The difficulties in maintaining the ZZ Gundam

[False Prophet]

Has anyone ever imagined how big of a nightmare is to maintain the ZZ Gundam? I mean, transformable mobile suits are already a pains in the asses to engineers, but the ZZ was a transformable mobile suit with Core Block system and a bunch of experimental components and weapons. It really put into perspective how good Astonaige was that he could keep it in fighting form with the Argama's sorry excuse of a crew.

It also makes me wonder how weird is it that the Nu Gundam, a very high-performance but low-maintenance machine got so few variants, while Anaheim spent years developing new models from the Zeta, ZZ and S Gundam.

[Seto Kaiba]

Has anyone ever imagined how big of a nightmare is to maintain the ZZ Gundam? I mean, transformable mobile suits are already a pains in the asses to engineers, but the ZZ was a transformable mobile suit with Core Block system and a bunch of experimental components and weapons. It really put into perspective how good Astonaige was that he could keep it in fighting form with the Argama's sorry excuse of a crew.

Really, almost any Gundam in the Universal Century should be a maintenance engineer's worst nightmare... they use all kinds of non-standard materials, parts, and systems, and would require special tuning and maintenance different from the mass-produced MS's the crew chief is also responsible for.

We often call Gundams "super-prototypes", but the reality is worse... because their designs aren't actually intended for production and depend on custom, hacked-together hardware, they're mules. Maintaining mules is a very unpleasant, necessary evil in a development environment and something absolutely nobody enjoys.

It also makes me wonder how weird is it that the Nu Gundam, a very high-performance but low-maintenance machine got so few variants, while Anaheim spent years developing new models from the Zeta, ZZ and S Gundam.

It's all about money, and trying to get back their investment.

The Nu Gundam came at a point in time where independent anti-Zeon organizations like the Anti-Earth Union Group and Karaba had folded and the Federation was kind of REMOVED-footing around the subject of specialist units intended for cracking down on spacenoid terrorism after the truly epic fiasco that was the Titans.

The Zeta, on the other hand, stuck around mostly because Karaba was desperate to get a low-volume, relatively high-spec MS to cover its manpower shortages with higher quality troops and poured money into the task of developing an economized version of the Zeta Gundam. All that development work later benefitted the EFF as Karaba was absorbed into Londo Bell and further efforts to economize the Zeta were aided by the show march of technological progress bringing down the cost somewhat.

[Mafty]

In Universe it seems as though the ZZ is a case of Awesome but Impractical. It is noted (In an old Gundam Guide written by Mark Simmons) that the ZZ has issues with power supply. As the Mega Beam Cannon drains the energy, resulting in a short length of use. Although there never seems to be any real issue with the ZZ's transformation process; though indeed when you look at how complex the mechanics would be , As Seto noted it would probably need constant maintenance.

This may in fact be why the ZZ wasn't replicated(outside of side material); despite its immense armamentt and transformation capabilities , no future Gundam tries to build on it. The Nu Gundam focuses on more Pyscommun style weaponry, as does the Unicorn. The Xi and Penelope are more lumbering, however they make more praticle use of their weaponry, than a unit whose cannon can deplete all it's energy.

We also never see a multi-pilot Transformation Sequence again (at least on a Gundam), all future units are shown as one pilot only. Again think of the complexity of maintaining all of the cockpit systems in all the different modes.

Out of Universe it seems like an attempt to adapt/deconstruct more of the Super Robot Tropes into Gundam. While real robot was huge in the 80s, there was still a sizeable amount of Super Robot shows around(Dancouga, Ideon,Godmars,etc) though admittedly Super Robots did kinda drop off (for awhile at least) by the late 80s. That being said the Gundam Team seems like kinda a Super Robot Team (An over the top, Hot Blooded, collection of colorful characters fighting in a flashy transforming mecha). So to be more "realistic" the issues within the usage of a more over the Super Robot are presented, though admittedly not made that big a deal of.

For a merchandising angle this may be why the AEUG has so few new mechs to sell in the new season(The Gundam Team is largely made up of Gundams from the previous series) as Super Robot shows often just have one unit everyone pilots.

[MythSearcher]

Really, almost any Gundam in the Universal Century should be a maintenance engineer's worst nightmare... they use all kinds of non-standard materials, parts, and systems, and would require special tuning and maintenance different from the mass-produced MS's the crew chief is also responsible for.

We often call Gundams "super-prototypes", but the reality is worse... because their designs aren't actually intended for production and depend on custom, hacked-together hardware, they're mules. Maintaining mules is a very unpleasant, necessary evil in a development environment and something absolutely nobody enjoys.

Well, the RX-78 is at least mass produced into the GM with maybe 60% common parts.(the RX-79[G] is about 80% to the RGM-79[G] with the head change only and body are the same just with higher quality parts, like the CPUs in the 00's where they can be simply overclocked by drawing a pencil line as a wire to connect the circuits)
The core fighter part is also mass produced as the core interceptors we see in Igloo.
So the RX-78 is possibly the easiest for maintenance in all super-prototype Gundams. (The RX-79[G] isn't a super prototype so it doesn't count)
Oh well, it is still a nightmare because all of those parts aren't mass produced until at least a month later and WB was constantly short of supplies.

In Universe it seems as though the ZZ is a case of Awesome but Impractical. It is noted (In an old Gundam Guide written by Mark Simmons) that the ZZ has issues with power supply. As the Mega Beam Cannon drains the energy, resulting in a short length of use. Although there never seems to be any real issue with the ZZ's transformation process; though indeed when you look at how complex the mechanics would be , As Seto noted it would probably need constant maintenance.

