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Edmund Chiu (edf91@worldnet.att.net)
Sat, 18 Nov 2000 14:06:19 -0800
----- Original Message -----
From: Chaos025@aol.com
To: gundam@aeug.org
Sent: Saturday, November 18, 2000 1:21 PM
Subject: Re: [gundam] RX-79[G] as a continuity buster?
In a message dated 11/17/00 8:10:47 PM US Mountain Standard Time,
scorpio@best.com writes:
Here's an odd thought, but there are more examples of the GM being a
generalized suit than the Gundam. We see the Gundam as the close in fighter
half of the Guncannon/Gundam team. But then, when the GM is in full
production, we see the GM fill both the close in role of the Gundam and the
long range role of the Guncannon. It would seem that the GM is in fact the
general-purpose version of the more specialized Gundam and Guncannon.
There are a few things in play here:
1) Amuro is just playing the "role" of his team of MS. Out of the three MS, only Gundam has the agility and the weapons for close range combat. Other than bazooka, all of Gundam's weapons are relatively close range (don't tell me beam rifle shot further than the cannons on Guntank or Guncannon), so Gundam would serve a much better purpose at close range than long range (serving as bait to draw enemies away from Guncannon and Guntank, which is not very effective at close combat).
2) Just because Amuro doesn't do long range support role in the anime doesn't mean the Gundam itself cannot do what GM does. They share pretty much the same weapons (maybe less fancy weapons, but the functions and type of weapons are about the same), so if GM can do it, so can Gundam.
3) The "specialization" Tomino is talking about is the type of terrains the Gundam can be used it and how effective it can be in each terrain. Other than underwater, where underwater-only MS would perform much better, Gundam perform at above average grade on all terrains. There is various marine use, "cold" use, and even sniper versions of GM. Other than the sniper role, where Gundam need a special weapon, Gundam can pretty much do what these "specialized" GM can do, probably better in some cases, without adding much equipment or add-on to it.
4) Another factor is the pilot factor - it's much safer to stay away and shoot from a distance than try to attack Zion pilots, who had much more experience in using a MS than the average Fed pilots. Amuro is already an ACE, so close range or long range doesn't matter much to him, but not to the average Fed pilot. Fed have a few experienced pilot, as shown in the various side stories like 08 MS Team, but as shown in 0080, where they had to put somebody who had no real piloting experience (Chris), into serving as the test pilot of a brand new MS (we had a discussion a while back on that even today, we use experience pilot as test pilot for new aircrafts), that in general, Fed pilots have very little experience in MS piloting.
As you can see from other Gundam series (except maybe the "side stories" like 0083 or 08 MS Team, where the Gundam is specialized for a specific terrain or purpose), all the Gundams can pretty much be used in all terrains and do a lot of things, things that almost all mass-production type MS cannot do.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Sun Nov 19 2000 - 06:41:35 JST