Mecha Talk

Since the discussion of the Juagg touched the subject on the purpose of these MS, I though it would be a good chance to start a discussion regarding the original scope of this plan and therefore purpose of each MS created for the plan.

As you may know, this plan consisted on creating specialized MS for the Assault on Jaburo, which would allow to infiltrate Jaburo and attack from inside. Supposedly Char found out Jaburo's location long before the scheduled assault, which leads to asking if when was the assault scheduled for?

The four known MS developed as part of this plan were:

-EMS-05: As it can easily be deduced from its appearance, this MS is supposed to be used for digging tunnels. For movement it has a hovercraft system on its feet. Also, it can optionally mount a 4-tube missile launcher on top of its head and furthermore one of its drill arms can be replaced with a large 4-tube rocket launcher (as can be seen in the Zeonography figures), though I suspect this measure might have been intended in case the Agg was forced into defense duty, which probably happened during the retake of California Base. I suspect this image depicts an Agg which participated in said battle.

-MSM-04G: The Juagg which recently appeared in the first 6 minutes of Gundam Unicorn was supposed to be the middle range support and also seemed to be the most heavily armored unit of the bunch. Although initially it was only mentioned to have the 3-barreled 320mm finger rocket launchers, some games like UCGO did indicate that the 4 circles on its torso were mega particle cannons just like seen on UC episode 4. Its mahq profile indicates that it can replace it's rocket hands with humanoid ones. The alternate color scheme indeed shows it with a right humanoid hand.

-MSM-04N: The Agguguy was the melee counterpart of the Juagg, both of which were based on the Acguy. It's weapons consisted in a total of 4 heat rods mounted on it's arms and two head vulcans. In UCGO however, its hand were replaced with Z'gok-like hands just like it was mentioned in its profile, which had both triple claws and mega particle cannons. An alternate image showing that configuration can be seen in its profile.

-MSM-08: The Zogok was another melee combat MS, though it was based on the more succesful Z'gok rather than an Acguy. It's only ranged weapons were the 10 wire cutters in its head and its extendable arms which had razor sharp fingers. In UCGO and other games we confirm that the Wire Cutter can be fired at the enemy and in the former it can even be seen that it is capable of using other MS weapons such as Zaku machineguns, bazookas and heat hawks.

Some videogames like Gihren's Greed even have a special operation which is enabled when all 4 MS are developed and allows attacking Jaburo only with those MS, but I'm not certain that would have been the intended operation, specially considering that while the Agg's hovercraft system might allow it to move on top of the water, it wouldn't be able to move underwater with it, at least not as well as the other 3 which do are amphibious MS. Was the Agg be supposed to assist descending MS make their way into Jaburo?

Then there's also the question regarding the the role of the Zogok, which seems terribly underequipped and whose hands make me think that it might have been intended to perform some sort of manual action rather than combat, which seems possible considering that most ambhibious MS lack humanoid hands. What kind of manual task would have required that the Zogok and maybe even some Juaggs to be equipped with humanoid hands instead of other weapons?

Anyway, if you have information or theories about how the operation was supposed to take place, exactly what roles each of the MS participating on it were supposed to have, as well as whether they were supposed to assist other MS get inisde or if only those 4 type of MS were to be deployed.

Please share your ideas.

the Zogok's Wire Cutter act like boomerangs as shown in

In production terms, these MS were probably a monster-of-the-week combo with a theme. Production of MSG being what it was, they got passed over or vetoed by Tomino-sama, so we get MSV with no real purpose to the main story. But nothing got thrown away; the designs got mentioned anyway as belonging to a failed operation that never was completed. Not a bad way of creatively dealing with the rejects, ne?

In story terms, the above-mentioned failed operation gives the orphaned infiltration mecha some authentic appeal. The designs outlined above were designed to tunnel into Jaburo, with hover functions and MSM derived production allowing them a stealthier approach compared to normal equipment. The MSM origin and hover features might also let them deal with the inevitable water table issues caused by tunneling in the Amazon basin. (Jaburo Base must have some awesome water pumping stations in order to keep the underground sections dry.)

Since Tomino-sama's description of Jaburo Base makes it sound like Sengoku Jidai castle under loose siege, the infiltration plan suggests a classical mining operation, a sure winner if it was not detected and countered, and the besiegers had enough time to finish it. Once the tunnel was complete, regular MSM could follow up and attack from within the base, with the cramped confines offsetting their slow land speed, and forcing the EFF into a damaging close battle, while a prearranged general attack took advantage of the confusion. The time issue to complete the specialized MS and dig the tunnel is what sunk them, under the pressure of events. The deliberate nature of the operation was upset by Operation Odessa, and so things had to hurry if the ZMF was going to interrupt the EFF buildup currently taking place inside the base.

That is where the Red Comet came into the situation. Char was a mobile warfare man, not interested in the plans of engineers and set-piece battle men. He took the initiative and located a natural entrance that regular MSM could exploit. So he tried an infiltration gambit that ought to have left Jaburo bereft of GMs and ready to be overrun. He didn't know that those darn meddling kids had spoiled the plan, leaving him the bitter dude in the monster suit. The infiltration specialty MS, useless in a regular MS battle, were left behind at California Base, where they were later abandoned, and found by EFF troops.

_________________
Gundam Unicorn I wear my loyalty on my Sleeve.
If the Federation is so much better than Zeon, then why are the Gundam pilots wanting to date our girls?

According to the MSV books, the so-called "Agg" series are actually designed for "wetlands combat" despite their MSM prefix. This supports Zeonista's theory that they were meant for use in water-saturated terrain - swamps, bogs, damp tunnels, etc.

And of course, most of them are designed for close-range combat. These machines were intended to work as a team, and Mobile Suit Variation 2 describes their roles thusly:



Given that they're meant to be fighting in confined spaces, where unexpected explosions could easily wipe out your entire team, it makes a lot of sense to focus on close combat using non-explosive weapons. And then of course, when you're at a safe distance and just need to blow stuff up, there's the gun-toting Juacg to clear the way...

-- Mark