Zeon and their unconventional non-MS equipment

[Scheuch13]

When you look at EFF their equipment is pretty straight forward and conventional in terms of lines and approach. Yet Zeon has a distinctly odd flair to everything they build. Even their earth based equipment looks as though it was designed by people who had never set foot on the planet nor had the slightest clue about things such as gravity and aerodynamic efficiency.

They havent been in space that long for them not to know how to design efficient atmospheric aircraft or ground vehicles.

Examples:
-Wappa hover recon bike

http://www.mahq.net/mecha/gundam/msgundam/wappa.htm

-Cui APC

http://www.mahq.net/mecha/gundam/msgundam/cui.htm

Hell even the Magella attack is all kinds of oddness with its super high profile and jet engines on the turret.

[Dark Duel]

They havent been in space that long for them not to know how to design efficient atmospheric aircraft or ground vehicles.

You'd think so...And yet...
Mind you, the Feddies' Don Escargot is barely better, but that one seems to be kind of a weird exception

[MythSearcher]

When you look at EFF their equipment is pretty straight forward and conventional in terms of lines and approach. Yet Zeon has a distinctly odd flair to everything they build. Even their earth based equipment looks as though it was designed by people who had never set foot on the planet nor had the slightest clue about things such as gravity and aerodynamic efficiency.

They havent been in space that long for them not to know how to design efficient atmospheric aircraft or ground vehicles.

Examples:
-Wappa hover recon bike

http://www.mahq.net/mecha/gundam/msgundam/wappa.htm

-Cui APC

http://www.mahq.net/mecha/gundam/msgundam/cui.htm

Hell even the Magella attack is all kinds of oddness with its super high profile and jet engines on the turret.

Well, I already stated my view point in the other thread, but I guess I will state this again.

The Zeon had little place to test their equipments, and can only learn from books and records, so their aircrafts are mostly factoring for low speed combat, which they imagine would be the main stay under minovsky particle influences(bad estimates but luck for them the colony drop crippled the EFN and EFAF's response time and thus they are not facing a lot of EFAF fighters in the beginning of the war, and with little air superiority support, and the EFGF troops simply spreaded too far apart from each other, Zeon troops are not facing large groups in the beginning, also, the EFGF replied too heavily on satellite info, their troops are not used to estimating firing lengths without assistant, with little info on the MSs dimensions, it is also quite impossible to aim and most EFGF chose to fall back and regroup.

I like to refer to the Tiger manual in WWII, where they have detail dimensions scaled with the Tiger's turret markings, to teach their troops about aiming and estimating the distance with the enemy. With none of these at the beginning of OYW, EFGF M61 squads are simply blind(no satellite links), in experience(with little combat before OYW), very light armoured to a point where modern AFV lovers doubt their position as MBTs(so light that a Zaku can kick them and they are sent flying across the screen without giving the 60~70t or so Zaku ANY reaction force) and most likely sitting ducks against their enemies.

[domtropen]

Despite it weirdness Dopp perform quite well. The fed does fare slightly better in aircraft weirdness:
http://www.mahq.net/mecha/gundam/msgund ... cargot.htm
http://www.mahq.net/mecha/gundam/msgundam/depprog.htm
http://www.mahq.net/mecha/gundam/msgundam/flymanta.htm
http://www.mahq.net/mecha/gundam/msgundam/medea.htm
http://www.mahq.net/mecha/gundam/msgundam/dish.htm
and the infamous g-fighter.

[MythSearcher]

Despite it weirdness Dopp perform quite well. The fed does fare slightly better in aircraft weirdness:
http://www.mahq.net/mecha/gundam/msgund ... cargot.htm
http://www.mahq.net/mecha/gundam/msgundam/depprog.htm
http://www.mahq.net/mecha/gundam/msgundam/flymanta.htm
http://www.mahq.net/mecha/gundam/msgundam/medea.htm
http://www.mahq.net/mecha/gundam/msgundam/dish.htm
and the infamous g-fighter.

Well, knowing real life planes like the Daimler-Benz Project "A"(The real life Medea), VVA-14(Also kinda like the Medea), XF-5U(real life dish like plane), the custer channel wing planes, XP-79B(No, this is not a 0079 product, but the Gundam Legacy flyer unit does look a lot like this plane), Bv141, He1078, P.13a, Me163, etc...
From an engineer graduate stand point I must say that the Dopp is actually stranger to have an extended cockpit for no good aerodynamics reason.

