Nomenclature with Weapons on a Ship (UC)

[Underrated GM Custom]

Good afternoon everyone,

I've been wondering about the naming conventions for weapons on the various ships in Gundam and I'm hoping you can help unravel the mystery here for me. I was looking over the various types of Salamis and Musais in the various series and then I noticed something interesting when I looked at the pegasus class, the names changed on the weapons. So I've been wondering if there's a difference here or just a different way of writing the same thing. Here are a few ship examples

MPC = Megaparticle Cannon. MP Gun = Megaparticle Gun

Salamis (0079)
6x MPC

Salamis (0083)
3x 2-barrel MPC
7x Main Gun

Salamis (0087)
2 x 2-barrel main gun;
5 x main gun;
6 x 2-barrel secondary gun;
4 x secondary gun;

Pegasus (0079)
2-barrel 580mm main gun;
2 x 2-barrel MP Gun

Pegasus (0083)
2 x 2-barrel MP Gun
2 x 2-barrel secondary gun;

Irish (0087)
2 x 2-barrel main beam gun
5 x beam gun

Dogosse Giar (0087)
3 x main gun turret, mounted on underside;
2 x 2-barrel main gun turret, mounted on part and starboard sides of middle section;
4 x secondary gun turret, mounted on top of middle section and on port and starboard rear hangars;
4 x 2-barrel secondary gun turret, mounted above and below main hangars;
2 x 3-barrel secondary gun turret, mounted in middle section;
(I'm assuming the tertiary guns listed are the AA guns for the Dogosse Giar so I excluded those)

Observations: So in 0079 we have both MPC and MP Guns. The Salamis gains 7x main guns in 0083, by 0087 it refers to all its weapons as main guns and secondary guns. The Dogosse Giar being a mighty battleship has guns all over its hull.

Both the Pegasus and Irish use MP Gun, while escort ships like the Salamis use MPC. I'm curious if they are synonymous or if there is a difference. Normally, when you think beam cannon vs beam gun, the cannon is the more powerful weapon but interestingly here the MP Guns are on the bigger ships.

Now let's look at some Zeon ships.

Musai (0079)
3x 2-barrel MPC

Musai (0083)
5x 2-barrel MPC

Musai (0087)
3x 2-barrel MPC
2x secondary gun

Endra (0087)
7x MP Gun

Zanzibar (0079)
2-barrel Main Gun
4x MP Gun

Zanzibar II (0083)
2x 2-barrel Main Gun
4x 2-barrel secondary Gun (different placement than the original)

Chivvay (0079)
2x 3-barrel MPC

Gwazine (0079)
3x 2-barrel Main gun
10x 2-barrel Secondary gun

Gwanban (0083)
6x Main Gun
3x MPC

Gwandan (0087)
4x 2-barrel Main gun
4x Secondary gun
10x 2-barrel Secondary gun

Observations: The Zanzibar is most similar to the White Base sporting a main gun and then MP Guns. Both MPC and MP Gun are used on all ships, the Endra is the first Musai-adjacent ship to use MP Guns. Main-Gun is only on larger ships.

So with the above information I had the following questions:
1. Is there a difference between Mega Particle Gun and Mega Particle Cannon on Ships? If so what is the difference generally speaking?
2. Are Secondary guns a separate category or just a quick-hand reference to a type of mega particle weapon that isn't a main gun?
3. Does the definition of "main-gun" change on a ship by ship basis or is it a generally accepted category (i.e. all 500mm or larger guns are main guns)
4. Do any ships besides the White Base mention what size their guns are?

Thanks!

[Seto Kaiba]

I've been wondering about the naming conventions for weapons on the various ships in Gundam and I'm hoping you can help unravel the mystery here for me. I was looking over the various types of Salamis and Musais in the various series and then I noticed something interesting when I looked at the pegasus class, the names changed on the weapons. So I've been wondering if there's a difference here or just a different way of writing the same thing. Here are a few ship examples

Eh... it kind of feels like you're muddying the waters here yourself by using terms that aren't in the specs.

So with the above information I had the following questions:
1. Is there a difference between Mega Particle Gun and Mega Particle Cannon on Ships? If so what is the difference generally speaking?

