Fun with numbers, Gundam style

[fizzmaister]

Originally Posted by Soluzar

I seem to recall that the ratio of tensile strenght to weight is roughly the same for both steel and aluminium, but the ratio of mass to weight is of course better for Aluminum.

this mass to weight that you refer to would be equal to 1:9.8 for both on Earth. 1:0 in space. and 1:1.6 on the moon. It is completely unrelated to the material it is simply mass : mass * force of gravity. the mass cancels on both sides and you get 1:force of gravity, or your magical mass:force ratio.

Originally Posted by 4tran

I think that the rationalization here is that the Zaku cannot produce sustained acceleration of 1g, but it can generate bursts in excess of that. It's not the prettiest of solutions, but it'll have to do.

I agree that it isn't elegant, but look at it like this, you have the ZAKU build up pressure in the exhaust and crouch. Then, it starts standing up and as it almost standing straight up, it releases the rocket and gets a short but powerful burst. That way, most of the ZAKU's sytems are used in the jump and it reduces the need for a powerful rocket.

[Blaat]

Originally Posted by 4Tran

I was merely putting the Zaku II's output in context of modern engines. If you can find a substantial difference between one kW and the other kW, please share it.

Shouldn't you be comparing it with engines from the late 70s, early 80s? Considering those numbers were created in that timeperiod.

Originally Posted by 4Tran

And where is this "compensator" in Gundam?

Don't know, maybe its there, maybe its not. I have no idea how a Zaku works and all its components. I just I know its power output, thrust, weight and other MAHQ statistics.

[ctrl-z]

Originally Posted by 4Tran

Actually, I would imagine that the Zaku II's engine output would be used to power its drivetrain as opposed to its thrusters.

If, by drivetrain, you mean the electro-mechanical actuators that control the physical movements of the mobile-suit, then yes, absolutely. The point being that relating the engine output to a car's ICE output, in the context of acceleration, is fruitless.

---

lol "compensator" indeed. Not sure what the plot device in 0079 was, though. Minovsky particles are a good start (for that compact fusion reactor).

[Soluzar]

Originally Posted by fizzmaister

this mass to weight that you refer to would be equal to 1:9.8 for both on Earth. 1:0 in space. and 1:1.6 on the moon. It is completely unrelated to the material it is simply mass : mass * force of gravity. the mass cancels on both sides and you get 1:force of gravity, or your magical mass:force ratio.

Alright then, what did I really mean? I obviously worded that wrongly, but a piece of Alu the same size as a piece of steel won't weigh the same.

[4Tran]

Originally Posted by flamingtroll

Are there fighter today that can change its heading 180 degrees in under 2 second, unless you count sprials that they can do when stalling, which as I recall still takes a bit of time? The G force would be too great for the pilot to endure. You would have to show me if there really is such a thing.

In space, changing your heading is completely independent of your current velocity. Therefore, very little is produced in terms of g-forces. There is very little similarity between this and changing direction in atmospheric flight. Read on.

Originally Posted by flamingtroll

In the case of spacecrafts I think the RCS on the shuttlecraft takes quite a long time to make a 180 degree turn. So i don't see what is so bad about this performance.

Generally speaking, one would not consider a space shuttle a high-performance combat vessel by any stretch of the imagination.

Originally Posted by flamingtroll

I think he shows up at MAHQ's forum now and then. Probably also at Denburium Stamen's "replacement" forum for Gundamwatch.

Thanks.

Originally Posted by flamingtroll

If you have internal dampinging mechanision to disspate the momentum, your gun can recoil less superfacially. It doesnt violate the conservation of momentun. You also have to take note on what era of gundam animation you are basing your observation on. If you look at MS IGLOO, the zaku's MG does show some recoling effect.

Nope, the recoil momentum is still exactly the same (m*v), the only difference is how much it will affect the firing vehicle. I wasn't saying that there was no recoil involved in firing the 120mm, just that it was very slight compared to a tank gun. I'm not sure how much is shown in MS IGLOO, but the vast preponderance of examples seem to promote my interpretation.

Originally Posted by flamingtroll

And you can buy the existence of giant bipedal robot carrying beam sabers and rifles to fight as a premiste to begin with? MS are shown to be more effective in the animation and so it is.

So does that mean that, even based on the actual shows, the Zaku II should have been the inferior vehicle? This would be a rather interesting revelation.

