Multiplying Divisions with Zeon

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toysdream
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Multiplying Divisions with Zeon

So here's something that just occurred to me, in relation to blut_und_glas's recent suggestion that we look for real-world correspondences to One Year War circumstances...

A few years ago, I noted that Bandai's legendary Katsumi Kawaguchi had come up with a standard explanation for the three-digit numbers seen on Zeon mobile suits. (See Zeon markings and numbers explained!) Basically, Kawaguchi just borrowed the turret numbering system used by Nazi Germany's panzer divisions, in which the three digits represent the company, platoon, and unit number within the platoon. A zero in the "platoon" slot means the mobile suit is a command unit assigned directly to company headquarters; thus, "101" is the first unit attached to 1st Company headquarters.

In the middle of World War II, Germany's panzer divisions were apparently streamlined so that each division had a single regiment of tanks, subdivided into about 8 sequentially numbered companies, which were grouped into two battalions. So the 1st through 4th Company would make up the 1st Battalion, and the 5th through 8th Company would make up the 2nd Battalion. A typical company might have four platoons of five tanks each, plus two command units (one for the company commander, one for his aide). There were also a pair of command units for each battalion (usually labeled with a Roman numeral I or II, plus the digits 00, 01, or 02) and another pair for the regimental commander and his aide (usually labeled as R00, R01, or R02).

With me so far? Good!

Kawaguchi's system is employed in recent works like MS Igloo. In the first episode of the "Gravity Front" series, we see a Zaku on the European front with the marking "845", the highest number in MS Igloo. So this would be the fifth machine of the 4th Platoon of the 8th Company of the 1st Terrestrial Mobile Division, which if we're following the classic panzer division model, would actually be the very last mobile suit in the entire division!

Anyways, if this analogy holds, it would allow us to guesstimate the strength of a typical Terrestrial Mobile Division. Behold:

Regimental HQ: 2 mobile suits
--1st Battalion HQ: 2 mobile suits
----1st Company: 22 mobile suits (5 per platoon x 4 platoons, plus 2 for HQ)
----2nd Company: 22 mobile suits
----3rd Company: 22 mobile suits
----4th Company: 22 mobile suits
--2nd Battalion HQ: 2 mobile suits
----5th Company: 22 mobile suits
----6th Company: 22 mobile suits
----7th Company: 22 mobile suits
----8th Company: 22 mobile suits

Total: 182 mobile suits

If that last figure looks familiar, that's because it's often cited as the maximum capacity of a Dolos-class carrier. In other words, this oddball number may simply be a way of saying that the Dolos is designed to carry an entire division of mobile suits!

As we know, Zeon has five terrestrial mobile divisions. If they all have this same standard fighting strength - unlikely in practice, but possible on paper - then the entire Earth Attack Force would start out with 910 mobile suits....

...plus M'quve's mining detachment, which was deployed separately and answers to a separate chain of command. If that's organized as a single battalion, that would be another 90 mobile suits, bringing the starting total to exactly 1000 machines.

-- Mark
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Gelgoog Jager
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Re: Multiplying Divisions with Zeon

I'm afraid I can't locate it right now, but in another thread I posted about a site that included figures for both sides forces during the battle of Odessa, which credited Zeon with about 1,000 MS while indicating that the Federation only deployed around 100 MS.
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MythSearcher
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Re: Multiplying Divisions with Zeon

toysdream wrote:So here's something that just occurred to me, in relation to blut_und_glas's recent suggestion that we look for real-world correspondences to One Year War circumstances...

A few years ago, I noted that Bandai's legendary Katsumi Kawaguchi had come up with a standard explanation for the three-digit numbers seen on Zeon mobile suits. (See Zeon markings and numbers explained!) Basically, Kawaguchi just borrowed the turret numbering system used by Nazi Germany's panzer divisions, in which the three digits represent the company, platoon, and unit number within the platoon. A zero in the "platoon" slot means the mobile suit is a command unit assigned directly to company headquarters; thus, "101" is the first unit attached to 1st Company headquarters.

In the middle of World War II, Germany's panzer divisions were apparently streamlined so that each division had a single regiment of tanks, subdivided into about 8 sequentially numbered companies, which were grouped into two battalions. So the 1st through 4th Company would make up the 1st Battalion, and the 5th through 8th Company would make up the 2nd Battalion. A typical company might have four platoons of five tanks each, plus two command units (one for the company commander, one for his aide). There were also a pair of command units for each battalion (usually labeled with a Roman numeral I or II, plus the digits 00, 01, or 02) and another pair for the regimental commander and his aide (usually labeled as R00, R01, or R02).

With me so far? Good!

Kawaguchi's system is employed in recent works like MS Igloo. In the first episode of the "Gravity Front" series, we see a Zaku on the European front with the marking "845", the highest number in MS Igloo. So this would be the fifth machine of the 4th Platoon of the 8th Company of the 1st Terrestrial Mobile Division, which if we're following the classic panzer division model, would actually be the very last mobile suit in the entire division!