No, that appears to be nothing more than a translation artifact. It would appear that different translators working on the series at different times chose different translations of the kanji 砲. The Japanese specs always refer to all weapons of that type as メガ粒子砲 ("mega particle cannon"). The kanji 砲 can be read as "gun", in the same sense that an artillery piece can be called a "gun" (from "field gun"), and it can also be read as "artillery" or "ordnance". I would say the most proper reading is "cannon".

2. Are Secondary guns a separate category or just a quick-hand reference to a type of mega particle weapon that isn't a main gun?

No such distinction is drawn in the original Japanese specs.

EDIT: I've found one real exception to this so far, but the below is still true...

The only distinction drawn between the ship-mounted mega particle cannons is the number of barrels per turret.

The term "main gun" (主砲) doesn't refer to mega particle cannons at all.

3. Does the definition of "main-gun" change on a ship by ship basis or is it a generally accepted category (i.e. all 500mm or larger guns are main guns)

No... the term "main gun" (主砲), a truly awful translation choice IMO, actually means "main battery" in the sense of a warship or fortification's heaviest emplaced cannons. In Gundam, that specifically means conventional cannons that fire shells (not mega particle weapons).

4. Do any ships besides the White Base mention what size their guns are?

The Pegasus-class is one of the only examples I can recall... being one of the few ships to mount an artillery piece firing hard rounds instead of going all-in on beam weaponry.

[Seto Kaiba]

OK, yeah I see the source of the confusion now... the English language resources like the Gundam wikia are extremely inconsistent in their terminology. Like the Gwazine-class, where the wiki completely fails to mention that all of its guns except the point-defense ones are mega particle cannons.

[E08]

To be fair, the use of the terms "main guns" (主砲) and "secondary guns" (副砲) instead of mega particle cannons as seen in the Salamis (0087) example listed above are in some japanese publications such as the Gundam Perfect File series of books and the Mobile Suit Gundam Ship & Aerospace Plane Encyclopedia. These books also sometimes add the main/secondary guns description to the mega particle cannons as seen with the Irish example.

[MythSearcher]

No, that appears to be nothing more than a translation artifact. It would appear that different translators working on the series at different times chose different translations of the kanji 砲. The Japanese specs always refer to all weapons of that type as メガ粒子砲 ("mega particle cannon"). The kanji 砲 can be read as "gun", in the same sense that an artillery piece can be called a "gun" (from "field gun"), and it can also be read as "artillery" or "ordnance". I would say the most proper reading is "cannon".

But is cannon canon? (Sorry, just can't resist.)

Naval terms seems to favour guns(like 16" guns, 18" guns)

You do get ZZ's head cannon called High Mega Cannon, or FAZZ's Hyper Mega Cannon, S's back Beam Cannon, etc. actually called cannon, as Katakana カノン. But the similarly high power Beam Smart Gun uses gun.
Worse offenders like RX-77 series(except 77-4) and FA-78-1 & 3, RX-78-6 gives us キャノン砲 Cannon gun...

Anyway, most of the listed terms are confusing because of translation, and the Japanese terms used aren't really helping at all.

[Underrated GM Custom]

All the terms I pulled were from MAHQ not from Gundam Wikia.

I'm glad to hear MPC and MP Gun are one and the same and just a translation artifact. Main Gun = Main battery makes plenty of sense, however, I don't think it is referring exclusively to non-beam weaponry. As E08 points there are several Zeta ships who use main gun and I don't believe they are using solid shell cannons.

But is cannon canon? (Sorry, just can't resist.)

Hah, thanks I appreciate a good Dad joke.

[Seto Kaiba]

To be fair, the use of the terms "main guns" (主砲) and "secondary guns" (副砲) instead of mega particle cannons as seen in the Salamis (0087) example listed above are in some japanese publications such as the Gundam Perfect File series of books and the Mobile Suit Gundam Ship & Aerospace Plane Encyclopedia. These books also sometimes add the main/secondary guns description to the mega particle cannons as seen with the Irish example.

The books I have, the vast majority of which are production-contemporary, definitely do not list it in that manner.

But is cannon canon? (Sorry, just can't resist.)