IRL, fighters and even bombers are constantly maintained. That is why the hard to maintain AV-8 was a nightmare and with the long maintenance time comes pilots with little flight time and high malfunction/error/accident rates.

This may in fact be why the ZZ wasn't replicated(outside of side material); despite its immense armamentt and transformation capabilities , no future Gundam tries to build on it. The Nu Gundam focuses on more Pyscommun style weaponry, as does the Unicorn. The Xi and Penelope are more lumbering, however they make more praticle use of their weaponry, than a unit whose cannon can deplete all it's energy.

Ahem, S Gundam is hardly side material by now.
S Gundam is Katoki's take on ZZ, quite obviously.
And seriously, while it was supposed to be an improved unit, Katoki made it even more complicated with all the extra gadgets to move the cockpits to a common location after the combination.

We also never see a multi-pilot Transformation Sequence again (at least on a Gundam), all future units are shown as one pilot only. Again think of the complexity of maintaining all of the cockpit systems in all the different modes.

Again, S Gundam.
But even the ZZ was not piloted by multiple pilots at the end. You only see Judah piloting it by himself after the enhancements.

Out of Universe it seems like an attempt to adapt/deconstruct more of the Super Robot Tropes into Gundam. While real robot was huge in the 80s, there was still a sizeable amount of Super Robot shows around(Dancouga, Ideon,Godmars,etc) though admittedly Super Robots did kinda drop off (for awhile at least) by the late 80s. That being said the Gundam Team seems like kinda a Super Robot Team (An over the top, Hot Blooded, collection of colorful characters fighting in a flashy transforming mecha). So to be more "realistic" the issues within the usage of a more over the Super Robot are presented, though admittedly not made that big a deal of.

For a merchandising angle this may be why the AEUG has so few new mechs to sell in the new season(The Gundam Team is largely made up of Gundams from the previous series) as Super Robot shows often just have one unit everyone pilots.

The original design plans of ZZ Gundam consist of 1 alpha Gundam and 2 Omega Gundams. alpha Gundam is designed by Nagano Mamoru, a combination from A and B parts for transformation, was at first chosen to be the main mecha of the show in Nov 1985’s meeting and appeared in a TV ad at the time, basically a Gundam with a backpack binder like Rick Dias, but this design was later rejected by higher ups in Jan 1986, reason given is the A, B combination design was hard to make into 3D(makes as little sense as you think about it because they are changing to an even more complicated ABC parts design AND they already made a prototype model that was shown in a TV ad.). 1 Omega Gundam, aka Assault Gundam, design was by Okamoto Hideo, consists of a seed Gundam in the middle and combine with G-Flyer to transform. The other Omega Gundam is designed by Akitaka Mika, is a combination of Gundam Mk-III’s core and upper body and G-Armour’s lower body(so a 3 unit combination) and is later chosen as the base of the final design. The other 3 designs we get Fujita Kazumi’s God Gundam(no, not THAT God Gundam), which is a parody of Raideen and can change into God bird mode; Gundam Mk-III used as is; and another Akitaka’s design, the Neo Gundam (NOT the RX-99 Neo Gundam), also a 3 unit combination design where the ABC parts will combine into MS mode or G fortress mode.

The final design was by Kobayashi Makoto basing on the concept of Akitaka and was cleaned up by everyone above except Nagano and Kitazume Hiroyuki, with tight time constraints, the design clean ups are duplicated which makes the early design released to the public a mess(they ended up releasing 3~4 slightly different designs before settling to a single unified design).

[False Prophet]

The original design plans of ZZ Gundam consist of 1 alpha Gundam and 2 Omega Gundams. alpha Gundam is designed by Nagano Mamoru, a combination from A and B parts for transformation, was at first chosen to be the main mecha of the show in Nov 1985’s meeting and appeared in a TV ad at the time, basically a Gundam with a backpack binder like Rick Dias, but this design was later rejected by higher ups in Jan 1986, reason given is the A, B combination design was hard to make into 3D(makes as little sense as you think about it because they are changing to an even more complicated ABC parts design AND they already made a prototype model that was shown in a TV ad.). 1 Omega Gundam, aka Assault Gundam, design was by Okamoto Hideo, consists of a seed Gundam in the middle and combine with G-Flyer to transform. The other Omega Gundam is designed by Akitaka Mika, is a combination of Gundam Mk-III’s core and upper body and G-Armour’s lower body(so a 3 unit combination) and is later chosen as the base of the final design. The other 3 designs we get Fujita Kazumi’s God Gundam(no, not THAT God Gundam), which is a parody of Raideen and can change into God bird mode; Gundam Mk-III used as is; and another Akitaka’s design, the Neo Gundam (NOT the RX-99 Neo Gundam), also a 3 unit combination design where the ABC parts will combine into MS mode or G fortress mode.

The final design was by Kobayashi Makoto basing on the concept of Akitaka and was cleaned up by everyone above except Nagano and Kitazume Hiroyuki, with tight time constraints, the design clean ups are duplicated which makes the early design released to the public a mess(they ended up releasing 3~4 slightly different designs before settling to a single unified design).

Just wondering, did Tomino decided right from the start that the ZZ would be a combined robot? And I'm surprised that Kazumi Fujita chose to go with a Raideen parody and not something closer to his Tyrant Sword designs. That and Nagao did not try to recycle the L-Gaim once again (seriously, the guy is obsessed over that design.)

And I thought that the Ground Gundam's parts are rejected components with extremely uneven quality, so they had to be artificially capped to prevent excessive wearing, etc.?

