and have the Dodais fly more agile for even better performance, if you ask me. But anyway, it is still better than MS on foot)

Especially when Dodais are usually depicted as not as expensive as MSs and MSs won't drop to death from them average flying height.(so being hit will not lose your MS most of the time, which means less economical damage)

So, here's the thought process:
The higher-ups: "our MSs are not getting to the battlefield fast enough, think of something to take care of that, quick and cheap"
The engineers: "the bombers have quite enough pay-load and we can refit them pretty fast and cheap, let's do it"
The frontline commanders: "Our MSs are moving too slow in the field, and it takes too long to drop the MSs before getting into combat, just fight on the Dodais."
The frontline pilots: "Anything helps us live longer are welcomed."

So the Dodais are flying in the frontlines, not just transporting the MSs to the battlefield.

[RGM-79 GM]

Pretty sure BFK was talking about flight capable MS not Dodai riding MS.

Taking off the legs of MS on Dodais would be a pretty bad idea. The Dodais and similar craft get shot down pretty often and if that happened to a Dodai carrying a legless MS, the MS would be screwed, provided the pilot and MS were in any shape to continue fighting after the fall.

[MythSearcher]

Pretty sure BFK was talking about flight capable MS not Dodai riding MS.

Taking off the legs of MS on Dodais would be a pretty bad idea. The Dodais and similar craft get shot down pretty often and if that happened to a Dodai carrying a legless MS, the MS would be screwed, provided the pilot and MS were in any shape to continue fighting after the fall.

Ah, sorry, didn't really finish my reply and kinda sent out forgetting the rest.

taking the legs off MS on Dodais will be essentially an easy way to get you a flight capable MS(which is strangely hard to develop during the OYW?), which I'm sure is anywhere as easy to shoot down as an MS on Dodai if not designed to do air combat.

[Zeonista]

Pretty sure BFK was talking about flight capable MS not Dodai riding MS.

Taking off the legs of MS on Dodais would be a pretty bad idea. The Dodais and similar craft get shot down pretty often and if that happened to a Dodai carrying a legless MS, the MS would be screwed, provided the pilot and MS were in any shape to continue fighting after the fall.

My original point was that flight-capable MS were originally developed for quick transit to the battlefield on their own power, instead of having to wait for a transport for rapid delivery. But once the power of flight was granted either by flight platform or their own thrust, the MS so equipped were selected for interceptor and fast strike missions that had previously been reserved for fighter aircraft. Instead of sending a squadron of fighters, which might not be able to shoot down a Garuda-class transport and its largely AE-built MS escort, the Titans repeatedly dispatched flight-capable MS teams, usually based around one of the new-generation transforming MS (which were efficient fliers in their own right). Thus the diminished status of military combat aviation in 0087.

MythSearcher: The idea of "legless" MS was embodied in the transforming and combining designs. Those didn't do away with the useful legs, the legs were just tucked in to make use of their thrusters while allowing for a more aerodynamic performance. It's worth noting that transforming MS & MA tended to go to MS form when engaged in close combat, so at a certain point zippy-zoom aerial performance took a back seat to combat performance on the UC battlefield.

[MythSearcher]

MythSearcher: The idea of "legless" MS was embodied in the transforming and combining designs. Those didn't do away with the useful legs, the legs were just tucked in to make use of their thrusters while allowing for a more aerodynamic performance. It's worth noting that transforming MS & MA tended to go to MS form when engaged in close combat, so at a certain point zippy-zoom aerial performance took a back seat to combat performance on the UC battlefield.

I am talking about a more real life situation, in atmosphere, legs are useless if you have a much faster method of travel, tugged in or not, they increase the weight of the whole machine needlessly, thus would be much better stripped of.
MS legs are pretty much only used for AMBAC in a more realistic situation, and AMBAC is no match for air braking and thermo-nuclear jets.(especially when you don't use the legs for main propulsion thus not using them as vector thrusters.)
There is no point in slowing down and getting to close combat when you can aim at targets with orbital speeds, its like an A-10 doesn't need to land before it shoots at tanks, and slowing down actually increases the risk.

Of course, in-universe technology kinda ignores this point since you need the MSs to stay intact, but my comment about MSs can have legs removed is talking about a more real-world situation.

[Zeonista]

MythSearcher: The idea of "legless" MS was embodied in the transforming and combining designs. Those didn't do away with the useful legs, the legs were just tucked in to make use of their thrusters while allowing for a more aerodynamic performance. It's worth noting that transforming MS & MA tended to go to MS form when engaged in close combat, so at a certain point zippy-zoom aerial performance took a back seat to combat performance on the UC battlefield.