Originally Posted by Commander 598

I believe what your referring to is generally what happens with any liquified metal, it tends to explode and spray around but it tends to cool rather rapidly(Finally putting my metalworking knowledge to work). It's been my understanding that it wasn't this that tends to kill [semi]modern armor as much as the rod hitting the ammuntion stores, fuel, and anything inbetween. This is also supported by the number of burned out Iraqi hulks still in one piece after two different US blitzkriegs.

In this particular case, the metal will only explode inside a target. That's why the Iraqi tanks seemed more or less intact on the outside, but were charnel houses on the inside.

Originally Posted by Commander 598

Sabot are also not very useful in the vacuum of space. They can't really stabilize without air...

To clarify, there would be no point in adding stabilizing fins to APDS ammunition. However, the reason they were added in the first place was to correct the instability caused by travelling through the air. In a vaccuum, standard (perhaps rifled) APDS would be deadly.

Originally Posted by Commander 598

AP rounds are likely to still be effective when used out of an automatic weapon. Picture a five round burst from a Zaku MG impacting an Abrams. I see a missing barrel and shredded tracks, thats not counting it probably penetrating the top armor(Universal Weak Spot Since 1939!).

Perhaps, but this is only in an ideal situation. Normally, standard AP is very ineffective against modern composite armors. If we were to reverse the situation, a single APFSDS round would penentrate the Zaku II, detonate the reactor, and destroy everything in a 50m radius. Since the machine gun seems to have inferior range and accuracy, this is probably the more likely outcome.

Originally Posted by Soluzar

Alright then, what did I really mean? I obviously worded that wrongly, but a piece of Alu the same size as a piece of steel won't weigh the same.

The word you're looking for is density.

[4Tran]

Originally Posted by Blaat

Shouldn't you be comparing it with engines from the late 70s, early 80s? Considering those numbers were created in that timeperiod.

This is a red herring since I was just saying that it was odd that such a risky new engine was used instead of a comprable combustion engine. The example was just to put things into perspective. However, I'll still play along: the Leopard 2 tank was developed in the late '60s and early '70s, and was first fielded in 1979. It has a powerplant of 1100kW.

Originally Posted by Blaat

Don't know, maybe its there, maybe its not. I have no idea how a Zaku works and all its components. I just I know its power output, thrust, weight and other MAHQ statistics.

Does that mean you were arguing with my claim on the basis of no facts?

Originally Posted by ctrl-z

If, by drivetrain, you mean the electro-mechanical actuators that control the physical movements of the mobile-suit, then yes, absolutely. The point being that relating the engine output to a car's ICE output, in the context of acceleration, is fruitless.

That's exactly what I meant. I was just using monster cars as a (fairly) common vehicle that had more engine output than a Zaku II. I never made any claims as to acceleration, top speed, and the like.

[SWPIGWANG]

4Tran, you look like those knowledgable old type Gundam otaku

That said, my mecha-fu is not weak

In response to the original post:
a) Steel is not an unusual choice for an warmachine, as tanks and ships have been using them since forever. Steel comes in many different qualities, and in general steel is really an "general purpose" material that is strong in tension and compression, while having good (impact) toughness and mallability. While it is not particularily good at anything (unlike say carbon fiber's strength in tension), it is good at everything. In modern composite armor, different types of steel are interlaced with fiber, DU and spacing to increase armor effectiveness. It is probably the best armor material if considering homogeneous plates. (but mutimaterial composites are superior)

Alot of materials have better yield strength than steel, but very few can match the energy required to actually break some steels.

B) Gundam-verse reactor output is just plain sheer absurdity. If you do some calcs on the power output required to do some of the tricks used in Gundam, the reactor output falls far short.

C) meh, just make it Newtons

D) I always thought it as axial rotation, which is applicable only to mecha and tanks than and rotate on the spot. It is probably a measure of agility as MS is suppose to be able to dodge shells.....

E) Probably some unknown standard, similar to "service ceiling" definition for aircraft which applies to the attitude an aircraft is able to climb at 100feet/minute.

F) 120mm must be supersized grenade launchers. The fact that one can dodge machinegun fire means the muzzle velocity must be very low.....

I also tend to have no problems with the mobile suits' dimensions and masses either.

You just need to look at V-Gundam specs to start having doubts about that.... You have an entire MS weighting barely more than the core fighter of other eras....

So the question is why did Zeon decide to replace the seemingly superior unit with an inferior one? What advantage does the Zaku II have that I'm missing?

