ZAFT'S Land and Sea craft.

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Mafty
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ZAFT'S Land and Sea craft.

Mythsearchers post got me thinking. How exactly do space armies formulate or even transport weaponry for earth? ZAFT in particular seems to have quite a number of submarines and also (rather large) landships. in other series there are explanations for the earthbound equipment: Original Gundam had Zeon steal and modify submarines from the Earth Federation, while Gundam X had landships that were used by civilians or the EFF before the war. Studying and modifying a mobile suit in different environments can work on a colony, but the ships would be too large to test there. Also it's not clear how a submarine or landship could get through the atmosphere. Is it ever stated in any of the manuals if these craft are build in space, or on earth after ZAFT invades?
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Seto Kaiba
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Re: ZAFT'S Land and Sea craft.

Mafty wrote: Sat Dec 12, 2020 2:03 pm Mythsearchers post got me thinking. How exactly do space armies formulate or even transport weaponry for earth?
TBH, UC Gundam's explanation that the Principality of Zeon couldn't design decent aircraft because they lived inside space colonies is a tad silly. OK, they live in an O'Neill cylinder but that doesn't mean they lost knowledge of aerodynamics. Not being able to test an aircraft is one thing, but mistakes like the Dopp and Gaw could only really be explained if the designer had never so much as seen a photograph of an airplane. :lol:

Assuming that the government responsible for the space army in question isn't staffed exclusively by inbred halfwits who can't spell their own names, the sensible thing to do would be to model the equipment in a computer and then either manufacture it in space and ship it down or seize manufacturing facilities and produce locally planetside. It becomes even easier if you can take a five finger discount on the opposition's design and just tweak it for your own purposes, like how the Federation got their jumpstart on MS development in the OYW.


Mafty wrote: Sat Dec 12, 2020 2:03 pm Studying and modifying a mobile suit in different environments can work on a colony, but the ships would be too large to test there. Also it's not clear how a submarine or landship could get through the atmosphere. Is it ever stated in any of the manuals if these craft are build in space, or on earth after ZAFT invades?
Not that I can find.

Then again, the problems that the Principality of Zeon had were at least partially because the design of their space colonies prevented the existence of things like large bodies of water or nice flat stretches of land. The PLANTS are designed differently, and several we see DO have large bodies of water and so on that could be used to evaluate at least the basic performance of something like a submarine or the large hovercraft that are land battleships.
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John-Luck Pickerd
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Re: ZAFT'S Land and Sea craft.

ZAFT have allies on Earth, willing or not. So Zaft has a much easier time establishing Earth factories. Hell, maybe they can even ask to rent their ally's' shipyard or land battleship-yard.

In Destiny Astray manga, the chapter where they introduced the Lagash base, it seems to suggest that the subs can be dropped down from orbit. Whether they just let it fall to Earth or are there some kind of protective heat shield and deacceleration thrusters is unknown. So at least we know that they can build submarines in space(whether they still do that even after they have bases on Earth is unknown).

The Infestus is also designed to be folded and fit into a drop pod, so those things can definitely be built in space too. But I dont know how "canon" it is since it never appeared on-screen.

If you cant or dont want to drop a submarine from orbit. Build your stuff with modularity in mind, ship down pieces one by one and assemble while on Earth. Atleast until you can get your Earth-based ship yard and factories set up.

If you want to talk about designing air crafts or ships, aerodynamic or hydrodynamic simluation can be used and they are used today to optimize the aerodynamic property of vehicles such as cars. These simulations are enough to create the general design, Zaft can later bring the prototype to Earth for further refinement. Hell, considering Plant is one of the biggest manufacturing site in Earth sphere, I am sure there are a lot of blueprints for perfectly useable aircrafts and ships in Plant, not to mention knowledge and expertise of the engineers.
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yazi88
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Re: ZAFT'S Land and Sea craft.

Zaft also had 2 large land bases to begin with as they had actual allied Nations on Earth IIRC since before the 1st Bloody Valentine War.

Gibraltar and Carpenteria.

I could be wrong and they captured and kept the 2 bases during the early part of the war. But it is known that Zaft had allied nations on Earth.
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Re: ZAFT'S Land and Sea craft.

yazi88 wrote: Sun Dec 13, 2020 5:43 pm Zaft also had 2 large land bases to begin with as they had actual allied Nations on Earth IIRC since before the 1st Bloody Valentine War.

Gibraltar and Carpenteria.

I could be wrong and they captured and kept the 2 bases during the early part of the war. But it is known that Zaft had allied nations on Earth.
AFAIK, ZAFT didn't have any surface bases prior to the start of Operation Uroboros on CE70 April 1... but they were allowed to use bases belonging to their allies like the Oceanian Union. ZAFT built Carpenteria Base after the start of their landing operations, and later captured three of the five Earth Alliance spaceports: Kaohsiung, Victoria, and Gibraltar.
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Re: ZAFT'S Land and Sea craft.