[Mafty]

Wow they were still deciding on the main mecha for a show airing in March, in January?! How long does it take to animate an episode? Also are there any pictures of the initial designs/ the ZZ ad? They sound interesting.

[Seto Kaiba]

In Universe it seems as though the ZZ is a case of Awesome but Impractical. It is noted (In an old Gundam Guide written by Mark Simmons) that the ZZ has issues with power supply. As the Mega Beam Cannon drains the energy, resulting in a short length of use. Although there never seems to be any real issue with the ZZ's transformation process; though indeed when you look at how complex the mechanics would be , As Seto noted it would probably need constant maintenance.

To be honest, I wouldn't even go so far as to call it "awesome but impractical"... the fundamental flaws in the ZZ Gundam's design make far more impractical than it is awesome. It has a host of impressive abilities, but many of them are almost mutually exclusive in practical operation because its combiner design makes it so fragile (as the designers can no longer count on having better quality materials) and its power system couldn't keep up with the energy demands of its various over-the-top weapons.

We also never see a multi-pilot Transformation Sequence again (at least on a Gundam), all future units are shown as one pilot only. Again think of the complexity of maintaining all of the cockpit systems in all the different modes.

It's pretty obvious why, and kind of amazing nobody considered what a pain it'd be to try and launch three separate aircraft and combine them on the battlefield.

Oh well, it is still a nightmare because all of those parts aren't mass produced until at least a month later and WB was constantly short of supplies.

Pretty much, yeah... no matter what, Gundams tend to be a problem. Even the limited production RX-79[G] type ended up having parts shortages that forced impromptu field repairs with nonstandard parts like how Shiro's head got damaged and had to be repaired as the Ez8 and Karen's was a total writeoff that had to be replaced with one from a GM.

Ahem, S Gundam is hardly side material by now.
S Gundam is Katoki's take on ZZ, quite obviously.
And seriously, while it was supposed to be an improved unit, Katoki made it even more complicated with all the extra gadgets to move the cockpits to a common location after the combination.

There's also the Theta Gundam in the Gundam Moon manga... which is about as close to a straight derivative as it gets.

[MythSearcher]

Just wondering, did Tomino decided right from the start that the ZZ would be a combined robot? And I'm surprised that Kazumi Fujita chose to go with a Raideen parody and not something closer to his Tyrant Sword designs. That and Nagao did not try to recycle the L-Gaim once again (seriously, the guy is obsessed over that design.)

Just my guess, but Tomino gave Nagano full design freedom in CCA, so he might have had done so in ZZ as well. It is just that Nagano isn't the favourite child for the people above and in CCA's production we know that he also isn't in good terms with fellow crew members.(Which I speculate is why ZZ's final design didn't involve him and he suddenly seems to be completely shut out of the design team eventhough his design was originally selected and the model featured in a TV ad.)
Nagano's own view on himself sounded pretty sour about this, but also pretty arrogant if you ask me.
In an interview recent years he claims that Tomino and Yasuhiko liked him because he greeted them like "any other regular polite person will" and that somehow this became favourable to these old timers.(hinting other crew members don't do so and thus aren't liked by these higher ups) and he surely seems to be proud that he got to design everything in L-Gaim and thinks that is completely because of his observational skills and thorough thinking about how the internal mechanism works instead of just some artistic external styling. It's like, wow, you just offended every other mechanical artist of the time, no wonder he seems to be not in that group of designer friends with Katoki, Akitaka, etc.

And I thought that the Ground Gundam's parts are rejected components with extremely uneven quality, so they had to be artificially capped to prevent excessive wearing, etc.?

Yes, they are rejected parts, but the lower ones are given to the RGM-79[G] and the better ones are given to the RX-79[G]. Also, "Rejected parts" from the RX series are still extremely good products, which is why a screw on the RX-78 is more expensive than gold in same weight.(though it would be questionable how expensive is gold at the time with space mining in completely different magnitude compared to today's quantity, Char seems to be able to purchase Axis with just a few brief cases of it where people seems to be handling with ease(At least if a brief case is filled with pure gold, it would be too heavy to just pick up by a regular human on Earth.)

Pretty much, yeah... no matter what, Gundams tend to be a problem. Even the limited production RX-79[G] type ended up having parts shortages that forced impromptu field repairs with nonstandard parts like how Shiro's head got damaged and had to be repaired as the Ez8 and Karen's was a total writeoff that had to be replaced with one from a GM.

Oh well, the RX-79[G] isn't a real production model, or it seized to be. It was using leftover/rejected parts from the RX series in a failed attempt by the EFGF to race production, but the EFF higher ups decided to mass produce the GM and thus a lot of parts and likely even the production machines aren't used anymore. If they went with EFGF's plan, they should have produced more parts and then the RX-79[G] will not have a shortage of parts.

There's also the Theta Gundam in the Gundam Moon manga... which is about as close to a straight derivative as it gets.

Ah, the Theta plus, yes, but they'd have a better time if they just mass produced the FAZZ.
I mean, what's the point of having a combining, core fighter equipped ultra long range artillery unit?

[False Prophet]

Speaking of the Theta Plus, anyone found out what the RGZ-91X Re-GZID is for? A prototype for a prototype AKA the Re-GZ? Beside the fact that it seems to have succeeded both the Zeta Plus C1 and R but being closer to the actual Zeta in Waverider mode, I don't know what makes it special?

