MS Weapons: Range Against The Machine!

[Evex]

On the concept of beams range I think why there are so many claims is due to the possible design of the weapon firing the beam weapon. For instance the RX-78-2 Gundam beam rifle is meant to engage opponents from a medium range. It's rifle isn't meant to fire over longer ranges which means the particles used to fire the rifle might not be packed as tightly. This means the beam would have shorter effective range before its damage decreased. In the mean time the guncannon is meant to support the gundam so it's beam rifle is more likely designed with a longer effective range to it. The f90II-L is meant to engage from a much longer range then both suits, so it makes sense the damage from its beam would fall off at a much longer distance.

If we use the prototype beam rifle from the first post as an example. The rifle has a range of 9000 meters. In theory we can say the prototype beam rifle has three ranges. A minimal range, a effective firing range and then the weapons maximum range. We know the effective firing range of the prototype beam rifle is 9000 meters. Using this we can say that anything from 9001 meters to the weapons maximum range will still endure damage, but not as much damage as if it was with in the 9000 meter range. Anything beyond the maximum range is the point where the weapon becomes ineffective. Since there is no real data on the range of most weapons in gundam. What can be considered a weapons maximum range is unknown, and so its hard to tell when a weapon will just stop working.

On the note of sensors and minovsky particles. From what I've read in this topic, we can assume that the listed sensor range of a mobile suit is its enemy detection range under minovsky particles. Then how do we explain the increased sensor/ enemy detection range of later generation's mobile suits ?

[toysdream]

Yep, according to the specs explanation in Entertainment Bible 1, the "effective sensor radius" spec actually represents the enemy search range (索敵限界距離):

Effective sensor radius: Indicates the enemy search range of the main camera. This is dramatically reduced in atmosphere.

"Enemy search" is a term that comes up all the time in Gundam, both in the anime dialogue and the published sources. It basically means the detection of nearby enemy machines (fighters, ships, mobile suits, etc). Once you know something's there, you should be able to zoom in and get a better look at it, so it's entirely possible that the visual range of a mobile suit - and its targeting range - would be greater than its listed sensor radius.

Note also that bit about the enemy search range being reduced in atmosphere. You see this also in the specs of the AMX-109 Capule from Gundam ZZ, which has one sensor radius (12,300m) in atmosphere and a different sensor radius (7,600m) underwater. Those numbers actually suggest that the sensor radius specs we've been given for mobile suits are all in atmosphere - after all, we have such numbers for the Dom and Z'Gok and so forth - and that might also help explain why the mobile armor sensor ranges are more than ten times longer. If they can only be used in space, their sensor specs presumably represent their range in space rather than atmosphere.

-- Mark

[MythSearcher]

Not much to say about your notion of ground-based beam cannons to intercept descending objects - it doesn't seem like they've ever tried this in the U.C. series, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's impossible. After episode 4 of Gundam Unicorn, in which Zeon remnants fly from all around the world to attack Torrington without being detected by radar - during peacetime, when there shouldn't be any Minovsky particle interference - it seems like the writers just aren't going to give the Federation any credit for basic competence.

Well, that is what I'm saying.
The EFF is just really slow and burrecratic, I hardly think they can scramble the contruction that fast in the beginning of the war.

About the Unicorn time, though, as I recall, the novel actually said something about the EFF secretly keeping the Zeon remnants around to keep some conflict.
MSV-R JR's return also has words about the EFF even ran from encounters, so they still have jobs to do.

Just to try to wring out a last little bit of value from the discussion, though, let me run through a few discrete issues...

Physical range limits on Earth: I don't think we have much reason to question the initial assumptions - beam weapons are limited to 20-30 km in the atmosphere, as per the original setting notes, and mobile suit beam rifles even more so (about 10 kilometers for the RX-79 rifle).