I am talking about a more real life situation, in atmosphere, legs are useless if you have a much faster method of travel, tugged in or not, they increase the weight of the whole machine needlessly, thus would be much better stripped of.
MS legs are pretty much only used for AMBAC in a more realistic situation, and AMBAC is no match for air braking and thermo-nuclear jets.(especially when you don't use the legs for main propulsion thus not using them as vector thrusters.)
There is no point in slowing down and getting to close combat when you can aim at targets with orbital speeds, its like an A-10 doesn't need to land before it shoots at tanks, and slowing down actually increases the risk.

Of course, in-universe technology kinda ignores this point since you need the MSs to stay intact, but my comment about MSs can have legs removed is talking about a more real-world situation.

MS legs aren't useless in atmosphere & vacuum, they provide mounting-points for extra thrusters, verniers, fuel tanks, and weapons. Plus there's no need to worry about landing gear for a flying MS, the legs are already available for deployment, with complete VTOL function!

[MythSearcher]

MS legs aren't useless in atmosphere & vacuum, they provide mounting-points for extra thrusters, verniers, fuel tanks, and weapons. Plus there's no need to worry about landing gear for a flying MS, the legs are already available for deployment, with complete VTOL function!

If we are talking about real life, yes, MS legs are useless in atmosphere.
There are useful in space because of their AMBAC functions and necessary combat in colonies with artificial gravity and low gravity places like the moon.

You can mount thrusters without the legs in atmosphere, without the actuators and dead weight, your thrusteres will have a higher thrust to weight ratio.
You can also mount verniers the same way.
Fuel tanks, no problem.
Weapons is the same story.
If you need more surface area to mount those things, you can use much lighter structures.
VTOL functions are quite easy to attain if you have the technology to develop legs that can do so while doing much more(like walking), strip the walking part away and you can get a much lighter, much more agile fighter.

If legs are really that useful, we would have fighters with legs in real life pretty long ago. Our technology is capable of making the legs long ago.(the only problem we have is the computing power to balance, yet nothing prevent one from making 3.) In fact, if you use legs without thrusters for VTOL, its going to be maintenance hell for the mechanics. All the suspension systems are going to require overhaul almost everytime you land.(see Developers as an example, UC technology is not that advance in terms of suspension on the legs) If you use thrusters, we also have planes like the AV-8, the F-35, etc. showing VTOL does not necessarily require legs. Yes, the thrusters damages the runway, so having legs are not going to help about that.

Also, in real life, we do not want to mount a dozen of thrusters and verniers on mounting points, the mounting structure has to be strong enough to take the touque, thus will be really heavy and becoming dead weight to the vehicle when not mounting anything.
They are also fundamentally more unstable, thus will be less efficient and you have more power loss in the system, while creating more risks in the whole system pending catastrophic failure.
Another point of not wanting to mount thrusters is because it is usually the most expensive and resource burning thing on the system, adding an extra thruster makes the whole thing much more expensive, thus you see the higher price fighters usually have 2 engines while the lower price one in the high-low mix combo only having 1. Having a third or even a fourth thruster is likely to have you MS cost up by quite a bit in real life, if its externally mounted, you also run into problems of lowering your safety factor(or increasing your fail rate) of you whole machine.
That is pretty much why we have JATO and RATO but not external thrusters that can help you in combat. Yet you always want to mount these ATOs on strong and stable structures on you machine, and not on legs that are highly sophisticated and movable. Reason? think about this, when sky-diving, do you want to have a harness strapped all over your main body like the ones in real life, or do you want to have a harness just strapped on your legs? If it is the latter, once you lose balance(which is highly likely), you get upside down and gets dragged along by the parachute.

[Gelgoog Jager]

I want to point out that in Gundam Seed and Gundam Seed Destiny, the Dinns are seen more than once launching by themselves from major bases, effectively acting as a fast response unit and the vanguard of the rest of their forces. From the looks of it, not even MS mounted on Guuls (ZAFT's Dodais) take of from bases on their own and are rather deployed until close to the battle area.

Also, ZAFT's submarine + Dinn combo is basically supposed to be the equivalent of Zeon's Gaw + Dopp combo.

[MythSearcher]

I want to point out that in Gundam Seed and Gundam Seed Destiny, the Dinns are seen more than once launching by themselves from major bases, effectively acting as a fast response unit and the vanguard of the rest of their forces. From the looks of it, not even MS mounted on Guuls (ZAFT's Dodais) take of from bases on their own and are rather deployed until close to the battle area.

Also, ZAFT's submarine + Dinn combo is basically supposed to be the equivalent of Zeon's Gaw + Dopp combo.

Isn't it the VoLPHAUs that's the Gaw and the submarine Vosgulov class being the Jukon/Mad Anglar equvalent?
For Dopp, I always thought its equvalent in SEED is the Infestus.

[Zeonista]

Despite my grumbling over the planned demise of the A-10 in a previous post here, its ultimate demise may have been postponed again.

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/20540 ... memo-about

So tank-busting aircraft might survive until the era of mecha anime after all.

[Gelgoog Jager]

Isn't it the VoLPHAUs that's the Gaw and the submarine Vosgulov class being the Jukon/Mad Anglar equvalent?
For Dopp, I always thought its equvalent in SEED is the Infestus.