Anyway, regarding prototypes and limited-production models, anyone notice how rare were some of the specialized OYW GM variants? I mean, models like the GM Sniper II were always rare, but at least we saw some of them still being used as late as 0084, 0085. But then I expect something like the GM Light Armor, GM Sniper Custom, GM Desert and GM Land Combat Type to be more common, especially when there seems to be no problem upgrading them with parts from the GM Type C or even GM II. But after OYW, they seem like they have vanished completely.

[Seto Kaiba]

Speaking of the Theta Plus, anyone found out what the RGZ-91X Re-GZID is for? A prototype for a prototype AKA the Re-GZ? Beside the fact that it seems to have succeeded both the Zeta Plus C1 and R but being closer to the actual Zeta in Waverider mode, I don't know what makes it special?

The Re-GZID ("Re-GZ Ideal") was an iterative development model produced during the attempt to develop a formal production specification of the RGZ-91 Re-GZ. Amuro considered it to be the "ideal" form of the Re-GZ, though the EFF and Anaheim passed on it because of its greater cost.

Anyway, regarding prototypes and limited-production models, anyone notice how rare were some of the specialized OYW GM variants? I mean, models like the GM Sniper II were always rare, but at least we saw some of them still being used as late as 0084, 0085. But then I expect something like the GM Light Armor, GM Sniper Custom, GM Desert and GM Land Combat Type to be more common, especially when there seems to be no problem upgrading them with parts from the GM Type C or even GM II. But after OYW, they seem like they have vanished completely.

There were a lot of ad hoc variants of the GM produced during the One Year War in an attempt to make it work in a variety of different environments. Once the war was over, the Federation Forces were able to standardize the GM's design in later variants.

[MythSearcher]

Anyway, regarding prototypes and limited-production models, anyone notice how rare were some of the specialized OYW GM variants? I mean, models like the GM Sniper II were always rare, but at least we saw some of them still being used as late as 0084, 0085. But then I expect something like the GM Light Armor, GM Sniper Custom, GM Desert and GM Land Combat Type to be more common, especially when there seems to be no problem upgrading them with parts from the GM Type C or even GM II. But after OYW, they seem like they have vanished completely.

A lot of people I have talked to accept this fan theory:
EFF had 2 main lines of designs during OYW, the Lunar II models and the Jaburo models, which are quite different in appearance.(Roughly separate into Jaburo=Okawara, Lunar II=other designers(starting from 0080 designs and then Katoki) and/or Early=Okawara vs Late=others models and models like SC and SP are only applying the same sniper upgrades onto the two different GM bases.

The main problem of this theory is that SC and L, etc. are also a Lunar II models and not the Jaburo model, and later Katoki redesigns also include quite a lot of the early models, while in MSV-R, Okawara also designed quite a lot of late models as well. So the longer they have and the more new units are introduced IRL, the more likely this theory won't stand, or at least need to have more exceptions and special case rules/settings for those individual units.

Anyway, fan theory or not, after the war, the early models are upgraded as much as possible to late models with the standardisation of the RGM-79C(steming from the RGM-79[E] in-universe), since EFF has always thought that they have no real threat to fight on Earth again, they do not need to keep all those terrain specific models and thus remodelled them into general purpose models as far as possible. However, the RAG-79 is likely almost completely different and cannot be remodelled, and kept to be used as long as possible.

[False Prophet]

The Re-GZID ("Re-GZ Ideal") was an iterative development model produced during the attempt to develop a formal production specification of the RGZ-91 Re-GZ. Amuro considered it to be the "ideal" form of the Re-GZ, though the EFF and Anaheim passed on it because of its greater cost.

Do we have any idea how different are the Re-GZID's and the Zeta's transforming mechanism to each other beside the obvious-the backpack? Because as I see it, Amuro's idea of an ideal Re-GZ is a Zeta with wing binders and some Jegan parts... It really show how far ahead out there the Zeta's design is.

Anyway, fan theory or not, after the war, the early models are upgraded as much as possible to late models with the standardisation of the RGM-79C(steming from the RGM-79[E] in-universe), since EFF has always thought that they have no real threat to fight on Earth again, they do not need to keep all those terrain specific models and thus remodelled them into general purpose models as far as possible. However, the RAG-79 is likely almost completely different and cannot be remodelled, and kept to be used as long as possible.

I think you're onto something here. My reasoning is that all the "special features" of these specialized GM variants remain useful after the OYW--Vasuki's GM III Night Seeker is an example of that--so why won't we saw these models or at least their parts being used until the introduction of the Jegan? (Like, what is the reason for not having a dedicated long-range firing-support models AKA GM Sniper III after the Hizack Custom was retired?) The EFF must have been really, really into reducing operational cost while underestimating the threats to them to pull all of the non-standard models from service.

And speaking of the Aqua GM, I don't think it's that expensive or difficult to upgrade it if the EFF had wanted to. It's just that the Federation Navy had no money after the war but had tons of better performed machines from Zeon. It really raised the question though: How big of a dead end is Australia for their coastal protection be manned by Aqua GM and Gundam Marine instead of something like the Z'Gok?

[Seto Kaiba]

Do we have any idea how different are the Re-GZID's and the Zeta's transforming mechanism to each other beside the obvious-the backpack? Because as I see it, Amuro's idea of an ideal Re-GZ is a Zeta with wing binders and some Jegan parts... It really show how far ahead out there the Zeta's design is.

The Re-GZID's transformation mechanism is pretty basic... and a lot of it is actually tied up in the Back Weapons System. Without the BWS, the Re-GZID really can't transform into any useful shape.