The RX-79 rifle seems more like a sensing problem, and they are trying for REALLY precise shooting so it won't accidentally hit the fusion reactor and cause a big explosion. There didn't seem like they have a focus or damage power problem here.
So even MS beam rifles might at least have a 20~30km range.
Sniper rifles should have more, looking at the Sniper that took out the Zanzibar in 08MS, it seems to be at least located in somewhere at the tip of Asparas III's sensing range and took its time to aim at a launched Zanzibar, with a reasonable acceleartion, it takes only about 120 seconds to reach 120~180km similar to modern rockets, the Zanzibar could be around 30km up at the time it started being hit, and rising pretty fast, soon to be 40km up in around 10 seconds. If the sniper is about 3~5km from Apsaras, and the Zanzibar launching around the same distance from Apsaras and moving away at an increasing speed, it can well be 50~60km from the sniper.
Given a military mission's tolerance, the beam sniper rifle should be able to even damage further than that range to ensure mission success.
And the really focused beam(almost behaving like a laser and nothing like a normal mega particle beam) seen hitting the Zanzibar, we can even say that it does not disperse that quickly and is sure to have a much longer range.
At least from what they show us in 08MS, that specific beam sniper rifle is one of a kind, with a much higher precision than any other beam weaponery we see in any Gundam show.
That is why I can accept the setting as not contradicting the range of beam rifles, its obviously different from other rifles. And at least its calibre ratio is much larger than other beam rifles, the length seems to be at least around 2.5 times of the RX-78 rifle, while the output beam has a much smaller cross section.

This does not mean that it has no problems, I brought this up to say that does not really make sense and the only redemption they can do is blame it on the EF being idiots.(well, they did kinda say that, so...)

Physical range limits in space: Highly controversial! Setting aside the matter of sensors and targeting, we have a huge range of claims for how far a mega particle beam can travel in space before losing its effect. You're clearly very attached to the "tens of thousands of kilometers" claim from Gundam Sentinel, and you seem inclined to dismiss the lower numbers (20-25 km for the Gundam's rifle as per the PG kit manual, 30 km for the Guncannon's rifle as per Gundam Officials, 100+ km for the Gundam F90 II-L's rifle).

Which is probably a matter of personal preference! But I think you should at least acknowledge that the Japanese sources don't agree, and that you're choosing one set of claims over another.

I do acknowledge other ranges exist. I am just saying like different weapons have different ranges in real life, they might well have different ranges in UC.
BTW, hadn't thought of this data point until now, I don't recall the exact number, how far was the Zaku Sniper sniping in Unicorn's novel? That also seems to be a really far distance nothing like the 2 digit km numbers.

Physical range limits for charged particle weapons: As previously noted, the Zanneck cannon and Keilas Guille fire charged particles, not mega particles. (Hence the big accelerator rings.) Likewise for the Jormungand, which is a plasma cannon. All three of these weapons have exceptionally long ranges, which may partly be thanks to their sheer size, but also seems a bit surprising since charged particles should be more prone to repel each other and scatter the beam.

My hunch is that the charged particles fired by these weapons are moving much faster than mega particles - after all, they can be magnetically accelerated, whereas mega particles get their velocity only from the initial mass-to-energy conversion and some clumsy I-field squeezing. We normally assume that mega particles are moving at something close to the speed of light, but I'd suggest that this may not be true.

Mega particles are not moving really slow though, if we take the only data point I can think of, the few tens of thousands km of the FAZZ, they count to 3 and the beam already travelled that far, meaning its travelling somewhere around 10000~30000km/s.

Although I must say, I suspect Mega particles beams behaves very differenly pass a certain range.
It might just be like the dispersing of M particles, where it will keep a lattice structure within 100km from disperse, but once out, it accelerates very quickly and will reach close to the speed of light after that.

Anyway, the Japanese sources insist that the Jormungand has a longer range than the mega particle cannons of Federation warships. Presumably that's why warships don't bother with the forward observer tactic they tried to use with the Jormungand - the Jormungand could take out targets up to 2000 km away if it only knew where they were, but not so for a warship.

Well, Jormungard does seem to have a longer calibre ratio.