Yes and no:

Those you mention are their more direct equivalents, air carrier and submarine, etc. But role wise, the VolPHAUs are transport vehicles like the Medea and Fat Uncle. The Dinn, widely avaialble for ZAFT, serves as the backbone of their air forces, just like the Dopp for Zeon. Finally, the Vosgulov is used to deploy both marine and aerial forces, having even dedicated catapults for deploying not only aerial MS, but also Guuls (though IIRC, they are not used as such in the original series) to be used by non-aerial units. Therefore, Vosgulov effectively acts like a mobile fortress that helps ZAFT forces respond quickly to threats on the air, land and sea, allowing them to mantain control over large areas.

On a different note, I just remembered a good example of quick fix given to the mobility issue during the OYW: in Gundam 0080, the amphibous MS are equipped with a detachable booster that allows them to fly several kilometers from the coast right into the battle area, and is quickly discarded upon arriving.

[doghunter1]

I've already asked this here, but are there any depictions of these "anti-Cui low defense crafts" mentioned in the Setting Notes?

[Sume Gai]

I know this may be slightly off topic, but given it's an extension of the question of Air Power vs Mobile suits in UC, it seems more logical to put it here than start a new topic: What about VTOL craft vs. MS?

I don't recall seeing many pure VTOL craft depicted in early UC (outside of one spy plane, the Gunperry and large fortresses/ships with Minovsky Craft) but could they be decent anti-MS platforms?

They have the same relative fragility as fighters and slower max air speed but far more lateral mobility and would be better able to operate in an effective range for dummy-fire weapons. We know that Beam Rotors and Minovsky Flight systems were cornerstones of Victory (to be fair this is the same series that made giant road-roller battleships) so -someone- must have thought such mobility would be effective.

While I very much doubt one Helicopter could go toe to toe with one MS and hope to both kill it and survive, I could easily see a well coordinated strike leaving some MS in fairly bad shape. Were such craft ever mentioned (in terms of how they were used) among side materials?

EDIT: I forgot Zeon's weird flying bike things from "Time be Still" but they do sort of show the potential I see, being able to operate in close proximity to an MS without being completely out maneuvered.

[domtropen]

In 08th MS Team zeon helicopter fires missile at Gundam, and get shot down after the missile is blocked with the shield and Gundam shoots back with bazooka. Basically Zeon aircrafts fare as badly against the fed MS as vise versa.

Core fighter, Dopp and Dodai can take off vertically.

[Sume Gai]

One Specific example doesn't really address my question at all. It tells us one Zeon Helicopter was unable to destroy this particular mobile suit (which unlike the Zaku has a carry shield and much better armor). It doesn't address how Helicopters might have been employed in a tactical sense or how and why they were or weren't effective (in particular in Federation hands).

I Know the core fighter took off and landed vertically in one instance though I believe consensus was reached earlier that the Dopp had to taxi (or be catapulted) like a traditional aircraft and neither ever (by my recollection) fought while hovering. I don't recall the Dodai's exact performance but most remember it for carrying around MS rather than acting as an attack platform in itself.

[domtropen]

I wonder if you can find any other animated instance of helicopter atttacking MS.

Dodai is definitely an attack aircraft [see MSG].

[Brave Fencer Kirby]

The main disadvantage that helicopters have over fixed-winged aircraft is their relatively slow speed and short range. A jet can take off from an airbase, fly hundreds of miles in an hour or so, do whatever mission they have, and then return to base -- and if they have mid-air refueling capability and their are tankers available, then their range is limited more by pilot endurance than limitations of the aircraft. Helicopters, on the other hand, have to be stationed relatively close to the action, which makes logistics harder, and makes them more vulnerable to enemy attack.

Really, the key thing is air superiority. If you have control of the airspace, then you have a lot of freedom that you can take advantage of, and your enemy's activities are restricted in a lot of ways. Neither side seemed to have complete air superiority during the One Year War until the end of the war, when the Federation used it to their advantage in mopping up Zeon forces after the main focus of the war shifted back to space. (Recall that 08th MS Team shows Jet Core Boosters operating virtually unopposed above Ginias's base, as opposed to the running dogfight in the mountains after the Apsaras II crashed, or the earlier trouble the 08th Team had with Zeon helicopters and Dopps.)

[Wingnut]

I wonder if you can find any other animated instance of helicopter atttacking MS.

Dodai is definitely an attack aircraft [see MSG].

In seed when Kira sorties for the first time on Earth, one of the first things that starts shooting at him even before he can activate the PS armor are Zaft helicopters. Of course they don't last long as we see one of the few instances of head vulcans doing what they were designed for and shoot down enemy aircraft.

[doghunter1]

Restarting the thread with this question: If Mongooses are A-10s, would heavily armed Medeas be used for close air support, ala AC-130 Spectre gunships?