Anyways, if this analogy holds, it would allow us to guesstimate the strength of a typical Terrestrial Mobile Division. Behold:

Regimental HQ: 2 mobile suits
--1st Battalion HQ: 2 mobile suits
----1st Company: 22 mobile suits (5 per platoon x 4 platoons, plus 2 for HQ)
----2nd Company: 22 mobile suits
----3rd Company: 22 mobile suits
----4th Company: 22 mobile suits
--2nd Battalion HQ: 2 mobile suits
----5th Company: 22 mobile suits
----6th Company: 22 mobile suits
----7th Company: 22 mobile suits
----8th Company: 22 mobile suits

Total: 182 mobile suits

If that last figure looks familiar, that's because it's often cited as the maximum capacity of a Dolos-class carrier. In other words, this oddball number may simply be a way of saying that the Dolos is designed to carry an entire division of mobile suits!

As we know, Zeon has five terrestrial mobile divisions. If they all have this same standard fighting strength - unlikely in practice, but possible on paper - then the entire Earth Attack Force would start out with 910 mobile suits....

...plus M'quve's mining detachment, which was deployed separately and answers to a separate chain of command. If that's organized as a single battalion, that would be another 90 mobile suits, bringing the starting total to exactly 1000 machines.

-- Mark
Hmm, this is kinda fun, I always thought the 182 for the Dolos is 7X26, since the Dolos class got 7 catapults, and you need to launch 26 MSs on each.
Xenosynth
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Re: Multiplying Divisions with Zeon

I will say I do like when numbers happen to add up. It makes me wonder if this was just astronomical coincidence that the numbers work so well, or if the writers really did think it out this much?

Was the 182 capacity limit for the Dolos said in previous works or was the 182 capacity stated after MS Igloo, just to see if it was Kawaguchi's system that created the number or if he possibly based his system on working with the Dolos, or... again, simply coincidence.

Also curious, while slightly off topic, was it ever said how many Dolos were produced in total during the course of the OYW?
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Brave Fencer Kirby
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Re: Multiplying Divisions with Zeon

The easiest way to check how well the analogy holds seems to be looking at unit formation in the animation. Obviously we aren't seeing an entire division of MS on-screen at once, so we can't work from the top down -- but how about the bottom up?

On the Federation side, a basic mobile suit platoon is pretty consistently four units. 08th MS Team shows a standard "team" as three MS and a hovertruck; in 0080, the Gray Phantom deploys 8 MS (two teams' worth); 0083's "immortal 4th Team" has four members; the Salamis Kai carries four MS; etc etc. I'm sure there are exceptions, but generally speaking, four is the basic unit size for Federation MS formations.

Zeon, on the other hand, seems to like having three MS per unit. The Musai can carry 3 MS in its hanger (though it can fit two more in its Komusai), the Gaw carries 3 MS, the Zanzibar can carry 6 MS (two teams), the Black Tristars are a three-man group, as is Topp's unit in 08th MS Team...

Of course, you can make the numbers come out almost even by giving Zeon more platoons per company (6 x 3 for 18, or 7 x 3 for 21, instead of 5 x 4 for 20). If we assume seven platoons of three each, plus an extra MS for the company commander, that still gives us the same number of MS per company -- though admittedly it's not nearly as tidy as simply replicating the organization of a panzer division verbatim.
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Gelgoog Jager
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Re: Multiplying Divisions with Zeon

Brave Fencer Kirby wrote:The easiest way to check how well the analogy holds seems to be looking at unit formation in the animation. Obviously we aren't seeing an entire division of MS on-screen at once, so we can't work from the top down -- but how about the bottom up?

On the Federation side, a basic mobile suit platoon is pretty consistently four units. 08th MS Team shows a standard "team" as three MS and a hovertruck; in 0080, the Gray Phantom deploys 8 MS (two teams' worth); 0083's "immortal 4th Team" has four members; the Salamis Kai carries four MS; etc etc. I'm sure there are exceptions, but generally speaking, four is the basic unit size for Federation MS formations.

Zeon, on the other hand, seems to like having three MS per unit. The Musai can carry 3 MS in its hanger (though it can fit two more in its Komusai), the Gaw carries 3 MS, the Zanzibar can carry 6 MS (two teams), the Black Tristars are a three-man group, as is Topp's unit in 08th MS Team...

Of course, you can make the numbers come out almost even by giving Zeon more platoons per company (6 x 3 for 18, or 7 x 3 for 21, instead of 5 x 4 for 20). If we assume seven platoons of three each, plus an extra MS for the company commander, that still gives us the same number of MS per company -- though admittedly it's not nearly as tidy as simply replicating the organization of a panzer division verbatim.
There are some problems with those examples:

-0083's Immortal 4th team is probably the closest we have to a confirmed 4 member MS team during the OYW, but by 0083 it's made of 3 people since Burning is no longer part of the team. In fact this is how they are transferred to the Albion. On Torrington, the agressor MS team during the mock battle against the powered GM also consists of 3 MS. Later in space, when all 6 of the Albion's MS are around, they are deployed in groups of 3 MS. Afterwards the teams are deployed in sets of 2 and 3, or just deployed together.