The conspicuous English used in several of the older books that I have uses the more ambiguous term "mega particle weapon (MPW)" when discussing the technology itself, then uses "cannon" to refer to mega particle weapons that're ship-mounted and "gun" for MS-carried ones.

Naval terms seems to favour guns(like 16" guns, 18" guns)

They do, though formally a ship-mounted "gun" like that would be considered a naval cannon. How appropriate naval terminology is for a space force is another matter, though.

Anyway, most of the listed terms are confusing because of translation, and the Japanese terms used aren't really helping at all.

It's more consistent than the English fansites, by a fair margin.

[MythSearcher]

They do, though formally a ship-mounted "gun" like that would be considered a naval cannon. How appropriate naval terminology is for a space force is another matter, though.

I guess if they call them with naval terms ships, cruisers, battleships, etc. They are sticking to the naval naming convention.

It's more consistent than the English fansites, by a fair margin.

But the term 砲 is definitely what causes the confusion.
I can see why fansites and even official translation will translate the same word 砲 into either cannon or gun.

[hitokirigarou]

Wait, the main guns on the UC ships fire conventional shells? In animation, what they fire look more like energy beams.

I always assumed that if it's not a mega particle cannon, then it's just a beam cannon/gun.

[MythSearcher]

Wait, the main guns on the UC ships fire conventional shells? In animation, what they fire look more like energy beams.

I always assumed that if it's not a mega particle cannon, then it's just a beam cannon/gun.

Most of them are MPC(beam guns are firing mega particles as well, there's actually no difference in UC, you can maybe think of it as beam guns/cannons/rifles are those using the e-cap technology but it is not officially stated as so)
A very small portion of them are shell firing guns, like the Pegasus class's 580mm main guns. Though it is always fun to debate why they don't call the MPC onboard as their main battery, those are definitely depicted as much more powerful. It seems to be a tradition in anime since at least Space Battleship Yamato, whether they do not count the most devastating weapon onboard as their main weapon, likely because they don't use it as often as their main weapons. It makes sense for Yamato, much less so for WB.

主砲 means the main guns used on the ship(like the main battery[主砲] on the Yamato are the 460mm and the secondary battery[副砲] are the 155mm), it doesn't really signifies if it fires shells or beam.

[Seto Kaiba]

But the term 砲 is definitely what causes the confusion.
I can see why fansites and even official translation will translate the same word 砲 into either cannon or gun.

Eh... I'd argue that it's not the fault of the kanji 砲, it's that when the series started to make its way westward an official line on how to translate certain terms wasn't established in a timely manner. (e.g. how we ended up with the "Duchy of Zeon" in certain releases instead of the official Principality of Zeon)

Wait, the main guns on the UC ships fire conventional shells? In animation, what they fire look more like energy beams.

I always assumed that if it's not a mega particle cannon, then it's just a beam cannon/gun.

This goes all the way back to the original question's answer...

There's no actual technological or operational distinction between a "Mega Particle Cannon", "Mega Particle Gun", "Beam Cannon", or "Beam Gun". They're all the same thing.

The confusion surrounding the usage of the English term "main gun" is that the way the Japanese publications that are contemporary to many UC Gundam titles don't draw any distinction between the different mega particle cannon turrets and emplacements in those terms. They're not listed in terms of "main" and "sub" or "primary' and "secondary', they're usually only discussed in terms of "X many Y-barrels mega particle cannon". The kanji that is translated "main gun" (more correctly "main battery") is used in those publications to refer to an extremely large bore conventional cannon like the bow-mounted turret on the Pegasus-class. Based on some of the replies, that usage seems to have changed a bit in later compilation artbooks such that they will tag a ship's largest mega particle cannons as its main battery.

[hitokirigarou]

Aside from the White Base, what other UC ships have shell-firing guns?

[Seto Kaiba]

Aside from the White Base, what other UC ships have shell-firing guns?

The Zanzibar-class mobile suit carrier is listed as having a 2-barrel main gun that fires explosive shells.

[Underrated GM Custom]

主砲 means the main guns used on the ship(like the main battery[主砲] on the Yamato are the 460mm and the secondary battery[副砲] are the 155mm), it doesn't really signifies if it fires shells or beam.