For what it's worth, I think there's a much sounder argument for the Re-GZID being a demonstration of how badly flawed the whole Transformable Mobile Suit concept is. What you gain in operational versatility outside of a few very specific circumstances isn't very useful, and you're paying for it with a significant increase to the initial and operating cost of the Mobile Suit and a not-insignificant decrease in reliability and durability. Waverider mode is simply not as good as having a real fighter aircraft in the air, and you're restricting the kinds of equipment that it can carry as a Mobile Suit as well.

The Re-GZID's big advantage was that its Back Weapons System was set up to offer the option to deploy it as both non-transformable and transformable MS based on need.

I think you're onto something here. My reasoning is that all the "special features" of these specialized GM variants remain useful after the OYW--Vasuki's GM III Night Seeker is an example of that--so why won't we saw these models or at least their parts being used until the introduction of the Jegan? (Like, what is the reason for not having a dedicated long-range firing-support models AKA GM Sniper III after the Hizack Custom was retired?) The EFF must have been really, really into reducing operational cost while underestimating the threats to them to pull all of the non-standard models from service.

Underestimating threats doesn't even need to come into it... we're talking about the logistical requirements of a global military force that's operating thousands upon thousands of incredibly complex mechanized weapons. The way you keep costs down when you're maintaining a large number of vehicles is standardization. Each and every non-standard part is another piece of equipment the quartermaster corps have to monitor the lifecycle of, make orders for, transport, store, and track. Ordering small batch specialist parts costs substantially more than a bulk order for mass manufactured parts.

Operating large numbers of different models and variants is a logistical nightmare scenario.

That fact is even directly acknowledged by the Principality of Zeon in the One Year War, that being the reason for the United Maintenance Plan. There was little to no parts commonality between many models of Zeon MS, and it made for a logistical nightmare scenario to supply troops in the field. So they instituted a plan to mandate some level of standardization in Mobile Suit parts design and equipment design so that different models of MS could be using the same replacement parts and weapons to streamline manufacturing and logistical processes. The rather lazy compliance with the Unified Maintenance Plan helped strain the Zeon military's logistical chain and made it easier for the Federation to exhaust Zeon's forces.

The Federation's own situation was less awful since they mainly had just the one mass-production Mobile Suit for the One Year War, but maintaining twenty or thirty different hastily improvised variants is a lot more costly than engineering one or two variants that can do everything those twenty or thirty variants could but perhaps a little less well. You don't NEED a GM Sniper to deploy the beam sniper rifle... and if you enhance the sensors that are built into the rifle, a regular GM can shoot nearly as well as the improvised sniper GM. That's why later on in the UC you see the mass-produced MS's having few variants that have near-total parts commonality, usually differing only in a few minor optional systems or armor segments (e.g. the Jegan D vs. the Jegan De vs. the Jegan S).

And speaking of the Aqua GM, I don't think it's that expensive or difficult to upgrade it if the EFF had wanted to. It's just that the Federation Navy had no money after the war but had tons of better performed machines from Zeon. It really raised the question though: How big of a dead end is Australia for their coastal protection be manned by Aqua GM and Gundam Marine instead of something like the Z'Gok?

It's not even that... there wasn't a perceived need for an amphibious Mobile Suit after the One Year War ended and the Federation was no longer fighting a planetary invasion. The Aqua GM was an unwieldy, poorly designed, piece of garbage that wasn't good at the one job it was designed to do. The Federation focused its efforts on defending against space-based threats, because that's where the Zeonic remnants were for the most part.

[False Prophet]

Points taken, but for the United Maintenance Plan I'd like to add that it created even more problems for Zeon. Parts compatibility within the plan does not mean parts compatibility outside the plan AKA there are things that are not shared between, say, the Zaku IIF and Zaku II FZ, or the Dom and Dom Funf. On top of that, the UMP means Zeonic and Zimmad would have had to retool a big chunk of their production lines this late into the war. It's going to be a disaster. Had the plan being implemented after Zeon had won the war, it'd had made more sense.

Secondly, let's me ask this: How many times do we actually see a standard Jegan or Jegan Type D use specialized equipments? What I'm trying to say is that your standard Jegan are armed to do the bare minimum, and it feels like they are not meant to directly confront the enemies. The Re-ZEL on the other hand... It gives me a post-Obama US Army vibe, whereas the regular forces are meant to occupy and are armed as such, while the special forces do all the actually killing. Which is not that far from the truth, since Sleeves in many way is a glorified government-backed terrorist group.

I'd go a step further and say that the Jegan Escort, Jegan ECOAS, Jegan A2 are your Tier 2 special forces, the ReZEL is Tier 1, and the normal Jegan is the grunt, and anything before the GM III are the reserves. Only when things get hot that they start bringing out the good stuffs to give to the grunts AKA the Stark Jegan. (I've heard stories from veterans that certain things like body armors and gun scopes are never issued to the regular forces unless they are being deployed in a warzone.)

(And, it really put into perspective how big the pressure on Riddhe was for him to prove his salt in Londo Bell.)

[MythSearcher]

The Re-GZID's transformation mechanism is pretty basic... and a lot of it is actually tied up in the Back Weapons System. Without the BWS, the Re-GZID really can't transform into any useful shape.

For what it's worth, I think there's a much sounder argument for the Re-GZID being a demonstration of how badly flawed the whole Transformable Mobile Suit concept is. What you gain in operational versatility outside of a few very specific circumstances isn't very useful, and you're paying for it with a significant increase to the initial and operating cost of the Mobile Suit and a not-insignificant decrease in reliability and durability. Waverider mode is simply not as good as having a real fighter aircraft in the air, and you're restricting the kinds of equipment that it can carry as a Mobile Suit as well.