[Scheuch13]

The one I absolutely can not understand is the luna tank.

http://gundam.wikia.com/wiki/G87_Luna_Tank

It is like something davinci would design before anyone knows what a tank is supposed to look like.

[MythSearcher]

The one I absolutely can not understand is the luna tank.

http://gundam.wikia.com/wiki/G87_Luna_Tank

It is like something davinci would design before anyone knows what a tank is supposed to look like.

Considering the Adzam is also quite odd.

Well, rationally speaking, having a spherical body kinda gives better armour efficiency, we don't do it nowadays is mainly because of the manufacturing process, if it is easy to make curved armour, we will likely see a lot more rounded stuff in real life for almost everything.
Other considerations included logistics(stacking curved armour is not fun), ease of repair and such.
But when the Ball is a standard issue, and a lot of MS spots curved armour, I guess that's out of the question.

The waterdrop shape and the panels are my main concern here.
It actually looks more like a Dragon Quest Slime than any UC weapons...

[JEFFPIATT]

Well what we do know is that zeon lacked the ability to build propeller based aircraft and since they tested there earth equipment in an resort colony leading to such problems as the aircraft being rounded space fighters. the megella attack tank lacks an turret but has an escape fighter that carries the main gun. the zaku marine type had issues keeping water out. things improved greatly due to the drop damaging the EFGF ability to fight. and the Dopp actually worked well enough agenst the tin-cod.

[Xenosynth]

But if they didn't have propeller based aircraft, what about things like the Fat Uncle? Were those developed on earth? Or do the propellers not really matter on it?

[ORegan]

But if they didn't have propeller based aircraft, what about things like the Fat Uncle? Were those developed on earth? Or do the propellers not really matter on it?

I think he means traditional propeller aircraft, such as the ones used in WWI and WWII. The Fat Uncle's props were VTOL, but used thermonuclear engines and wizardry to move about.

I would hope Zeon didn't lose the art of making propellers...otherwise that means they lost the technology to produce fans. But landing on the Earth significantly increased thier knowledge of the Earth's atmosphere and allowed them to improve on the problems Jiffylube brought up. They even rediscovered the lightning rod.

Edit: spelling errors be damned!

[v_zubko]

I've always assumed that the Zeon issues with prop planes were exclusive to the piston engine as they would have no need to employ or maintain such technology in the colonies. Conversely, given the relative simplicity, they ought to be capable of operating turbine engines, although I would not expect optimization for planet side conditions.

[JEFFPIATT]

I brought it up because it was an plot point in the series where an EFAF Dragonfly
lifting off from an zeon base leads to finding the double agent and exposing General Elran before Odessa because of the lack of propeller engine aircraft used by zeon.
http://www.mahq.net/mecha/gundam/msgundam/dragonfly.htm

[Zeonista]

With some of the Zeon designs I have the feeling Ohkawara was told to "make them look different" and so he did. Engineering traits be cast aside, the Zeons' vehicles have to look strange because they're from space! And so due to continuity, even the otherwise design-conscious 08th MS Platoon has to deal with Dopps, goony-bird recon aircraft, and whatnot.

That being said, there is a certain amount of no-frills effectiveness in some of the OYW vehicular designs. The Cui isn't the standard battle taxi APC, it's a strict assault vehicle made to deliver a squad of infantry straight to the target and have them leap directly into combat instead of scrambling out a hatch. The Wappa has two sizable hoverfans that give it a fair amount of stability as well as lift. The Medea is an effective and efficient load-hauler that borrows the helicopter concept of lifting cargo containers instead of loading/unloading an interior bay. (The US military aviation people have yet to do that!) And unlike the all-or-nothing Osprey, the Medea can act as a conventional airplane if its VTOL fans aren't working. So there's something to be said for the unconventional vehicles in the end.

[JEFFPIATT]

I always took it as just 70's sci-fi design style. Zeon is the invading space army and has equipment designed to look like an non terrestrial force built it. the EFF stuff looks like late 70's modern military equipment with whatever was meant to be the big new tech mounted on it.

[Ferrus_Manus]

The Cui is first and foremost a pretty big target. A nice target practice for Type 61 crews. Plus the soldiers riding on it are nearly unprotected.

Also, I think they want to forget about the Cui. They didn't show it in MS IGLOO, MS IGLOO 2 or in the Iron Mustang manga. And this would've been a great place to show a revised version of it.