-08th MS Team's hovertrucks would technically take a role closer to being the mothership of the MS rather than standing up for a 4th MS. That said, the formations of the Kojima batallion could also be influenced by the scarcity of MS at that time, so they may not necessarily reflect later standard formations.

-I will have to watch 0080 again, but I seem to recall that there was some issue with the Gray Phantom's GMs, namely that they were actually all Sniper IIs despite the color schemes, which raised the question of how many MS were actually deployed. Some were probably colored incorrectly, resulting in a single unit being shown in two different color schemes between the battle scenes.

Sadly, there aren't many examples of Federation MS teams, but some examples of 3 MS Teams among the Federation that I do know include:

-In RFTA, the White Dingos (plus a Hovertruck). IIRC there were 2 more identical teams on that game
-In the Blue Destiny games and manga, Yuu Kajima's first MS team also consists of 3 MS.
-In the 0081 game, the Phantom Sweeper initial team consists of 3 MS.
-In MS Igloo, the Zudahs that are helping the forces that escaped Odessa engage 6 GMs (2 teams). Also, all Ball formations consists on 3 units.

That said, MS Igloo 2 do confirms that a standard EFGF tank team consists of 4 units.

Zeon ships do seem to carry teams made of 3 MS, even if their ship have higher capacity, such as the Zanzibar and Gaw. I will take a look later to look for any non-3 MS team among Zeon forces.
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Deacon Blues
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Re: Multiplying Divisions with Zeon

I find it hard to believe that there were only 1000 for a starting amount. That's hardly enough to subjugate the entire planet. Granted you did have soldiers fighting on Wappa's a la the 908th reconnaissance company and what not, but still... even with tanks and what not, it just doesn't seem feasible. I think that's why the old "bloated" numbers from the past of 3600+ and what not seemed more accurate. At least in real terms. I mean look at the US deploying troops over seas. The sheer numbers of those versus what the Zeon used just doesn't add up from a real world perspective.
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MythSearcher
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Re: Multiplying Divisions with Zeon

Gelgoog Jager wrote:
Brave Fencer Kirby wrote:The easiest way to check how well the analogy holds seems to be looking at unit formation in the animation. Obviously we aren't seeing an entire division of MS on-screen at once, so we can't work from the top down -- but how about the bottom up?

On the Federation side, a basic mobile suit platoon is pretty consistently four units. 08th MS Team shows a standard "team" as three MS and a hovertruck; in 0080, the Gray Phantom deploys 8 MS (two teams' worth); 0083's "immortal 4th Team" has four members; the Salamis Kai carries four MS; etc etc. I'm sure there are exceptions, but generally speaking, four is the basic unit size for Federation MS formations.

Zeon, on the other hand, seems to like having three MS per unit. The Musai can carry 3 MS in its hanger (though it can fit two more in its Komusai), the Gaw carries 3 MS, the Zanzibar can carry 6 MS (two teams), the Black Tristars are a three-man group, as is Topp's unit in 08th MS Team...

Of course, you can make the numbers come out almost even by giving Zeon more platoons per company (6 x 3 for 18, or 7 x 3 for 21, instead of 5 x 4 for 20). If we assume seven platoons of three each, plus an extra MS for the company commander, that still gives us the same number of MS per company -- though admittedly it's not nearly as tidy as simply replicating the organization of a panzer division verbatim.
There are some problems with those examples:

-0083's Immortal 4th team is probably the closest we have to a confirmed 4 member MS team during the OYW, but by 0083 it's made of 3 people since Burning is no longer part of the team. In fact this is how they are transferred to the Albion. On Torrington, the agressor MS team during the mock battle against the powered GM also consists of 3 MS. Later in space, when all 6 of the Albion's MS are around, they are deployed in groups of 3 MS. Afterwards the teams are deployed in sets of 2 and 3, or just deployed together.

-08th MS Team's hovertrucks would technically take a role closer to being the mothership of the MS rather than standing up for a 4th MS. That said, the formations of the Kojima batallion could also be influenced by the scarcity of MS at that time, so they may not necessarily reflect later standard formations.

-I will have to watch 0080 again, but I seem to recall that there was some issue with the Gray Phantom's GMs, namely that they were actually all Sniper IIs despite the color schemes, which raised the question of how many MS were actually deployed. Some were probably colored incorrectly, resulting in a single unit being shown in two different color schemes between the battle scenes.