The Re-GZID's big advantage was that its Back Weapons System was set up to offer the option to deploy it as both non-transformable and transformable MS based on need.

I like to think that how one of the realistic design camp really hated TMS but still are ordered to do so, so they keep making those demonstration of how badly those are.

Funnily, Katoki loved the transformation and combination MSs, but he is the one designing the FF-08WR/GB AMBAC fighters that made the point about TMS being stupid.

Underestimating threats doesn't even need to come into it... we're talking about the logistical requirements of a global military force that's operating thousands upon thousands of incredibly complex mechanized weapons. The way you keep costs down when you're maintaining a large number of vehicles is standardization. Each and every non-standard part is another piece of equipment the quartermaster corps have to monitor the lifecycle of, make orders for, transport, store, and track. Ordering small batch specialist parts costs substantially more than a bulk order for mass manufactured parts.

Operating large numbers of different models and variants is a logistical nightmare scenario.

Well, it may not be that much of a logistical issue if ground and desert types are just those with air filters added on them. At least this is what some of the WWII fighters' desert type are. Most of the other parts are the same, only an air filter is placed in the air intake for the engine.(which creates other problems when not fighting in the specific terrain)
And if you think about it, any MS with a thermonuclear jet engine is going to be much more efficient than a thermonuclear rocket engine, so it should really be implemented for ground units.

That fact is even directly acknowledged by the Principality of Zeon in the One Year War, that being the reason for the United Maintenance Plan. There was little to no parts commonality between many models of Zeon MS, and it made for a logistical nightmare scenario to supply troops in the field. So they instituted a plan to mandate some level of standardization in Mobile Suit parts design and equipment design so that different models of MS could be using the same replacement parts and weapons to streamline manufacturing and logistical processes. The rather lazy compliance with the Unified Maintenance Plan helped strain the Zeon military's logistical chain and made it easier for the Federation to exhaust Zeon's forces.

Just the ammo they need to deal with is a nightmare. It's like they have to have ammo in every other 5mm increments for whatever reason.
Can't remember if there is a 35mm, but sure they have 40mm, 55mm, 60mm, 75mm, 85mm, 90mm, 100mm, 105mm, 110mm, 115mm, 120mm, 175mm, 680mm, etc.
The EFF isn't much better, they also have 40mm, 60mm, 90mm, 100mm, 105mm, 120mm, 150mm, 155mm, 180mm, 200mm, 220mm, 240mm, etc.

The Federation's own situation was less awful since they mainly had just the one mass-production Mobile Suit for the One Year War, but maintaining twenty or thirty different hastily improvised variants is a lot more costly than engineering one or two variants that can do everything those twenty or thirty variants could but perhaps a little less well. You don't NEED a GM Sniper to deploy the beam sniper rifle... and if you enhance the sensors that are built into the rifle, a regular GM can shoot nearly as well as the improvised sniper GM. That's why later on in the UC you see the mass-produced MS's having few variants that have near-total parts commonality, usually differing only in a few minor optional systems or armor segments (e.g. the Jegan D vs. the Jegan De vs. the Jegan S).

Oh, well, the long beam sniper rifle isn't just about the sensors, when the GM[G] used it, it needed an extra cooling unit.
And the GM sniper(both variants) aren't really that much better in sensor range than the regular GM, the rifle itself is way overspec to have an error of a few cm in 1000km, which would mean all of the Gaws on Earth are done for it anything has a 30km sensor range uses one, doesn't even have to be a MS, just a truck with a generator able to fire the gun is enough.

I think the original MSV GMs are still reasonable to some point. The GM Light armour is only a unit with less armour, so logistics shouldn't be too much of a problem.(Any GM with those armour attached is a light armour GM)
Sniper custom can just be that sensor with the gun, so if they ship the two together it would eliminate most of the problems. The trainer is just a double seat version.

It's not even that... there wasn't a perceived need for an amphibious Mobile Suit after the One Year War ended and the Federation was no longer fighting a planetary invasion. The Aqua GM was an unwieldy, poorly designed, piece of garbage that wasn't good at the one job it was designed to do. The Federation focused its efforts on defending against space-based threats, because that's where the Zeonic remnants were for the most part.

Well, the Aqua GM is one of the oldest OYW model still used in 0096, so they just used it as long as possible.

I think you're onto something here. My reasoning is that all the "special features" of these specialized GM variants remain useful after the OYW--Vasuki's GM III Night Seeker is an example of that--so why won't we saw these models or at least their parts being used until the introduction of the Jegan? (Like, what is the reason for not having a dedicated long-range firing-support models AKA GM Sniper III after the Hizack Custom was retired?) The EFF must have been really, really into reducing operational cost while underestimating the threats to them to pull all of the non-standard models from service.

When they standardise the GMs, they probably do not manufacture those parts any more.
Well, we know Titans still have their own 79SP with some upgrades:
https://gundam.fandom.com/wiki/File:Ana ... ground.jpg
Anaheim Lab got one.
But if they stop producing the parts, the remaining ones will use up sooner or later, and other than maybe those units already are at better performance than the standard models and are used by those ace pilots, they really don't have any reason to keep the other variants. It is not just a cost issue, but also a performance and logistics problem here. Any standardised models can be shipped to anywhere and fight with roughly the same specs, any other variants cannot do so. And at a certain point, it really is just like what Seto said. Any GM with the long beam rifle can perform sniping without any problem, so why have a dedicated model for it? The GM snipers(both versions) seem to be just the best performance units out there and should be able to perform other tasks better than the regular GMs, so why not just call them as special units?