Sensor limits without Minovsky particles: Potentially huge, but really only applicable to Gundam Sentinel. The sensor radius spec of 6,250 km listed for the EWAC Nero seems entirely reasonable for unobstructed radar, and like it says in the color pages of Gundam Wars III, the EWAC Nero is "mainly for radar enemy search under low Minovsky particle densities." (The arm-mounted camera unit presumably has a lower range because it's wire-guided.)

Gundam Sentinel, where nobody's using Minovsky particles, is one of the few cases where we're seeing beam weapons at their maximum physical range rather than limited by visual sensors. It's an interesting case study, but I just wish the one actual number they came up with were less ridiculous...

I must say, without M particles, you don't really need a radar to see that far.
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/r ... h_In_Space

The problem is not seeing, but picking out only the important things.

But something with a varying heat signal and is shooting out MSs, I guess is really easy to pick out.

It doesn't work under M Particles because M Particles are diverging infra-red and thus you get a much bigger image and much shorter practicle sensing distance.

Sensor limits with Minovsky particles: MS Igloo very definitely states that visual observation is limited to 300 km for most of the One Year War. The Jormungand, which could potential hit targets 1800-2000 km away, is limited to 300 km by this factor. The sensor specs for One Year War-era mobile armors listed in Entertainment Bible 1 support this, since they vary from 100 to 250 km.

In practice, it seems like a lot of U.C. space battles are fought at closer ranges - often at the 20-30 km distance that marks the maximum range of 20th century naval warships. Entertainment Bible 39 claims that, during the Battle of Loum, Revil's fleet opens fire on the Zeons at a range of 28,000 meters, and this seems to be about the distance between the two sides in the first episode of MS Igloo.

Well, if we look at the sensing range of the MSs, all are under 10km, the problem is the 100mf/m^3 number, we have no idea how dense that is.
Also, I must ask, what kinda of limit is this? sensing a MS is much harder than sensing a warship that is more than 10 times its size.

Techinically, if you can see a 20m MS from 5km, you should be able to spot out a 200m warship with a similar width ratio from 50km. This is related to the angle between the minimum distance of the object you are trying to spot. That is also why we can see the edge of the Universe, but not the Apollo landing ship launch pads on the moon.

Sensor limits with Minovsky particles (alternative): Aside from MS Igloo, another notable set of claims comes from Gundam The Origin. Here, the White Base is able to pull up a visual image of Char's Musai in Earth orbit at a range of 1000 km. During the Battle of Loum, Ryu Jose can see the lights of the battle with his naked eyes from 300 km, and the Great Degwin detects the Tianem Fleet approaching when it's 4000 km away. These figures are a few times bigger than MS Igloo's, and the notion that you can get visuals on an enemy ship at 1000 km just barely supports that tidbit about the GM Sniper II. Assuming that the long-range beam rifle used by the GM Sniper has the same range as a warship cannon, this means that with One Year War technology you can just barely target and hit a space warship with a mega particle cannon at 1000 km. (That's still just half the range of the Jormungand, which means the MS Igloo info isn't totally wrong.)

Incidentally, 1000 km is also said to be the maximum range of the White Base's main guns. And in Gundam Officials, there's also some discussion of the Guntank's rough-draft armament, which includes "reach missiles" with a range of 1200 km. The text goes on to say that "in visual-range combat under Minovsky particle dispersal, a missile with a range of 1200 km was meaningless," which implies that 1000 km is pretty much the limit.

It'd be pretty much impossible to hit an enemy ship in 1000km with a ship cannon though.
Even if the cannon itself is really precise, the crew on your ship during combat would be running around and redistributing the mass, thus vibrating the ship in a really chaotic way.
It won't be significant in a shorter distance, but around 100 avg 70kg crew on your 70000 ton ship moving around doing emergency repairs and such, and you can have a maximum error of a few dozen metres in 1000km, which makes it basically impossible to aim and shoot and all lies down to luck on hitting your target.