I am pretty sure ZAFT had more experience in both aircraft and ship building before the war.

Out of the 12 cities, Martius City(the 3rd one if you are not tipped off by the naming convention) is focused on aerodynamics and shipbuilding and Maius City does Applied mechanical engineering, so their land crafts are likely designed in Maius city.

Unlike Zeon(which had a real life reason for their strange looking crafts) PLANT where ZAFT is based off is supposed to be building every high tech gadget to a point where the only thing they are banned to produce is food. With allies on Earth and maybe even their potential enemies(before the war), are all customers and/or slave masters who control them via a control of food importation, and will buy their products(with the lowest price possible and working them like sweat shop workers, just with cleaner and slightly better environment) They will all be very willing to let them use their ports and airports to test out the products they buy, meaning PLANT should have a lot of experience in actually building working aircrafts and ships.

For Zeon crafts, if we ignore the strange appearances of them, they are basically using the wrong doctrine in aircraft design. Instead of faster, higher, they assumed the spread of Minovsky particles will render dog fights prevalent and thus forcing the enemy to slow down, since flying too fast is way too hard to aim and shoot.(at least that's what they think) It would be also nice to mention that they aren't really that slow, and is still well capable of going a few times the speed of sound. But their whole design concept are closer to helicopters than fighters.
They wanted a clear, open canopy to have as much view as possible, that doesn't really explain why they raised the cockpit up like that, but at least it explained why the front lower part of the cockpit is also glass, ahem, I mean, transparent. They did give a reason for raising the cockpit, for a higher up view, but this obviously make very little difference and sense because it is an aircraft and is already very high up in the sky.
The real life reason for the strange design is simple, the show was in the 70's and the period saw a lot of retro-looking designs in Sci-fi where they think are cool at the time. Especially when Gundam was the first show that was supposed to be trying to be realistic and its sponsor is still trying to market it like a kids' show. Zeon was originally designed as an evil invasive imperial alien empire(BTW, the original script of Gunboy the Red Meteor[yes, not Red Comet] is a female, and you have a guy with a title as Black Star which likely is the origin of Black tri star) and the Freedom Fortress(White Base) had one of the preliminary designs with the side dome having a hexagonal shape that looked suspiciously like the Tie Fighter's canopy. So Zeon's aircrafts basically all should be viewed in the same category like Star Wars' walkers, Macross's Regult, or even the Tripods in War of the Worlds.
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Re: ZAFT'S Land and Sea craft.

Although Zaft never had any regular Sea faring ships outside of Submarines. Minerva was used on the water too.
Earth Alliance and Orb had a number of different sea faring ships.
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Re: ZAFT'S Land and Sea craft.

yazi88 wrote: Mon Dec 14, 2020 10:56 pm Although Zaft never had any regular Sea faring ships outside of Submarines. Minerva was used on the water too.
Earth Alliance and Orb had a number of different sea faring ships.
At least they have the cute patrol boat: https://www.mahq.net/mecha/gundam/seed- ... t-zaft.htm
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Re: ZAFT'S Land and Sea craft.

Speaking of sea faring ships, would ZAFT's scale system-equipped land ships work float on water? They are propelled by scale system propulsion, and we know that scale system work on water since Blue Frame's aquatic combat equipment use scale system for propulsion.
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Re: ZAFT'S Land and Sea craft.

John-Luck Pickerd wrote: Tue Dec 15, 2020 10:48 am Speaking of sea faring ships, would ZAFT's scale system-equipped land ships work float on water? They are propelled by scale system propulsion, and we know that scale system work on water since Blue Frame's aquatic combat equipment use scale system for propulsion.
It's been a long time since I read Astray, but I believe that once the Junk Guild salvaged Waltfeld's Lesseps, they used it to travel over the ocean.
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yazi88
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Re: ZAFT'S Land and Sea craft.

Chris wrote: Wed Dec 16, 2020 9:23 am
John-Luck Pickerd wrote: Tue Dec 15, 2020 10:48 am Speaking of sea faring ships, would ZAFT's scale system-equipped land ships work float on water? They are propelled by scale system propulsion, and we know that scale system work on water since Blue Frame's aquatic combat equipment use scale system for propulsion.
It's been a long time since I read Astray, but I believe that once the Junk Guild salvaged Waltfeld's Lesseps, they used it to travel over the ocean.
Its the Junk Guild, they might have modified it for Sea use, they like doing extensive modifications.
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Re: ZAFT'S Land and Sea craft.

yazi88 wrote: Wed Dec 16, 2020 7:27 pm
Chris wrote: Wed Dec 16, 2020 9:23 am
John-Luck Pickerd wrote: Tue Dec 15, 2020 10:48 am Speaking of sea faring ships, would ZAFT's scale system-equipped land ships work float on water? They are propelled by scale system propulsion, and we know that scale system work on water since Blue Frame's aquatic combat equipment use scale system for propulsion.
It's been a long time since I read Astray, but I believe that once the Junk Guild salvaged Waltfeld's Lesseps, they used it to travel over the ocean.
Its the Junk Guild, they might have modified it for Sea use, they like doing extensive modifications.
The Japanese wikipedia entry mentions about it was not used on water in the anime is because ZAFT's considers submarines to be their capital ships.
Wonder if that has a reference or not.
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Re: ZAFT'S Land and Sea craft.