It's also possible they are using main and secondary battery to distinguish between roles instead of just in sizing. For instance on WW2 battleships the main battery may be the cannons used in broadsides while the secondary batteries are the forward and aft guns that are dual purpose for use against ships or aircraft. The Endra and the Irish are two examples that have a very pronounced aft gun. (The Endra also has that curious gun mounted in the middle of the ship whose field of fire appears to include the Endra itself hah!)

When it comes to warships in Gundam it may be the opposite. The main battery may be the forward facing cannons fired at the start of the battle while the secondary batteries come in to play once the enemy has pushed close enough that they can no longer use the main battery while evading.

Then we've got the 0083 Musai which looks like it would fulfill both typologies. It's 2x secondary guns are much smaller than the main battery and I would assume it is also turret style to deal with incoming threats with a different angle of approach.

Lastly, main and secondary could also be a useful distinction for what the ships is able to fire at once. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that many warships in Gundam cannot fire all their MPC simultaneously. For instance if a ship has 11 MPC, but can only fire 7 at once then having 7 of them designated as the main battery would be useful for the crew when the Captain gives the order to fire.

[Seto Kaiba]

It's also possible they are using main and secondary battery to distinguish between roles instead of just in sizing. [...]

There is some minor support for the idea from older books, but mainly in terms of solid ammo cannons like the 580mm mount on the Pegasus-class being intended for planetside operation and indirect fire rather than direct fire engagements.

When it comes to warships in Gundam it may be the opposite. The main battery may be the forward facing cannons fired at the start of the battle while the secondary batteries come in to play once the enemy has pushed close enough that they can no longer use the main battery while evading.

Origin at least supports the idea that most of the space warships of the One Year War were designed around minimizing their frontal aspect for head-on engagements. MS IGLOO kinda throws that into doubt since the version of the Battle of Loum shown there had the Federation and Zeon fleets exchanging broadsides like a naval battle from the second world war.

Then we've got the 0083 Musai which looks like it would fulfill both typologies. It's 2x secondary guns are much smaller than the main battery and I would assume it is also turret style to deal with incoming threats with a different angle of approach.

Writeups for the Musai Kai-class do describe the two additional mega particle turrets - and the additional AA guns - as being intended to improve the ship's defensive ability by providing better coverage of its blind spots.

Lastly, main and secondary could also be a useful distinction for what the ships is able to fire at once. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that many warships in Gundam cannot fire all their MPC simultaneously. For instance if a ship has 11 MPC, but can only fire 7 at once then having 7 of them designated as the main battery would be useful for the crew when the Captain gives the order to fire.

Descriptions of ships like the Musai Kai and of mega particle cannon operation in general would argue against this interpretation. The description of ship-based mega particle cannons points to each mega particle cannon on a ship having its own separate particle condenser. The cannons can effectively "bank" a charge until it's needed in a manner functionally all but identical to a beam rifle's e-cap.

The description of the Musai and Musai Kai points to the main limitations on mega particle cannon rate of fire being the quantity of Minovsky particles the ship's reactor can produce at battle power and the ship's heat dissipation capabilities. The Musai-class is noted to have required several minutes to fully charge the three mega particle cannons it was equipped with, and the Musai Kai-class is noted to have required six additional heat sink systems in order to safely dissipate the extra waste heat.

[MythSearcher]

Eh... I'd argue that it's not the fault of the kanji 砲, it's that when the series started to make its way westward an official line on how to translate certain terms wasn't established in a timely manner. (e.g. how we ended up with the "Duchy of Zeon" in certain releases instead of the official Principality of Zeon)

That isn't really the fault of the west's translators though.
Before Bandai decided to get into the global market, the Japanese had tagged various terms in different English translations for different purposes like in books and in games(a lot of them likely just plugged the terms into auto translation programs). The main reason there is likely because they don't have an official translation and whatever publication just use their own. Still remembered the 1998 SD Gundam G Century having all these strange English names for the different fractions and that is supposed to be the year they unified all of the terms. Pretty sure they used Zion or Jion instead of Zeon before that and you get all those 0080 UNT terms instead of EFF.
The 1997 Blue Destiny game still have Duchy of Zion:
https://twitter.com/VF5SS/status/133600 ... 36459?s=20
Looking at the tweet's reply, it is also worth mentioning the Japanese made up the term 公王 in their subculture.
Some of them seems to just think that the leader of a state must be 王 without figuring out 王 means king since they have a different society structure. Maybe because before the Meiji era they are under the rule of generals instead of nobles and as you can see in the SD Sengoku stories, the top general is the leader of the Gundam country and the emperor is more or less just a statue/symbol.(Not the emperor of the opposing country, the Dark emperor shows up quite a bit of time as the main antagonist. The Light emperor showed up once fighting off another [Gundam] Dark emperor and never appeared again.)
It makes little sense to call yourself a duke or a prince if there is no higher ranked king or emperor.