In a previous thread, I noted that the three combat lines around Solomon are meant to indicate maximum firing range, maximum visual range, and maximum detection range respectively. If we use Gundam The Origin as our reference point, rather than MS Igloo, this suggests that the second and third combat lines should be at about 1000 and 4000 km respectively. As it happens, the Gundam 0083 novels claim that the overall "Solomon Sea" extends at least 30,000 km from Solomon itself - this is the distance to the remote Bougainville control sector - and the accompanying maps indicate that the "vital patrol sector" bounded by the third combat line is about 15% of this distance, or about 4500 km.

I have a really different interpretation on the lines. Those can have nothing to do with the range, but lines of which the battle units are positioned.

And as long as they have units patrolling this area, its given that they can detect M particles anomally, and thus limiting the sensing to a certain area, making it much easier to find the enemy in that area.

I do however, support that 30000km should be a reasonable all direction sensing range for ships and military bases before and during OYW, without M Particles(they can detect M Particles anyway).
This distance is a long enough distance where you still have time to react, even if the damage range of Mega particle weapons are 30000km(like in Sentinel) but only limited by sensing range, the enemy has to enter this range before they can cherry pick the useful targets on the base or the ships.

The specific direction sensing range though, should be much further.
What supports this is the Solar Ray, where we see that a colony in Side 3, which is in L2, shoots down fleets that are next to the moon. This is a distance over 60000km. Given that they don't really have to do an all direction search, this is a specific direction search, and thus can be much further.(i.e. just point a really big telescope over there)

Sensor limits with Minovsky particles (conclusion): All in all, then, I'm inclined to discard MS Igloo's claim about visual detection and embrace the numbers from Gundam The Origin. This makes the scales consistent with the Solomon maps from Gundam 0083, lets us accommodate the 0080 film comics' claim about the GM Sniper II, and still gives the Jormungand longer range than any warship weapon.

Actually, if you think about it, the numbers given in Igloo are kinda strange anyway.
The Z'cok diver engages the EFF fleets launching at an unknown unit of 10000 high up in the sky.
This would not make sense if its metres, since the ships of the EFF should still be going straight up and not horizontal at this height.
It's also impossible to be in km, that's not even in atmosphere. Feet, yards, miles, knots, nothing make sense here.
It'd only make sense if its around 100000m, 10 times the number given in Igloo.

Mobile suit sensors: Since you mentioned the PG Gundam kit manual: Yes, it has a diagram showing various ranges for the Gundam's main sensors. There's a blue zone in front and in back of the head, extending 60 miles forward and 50 miles backward, and wider green zones in front and in back extending 80 and 60 miles respectively. On the left and right sides, a green zone extends 40 miles in all directions.

There's no accompanying explanation, but since the front and back blue zones are centered on the head cameras, they probably represent the visual sensors while the green zones might include all the other sensor equipment. In that case, the Gundam would have a visual sensor range of almost 100 km, and its detection radius would vary from 65 to 130 km depending on the direction. According to Entertainment Bible 1, the "effective sensor radius" spec represents the mobile suit's enemy search range. This mysterious diagram suggests that, in the worst case scenario, the Gundam should be able to detect approaching enemies at a range of about 60 kilometers - ten times the listed spec.

Which works for me! If we took all the mobile suit sensor radius specs and multiplied them by ten, then the Zaku II would be able to detect enemies within 32 kilometers, the length of a standard space colony. The mobile armor sensor specs, which are already quite reasonable, could probably stay as they are. Then the GM Sniper II would have an enemy search radius slightly greater than that of the Zeong, which makes perfect sense to me.

Seriously, this makes much more sense.
If the Zaku can really only see 3.2km and Gundam's only 5.7km, it'd be really stupid for the pilots to not open the hatch and take out a telescope or binoculars to start searching for enemies with their bare eyes. Our eyes are much more powerful than that in space.

The only problem would be the 100mf/m^3 density figure, probably it is a VERY dense situation and not really a normal combat level.

