Original Role of the Dabude/Dodbay as an EF Land Warship

[Gelgoog Jager]

I wanted to discuss a few things about this land warship. Let's start with its origins:

As some of you may have heard this ship class along the Weasel armored car and the Gunship Heli were supposedly not built by Zeon, but rather weapons captured when the Principality of Zeon began invading Earth, and IIRC, mainly from Russian/Soviet bases.

In the case of the Dabude this can be observed on the lack of MS maintenance facilities. Despite this, a few MS can still hitch a ride on the back section of the ship, as seen on the last episode of MS Igloo 2. MS aside, the Dabude seems to have some carrying capacity for vehicles such as tanks and cars. If the UCGO PC game models were accurate, it would seem that the height of the Magella Tanks make them uncapable of entering its hatches, which in said model is located on the back of the ship between the tracks. On the other hand, it would seem that most Federation vehicles would easily be able to fit inside the Dabude's hangar, so it could be possible that such hangars were part of the original Federation design, and in such case it would have been meant to carry Type 61 Tanks and Type 74 Hovertrucks, among others.

All that said, for being a design built by the EF it seems to be very different from their other land warships, the Big Tray, Heavy Fork and the Mini Tray, all of which make use of a hovercraft system. I do think that the lack of such feature could be related to the Dabude's ability to attach itself to the ground for performing long range precision firing.

Furthermore, here you can observe some 1/1700 models of the ships that appears on MS Igloo 2 episode 3, showing that despite being considered Zeon's equivalent of the Big Tray, it is actually a lot smaller. I'm guessing it could be more around the size of the Mini Tray.

Taking all these into consideration, I think that the Dabude might have been developed along with the Mini Tray as low cost land warships (maybe even meant to replace the Big Tray and Heavy Fork classes), with the Dabude focusing on long range ballistic attacks and the Mini Tray on frontal attacks with its mega particle cannons. If meant to work along with the Big Tray and Heavy Fork class ships, the Mini Trays would probably stand at the front, the Big Tray and Heavy Fork on the middle and the Dabude class on the back.

Any other theories about the Dabude?

[mcred23]

There seems to be a flaw in the whole theory that the Dabude was originally a Federation machine, which you sorta touched on: It looks nothing like anything else the Feds built. If anything, it reminds me more of the Dopp, the design of which is always attributed to being developed and tested originally in the space colonies of Side 3. I'd find it hard to believe the Feds would build a machine so different from everything else they're ever shown using, particularly during that pre-OYW timeframe, or that Zeon would build the Dopp with such a similar appearance to something the Federation could have used against them. To me, it makes much more sense to say it was just a case of similar Zeon designs...

[Gelgoog Jager]

After some quick digging around I found an old thread I made also about the Dabude/Dodbay, and it seems that we are both half right:

http://www.mechatalk.net/viewtopic.php? ... 07&start=0

Basically it indicates that the Dabude is a hybrid design that Zeon built using parts from a Russian design. It namely mentions the chasis and the large cannons, among other parts as the russian contributions. As you have pointed out, the bridge definitely resembles more a Zeonic design, like the ones seen on the Dopp or the Zaku Tanker.

That said, it would seem that other than the bridge section and the main cannons, the design most have remained largely the same as the rest of the ship is more blocky, like the Federation designs.

By the way, here's an image AmuroNT1 had previously posted of the Mini Tray class.

[toysdream]

The original Japanese text in the MSV Collection File specifically uses the English loanword シャーシ (chassis), meaning the framework that supports the lower structure of a vehicle. So it's entirely plausible that the Zeons could have taken the lower part of a Federation design and replaced the bridge.

As for its size, MS Igloo 2 puts the Dobday at 109 meters long and 44 meters high, versus 215 meters and 85 meters for the Big Tray, so it would be considerably smaller.

-- Mark

[Commander 598]

I'd think that the Dabude would have perhaps been a predecessor to the Federation's various hover land ships. I don't see any point to such a heavy and slow design if you already have essentially everything it offers in a package that is vastly more capable by both being able to move faster than a walking pace and cross water.

The Weasel (A simple, wheeled, and possibly amphibious armored car) could be similar, being sidelined by the Bloodhound/Hovertruck, and then there's the Magella Eins which looks totally un-Zeon...

[Gelgoog Jager]

I think that maybe the Dabude's capability for attaching itself to the ground might work so well with a hovercraft system, which could explain why they decided to use a more stable caterpiller chassis instead. That capability supposedly allowed the Dabude to perform very accurate long range attacks, which I always imagined meant that it had better accuracy and longer range than a Big Tray.

The Weasel is proably another Soviet-Zeon hybrid design, but the Magella Eins is definitely a Zeon unit, as we see at least one participating on the very first descent operation on MS Igloo 2.

Mark: Do you have any info on the E.F. landship I referred to as the Mini Tray? Is that even it's official name?

[toysdream]

I guess, if we were speculating about their tactical roles, one might start by observing that the amphibious hovercraft Big Tray seems well suited for offensive operations - it should be able to move pretty quickly, at least across open terrain, and those two huge forward guns can only be used against whatever happens to be directly in front of it.

The Dobday, on the other hand, seems more defensive. It couldn't move very fast on those dinky caterpillar tracks, and those support legs are clearly intended for use when it's parked in one spot. Indeed, in the animation we've only ever seen Dobdays playing defense, while Big Trays (and Heavy Forks) are usually on the attack.

As for the Mini Tray, not much info on that. It's meant to serve as a mobile command post for frontline operations - not entirely unlike the 08th MS Team hovertruck, I suppose.

-- Mark

[Gelgoog Jager]

I wanted to add that for Zeon, the closest equivalent to an offensive land warship would be the Gallop, which does seem to be a 100% Zeon made design. It posses high mobility along with MS hangar capacity. Furthermore, they are only 48m long, so it's surprising they don't show more often and in larger numbers at a time in UC.

The mention of how the Dabude's bridge resembles a Dopp's cockpit reminded me that there's another vehicle that has a similar bridge: the Zaku Tanker (seen on ZZ). The oddest part of this vehicle is its chassis which has both a caterpillar on the front of the vehicle and a hovercraft on the rear. This makes me think that maybe it's supposed to able to detach the rear cargo section, possibly in a similar fashion as the Gallop and its large optional dome section. However I don't know if these were supposed to be already around since the OYW.

[JEFFPIATT]

i believe that was the intent from the name and the fact that a bunch of the zaku models we see were meant to be zaku III equipment packs and ended up changed in to previously unseen zaku II msv units.

[toysdream]

The Gallop's specs, like all of the specs from the old Roman Albums, are suspicious and probably wrong. Then again, the animation gives us contradictory evidence.

On the one hand, the hatch in front is clearly high enough to provide head clearance for a Zaku or Gouf. On the other hand, the cargo module - which is about 1.5 times higher than the hatch, judging from the line art - appears to be about as high as the Gundam during their final wrestling match. The Roman Album height specs (34.3 meters, including antenna) seem to reflect the second scenario, so in the first scenario, the Gallop would need to be about 50% bigger.

It's not clear, either, whether the Roman Album specs are supposed to reflect the Gallop alone or the Gallop plus cargo module. If it's the former, then the Gallop alone would need to be about 70 meters long - 2/3 the length of a Dobday - in order to accommodate a mobile suit hangar.

As for the Zaku Tanker, there's not much info on this. The old Newtype 100% Collection speculates that it was developed by the Zeon forces in the last part of the One Year War. Judging from the line art, it appears to be roughly 50 meters long, and since it carries 2-3 mobile suits one could imagine it being a cheaper alternative to the Gallop.

-- Mark