Its a walking mecha, and walking mecha get free +5 evasion roll, +4 luck roll and +10 character shielding roll as granted by the anime gods.

If you think Zakus are bad, what about the Gundam? It can charge an entire company worth of tanks and mobile suit and not die thanks to super robot power!

The rule with anime is that anything bipadel gets an automatic boost in agility reguadless of tech level....

If Burning's GM was hit by an APFSDS round, the entire side of his mobile suit's torso probably would have suffered catastrophic damage

How much damage the round does have alot to do with how much energy the round have after penetrating. If all the energy is expanded defeating the armor, the internal damage might not be so great.

Now here is a real problem:

Performance: maximum thruster acceleration 0.59 G

If you scale performance on the visual screen, I'm sure the G acceleration would be all over the place. Hell, there was even calcs of ZZ having 50+G acceleration in one of the scenes......

No way an Zaku can do all the shit it does with only 0.59G single direction acceleration.....

and how the hell does char have 3x the speed out of his MS?

[Astronopolis]

Originally Posted by SWPIGWANG

...and how the hell does char have 3x the speed out of his MS?

S-Type and Char factor

[flamingtroll]

Originally Posted by 4Tran

In space, changing your heading is completely independent of your current velocity. Therefore, very little is produced in terms of g-forces. There is very little similarity between this and changing direction in atmospheric flight. Read on.

I am very aware of that, but in your previous post

This kind of performance may be expected from atmospheric fighters, but not of spacecraft.

I am merely asking for an example of a real life fighter that can actually make a 180 degree turn in under 2 second and see that the basis of your dissatisfaction with the 1.7 second turn around time figure actually exists. As I recall, I have never seen a plane that can do that. I guess it *may* be possible with some propellor driven planes, since it can't fly too fast.

Generally speaking, one would not consider a space shuttle a high-performance combat vessel by any stretch of the imagination.

But that is the only comparable real life example of a spacecraft that we have and you are the one attempting to explain these figures with real life comparison. What exactly then do you find odd about this figure? If all the MS in UC 0079 can only turn around that way, then what is the problem?

Nope, the recoil momentum is still exactly the same (m*v), the only difference is how much it will affect the firing vehicle. I wasn't saying that there was no recoil involved in firing the 120mm, just that it was very slight compared to a tank gun. I'm not sure how much is shown in MS IGLOO, but the vast preponderance of examples seem to promote my interpretation.

Again you can interpret in anyway you like since there is very little information (i.e. the mass of the bullet used, the firing mechanism). My point is just that your interpretation is just as good as anyone's since we see very little of the inner workings of the guns. I would think basing it on just the animation alone might be a poor idea as animation does not often try very hard at depicting everything realisitcally.

So does that mean that, even based on the actual shows, the Zaku II should have been the inferior vehicle? This would be a rather interesting revelation.

If in the show you see Zaku II slaughtering type 61 tanks easily then it should mean Zaku II's are more effective?

[artquest7@]

Things often look good on paper but when you impliment them they can have problems. Suddenly the thing that didn't look so good before can become the favored choice out of desperation. Theory doesn't always work out in real world circumstances because we make mistakes in our calculations. I don't see the problem with the zaku II looking inferior to a megella tank on paper and by statistics. As long as in battle the zaku II produced some results that caused it to have the edge over the megella tank.

Of course this is just an anime so why are we arguing about real world application of things that don't exist? Well I think this is what causes gundam to be so popular. Its because the creators did try to provide real world explinations for everything. I mean when was the last time that you get this in-depth of an explination for how something works in a sci-fi show live action or animated? And whats even more amazing is that most of these things stand the test of time its been over 25 years and most of these explinations are still acceptible even if you have to strech them a bit.

Although this isn't directly related to whats being talked about here.. maybe it will spark some new interesting discussions.

http://www.ultimatemark.com/gundam/power.html

[viper]

Looking at the space battles in Gundam, most of the time newtonian physics dont apply in the space battles. They're animated as if they're flying in an atmosphere.

[artquest7@]

Originally Posted by viper

Looking at the space battles in Gundam, most of the time newtonian physics dont apply in the space battles. They're animated as if they're flying in an atmosphere.

Well most of the animators haven't been into space to see how things move. So this is to be expected. I wouldn't know how to animate something as if it was in space if you asked me to do it right now.. (speaking from an artist's perspective, you can check out my work here http://photobucket.com/albums/y190/a...1-2layer_1.jpg.