Sadly, there aren't many examples of Federation MS teams, but some examples of 3 MS Teams among the Federation that I do know include:

-In RFTA, the White Dingos (plus a Hovertruck). IIRC there were 2 more identical teams on that game
-In the Blue Destiny games and manga, Yuu Kajima's first MS team also consists of 3 MS.
-In the 0081 game, the Phantom Sweeper initial team consists of 3 MS.
-In MS Igloo, the Zudahs that are helping the forces that escaped Odessa engage 6 GMs (2 teams). Also, all Ball formations consists on 3 units.

That said, MS Igloo 2 do confirms that a standard EFGF tank team consists of 4 units.

Zeon ships do seem to carry teams made of 3 MS, even if their ship have higher capacity, such as the Zanzibar and Gaw. I will take a look later to look for any non-3 MS team among Zeon forces.
Its not consistent, the 3 GM + 2 Ball team formation was toss around for quite a while, and the MG manual stated the GMs are teams of 5, having usually 3 close combat types and 2 mid range support like GM Cannon or Bazooka equipped GM, or maybe Balls, which is consistent with the 3 GM + 2 Ball formation.

MS Igloo got racks on Salamis for 6, so a team of 3 is much more reasonable, unless you always have 3 GMs and 2 Balls, but then the team will have to be carried by 2 different ships, and you need a total of 5 ships, 2 carrying Balls, 3 carrying GMs, to give you 6 teams.

Another fun way to look at this would be the WB team, you have a team of 3, the Gundam, Guncannon and a Guntank(or another Guncannon) but then you also have supporting mecha like G-Fighter and Core boosters.

Anyway, its pretty much inconsistent in the real world anyway, you seldom have a fix number all the time, the teams are formed according to what they are facing, for example, fighters can have teams of 3~5, 3 can fly in a delta formation, 4 in a 4 digit formation(saw this on a WWII German poster, 4 planes flying in a formation that is like they are on the finger tips of a hand), 5 in a V shape formation, etc.
Deacon Blues wrote:I find it hard to believe that there were only 1000 for a starting amount. That's hardly enough to subjugate the entire planet. Granted you did have soldiers fighting on Wappa's a la the 908th reconnaissance company and what not, but still... even with tanks and what not, it just doesn't seem feasible. I think that's why the old "bloated" numbers from the past of 3600+ and what not seemed more accurate. At least in real terms. I mean look at the US deploying troops over seas. The sheer numbers of those versus what the Zeon used just doesn't add up from a real world perspective.
Yes, I think the old larger number is much more reasonable, the problem might be the same source(EB) got a lot of impossible numbers as well, like a much smaller number(a 2 digit number) for MSs and 4 digit number of troops deployed to take over NA, rendering it quite unreliable.
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Gelgoog Jager
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Re: Multiplying Divisions with Zeon

Gelgoog Jager wrote:I'm afraid I can't locate it right now, but in another thread I posted about a site that included figures for both sides forces during the battle of Odessa, which credited Zeon with about 1,000 MS while indicating that the Federation only deployed around 100 MS.
Ok, found it, though it's a bit different from what I remembered:

http://www.gundamuniverse.it/gundamworl ... odessa.htm

Deployments in the field:
Principality of Zeon/Federal Forces


Military personnel:
900,000/3,700,000
Staff in the back:
80,000/4,000,000

Tanks:
2000/5800
Other combat vehicles:
1500/9000
Mobile Suit:
1,100/few units

Artillery pieces:
10,000/25,000

Rocket Launcher:
2,000/10,000
Surface to surface missiles:
20,000/40,000

Warplanes:
600/1,800
Bombers:
800/3,300
Air support:
500/800

Ground combat ships:
13/12
Mega particle cannon platforms:
200/---
Submarines:
8/---
Assault landing ships:
---/1
Warships:
---/6
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MythSearcher
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Re: Multiplying Divisions with Zeon

Gelgoog Jager wrote:
Gelgoog Jager wrote:I'm afraid I can't locate it right now, but in another thread I posted about a site that included figures for both sides forces during the battle of Odessa, which credited Zeon with about 1,000 MS while indicating that the Federation only deployed around 100 MS.
Ok, found it, though it's a bit different from what I remembered:

http://www.gundamuniverse.it/gundamworl ... odessa.htm

Deployments in the field:
Principality of Zeon/Federal Forces


Military personnel:
900,000/3,700,000
Staff in the back:
80,000/4,000,000

Tanks:
2000/5800
Other combat vehicles:
1500/9000
Mobile Suit:
1,100/few units

Artillery pieces:
10,000/25,000

Rocket Launcher:
2,000/10,000
Surface to surface missiles:
20,000/40,000

Warplanes:
600/1,800
Bombers:
800/3,300
Air support:
500/800

Ground combat ships:
13/12
Mega particle cannon platforms:
200/---
Submarines:
8/---
Assault landing ships:
---/1
Warships:
---/6
This is from EB, some of the numbers are really realistic, some are ridiculously small or large.
This is one of the realistic examples.
The ridiculously small number come from the first deployments of Zeon to Earth, and a way too large number actually was criticized in Gundam Officials stating there's no way the EFSF can deploy 5000~6000 MSs in Solomon and ABQ.
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AmuroNT1
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Re: Multiplying Divisions with Zeon

Re: composition of Federation MS teams, we have two more examples which mimic the 08th MS Team's structure of three MS and one support crew: the White Dingos from RftA, and Yuu Kajima's "Guinea Pig Team" from Blue Destiny.