The even incomprehensible thing is that in MSV-R, the Principality had this giant machine that basically worked like their version of the AGE System, automatically design, calibrate, and produce components. That means 0070s-era computers had more than enough computing power to do whatever we can now. Stinkers such as the Gaw should had not existed.

On the other hand, we have got the EFF's Medea. Fly Manta and Fanfan. What do you think of them?
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Re: ZAFT'S Land and Sea craft.

False Prophet wrote: Thu Dec 17, 2020 9:33 am The even incomprehensible thing is that in MSV-R, the Principality had this giant machine that basically worked like their version of the AGE System, automatically design, calibrate, and produce components. That means 0070s-era computers had more than enough computing power to do whatever we can now. Stinkers such as the Gaw should had not existed.

On the other hand, we have got the EFF's Medea. Fly Manta and Fanfan. What do you think of them?
The MSV-R entry talks about MS only.
They can do that because they have lots of design experience in MS.
I guess somehow aircraft design are not included in any of their data.

The Gaw aren't really that bad compared to the Dopp, at least it got a very large wing area. It maybe a bit fat, but we also have the Guppy, the Super Guppy and the Beluga.
I mean, having the mind to have a bigger wing area for a bigger plane is already monumentally innovative compared to the other crafts used in the OYW.
It is not only a Zeon problem if you really cared about the appearance of the aircrafts, the Federation aren't too much better with its flying forces outside of maybe the FF-S3 and Flyarrow, you can tag the Dragonfly here(but propellers? really?), but that's about it. Look at EFF's Gunperry, Don Escagot, Depp Rog, Dish, they aren't really much better than the Gaw, in fact, I will say they are definitely worse because other than the Dish, all of them hardly can have enough wing area. The Dish is of another problem, it doesn't have a tail fin, and the controls will be hellish. The OpenSky project had published a book about solving the stability issue by introducing the slanted wings and small vertical fins that acts a bit like the tail fin, which is by no means simple and hard to find fault in an anime.
Fanfan aren't really an aircraft, and as a hovercraft, you really can't criticise it too much. It got everything it needed with very little redundant parts, so you can always rationalise it with the balance of technology needed. We are talking about an anime in the late 70's, I don't expect Okawara having the necessary aerodynamics knowledge like Miyazaki Hayao(who's father works in the aerospace industry) It is just that the Zeon's Dopp and Luggun designs are just that much more exotic and unfix-able because of the strange location of the canopies that are so irrelevant to any functional needs and beyond reasonable suspension of disbelief.
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Re: ZAFT'S Land and Sea craft.

MythSearcher wrote: Fri Dec 18, 2020 12:41 am The Gaw aren't really that bad compared to the Dopp, at least it got a very large wing area. It maybe a bit fat, but we also have the Guppy, the Super Guppy and the Beluga.
I mean, having the mind to have a bigger wing area for a bigger plane is already monumentally innovative compared to the other crafts used in the OYW.
Eh... that may be true in strictly relative terms, but the official setting materials make it pretty clear that both of 'em are kind of airborne garbage that any competent designer would've laughed out of town. Neither of them can actually fly using aerodynamic lift. The Dopp is basically a manned missile, staying aloft in ballistic flight via the thrust from its main engines and maneuvering using verniers. The Gaw, on the other hand, can't produce enough lift to sustain level flight and needs to devote 30% of its engine power to vertical thrust to stay aloft.


MythSearcher wrote: Fri Dec 18, 2020 12:41 am It is not only a Zeon problem if you really cared about the appearance of the aircrafts, the Federation aren't too much better with its flying forces outside of maybe the FF-S3 and Flyarrow, you can tag the Dragonfly here(but propellers? really?), but that's about it. Look at EFF's Gunperry, Don Escagot, Depp Rog, Dish, they aren't really much better than the Gaw, in fact, I will say they are definitely worse because other than the Dish, all of them hardly can have enough wing area.
The Dragonfly actually makes good sense for what it's used for... as a light dispatch courier craft. It has a light, low-maintenance body and engine that's compact and offers a low infrared profile. (It's basically a Rutan Long-EZ, a popular civilian market pushprop aircraft with a 3,200km range simple enough to be be a kit aircraft.)