[SWPIGWANG]

I mean when was the last time that you get this in-depth of an explination for how something works in a sci-fi show live action or animated?

Babylon 5, Macross, Banner of the Stars, Starship Operators.......etc

Most of the explainations are made up by die hard otaku fanboys, rather than bandai (which is good at printing nonsense on model kits and ref books) anyways. It is only thanks to the fandom the Gundam have any justification at all.

[artquest7@]

Originally Posted by SWPIGWANG

Babylon 5, Macross, Banner of the Stars, Starship Operators.......etc

Most of the explainations are made up by die hard otaku fanboys, rather than bandai (which is good at printing nonsense on model kits and ref books) anyways. It is only thanks to the fandom the Gundam have any justification at all.

babylon 5 sucked :/ and ive never even heard of the others (with the exclusion of macross). Although I would like to check out banner of the stars and starship operators.

[4Tran]

Originally Posted by SWPIGWANG

4Tran, you look like those knowledgable old type Gundam otaku

Actually, I'm not. Other than the odd bit of Gundam Wing, I saw my first full episode of Gundam (strangely enough, it was an episode of Turn A) about 3 years ago.

Originally Posted by SWPIGWANG

a) Steel is not an unusual choice for an warmachine, as tanks and ships have been using them since forever. Steel comes in many different qualities, and in general steel is really an "general purpose" material that is strong in tension and compression, while having good (impact) toughness and mallability. While it is not particularily good at anything (unlike say carbon fiber's strength in tension), it is good at everything. In modern composite armor, different types of steel are interlaced with fiber, DU and spacing to increase armor effectiveness. It is probably the best armor material if considering homogeneous plates. (but mutimaterial composites are superior)

Alot of materials have better yield strength than steel, but very few can match the energy required to actually break some steels.

I agree that steel is a very strong material for construction. Its mass to strength ratio is very favorable, which is why it is one of our favorite construction tools.

However, it is equivalent to RHA, and thus not a very effective defense against anti-tank weapons. For example, an infantry weapon like the AT-13 is capable of penetrating a full meter of RHA. For tanks, homogenized steel is dangerous enough, but given the necessary thiness of mobile suit armor, it would be suicidal.

Originally Posted by SWPIGWANG

F) 120mm must be supersized grenade launchers. The fact that one can dodge machinegun fire means the muzzle velocity must be very low.....

Optimistically, the gun would have a muzzle velocity of about 200m/s; realistically, it's probably about 100-120m/s. Since it's logical to assume that Zaku IIs are vulnerable to their own weapons, this helps explain why they are also vulnerable to the (presumably) higher velocity 60mm Vulcans.

Originally Posted by SWPIGWANG

You just need to look at V-Gundam specs to start having doubts about that.... You have an entire MS weighting barely more than the core fighter of other eras....

A good point. Victory and Wing mobile suits have rather silly mass specifications.

Originally Posted by SWPIGWANG

If you think Zakus are bad, what about the Gundam? It can charge an entire company worth of tanks and mobile suit and not die thanks to super robot power!
The rule with anime is that anything bipadel gets an automatic boost in agility reguadless of tech level....

Hey, when I created this thread, it was under the assumption that the technology and specs were supposed to make sense.

Originally Posted by SWPIGWANG

How much damage the round does have alot to do with how much energy the round have after penetrating. If all the energy is expanded defeating the armor, the internal damage might not be so great.

Nope, the round would still cause a lot of damage even if it expended most of its energy in penetration. It's probably safe to assume that any mobile suit will be destroyed or crippled if it is penetrated by any serious anti-tank weapon. In the case of Burning, his GM was penetrated by a Gelgoog's 90mm machine gun. Since the 90mm gun is unlikely to be much stronger than the Zaku II's 120mm, the GM's armor would only offer minimal resistance to a 120mm APDS round.

Originally Posted by SWPIGWANG

If you scale performance on the visual screen, I'm sure the G acceleration would be all over the place. Hell, there was even calcs of ZZ having 50+G acceleration in one of the scenes......

No way an Zaku can do all the shit it does with only 0.59G single direction acceleration.....

For the most part, acceleration is very hard to gauge and calculate. Distances are simply not represented well enough to get any accurate figures out of most scenes. What's the scene involved with your example of the ZZ?

I think that the Zaku II's acceleration was fairly well represented throughout MSG.