Or, maybe the targets they are talking about are different.
The PG manual's large number might be talking about the sensing of relatively larger units like MS, and the usually smaller number we see are talking about the sensing of relatively smaller units like humans.
This would fix the 10 times distance distance, since MSs are 10 times larger than humans?

Or, the numbers talks about without M particles?

In any case, the PG kit manual also indicates that the physical range of the Gundam's beam rifle is much less than its sensor range (as noted above). So the limiting factor there would be the weapon's physical constraints, not the Gundam's sensors.

-- Mark

[/quote]

That'd be really strange about the figure right beneath the sensor ranges that talks about data linking with WB, and attacking enemies beyond the Gundam's sensing range.
Rationalizing this, I propose the following 2 possibilities:
1) the Beam rifle can go up to much higher output and thus have a much longer range. and the figure they gave us here is just a lower range test.
2) The sensors are really limited to around 6km under M particles dispersal, and thus a 10km range rifle still rely on the datalink method.

[toysdream]

Sniper rifles should have more, looking at the Sniper that took out the Zanzibar in 08MS, it seems to be at least located in somewhere at the tip of Asparas III's sensing range and took its time to aim at a launched Zanzibar, with a reasonable acceleartion, it takes only about 120 seconds to reach 120~180km similar to modern rockets, the Zanzibar could be around 30km up at the time it started being hit, and rising pretty fast, soon to be 40km up in around 10 seconds. If the sniper is about 3~5km from Apsaras, and the Zanzibar launching around the same distance from Apsaras and moving away at an increasing speed, it can well be 50~60km from the sniper.

I don't think that's necessarily true. In the space shuttle launch process, it takes two minutes to reach an altitude of 45 km (where the solid rocket boosters separate). When the space shuttle Challenger exploded, almost 75 seconds after launch, it was at an altitude of 15 km.

In the 08th MS Team animation, the GM Sniper opens fire about 90 seconds after the Kerguelen ignites its engines, and 75 seconds after it emerges from its underground launch ramp. When it blows up, the resulting explosion looks a lot like the Challenger one, and Aina can see it very clearly from the ground. In fact, it seems even lower than the Challenger explosion, because in every shot the Kerguelen is well below the cloud layer (which apparently ends about 12km up). On the whole, I think we're looking at a distance of well under 20km - and probably closer to 10km.

Incidentally, in the 08th MS Team novels, the Kerguelen escapes successfully. There's a scene towards the end where, having reached an altitude of 40,000m above the Lhasa base, the crew realize they're now safe.

BTW, hadn't thought of this data point until now, I don't recall the exact number, how far was the Zaku Sniper sniping in Unicorn's novel? That also seems to be a really far distance nothing like the 2 digit km numbers.

Ah, good point! Turns out it's 30 km, which is also what the original setting notes gave us for the maximum range of mega particle cannons in atmosphere.

Incidentally, this may also be the source for the Gundam Perfect File's claim that the Capule can perform missile bombardments at a range of 30km, because this is how far away the Capules are from Torrington when they do this in the Unicorn novels.


So I think we have a decent handle on atmospheric ranges. We've seen a Gundam using its beam rifle from 10 km, we've seen a Zaku I Sniper Type using its sniper rifle from 30 km, and we've seen a GM Sniper using its sniper rifle from a distance somewhere in between.

Mega particles are not moving really slow though, if we take the only data point I can think of, the few tens of thousands km of the FAZZ, they count to 3 and the beam already travelled that far, meaning its travelling somewhere around 10000~30000km/s.

Which is about 10% of the speed of light - pretty fast! Then again, I find the FAZZ example ridiculous to begin with, so this doesn't necessarily convince me.

It'd be pretty much impossible to hit an enemy ship in 1000km with a ship cannon though.
Even if the cannon itself is really precise, the crew on your ship during combat would be running around and redistributing the mass, thus vibrating the ship in a really chaotic way.