Similar mistake have been made in other franchise as well, for example in the Record of Loddoss War they also have a 公王, that one is strange as it is the title of the leader of multiple states forming an alliance nation called 公国.

It's also possible they are using main and secondary battery to distinguish between roles instead of just in sizing. [...]

There is some minor support for the idea from older books, but mainly in terms of solid ammo cannons like the 580mm mount on the Pegasus-class being intended for planetside operation and indirect fire rather than direct fire engagements.

IRL the main guns are the ones used as the main offensive power of the ship(other than its MS) and the secondary guns are used more as a defensive role(while they can go anti-ship and anti-air, their smaller calibre are used against smaller ships like destroyers)
Typical fiction dumping all of the details will then give you Large=Main/primary, Small=secondary.

When it comes to warships in Gundam it may be the opposite. The main battery may be the forward facing cannons fired at the start of the battle while the secondary batteries come in to play once the enemy has pushed close enough that they can no longer use the main battery while evading.

Origin at least supports the idea that most of the space warships of the One Year War were designed around minimizing their frontal aspect for head-on engagements. MS IGLOO kinda throws that into doubt since the version of the Battle of Loum shown there had the Federation and Zeon fleets exchanging broadsides like a naval battle from the second world war.

That is why that scene in Loum is so stupid.
Okawara designed the EFSF ships to be forward facing. They can use most of their guns that way without any problem. The Magellan class is a bit strange since the side bridges blocks the aft guns, but a broadside also blocks two guns and if they really want to have the most guns fired should be the top.(only that single bottom gun is blocked) The Salamis can fire all of its guns from the top to about 20 degrees pointing forward.(again, the side bridges are blocking the aft guns but the angle being blocked isn't that much) (also, the aft guns on the Salamis looks smaller for whatever reason)
The Zeon ships are just strange. The Musai obviously can fire all of their guns forward facing, and Igloo made it worse that the turrets actually have a very limited turning angle. Using their 3D model and actually making a model(the EX model did exactly this), you can see that their square turrets cannot turn sideways unless you unplug them out first, so the scene in Loum is impossible unless they prefitted the ships with sideway pointing turrets. The Gwazine main guns are all facing forward as well. You can argue that they also want to have the secondary guns to fire during the battle but with it being at the back, I don't see the point of this.
The Chivvey is the only ship needing to be used with a broadside because of the gun arrangements.

Igloo is like the fantasy dream of the director, everything makes so little sense other than you get a bunch of idiots/psychos that do not understand what war is(which makes sense because the director is a right wing pro-military fanatic), especially when you get Igloo 2's ending...

[Seto Kaiba]

That isn't really the fault of the west's translators though.
Before Bandai decided to get into the global market, the Japanese had tagged various terms in different English translations for different purposes like in books and in games(a lot of them likely just plugged the terms into auto translation programs). The main reason there is likely because they don't have an official translation and whatever publication just use their own.

There is an element of that present, but there are a number of these (esp. with respect to weapons and Mobile Suit equipment) where the official abbreviations settled on at the outset make it contextually clear what they're supposed to be translated as.

IRL the main guns are the ones used as the main offensive power of the ship(other than its MS) and the secondary guns are used more as a defensive role(while they can go anti-ship and anti-air, their smaller calibre are used against smaller ships like destroyers)
Typical fiction dumping all of the details will then give you Large=Main/primary, Small=secondary.

Granted, that reasoning works fine for conventional cannons on which the physical size of the cannon's barrel is a direct and usually proportional indicator of its range, power, and the destructive potential of the shell delivered.