Other than that tho, don't ask me. Math is my brother's subject, not mine. :P
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Re: Multiplying Divisions with Zeon

Glad people are having fun with this! It's basically a frivolous game, but for those of us who enjoy this sort of thing... :-)


In terms of the number of mobile suits deployed on Earth, we have a couple of published claims to compare against.

There's that list of forces at Operation Odessa (originally from Entertainment Bible 39), which seems really over the top. Remember that Zeon only landed 28 mobile suits during its airborne assault on Jaburo, the supreme headquarters of the entire Earth Federation Forces, and this was a major battle which exhausted the California Base's fighting strength! I have no problem assuming plenty of tanks and aircraft, which is consistent with what we see in the animation, but most other sources indicate that the Zeon ground forces were pretty short on mobile suits.

Also from Entertainment Bible 39, and hard to reconcile with the above, is the claim that Zeon's first landing operation succeeded in landing 3200 soldiers, 220 mobile suits, and 380 tanks. The "Another Century Chronicle" books, which slavishly follow EB 39's numbers, provide a detailed org chart for a typical Terrestrial Mobile Division which adds up to exactly 220 mobile suits.

And Hobby Japan's "Record of the One Year War" RPG sourcebook includes a chart of total Zeon and Federation losses during all the landing operations; this tells us that Zeon lost 78 mobile suits and 40,000 soldiers in the landing process, and successfully landed 762 mobile suits and 810,000 soldiers. That means the entire landing force would consist of 840 mobile suits and 850,000 soldiers.

Most of the figures in the Hobby Japan sourcebook are based on those from EB 39, and this total seems compatible with EB 39's figures for the first landing operation. Taken together, they give us a range of 160-220 mobile suits per Terrestrial Mobile Division, so a figure of 182 machines would be well within the mainstream.


There's also an older Hobby Japan sourcebook called Gundam Games that includes tons of fascinating org charts and weapon tallies. But it seems to have been forgotten by history, and its info isn't included in later compilations like Gundam Officials. For what it's worth, Gundam Games provides a breakdown of the 2nd Terrestrial Mobile Division in which its main mobile suit forces are gathered into a single Mobile Infantry Regiment, which consists of two battalions with four companies apiece - exactly the same panzer-division model indicated by Kawaguchi's recent explanation.


Is the Dolos's capacity of 182 mobile suits just a coincidence? We'll probably never know, but I think it's probably just a happy accident. That figure goes all the way back to Gundam Century, which was published in 1981. Since Xenosynth asks, currently only two ships of this class are officially acknowledged - the Dolos and the Dolowa (or however you want to spell it).


Finally, concerning the number of mobile suits per team (or platoon): I think the MSV series first claimed that the Federation Forces used standard teams of five, but aside from the White Base, we never really see this in the animation. Federation Forces mobile suits usually seem to be deployed in even numbers, as with real-world tanks and aircraft, and in particular we see a lot of sixes and twelves.

Zeon's standard formation has always been the three-unit team, just like Japan's air forces at the beginning of World War II (before they realized this was a really lousy way of organizing them). But that's the number of mobile suits deployed, and there's no guarantee that all the machines assigned to that team would be in operational condition at the same time. According to the MSV Collection File (which was also supervised by Katsumi Kawaguchi), the Zaku II has an operating rate of about 60 percent - which means you'd need to keep five Zakus on hand to be sure you'll always have three in working order.

There's actually a lot of supporting evidence for this notion. As we've noted, the Musai has space for five Zakus (two stored in the Komusai) but usually deploys three at a time. And the old Roman Albums said the Gwazine carries ten mobile suits, even though we only see it deploying six at a time in the animation. Even in MS Igloo, the Zaku team in the first episode of "Gravity Front" consists of three mobile suits, numbered 841, 842, and 845 - which suggests that last one is an emergency reserve unit.


This doesn't just apply to the Zeon side, either. In the Blue Destiny novelization - written by Gundam Officials editor Yuka Minakawa - we're told that You Kajima's test corps actually has five GMs, of which three are usually deployed at a time. During the mission where they retrieve the Blue Destiny from a crashed Medea, we have Philip Hughes in unit 101, You Kajima in unit 102, and Summona Fulis in unit 105. Of the remaining two units, one is held in reserve, and the other stays behind to guard the transport convoy. Since all three of the frontline units are damaged in this mission, the next time they sortie, Philip and Summona are using units 103 and 104, and You has switched to the Blue Destiny.