I'd have to assume that at that range, you'd be shooting at space fortresses and such. We don't know the muzzle velocity of the White Base's guns, but since their range is in between such real-world superweapons as the Yamato's guns and the Schwerer Gustav (range 40-50km, muzzle velocity 800m/sec) and the Paris Gun (range 130 km, muzzle velocity 1600m/sec), their muzzle velocity is probably about a kilometer per second. Which means, if the White Base is stationary relative to its target, the shell won't hit for fifteen minutes!

The Jormungand, by contrast, has a muzzle velocity of 2000km/sec. This means its beam travels the entire effective range in one second, which is much more practical.

I have a really different interpretation on the lines. Those can have nothing to do with the range, but lines of which the battle units are positioned.

That's the explanation given in the Roman Album books. I think they recycled it in Gundam Officials, too (see top of page 448). So it's not a matter of "interpretation."

This is actually demonstrated during the Battle of Solomon, where the Federation's Third Fleet lines up just beyond the third combat line. As soon as they cross the line, they're detected by Solomon's sensors. Ditto for the Nahel Argama attacking Palau. The third combat line, then, is by definition the range at which the asteroid fortress can detect approaching ships.

In Gundam 0083, the outer sectors of the Sea of Solomon - up to about 30,000km distance - are patrolled by ships like the Albion. With no Minovsky particle interference, you could probably monitor that whole area from Solomon, but that's meaningless in a battle situation because everyone will be using Minovsky particles.

That'd be really strange about the figure right beneath the sensor ranges that talks about data linking with WB, and attacking enemies beyond the Gundam's sensing range.

I think you may be misinterpreting that diagram. (For the benefit of anyone else reading this, here's the PG kit manual page with the sensor diagrams, courtesy of dalong.net.)

The diagram, titled "Optical Sighting System," shows the Gundam aiming its beam rifle at a Zaku. A "Guide Laser" emitted from the Gundam's head bounces of the Zaku, producing a "Laser Echo" that's received by the rifle's "Seeker." Meanwhile, the Gundam receives a "Data Link" from the White Base, which scans the battlefield with its "Search System."

So we have two things going on here. Bouncing a guide laser off your enemy is a standard targeting method, in the real world as in Gundam, and it's being used here to aim the beam rifle. Meanwhile, the White Base, which presumably has a more powerful sensor array than a mere mobile suit, is performing enemy search as I described in my last post. This doesn't have anything to do with targeting weapons - it's just scanning for nearby enemies so that the Gundam can go and shoot them.


EDIT: And one more data point I just remembered, from the old 1/144 Bawoo kit manual:

If one thinks of the Bawoo Nutter as a missile, its range of 640km far exceeds the effective range of a beam cannon.

Elsewhere in the kit manual, it lists the Bawoo Nutter's effective range as 620km, but the HG-UC kit repeats the 640km figure. In any case, the point stands.

-- Mark

[chutche2]

Sorry for posting in such an old thread, but I saw this in the index and wanted to comment.

I think that you're misinterpreting the 1000km claim. I don't think this is a reference to an actual firing range, I think this is just a reference to minute of angle. Minute of angle is the way that a firearm's accuracy is defined, and it essentially is a way of saying x amount of deviation at y distance, generally being inches of deviation at 100 yards. I interpret the 1000km claim as just saying it's so accurate that the dispersion circle has to be extended out to 1000km to see a noticeable effect, not that it literally fires at 1000km. As it's phrased as an explanation of the beam's accuracy, not its range.

[Nebfer]

Sorry for posting in such an old thread, but I saw this in the index and wanted to comment.

I think that you're misinterpreting the 1000km claim. I don't think this is a reference to an actual firing range, I think this is just a reference to minute of angle. Minute of angle is the way that a firearm's accuracy is defined, and it essentially is a way of saying x amount of deviation at y distance, generally being inches of deviation at 100 yards. I interpret the 1000km claim as just saying it's so accurate that the dispersion circle has to be extended out to 1000km to see a noticeable effect, not that it literally fires at 1000km. As it's phrased as an explanation of the beam's accuracy, not its range.

I was thinking along similar lines while reading this topic.