The Gunperry's not a plane... it's a ducted-fan lifter. (Technically it's considered a class of helicopter.) The Don Escargot is a lifting body bomber, it actually makes reasonable aerodynamic sense even if it looks a bit odd. The Depp Rog has the aerodynamic profile of a supersonic bomber if you ignore the nose. The Dish is a bit odd, but it's based on a real world aircraft... the Vought XF5U "Flying Flapjack" that actually flew quite well.

Remember, if you've got a lifting body design, the underside of the aircraft is also wing.
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Re: ZAFT'S Land and Sea craft.

Seto Kaiba wrote: Fri Dec 18, 2020 4:25 am Eh... that may be true in strictly relative terms, but the official setting materials make it pretty clear that both of 'em are kind of airborne garbage that any competent designer would've laughed out of town. Neither of them can actually fly using aerodynamic lift. The Dopp is basically a manned missile, staying aloft in ballistic flight via the thrust from its main engines and maneuvering using verniers. The Gaw, on the other hand, can't produce enough lift to sustain level flight and needs to devote 30% of its engine power to vertical thrust to stay aloft.

The Dragonfly actually makes good sense for what it's used for... as a light dispatch courier craft. It has a light, low-maintenance body and engine that's compact and offers a low infrared profile. (It's basically a Rutan Long-EZ, a popular civilian market pushprop aircraft with a 3,200km range simple enough to be be a kit aircraft.)

The Gunperry's not a plane... it's a ducted-fan lifter. (Technically it's considered a class of helicopter.) The Don Escargot is a lifting body bomber, it actually makes reasonable aerodynamic sense even if it looks a bit odd. The Depp Rog has the aerodynamic profile of a supersonic bomber if you ignore the nose. The Dish is a bit odd, but it's based on a real world aircraft... the Vought XF5U "Flying Flapjack" that actually flew quite well.

Remember, if you've got a lifting body design, the underside of the aircraft is also wing.
Just talking about the appearance and the suspension of disbelief of these on screen.

If you consider the appearance only, the Gaw is actually pretty much the same, if not better than these things.
The Dragonfly is of course looking really realistic, it is only strange to have a propeller craft in that period. Maybe the low infrared profile is needed, but it is just so out of place in a world full of thermonuclear jets.(It would also make the Dish so much stranger because wasn't the Dish supposed also need low infrared profile?)

The Gunperry is just strange to have all the fans on the bottom side, which will make it inherently unstable. Not to mention it has 4 thrusters placed in a location where it will very likely create a moment arm to highly variable CoG. The 08MS one actually is a much better fix. The side fans are moved up on top of the containers instead of under it, and the containers are placed higher up so the rear thrusters are inline with them which make it look much more like it can actually balance.

The Don Escargot and Depp Rog are lifting bodies, but like I said, the Gaw's appearance at least looks more like it has more wing area ratio. These two look way too thick to be able to efficiently utilize the body as a lifting body, pretty much just the same as the Gaw. In fact, the Don Escargot isn't too much different to the Dopp, it has a (slightly) raised canopy and the bottom of the canopy is transparent.

The Dish, if it had vertical fins like the XF5U, I will have no problem with it. I know you can pretty much have onboard computers handling the controls, but since most of the other aircraft seems to have some kind of vertical or V-fin on them, and it is unlike those tandem wing crafts where they can use different levels of the wings to create a similar effect(even so, most still have vertical fins) It just look out of place like the Dragonfly.
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Re: ZAFT'S Land and Sea craft.

It's been a long time since I watched SEED, but the Gundam wiki's Carpentaria Base article has a screenshot showing the Lesseps floating in the bay . This still doesn't explain whether it came from earth or space , but maybe it has the same gel that the Archangel has.
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Re: ZAFT'S Land and Sea craft.

Mafty wrote: Sat Dec 19, 2020 11:44 am It's been a long time since I watched SEED, but the Gundam wiki's Carpentaria Base article has a screenshot showing the Lesseps floating in the bay . This still doesn't explain whether it came from earth or space , but maybe it has the same gel that the Archangel has.
Actually, that is a Zaft submarine. https://www.mahq.net/mecha/gundam/seed/vosgulov.htm
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Re: ZAFT'S Land and Sea craft.

Say, how would naval warfare change with the advent of amphibious mobile suits such as the GOOhN and Deep Forbidden?
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Re: ZAFT'S Land and Sea craft.

Seto Kaiba wrote: Sun Dec 13, 2020 4:10 am TBH, UC Gundam's explanation that the Principality of Zeon couldn't design decent aircraft because they lived inside space colonies is a tad silly. OK, they live in an O'Neill cylinder but that doesn't mean they lost knowledge of aerodynamics. Not being able to test an aircraft is one thing, but mistakes like the Dopp and Gaw could only really be explained if the designer had never so much as seen a photograph of an airplane. :lol:
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