And speaking of the Aqua GM, I don't think it's that expensive or difficult to upgrade it if the EFF had wanted to. It's just that the Federation Navy had no money after the war but had tons of better performed machines from Zeon. It really raised the question though: How big of a dead end is Australia for their coastal protection be manned by Aqua GM and Gundam Marine instead of something like the Z'Gok?

I think they are hard to upgrade because while they used the GM as a base, they likely have changed the frame quite a bit to accommodate the water pressure and modified the thing a bit too much for under water usage.

[Seto Kaiba]

Points taken, but for the United Maintenance Plan I'd like to add that it created even more problems for Zeon. [...]

It did, but mainly because adherence to the United Maintenance Plan was lackluster at best and there were still a lot of "pet projects" from the Principality's top brass in the works making it more difficult to streamline both parts production and new MS production.

On top of that, the UMP means Zeonic and Zimmad would have had to retool a big chunk of their production lines this late into the war. It's going to be a disaster. Had the plan being implemented after Zeon had won the war, it'd had made more sense.

It would have, and did, streamline production to a certain extent because they were able to single-source some parts and make weapons cross-compatible.

The problem is that it didn't occur to them to do it like that from the start the way anyone sane would've.

Secondly, let's me ask this: How many times do we actually see a standard Jegan or Jegan Type D use specialized equipments?

Fairly often... the Stark Jegan is just a Jegan D with some optional bolt-on hardware, for instance. So is ECOAS's Jegan De and the Jegan DEW.

What I'm trying to say is that your standard Jegan are armed to do the bare minimum, and it feels like they are not meant to directly confront the enemies.

The RGM-89D Jegan Type D is a Main Mobile Suit, the standard front line Mobile Suit of the Earth Federation Forces made to fill most any operational role.

The Re-ZEL on the other hand... It gives me a post-Obama US Army vibe, whereas the regular forces are meant to occupy and are armed as such, while the special forces do all the actually killing. Which is not that far from the truth, since Sleeves in many way is a glorified government-backed terrorist group.

... tell us you know nothing about the armed forces without saying you know nothing about the armed forces.

The RGM-89 Jegan is a true multipurpose Mobile Suit, designed to be used by every branch of the Earth Federation Forces including special forces groups like Londo Bell. It's designed to be able to take a wide variety of armament options and operate practically anywhere. It's also designed to be economical to operate in large numbers. In UC 0093, most of Londo Bell's force was made up of Jegans and even in UC 0096 about a third of its pilots are piloting Jegans.

The RGZ-95 ReZEL is a dedicated special forces Mobile Suit. It's more expensive, but it's made to fill a few specific roles with higher performance than the Jegan can but that comes with the tradeoff at being worse in others and it having a higher price tag and requiring more optional equipment that only it can use. It's basically in Londo Bell's inventory to fight any ace custom or Newtype MS's the Zeon remnants might've had kicking around.

Well, it may not be that much of a logistical issue if ground and desert types are just those with air filters added on them. At least this is what some of the WWII fighters' desert type are. Most of the other parts are the same, only an air filter is placed in the air intake for the engine.(which creates other problems when not fighting in the specific terrain)
And if you think about it, any MS with a thermonuclear jet engine is going to be much more efficient than a thermonuclear rocket engine, so it should really be implemented for ground units.

Some of them are like that, yeah... but there's a lot of variants that have hardware differences to do one narrowly defined job.

The thermonuclear jet engine might be more efficient, but the thermonuclear rocket's going to be a LOT simpler mechanically... and thus easier to produce and maintain.

Just the ammo they need to deal with is a nightmare. It's like they have to have ammo in every other 5mm increments for whatever reason.
Can't remember if there is a 35mm, but sure they have 40mm, 55mm, 60mm, 75mm, 85mm, 90mm, 100mm, 105mm, 110mm, 115mm, 120mm, 175mm, 680mm, etc.
The EFF isn't much better, they also have 40mm, 60mm, 90mm, 100mm, 105mm, 120mm, 150mm, 155mm, 180mm, 200mm, 220mm, 240mm, etc.

The Principality of Zeon quartermaster corps must've been run entirely on meth tablets and double-caff coffee to keep up with all that.

Well, the Aqua GM is one of the oldest OYW model still used in 0096, so they just used it as long as possible.

Yeah, though why they used it that long is a mystery for the ages... at least in-universe.

[MythSearcher]

Some of them are like that, yeah... but there's a lot of variants that have hardware differences to do one narrowly defined job.

The thermonuclear jet engine might be more efficient, but the thermonuclear rocket's going to be a LOT simpler mechanically... and thus easier to produce and maintain.

Yes, but considering they have thermonuclear hovers working off thermonuclear jet engines, and it is quite common even on multi-purpose(all terrain) machines like Rick Dias, it shouldn't be that hard to maintain a standard model engine for all of the ground types.

The Principality of Zeon quartermaster corps must've been run entirely on meth tablets and double-caff coffee to keep up with all that.

I will have real trouble knowing the difference of the 150mm and the 155mm round without a measuring device. Probably can't even with a regular ruler.

I've heard that the PRC used Russian built 125mm cannons which can fire the 120mm rounds the ROC was using, but the ROC's 120mm cannons cannot use the 125mm rounds. Wonder how practical it is for them to just fire whatever round with a slightly bigger cannon. But still, there are just way too many sizes to deal with, and it is not just the rounds, the different sized barrels is going to be a bigger headache, since they do not just have different calibres, they have different barrel lengths on different machine models as well. The 75mm finger barrel is definitely not the same as the 75mm gatling barrel, and they are both for MS-07 variants.