MOA IIRC in rifle terms is often stated as 1 MOA = 1 inch at 100 yards (Out side of weather and human factors each round will hit in a 1 inch diameter circle at 100 yards). At 1,000 yards 1 MOA would be 10 inches.
Or in other words the GM Sniper IIs gun has an accuracy of all it's shots could land in a ~4 inch diameter circle baring external effects at 1,100,000 yards, this gun is stupidly accurate.

[MythSearcher]

Sorry for posting in such an old thread, but I saw this in the index and wanted to comment.

I think that you're misinterpreting the 1000km claim. I don't think this is a reference to an actual firing range, I think this is just a reference to minute of angle. Minute of angle is the way that a firearm's accuracy is defined, and it essentially is a way of saying x amount of deviation at y distance, generally being inches of deviation at 100 yards. I interpret the 1000km claim as just saying it's so accurate that the dispersion circle has to be extended out to 1000km to see a noticeable effect, not that it literally fires at 1000km. As it's phrased as an explanation of the beam's accuracy, not its range.

I was thinking along similar lines while reading this topic.

MOA IIRC in rifle terms is often stated as 1 MOA = 1 inch at 100 yards (Out side of weather and human factors each round will hit in a 1 inch diameter circle at 100 yards). At 1,000 yards 1 MOA would be 10 inches.
Or in other words the GM Sniper IIs gun has an accuracy of all it's shots could land in a ~4 inch diameter circle baring external effects at 1,100,000 yards, this gun is stupidly accurate.

That is why it would be silly to interpret it as just saying how accurate it is, since you can say it's accuracy is a few mm in 100km, not a few cm in 1000km if the gun is just going to be used in 100km or less range.

It can be interpreted as Mark said, when there's no M particles around, one can see much further and thus can aim and shoot much further. This is true for the GM SP and the Sentinel ultra long range numbers(which does not work at all even in the story due to the time delay, but at least their damaging capability is still effective, just not going to hit at all)

Like I said before, the problem of this number is that you don't even need to be close to it to make the EFF almost invincible against Earth drop opearations, if tagged with the 200km Scout missile sensors.
The fact that EFF can manufacture something like this, and has a range of over 100km, means that they can very well manufacture anti-LEO turrets that are fixed on the ground that can snipe down anything coming down from above, with deadly accuracy. The M particles can do little here, since the reentry vehicles are going to be really hot and big targets even under thermo imaging cameras to begin with.(radars may not work anyway even without M particles since there's the plasma cloaking effect with reentry vehicles.)
A way to rationalize this might be a slow aiming speed, yet with MS manipulators around, this is kinda irrational as well.
So the Freddies are not really bright, or at least those making the decisions are not really bright(see 08th MS team for a particular example about sending-MS-into-a-tunnel-hoping-for-a-nuclear-explosion-idiot-type) Yeah, that justifies the lack of ultra accurate anti-LEO turrets in the beginning of the war. Oh, and Gaws won't ever stand a chance if those are in place during the latter part of the war around Jaburo.(Though they do have GM SP in Jaburo, maybe they are blocked by the trees)

It is not strange to see the more realistic settings and stories like Gundam Century, 0080 and Sentinel using a much more appropiate range for space(though subverted and justified in Sentinel why they didn't have much of these in UC due to the speed of Mega beams), since that is what we should be using in space combats. The problem is that these numbers don't really go well with the rest of the series, yet the ones who write the settings seems to embrace these numbers, ignoring most of the other settings that made the series work in the first place required close range combat.

[Nebfer]

That is why it would be silly to interpret it as just saying how accurate it is, since you can say it's accuracy is a few mm in 100km, not a few cm in 1000km if the gun is just going to be used in 100km or less range.