Even if the original intention was to assign five Zakus to every team, this is probably the kind of good intention that falls by the wayside as soon as the fighting starts and supplies start running low. We don't see a lot of "fifth unit" machines - the unit numbers of the Semovente team in the first MS Igloo series, for example, are 321, 322, 324, 342, 343, and 344, which is what you'd expect to see if you had just one reserve unit assigned to each team, for a total of four Zakus.

In this case, a "skinny" mobile suit company would have 18 mobile suits instead of 22; a battalion would have 74 instead of 88; a full regiment (the backbone of a Terrestrial Mobile Division) would have 150 instead of 182.

There are some other interesting patterns in the numbering of Zeon mobile suits. Later models like the Zaku Desert Type and Zaku Cannon tend to have higher unit numbers, which may indicate that they were deployed by adding them to existing teams...

-- Mark
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Re: Multiplying Divisions with Zeon

toysdream wrote:Glad people are having fun with this! It's basically a frivolous game, but for those of us who enjoy this sort of thing... :-)


In terms of the number of mobile suits deployed on Earth, we have a couple of published claims to compare against.

There's that list of forces at Operation Odessa (originally from Entertainment Bible 39), which seems really over the top. Remember that Zeon only landed 28 mobile suits during its airborne assault on Jaburo, the supreme headquarters of the entire Earth Federation Forces, and this was a major battle which exhausted the California Base's fighting strength! I have no problem assuming plenty of tanks and aircraft, which is consistent with what we see in the animation, but most other sources indicate that the Zeon ground forces were pretty short on mobile suits.

Also from Entertainment Bible 39, and hard to reconcile with the above, is the claim that Zeon's first landing operation succeeded in landing 3200 soldiers, 220 mobile suits, and 380 tanks. The "Another Century Chronicle" books, which slavishly follow EB 39's numbers, provide a detailed org chart for a typical Terrestrial Mobile Division which adds up to exactly 220 mobile suits.

And Hobby Japan's "Record of the One Year War" RPG sourcebook includes a chart of total Zeon and Federation losses during all the landing operations; this tells us that Zeon lost 78 mobile suits and 40,000 soldiers in the landing process, and successfully landed 762 mobile suits and 810,000 soldiers. That means the entire landing force would consist of 840 mobile suits and 850,000 soldiers.

Most of the figures in the Hobby Japan sourcebook are based on those from EB 39, and this total seems compatible with EB 39's figures for the first landing operation. Taken together, they give us a range of 160-220 mobile suits per Terrestrial Mobile Division, so a figure of 182 machines would be well within the mainstream.


There's also an older Hobby Japan sourcebook called Gundam Games that includes tons of fascinating org charts and weapon tallies. But it seems to have been forgotten by history, and its info isn't included in later compilations like Gundam Officials. For what it's worth, Gundam Games provides a breakdown of the 2nd Terrestrial Mobile Division in which its main mobile suit forces are gathered into a single Mobile Infantry Regiment, which consists of two battalions with four companies apiece - exactly the same panzer-division model indicated by Kawaguchi's recent explanation.


Is the Dolos's capacity of 182 mobile suits just a coincidence? We'll probably never know, but I think it's probably just a happy accident. That figure goes all the way back to Gundam Century, which was published in 1981. Since Xenosynth asks, currently only two ships of this class are officially acknowledged - the Dolos and the Dolowa (or however you want to spell it).


Finally, concerning the number of mobile suits per team (or platoon): I think the MSV series first claimed that the Federation Forces used standard teams of five, but aside from the White Base, we never really see this in the animation. Federation Forces mobile suits usually seem to be deployed in even numbers, as with real-world tanks and aircraft, and in particular we see a lot of sixes and twelves.

Zeon's standard formation has always been the three-unit team, just like Japan's air forces at the beginning of World War II (before they realized this was a really lousy way of organizing them). But that's the number of mobile suits deployed, and there's no guarantee that all the machines assigned to that team would be in operational condition at the same time. According to the MSV Collection File (which was also supervised by Katsumi Kawaguchi), the Zaku II has an operating rate of about 60 percent - which means you'd need to keep five Zakus on hand to be sure you'll always have three in working order.

There's actually a lot of supporting evidence for this notion. As we've noted, the Musai has space for five Zakus (two stored in the Komusai) but usually deploys three at a time. And the old Roman Albums said the Gwazine carries ten mobile suits, even though we only see it deploying six at a time in the animation. Even in MS Igloo, the Zaku team in the first episode of "Gravity Front" consists of three mobile suits, numbered 841, 842, and 845 - which suggests that last one is an emergency reserve unit.


This doesn't just apply to the Zeon side, either. In the Blue Destiny novelization - written by Gundam Officials editor Yuka Minakawa - we're told that You Kajima's test corps actually has five GMs, of which three are usually deployed at a time. During the mission where they retrieve the Blue Destiny from a crashed Medea, we have Philip Hughes in unit 101, You Kajima in unit 102, and Summona Fulis in unit 105. Of the remaining two units, one is held in reserve, and the other stays behind to guard the transport convoy. Since all three of the frontline units are damaged in this mission, the next time they sortie, Philip and Summona are using units 103 and 104, and You has switched to the Blue Destiny.