Originally Posted by SWPIGWANG

and how the hell does char have 3x the speed out of his MS?

I've assumed that that was always a mistake on the creators' part from the very beginning. Nowhere in the show do we actually see that it actually has 3x the acceleration (no other stat makes sense) of a standard Zaku II.

As a interesting note, many of these statistics appear only for the earlier Gundam shows. The later ones eschew some of the sillier figures.

SWPIGWANG, your mecha-fu is indeed strong, and I agree with most of what you said.

Originally Posted by flamingtroll

I am merely asking for an example of a real life fighter that can actually make a 180 degree turn in under 2 second and see that the basis of your dissatisfaction with the 1.7 second turn around time figure actually exists. As I recall, I have never seen a plane that can do that. I guess it *may* be possible with some propellor driven planes, since it can't fly too fast.

To be honest, I'm not too familiar with aircraft turn rates. I was merely stating that while a 1.7s turn may be an exceptional figure for atmospheric warplanes, it would be abysmal for combat spacecraft.

Originally Posted by flamingtroll

But that is the only comparable real life example of a spacecraft that we have and you are the one attempting to explain these figures with real life comparison. What exactly then do you find odd about this figure? If all the MS in UC 0079 can only turn around that way, then what is the problem?

The problem is that it's not a comparable example at all. The space shuttle is a very primitive spacecraft even by today's standards. Also, there's no real reason to give it a higher lateral rotation rate. In addition, this turn rate doesn't seem to be supported by MSG's action either.

More importantly, the figure lends to the pseudoscientific belief that, in space, maneuverability is a seperate issue from acceleration, that it is possible to excel at the one, but be poor at the other. This may be the case for atmospheric aircraft, but it is eminently not so in space. In this environment, the greater your acceleration, the greater your maneuverability as well. One attribute is merely a function of the other one.

Originally Posted by flamingtroll

Again you can interpret in anyway you like since there is very little information (i.e. the mass of the bullet used, the firing mechanism). My point is just that your interpretation is just as good as anyone's since we see very little of the inner workings of the guns. I would think basing it on just the animation alone might be a poor idea as animation does not often try very hard at depicting everything realisitcally.

Actually, we can figure out a lot even without having the information spelled out for us. The propulsion technique will have no bearing on recoil, since that statistic is based entirely on the mass of the round, and its muzzle velocity. It's caliber is obviously 120mm and length is likely to be 4-6x that. And there's no indication that the round is unusually light, so it's not unreasonable to assume that it's mass is similar to a modern 120mm round, say 10-20kg.

The fact that the 120mm gun is fully automatic leads us to believe that it has a very low muzzle velocity, and the observed recoil lends further credence to that. If you are familiar with firearms, it's also quite possible to make some good guesses as to how the gun's functions, such as ammunition feed, blowback mechanism, etc., work. Blaming anything unrealistic on animation errors is a bit of a copout, and violates SoD, so I would only accept it as a valid excuse in very specific situations. The same goes for some of the creators' mind-numbingly stupid science errors.

Originally Posted by flamingtroll

If in the show you see Zaku II slaughtering type 61 tanks easily then it should mean Zaku II's are more effective?

Nope, that would just mean that Type 61 tanks are trash.

Originally Posted by artquest7@

Its because the creators did try to provide real world explinations for everything. I mean when was the last time that you get this in-depth of an explination for how something works in a sci-fi show live action or animated? And whats even more amazing is that most of these things stand the test of time its been over 25 years and most of these explinations are still acceptible even if you have to strech them a bit.

Actually, people do get this analytical (and much, much more so) regarding other shows. I'm sure that SWPIGWANG (and perhaps some of the other posters) can fill you in on some of the gorier details.

I have pretty much the opposite opinion - I think that Gundam would have been better off not trying to explain things in as much detail. The problem is that this level of detail invites closer scrutiny, and further scrutiny exposes the errors in their facts. It becomes painfully obvious that the specification writers don't have much of a scientific background, and that they're rather unfamiliar with modern weapons. If they left the details for the audience to work out for ourselves, we would probably come up with more reasonable conclusions. I also have the feeling that spoon-feeding silly specifications also leads to unscientific thinking on the part of the fans.

Originally Posted by viper

Looking at the space battles in Gundam, most of the time newtonian physics dont apply in the space battles. They're animated as if they're flying in an atmosphere.

This would explain why they had that 180-degree turn statistic.