Oh, and yes, the Zeon have a 35mm gun, the MS-07B-3's gatling shield is 35mm...(and to make it worse, they look pretty similar in size as the 75mm finger barrels of the MS-07B)

They are probably on something stronger than meth.

Yeah, though why they used it that long is a mystery for the ages... at least in-universe.

Considering they still use the RMV-01 Guntank II, they just have them around, likely because no one is willing to take the responsibility to write them off.
I can fully understand how this works in government terms because I have worked in 3 different government departments and over two dozen of offices, once some staff in that particular office missed the general disposal memo at the time, and those staff retired/changed office, etc. That particular office will just keep using the items until it actual malfunctions because disposal is a pain, some times to a point where copy and pasting the same justification of why they still have that old machine running every year to ask for new parts is actually much easier to do so(while you actually only need to attach the original disposal memo to write off the item, finding government documentation is the pain and if you missed the original memo, you likely don't know it existed to begin with. And of course new recruits will not know that memo existed.). 4 years ago in my last office they still have to purchase new external floppy disc drives and I was the one writing off 6 pentium computers.

[Seto Kaiba]

Yes, but considering they have thermonuclear hovers working off thermonuclear jet engines, and it is quite common even on multi-purpose(all terrain) machines like Rick Dias, it shouldn't be that hard to maintain a standard model engine for all of the ground types.

Granted, the thermonuclear turbine-based hover system is used on a number of production models... though from what I've read in coverage of MS IGLOO it sounds like they had some serious reliability issues early on. The Dom and Rick Dom use the same Saturn engine developed for the Zudah that was prone to spontaneously blowing up according to the MS IGLOO Mission Complete book.

I can definitely see that early unstable track record having soured attitudes toward them in the early post-OYW period. That and the thermonuclear rockets being far simpler mechanically would make them more attractive if the performance wasn't absolutely necessary the way it was for the Dom and Rick Dom.

I will have real trouble knowing the difference of the 150mm and the 155mm round without a measuring device. Probably can't even with a regular ruler.

Depending on the size of the round, military ammunition usually has information about the caliber and cartridge painted or engraved on the base or side of the case. For larger rounds, this will also include the designation, its warhead type, and a lot/batch number. Those markings are meant to prevent exactly that kind of confusion.

They are probably on something stronger than meth.

"Please sir, the men haven't slept since UC 0077..."

Considering they still use the RMV-01 Guntank II, they just have them around, likely because no one is willing to take the responsibility to write them off.

That and, out of universe, Unicorn was basically an attempt to get as many MSV into animation as possible.

[MythSearcher]

Granted, the thermonuclear turbine-based hover system is used on a number of production models... though from what I've read in coverage of MS IGLOO it sounds like they had some serious reliability issues early on. The Dom and Rick Dom use the same Saturn engine developed for the Zudah that was prone to spontaneously blowing up according to the MS IGLOO Mission Complete book.

I can definitely see that early unstable track record having soured attitudes toward them in the early post-OYW period. That and the thermonuclear rockets being far simpler mechanically would make them more attractive if the performance wasn't absolutely necessary the way it was for the Dom and Rick Dom.

I don't have the book at hand now, but as I recall, the MS Igloo settings had something about the engine on the Dom was an improved version?

Also, since the Zudah main issue only comes when it was going at full thrust, while the MS-09 and 09R both have less than half of its full thrust(58200 total for all of the hoverjet thrusters and 22000 for one of the two thrusters vs 58700 for a single thruster) so they probably are pretty stable at that thrust.

Depending on the size of the round, military ammunition usually has information about the caliber and cartridge painted or engraved on the base or side of the case. For larger rounds, this will also include the designation, its warhead type, and a lot/batch number. Those markings are meant to prevent exactly that kind of confusion.

Yes, I understand they will have those on the rounds, but it I am the logistics department with thousands of round in front of me, I'd have serious trouble looking at those things(probably will have a hard time just picking up some of those bigger rounds)

"Please sir, the men haven't slept since UC 0077..."

"Just keep working, we need larger calibre to win the war."
"But that 90mm is a new round to replace the 120..."
*Bang*
"Anyone else has a problem?"

That and, out of universe, Unicorn was basically an attempt to get as many MSV into animation as possible.

We have this for older shows as well, we see a Gaza-E in the Zeta movies, in a form where even hardcore fans have trouble recognising...
We also have quite a few in Turn A as well, Tomino just love having old obsolete machines appear in later shows.

[Seto Kaiba]

I don't have the book at hand now, but as I recall, the MS Igloo settings had something about the engine on the Dom was an improved version?

It mentions the final Zudah engine (Saturn) was an improved version of the earlier prototype engine with the code name "Mercury" that was even less reliable... but also says the (problematic) Saturn engine from the EMS-10 Zudah was reused for Zimmad's MS-09 Dom series.

Yes, I understand they will have those on the rounds, but it I am the logistics department with thousands of round in front of me, I'd have serious trouble looking at those things(probably will have a hard time just picking up some of those bigger rounds)

If you, a logistics officer in the Principality of Zeon's quartermaster corps, are handling and packing rounds for the various machine guns, rotary cannons, and autocannons one by one... you're going to have a REALLY bad time. I'd expect them to be handling ammunition by the crate or the cargo container only.

Some of those rounds would absolutely be heavy enough to be awkward to handle individually... your bog standard 155mm anti-tank round weighs about 18.6kg/41.1lb, your average 90mm artillery-type HE shell being around 11kg/24lb. Forklifts are a logistics officer's best friend... as long as you don't count the guy with the still made of surplus machine gun parts.