Even if the original intention was to assign five Zakus to every team, this is probably the kind of good intention that falls by the wayside as soon as the fighting starts and supplies start running low. We don't see a lot of "fifth unit" machines - the unit numbers of the Semovente team in the first MS Igloo series, for example, are 321, 322, 324, 342, 343, and 344, which is what you'd expect to see if you had just one reserve unit assigned to each team, for a total of four Zakus.

In this case, a "skinny" mobile suit company would have 18 mobile suits instead of 22; a battalion would have 74 instead of 88; a full regiment (the backbone of a Terrestrial Mobile Division) would have 150 instead of 182.

There are some other interesting patterns in the numbering of Zeon mobile suits. Later models like the Zaku Desert Type and Zaku Cannon tend to have higher unit numbers, which may indicate that they were deployed by adding them to existing teams...

-- Mark
I personally find the EB 220 MS number way too small, especially with so little personnel and AFV with them.
The RPG source sounded much more reasonable, we are taking over such a large area, even if 220 MSs can guard a large enough area, 3200 fighting personnel can't.

Anyway, in real military terms, if you can complete the task with 3, no commander will order 5 unless s/he really want it done and doesn't care about supplies. Since each unit is going to take up supplies, maintenance time and parts, sending out the minimum unit helps the overall strategic planning by a lot(though it may hinder the tactical part) So a team having 5 suits reserving 2 is reasonable, and I just thought of a really good example, Char reserved 2 Zakus on the scouting mission in FG, which is a really sensible tactical and strategical choice. The captain who asked 1 to stay behind is also tactically smart, it might not be safe to leave their MSs behind, but having all 3 rushing in would be kinda stupid when you are on a scouting mission and you don't know what's waiting for you.

When using the RPG numbers, 840, I was thinking about something like this:
4X182 is 728, considering they planned for some casualties, this is quite reasonable.
with 112 extras, that's about 2/15, they ended up with more, but who knows when will they get reinforcements and resupplies? they are entering enemy territory after all!

And for the Dolos class, as I recall, there's supposed to be 3, but I only know of Dolos and Dolowa, and never even heard of the 3rd's name. Gundam Officials also mentioned 3 were built, but can only name 2 of them.(So, the naming convention should be Dolo-?, Dolomon? Dololo? Dolobo? know all the jokes? XD)

BTW, talking about the numbering, there should be 2 more data points, as I recall, the Guncannons for WB got two numbers, 108 & 109. And I remember the Black Tri Star got a series of number that's not continuous, one of them is 06, can't remember where I got the number though.
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Re: Multiplying Divisions with Zeon

MythSearcher wrote:BTW, talking about the numbering, there should be 2 more data points, as I recall, the Guncannons for WB got two numbers, 108 & 109. And I remember the Black Tri Star got a series of number that's not continuous, one of them is 06, can't remember where I got the number though.
The recently released HGUC model of the Tri-Stars' Zaku II R1-As gives their numbers as 03 for Gaia, 06 for Ortega, and 02 for Mash.
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Re: Multiplying Divisions with Zeon

Bear in mind that the figures in the RPG sourcebook appear to cover all the landing operations, which would mean three major drops plus a couple of reserve forces. Ultimately, we end up with five Terrestrial Mobile Divisions deployed on Earth, plus M'Quve's separate command. In that case, the sourcebook is right in line with EB 39's tally, which the other numbers in the sourcebook seem to be based on.


If we check against early sources like the animation and the MSV series, these small figures seem reasonable. First Gundam indicates that Zeon's North American forces are spread very thin, with only handfuls of mobile suits in the field; during the White Base's trip across North America, it ends up fighting (by my count) a grand total of ten Zakus, 24 Magella Attacks, and about 66 Dopps up through the end of episode 10.

After that we get running battles with Ramba Ral's tiny team, and the occasional single Zaku pops up here and there, but otherwise it's not until episode 22 that we see any higher number of mobile suits; in this episode, M'Quve deploys a massive force of 8 shiny new Goufs and (if we go by the dialogue) 35 Dopps to cripple the White Base. The episode after that, he dispatches three Goufs on Dodais, accompanied by ten Dopps, to intercept Matilda's supply corps. So in just two episodes, M'Quve has deployed more mobile suits against the White Base than Garma did the whole time it was in North America! We don't see much of the Odessa battle in First Gundam, and after that, it's all amphibious mobile suits up until the Jaburo attack.