[artquest7@]

Originally Posted by 4Tran
Actually, people [i

do[/i] get this analytical (and much, much more so) regarding other shows. I'm sure that SWPIGWANG (and perhaps some of the other posters) can fill you in on some of the gorier details.

I have pretty much the opposite opinion - I think that Gundam would have been better off not trying to explain things in as much detail. The problem is that this level of detail invites closer scrutiny, and further scrutiny exposes the errors in their facts. It becomes painfully obvious that the specification writers don't have much of a scientific background, and that they're rather unfamiliar with modern weapons. If they left the details for the audience to work out for ourselves, we would probably come up with more reasonable conclusions. I also have the feeling that spoon-feeding silly specifications also leads to unscientific thinking on the part of the fans.

Of course its easier to let the audience interpet and come up with their own conclusions that satisfy themselves.

[Sides]

Originally Posted by 4Tran

It becomes painfully obvious that the specification writers don't have much of a scientific background, and that they're rather unfamiliar with modern weapons.

Well, unfortunately it is just like this in the real world.
A client/designer makes up stuff and hands some specifications to some
engineers, telling them to make their ideas to work.
It is not the job of the client/designer to work out solutions,
else probably a lot of us would be unemployed.

What we have here, with the MS specs data,
is basically PDS kind of thing, so scientific backing isn't necessary,
nor does it need explanation of how things should/will work.

Since this is an animation, you probably wouldn't want to pay
some engineers to workout how things would behave and work in reality,
only to find out that you need more drawings to make a scene realistic,
far too expensie

[Sety]

By the way could anyone tell me how exactly are the speed of the MS worked out? They use G's, what is that exactly equal to?

[NeonZ]

Originally Posted by Sety

By the way could anyone tell me how exactly are the speed of the MS worked out? They use G's, what is that exactly equal to?

1G is an acceleration of 10 m/s/s.

More importantly, the figure lends to the pseudoscientific belief that, in space, maneuverability is a seperate issue from acceleration, that it is possible to excel at the one, but be poor at the other. This may be the case for atmospheric aircraft, but it is eminently not so in space. In this environment, the greater your acceleration, the greater your maneuverability as well. One attribute is merely a function of the other one.

Hum... not really. You're ignoring the Ambac system... Quoting a translation of Gundam Century which can be found in the site bellow:

http://www.ultimatemark.com/gundam/a...amcentury.html

While these arms and legs obviously contributed to the mobile suit's versatility, one might suppose they would become dead weight when it was used in space. However, Zeonic's engineers confounded this expectation by developing the AMBAC system (Active Mass Balance AutoControl system). Unlike previous space fighters, which used vernier rockets to change their attitude, this method allowed the mobile suit to change its attitude by moving its arms and legs.

At first glance, the fact that outer space lacks hindrances such as air resistance might seem like an advantage during combat operations, but this lack of resistance becomes a serious drawback when it comes to changing direction. When an aircraft makes a 180-degree turn in the atmosphere, it transfers its own kinetic energy to the air molecules via its wings and then uses the counter-reaction to change its direction, allowing it to turn with virtually no reduction in speed (1).

A spacecraft, however, must eject propellant and use the counter-reaction to turn itself. The propellant consumption is extremely high, and previous space fighters required 2.5 seconds for a 180-degree attitude change and exhausted their propellant after making 30 turns.

In the AMBAC system, however, the arms and legs are moved rapidly and the counter-reaction is used to change the attitude of the machine itself. Even space worker craft used a similar kind of mass movement for passive functions like balance correction. But the AMBAC system, thanks to the powerful atomic reactor and the fluid pulse system, could move the mobile suit's arms so rapidly that acceleration reached more than 100 G at its fingertips, enabling this huge machine to perform a 180-degree attitude change in less than three seconds.

This technique, which prevented the mobile suit from having to expend any propellant, meant that its arms and legs were not dead weight but rather an effective attitude control system.

Interestingly, Zeon forces initially deployed conventional Magella tanks, but later adopted mobile suits for earth. We don't know too much about the Magella, but we know that it is much cheaper than any mobile suit, and that its 175mm main gun is probably greatly superior to a Zaku II's main weapon. So the question is why did Zeon decide to replace the seemingly superior unit with an inferior one? What advantage does the Zaku II have that I'm missing?