It can be interpreted as Mark said, when there's no M particles around, one can see much further and thus can aim and shoot much further. This is true for the GM SP and the Sentinel ultra long range numbers(which does not work at all even in the story due to the time delay, but at least their damaging capability is still effective, just not going to hit at all)

Like I said before, the problem of this number is that you don't even need to be close to it to make the EFF almost invincible against Earth drop opearations, if tagged with the 200km Scout missile sensors.
The fact that EFF can manufacture something like this, and has a range of over 100km, means that they can very well manufacture anti-LEO turrets that are fixed on the ground that can snipe down anything coming down from above, with deadly accuracy. The M particles can do little here, since the reentry vehicles are going to be really hot and big targets even under thermo imaging cameras to begin with.(radars may not work anyway even without M particles since there's the plasma cloaking effect with reentry vehicles.)
A way to rationalize this might be a slow aiming speed, yet with MS manipulators around, this is kinda irrational as well.
So the Freddies are not really bright, or at least those making the decisions are not really bright(see 08th MS team for a particular example about sending-MS-into-a-tunnel-hoping-for-a-nuclear-explosion-idiot-type) Yeah, that justifies the lack of ultra accurate anti-LEO turrets in the beginning of the war. Oh, and Gaws won't ever stand a chance if those are in place during the latter part of the war around Jaburo.(Though they do have GM SP in Jaburo, maybe they are blocked by the trees)

It is not strange to see the more realistic settings and stories like Gundam Century, 0080 and Sentinel using a much more appropiate range for space(though subverted and justified in Sentinel why they didn't have much of these in UC due to the speed of Mega beams), since that is what we should be using in space combats. The problem is that these numbers don't really go well with the rest of the series, yet the ones who write the settings seems to embrace these numbers, ignoring most of the other settings that made the series work in the first place required close range combat.

Easier explanation, this ability to build long range weapons is just that a fabrication, the ability to do so dose not really exist in universe, and the accuracy stated is just that a statement of accuracy at perhaps what would be implausible ranges. At lest perhaps under M particle interference. Though considering that Orbit to Ground or even Ground to Orbit fire is rather uncommon, it would seem Beam weapons for the most part have an effective range of under 100km (indeed IIRC for mobile suits it seems to be typically under 30km) in a atmosphere. And Ballistic weapons would simply not cut it (at the lest for engaging orbital targets), and missile based weapons owing to the limitations on guidance systems in universe would be lacking in the ability to engage a target, not to mention travel times would make engagement difficult.

For the most part while under M Particles in space most sources it seems indicate that ranges for under 100 km for mobile suit combat and ~300 for warships, also considering that most suits are equipped for melee combat as standard issue combat in visual range is exceedingly common (and that most fights seem to end up using melee weapons at some point).

I would say that one could treat these long range values numbers as upper values or outliers...

Though to be fair IIRC an argument I once read on another forum mentioned that a Zeon Gunner once stated that he could if the interference was not their carve his name on the moon with a beam weapon in deep space, IIRC this was from Igloo.

By the way what is the exact wording for the GM snipers "1,000 km" range quote?"

[toysdream]

By the way what is the exact wording for the GM snipers "1,000 km" range quote?"

I translated the entire passage on the previous page.

-- Mark

[MythSearcher]

By the way what is the exact wording for the GM snipers "1,000 km" range quote?"

I translated the entire passage on the previous page.

-- Mark

Come to think of it, the X10 range might be something like this:
Under influence of M particles: normal numbers we see, like 3200m, 5900m.
No M particles: about X10 this range, like 32000m, 59000m.

It would not be that strange to have only 1/10 of your normal visual range when it is foggy.
(Hey, it can be down to 1/100 and you can't even see your own hand)
And M particles at combat density do seems to create kind of a misty foggy effect, to an unknown extend.

The few thousand km in Sentinel will still be an outliner, but that also makes sense, since in the story they also say that it is impossible to do so in the first place, and they seem to be doing so just to avoid the enemies targeting a much larger unit, the motherships, which should be visible at least 10 times further than MSs judging by their smallest dimension. Thus they only see black dots and assume they are MSs(at least until they see beams fired from those dots)
If so, this would be at least X100 longer ranged than normal combat range under m particles, thus we are talking about a few dozen km range, which seems to be falling into the normal sniping range we are talking about.