And in the Mobile Suit Variation books, we're told that "Of the mobile suits that landed on Earth, the F type Zaku II made up the majority in the first landing operation, and the J type in the second and third." Most of the F types deployed in the first operation were later upgraded to J types. Nonetheless, according to the profile of the J type in the second MSV book:
Regrettably, because it wasn't produced in the same kind of numbers as the F type, usually it could only be deployed on the front lines individually or in small formations.
The new Zaku volume in the MSV-R book series repeats this claim practically word-for-word, and why not? In First Gundam, aside from the Jaburo assault, we never see more than three or four Zakus at once during the whole time the White Base is on Earth. No wonder the Zeon characters are constantly complaining about lack of supplies!


As for other ships of the Dolos class, Tomino's Gundam novels mention another one called Midro (Midlo?). This carrier participates in the defense of Solomon, deploying fifty Zakus and several Gattle and Jicco squadrons.


Regarding the Federation side: In looking through my notes on Tomino's novels, I'm reminded that most of the head counts of GM and Ball forces there are multiples of five. The first major Federation offensive here is a two-pronged attack on Granada involving two Trafalgar-class carriers, 55 battleships and cruisers, 95 Public assault boats, 120 space fighters, 40 GMs, and 90 Balls. During the attack on Solomon, the White Base joins forces with two other squadrons which have a total of six warships, 10 GMs, and 20 Balls (so each squadron has 15 mobile suits total, just as claimed in the MSV series).

Incidentally, in the same MSV Collection File entry that tells us the Zaku II has a 60% operating rate, we're told that the rate for the GM is 80%. This suggests that, if there were five GMs in your team, you could expect four of them to be working at the same time. So the difference between four- and five-unit options may simply be the difference between the number assigned and the number deployed.

Regarding the Guncannon numbers, these were first introduced in Tomino's novels, and then added to the animation in the Gundam III movie. In Gundam III, they're accompanied by Core Boosters with the numbers 005 and 006; in Tomino's novels, the White Base receives a pair of GMs instead, with the numbers 324 and 325. The MG Guncannon kit manual explains the numbers by saying that they're based on the serial numbers of the Core Fighters; the White Base starts out with 001 through 004, loses 003 when Ryu crashes it, and then receives new ones with the serial numbers 005 through 009. Since Core Fighters 008 and 009 are assigned to the two Guncannons, their unit numbers share the same final digit.


Aaaaand finally, the Black Tri-Stars! Their unit numbers are 02, 03, and 06, with 03 being Gaia's machine. Usually you'd expect the team leader to be 01, but perhaps none of them wanted to go first? The HG-UC Zaku I kit and the MSV-R series indicate that they used the same numbers on their previous machines. Their Doms are currently said to be numbered 12, 25, and 60, but the painted artwork of the Dom from the original MSV series bears the number 03 and a Lieutenant's rank stripes, so this was probably intended to be Gaia's machine as well.

Since they've been using the same numbers since the beginning of the war, this seems consistent with an original team of five machines in which (for whatever reason) nobody wants to be labeled as number 01. :-)

-- Mark
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Re: Multiplying Divisions with Zeon

01 being a red shirt? :lol:

Probably because they don't want to get sniped because 01 usually designated for commander/ leader's MS. That's an easy mark for the enemy, so better off with another number as to stop any unwanted attention to a particular MS.
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Re: Multiplying Divisions with Zeon

Yep, that apparently happened with the panzer divisions in World War II, too. The enemy quickly learned how to identify the command tanks, so they started giving them decoy numbers to confuse the other side. :-)

-- Mark
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Re: Multiplying Divisions with Zeon

Weren't the Tri-Stars originally part of Zeon's Instructor Corps? I concede this is just pure speculation, but maybe 01, 04, and 05 belong to other members who for whatever reason aren't around anymore.
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Re: Multiplying Divisions with Zeon

They were founding members of the Mobile Training Battalion, but it seems like many of Zeon's pilots eventually cycled through that group as part of the training process, and I doubt they'd retain their old numbers.

During their Training Battalion days, they were assigned to Team D of the 2nd Company. I don't know if I've gone into this before on these boards, but available evidence suggests the letter designations for teams are continuous across all the companies, so this would probably be the fourth team in the overall battalion. Given that this battalion was set up with three companies of three teams each, this would make them the first team of the second company, and so you'd expect the unit numbers on their machines to be in the form "21*". We've never actually seen those markings, though.

-- Mark
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Re: Multiplying Divisions with Zeon

Regarding the operation rate of Federation and Zeon MS, doesn't these ratios contradicts other ideas, such as the GM supposedly being an accident-prone machine, or the Zaku (particularly the Zaku Kai) being referred to as a machine easy to mantain. The later probably applies to most Zaku type MS though, considering how many post OYW anti-Federation groups use Zakus of different types so many years later. Many of those groups probably don't even have access at all to supplies to properly mantain them.

Such maintenance issues make it sound like the Zaku is a machine that doesn't require much maintenance, while making the GM sound like a machine that might be in need of constant maintenance, which in turn seems to contradicts the operation ratios.
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