It's less applicable to directed energy weapons, though. For those, it's all about the weapon's ability to bank and channel energy and how that energy is delivered.

Of course, there may be a more obvious reason that the idea of "primary" vs "secondary" mega particle cannons is not as evident in those earlier works. The most visible starship classes in early Gundam - the Federation's Salamis-class and Principality's Musai-class, only carry one type of mega particle cannon turret.

That is why that scene in Loum is so stupid.
[...]
Igloo is like the fantasy dream of the director, everything makes so little sense other than you get a bunch of idiots/psychos that do not understand what war is(which makes sense because the director is a right wing pro-military fanatic), especially when you get Igloo 2's ending...

Poor CG model design aside, none of the spacecraft in Gundam are all that defensible. Most have MASSIVE holes in their anti-aircraft defense and anti-warship defense, almost always coinciding with the underside of the ship and rear of the ship. The underside would be understandable if these ships belonged to a blue water navy, but in a three-dimensional engagement in space having little to no defensive coverage across roughly half of the approach angles is pretty asinine.

Representing the Battle of Loum as a broadside engagement makes reasonable sense both in terms of the entire OYW's repeated homaging of the Second World War and how engagements between warships armed with cannons work. It's maneuver warfare, you don't stand off at range and just shell each other until one side gives up, you'll be approaching from the front and the two battle lines will either turn or cross each other and turn. Either way, most of the battle is going to be fought side-on to the enemy as naval battles have been since the introduction of black powder naval artillery in the 14th century. That's why you see ships like the Musai-class late type that have the side arc as the ONLY arc where they can address all of their cannons on a single target.

Takashi Imanishi's political leanings aside, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that most of Gundam (esp. its UC timeline) is just war porn at this point. MS IGLOO is not in any way unique in that respect, and while there were attempts to remind fans that that's the opposite of what the franchise is supposed to be those rebukes of its audience (e.g. War in the Pocket) largely fell on deaf ears and Gundam remains a grimdark future in which There Is Only War. (Games Workshop, call your agent.)

[MythSearcher]

There is an element of that present, but there are a number of these (esp. with respect to weapons and Mobile Suit equipment) where the official abbreviations settled on at the outset make it contextually clear what they're supposed to be translated as.

A little bit hard when you have to call something clearly reads UNT Spacy on screen EFSF, I guess?

Granted, that reasoning works fine for conventional cannons on which the physical size of the cannon's barrel is a direct and usually proportional indicator of its range, power, and the destructive potential of the shell delivered.

It's less applicable to directed energy weapons, though. For those, it's all about the weapon's ability to bank and channel energy and how that energy is delivered.

Of course, there may be a more obvious reason that the idea of "primary" vs "secondary" mega particle cannons is not as evident in those earlier works. The most visible starship classes in early Gundam - the Federation's Salamis-class and Principality's Musai-class, only carry one type of mega particle cannon turret.

Well, the main problem I see are the MPCs on the Pegasus class. They are obviously much more powerful than the 580/880mm shell firing main guns onboard.(Suddenly figured out Gundam Officials lists them as 880mm and 580mm are in brackets as alternative) The explanation Gundam Officials gave also makes no sense at all. It claims that when entering service, the big guns large ship doctrine of EFSF existed but large guns like the MPC are uncommon because it is not reliable during artillery battle, and then another paragraph goes into saying the shell firing guns have recoil and throws off the balance when fired in space so those are not designed to fire in space. Yes, I was like "What the heck are you talking about?" the first time I read that.
Both the Salamis and Magellan have MPC as their main guns, there are no ship of the line ships uses a shell firing gun other than the aircraft carrier Pegasus class.(which where designed to carry space fighters at first) And both of those ships were ordered and designed before the Pegasus class...

And it really makes little sense they don't use them as often or as powerful as they show them in various other game which depicts them as decisive strategic weapons to wipe the map clean with one shot.(I actually can't recall any scenes where those being used as such in FG) I mean, every other ship they faced have MPC as main guns, and they didn't call those by any other name like the High MPC on Nahel Argama.