The Zaku can turn and aim significantly faster than a tank. It also runs faster than one. If the battle starts to close enough, a Mobile Suit could even just stomp some tanks while firing at others.

Zakus also have range advantage, because of their height, making long range fighting possible for the Zeon, while it's almost impossible for the Federation becayse of the Minovsky Particles. Of course, that height becomes a problem in battlefields like cities and a few other rough terrains, however, it's not that big. Don't forget that a mobile suit can easily crouch, or even crawl, if necessary.

Of course, large numbers of tanks would easily destroy a MS. However, that's why the Zeon also used Tanks during the early war. As the war progressed, both sides started using Mobile Suits, making anti-Tank weapons rather unnecessary. They did keep using aircrafts though, because early MS are inferior to those in atmospheric battles.

According to Gundam Century, the Zeon also used Zakus for construction work on Earth.

[4Tran]

Originally Posted by artquest7@

Of course its easier to let the audience interpet and come up with their own conclusions that satisfy themselves.

Personally, that's how I would prefer all semi-realistic science fiction shows to handle it unless they actually understood the science behind their creations.

Originally Posted by Sides

Since this is an animation, you probably wouldn't want to pay
some engineers to workout how things would behave and work in reality,
only to find out that you need more drawings to make a scene realistic,
far too expensie

Nonsense. It doesn't take an engineer to see that there's something seriously wrong with the numbers they put up. All it takes is someone to take a little time to make sure that they're not too silly.

Originally Posted by Sety

By the way could anyone tell me how exactly are the speed of the MS worked out? They use G's, what is that exactly equal to?

A "G" is the acceleration of an object in earth's gravity at sea level. This is equivalent to ~9.81m/s^2; therefore, a Zaku II's acceleration is stated as 5.79m/s^2.

Originally Posted by NeonZ

Hum... not really. You're ignoring the Ambac system...

The AMBAC system would be extremely inefficient compared to simply using vectored thrust. Even complicated maneuvers and facing changes can be done with less than a g of thrust (equal to just 2s of thrust from a Zaku II). This is corroborated in the shows since the mobile suits never (to my recollection) change orientation without employing their thrusters - we sure as heck never see mobile suits flailing their as the system would require.

Of course, this is on the assumption that the AMBAC system even works in the first place. If an object isn't ejecting mass or pushing off something, there's not much it can do to alter it's angular momentum. This system seems a lot more trouble than it's worth. In addition, if it works like it's cracked out to, then why do mobile suits have to have all those verniers?

Originally Posted by NeonZ

The Zaku can turn and aim significantly faster than a tank. It also runs faster than one. If the battle starts to close enough, a Mobile Suit could even just stomp some tanks while firing at others.

Zakus also have range advantage, because of their height, making long range fighting possible for the Zeon, while it's almost impossible for the Federation becayse of the Minovsky Particles. Of course, that height becomes a problem in battlefields like cities and a few other rough terrains, however, it's not that big. Don't forget that a mobile suit can easily crouch, or even crawl, if necessary.

I've been trying to avoid the usual Mech vs. Tank debate for the purposes of this thread because it always ends poorly for the Mechs. I'll try to continue this trend.

NeonZ, what evidence do you have that Zaku IIs can turn and aim faster than a Magella's turret?

As I've shown earlier in this thread, the 120mm machine gun is an extremely low muzzle-velocity weapon. This means that it has severely restricted range and accuracy. No matter how well the Zaku II can see the surrounding, it is still restricted to this range. Minovsky Particles will have almost no bearing on ground combat - modern ground troops use very little radar to find things. Instead, they rely on thermal sights and the like.

Being tall is extremely bad in combat. A Zaku II will present a target about 4-5 times the size of a Magella. Crouching and crawling are very inefficient forms of movement. Besides, even crawling, a Zaku II would present a larger target profile than a Magella.

Originally Posted by NeonZ

Of course, large numbers of tanks would easily destroy a MS. However, that's why the Zeon also used Tanks during the early war. As the war progressed, both sides started using Mobile Suits, making anti-Tank weapons rather unnecessary. They did keep using aircrafts though, because early MS are inferior to those in atmospheric battles.

I'm saying that a single Magella seems to be superior to a Zaku II. Anti-tank weapons that can take out a tank with a lucky shot would absolutely murder Zaku IIs. In fact, even some nominally nonanti-tank weapons would be potentially effective in this situation.

The reason that the armies used aircraft is that they had no mobile suits capable of flight in the One-Year War.