Poor CG model design aside, none of the spacecraft in Gundam are all that defensible. Most have MASSIVE holes in their anti-aircraft defense and anti-warship defense, almost always coinciding with the underside of the ship and rear of the ship. The underside would be understandable if these ships belonged to a blue water navy, but in a three-dimensional engagement in space having little to no defensive coverage across roughly half of the approach angles is pretty asinine.

I am losing confidence on this one, but I remember reading a small subsection in Gundam Officials about a mobile platform on ships that moves the anti-air guns around. Can't find it for these few times I've checked, but at least makes some sense. The problem probably will be those guns on the platforms are probably too small to make a difference.

Representing the Battle of Loum as a broadside engagement makes reasonable sense both in terms of the entire OYW's repeated homaging of the Second World War and how engagements between warships armed with cannons work. It's maneuver warfare, you don't stand off at range and just shell each other until one side gives up, you'll be approaching from the front and the two battle lines will either turn or cross each other and turn. Either way, most of the battle is going to be fought side-on to the enemy as naval battles have been since the introduction of black powder naval artillery in the 14th century. That's why you see ships like the Musai-class late type that have the side arc as the ONLY arc where they can address all of their cannons on a single target.

I don't think so. Even WWII ships don't do broadside engagements like that any more. The new trend at the time is to fire at higher trajectory and hit the deck, thus new ships are designed with thicker deck armour. And ships are doing all those S curves to avoid being hit instead of getting into the ship of the line formation. Most of the WWII Battleships and Cruisers(and all of the in betweens like heavy cruisers, battlecruisers, etc.) are designed to have all of their main battery able to point at the target at about 40~45 degrees from the front(Nelson class can do it at about 20 degrees or just forward if the target is at the right distance so the last turret can point up enough to avoid hitting the middle turret. Very unlikely because the gunners and sailors onboard ignores the engineers advices and just rush in to do almost point blank firing as shown in the fight against Bismarck)

Takashi Imanishi's political leanings aside, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that most of Gundam (esp. its UC timeline) is just war porn at this point. MS IGLOO is not in any way unique in that respect, and while there were attempts to remind fans that that's the opposite of what the franchise is supposed to be those rebukes of its audience (e.g. War in the Pocket) largely fell on deaf ears and Gundam remains a grimdark future in which There Is Only War. (Games Workshop, call your agent.)

At least we can see 08th MS tried to do so until it got hijacked by Umanosuke Iida from ep. 6 onwards and became Romeo and Juliet in space...

[Deacon Blues]

There's no actual technological or operational distinction between a "Mega Particle Cannon", "Mega Particle Gun", "Beam Cannon", or "Beam Gun". They're all the same thing.

Uh... no, there is a distinct difference in the way that they all operate and this has been documented from Gundam Century all the way to the current MS Bible series.

As for translations, the first English translation came from the Entertainment Bible back in 1989 (though I'm still combing through previous material just to see). メガ粒子砲 is translated as "Mega Particle Gun," however this is a generic term for the glossary descriptor and it does point back to a previous article on mega particle cannons and beam rifles.

There have been a multitude of names for some of the initial weaponry: Minovsky Beam Weaponry (MBW), which replaced Charged Particle Weaponry (PBW). There was even MAWS (mentioned in Gundam Sentinel) that stands for Minovsky-theory Applied Weapon System.

As for 主砲 and 副砲, these have existed in setting material artwork for ships in the show for a long time as well, the Ra Cailum and Nahal Argama have them doodled on their artwork too. "Main cannon/gun" isn't a poor translation as it's been used extensively in scifi series, novels, comics, etc for generations. I don't really hear anyone saying "main battery" (though technically correct, it doesn't roll off the tongue). So, I'd caution egregiously writing it off as a poor translation. Japan has peppered old literature with this English option as well.

I am losing confidence on this one, but I remember reading a small subsection in Gundam Officials about a mobile platform on ships that moves the anti-air guns around. Can't find it for these few times I've checked, but at least makes some sense. The problem probably will be those guns on the platforms are probably too small to make a difference.

You rely entirely too much on Gundam Officials and have to realize that a lot of publications and materials have overridden this over the years (hell, even the mini Gundam Encyclopedia has). That book isn't the be-all end-all for material.

[Underrated GM Custom]

Thank you for all the responses everyone, this has been a very informative discussion!