Republic of Zeon Mobile Units

[Scorpius1321]

Out of both curiosity and possible fanfiction desires, I'm insanely curious about just what sort of mobile units the post-OYW Republic of Zeon had during its existence, and whether the RZ military ever actually fought at any point.

My initial searches into Gundam anime that 'had' the RZ appear has left me with more questions than answers. According to the MAHQ Zeta Gundam mecha section, the Republic of Zeon has older ships and only two MS; the Rick Dom and Hizack. The only time I really remember the RZ units showing up is at the beginning of an episode where the Gate of Zedan was being handed over to the Titans, and I can accept that the Republic doesn't actually fight in Zeta. But I find it interesting that the two MS apparently seen onscreen are vastly different.

The Hizack I can understand. The Republic of Zeon is often said to be a Federation puppet state, so its military would be likely loyal to the puppet government, thus it'd be okay to give the Republic a more modern mobile suit.

The Rick Doms give me pause, though. If the Federation government is willing to give the Republic of Zeon Hizacks, why is the RZ using such an old unit? I guess you could say that the Federation isn't handing over enough Hizacks to fill the RZ rosters, but just how old are these Rick Doms? Are they holdovers from the OYW? They can't have been built after; Zimmad was absorbed by Anaheim, unless Anaheim had a brief production run of Rick Doms just for the RZ. Otherwise, these are old Rick Doms that have little to no avenues for spare parts. Why keep the Rick Dom though, especially into UC0087-88? Does this mean that the RZ military has other OYW MS? If so, how are they still running? Is the Republic of Zeon using the same methods as the Zeon Remnants, whatever those may be?

If the Federation does have some trust issues with the Republic (not enough to deny them Hizacks, but enough to not give them a lot of Hizacks), why let the Republic keep the Rick Dom? I know that it wasn't the greatest mobile suit ever, but if the Federation really wants to guarantee a victory against the Republic should it ever rebel, why not make them use Zakus? I can only imagine that they could maintain Zakus for years because so many were built during the OYW. An interesting thread on this very forum even postulated that the FZ-type Zaku might have been a way to utilize the tons of J-type Zaku parts that the Principality had. (http://www.mechatalk.net/viewtopic.php? ... lit=zimmad). I can only assume that the F-type Zakus had just as many, if not more, spare parts.

Maybe I'm just looking too deep into it. For all I know the Rick Doms were added to the screen purely for nostalgia factor or saving money on animation. But I'm still curious about the rarely-mentioned Republic of Zeon and its military capabilities. I'll look for more info, but any help or suggestions would be very, very appreciated.

[bilbros]

The notion that the Republic of Zeon still uses old Principaliity units (plus some EFF / Titans mobile suits) is quite widespread among, as can be seen by the listings below.

* volume 3 of Masato Natsumoto's manga Gundam Legacy (chapter 17, settled in U.C 0084)
MP-02A Oggo
MS-06E-3 Zaku Flipper
MS-06F Zaku II
MS-14B Gelgoog High Mobility Type
Chivvay class
Papua class
QCX-76A Jormungand

* chapter 3 of Yuuichi Hasegawa's poorly known manga Mobile Suit Variation War Johnny Ridden (settled in U.C. 0082)
MS-06R-2 Zaku II Johnny Ridden Use
MS-06R-2 Zaku II Shin Matsunaga Use [yes, it seems an R-2 rather than the "familiar" R-1 or R-1A!]
MS-14A Gelgoog

* Haruhiko Mikimoto manga École du Ciel (chapter settled in U.C 0085)
RMS-179 GM II

* Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam (settled in U.C. 0087)
MS-09R Rick Dom (epsiode 14)
RMS-106 Hizack (epsiode 23)
RMS-106 Hizack Commander Type (epsiode 23)
RMS-108 Marasai (epsiode 14)

* Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ (settled in U.C. 0088)
RMS-099B Strm Dias (episode 38)
RMS-099B Strm Dias Commander Type (episodes 38, 44)

* volume 8 of Gundam Unicorn novel (settled in U.C.0096)
RMS-106 Hizack
RMS-106CS Hizack Custom
? RMS-119 EWAC Zack "Eye-Zack"
Chivvay class
Musai Kai class

By the way, the ranks of the Republic forces are made by a mix of newbies (as most of the "Wind Assembly" members of the Unicorn novel) and One Year War veterans (as shown for instance in Gundam Legacy), so perhaps at least these latt4r feel more comfortable on their old MSs...

[Scorpius1321]

Wow. The RZ forces seem to have a hodgepodge of mobile units to work with. They're doing the Sleeves proud.

I find it most interesting that two of the manga listings have Gelgoogs in them, and from 0082 to 0084 no less. It still raises some questions of how the Republic maintains these machines, but another Mechatalk thread had a line that Zimmad actually stayed behind to provide mobile suits to the Republic military, so at least the Zimmad-produced machines would be explained. (http://www.mechatalk.net/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=13699).

The Gelgoog was a very high-performance machine though, and I imagine it must have still had some high potential for deadliness in the immediate postwar period if piloted by the right person. Then again, Zeonic definitely got gobbled up by Anaheim, but I suppose that its within the realm of possibility that Anaheim either had a limited production of Gelgoogs (purely to make moneys) or the Republic simply repaired their Gelgoogs with leftover parts. I kinda wonder how many Gelgoog parts had simply never gotten a chance to be made into anything by the end of the OYW.

Then again, I can only assume the Hizack and Marasai have even better performance, so it probably doesn't matter much what the Republic fields as long as they don't have too many of the newer machines. Or at least that's the attitude the Federation seems to have based on what I've found.

Not to make this rant even longer, but if the Federation's attitude towards the Republic's military is that all OYW equipment seems to a-okay, why not use the machines from the United Maintenance Plan, at least the ones that Zimmad could produce? Or would that have potentially made the immediate postwar Republic too strong from the battlescarred Federation to handle?

[MythSearcher]

You do notice that even the EFF is still using pretty old MSs for quite a while?
In 0096, EFF still has RAG-79 in service, and at least we see some MS-06F2s in 0083.
(non-MS example we even have FF-S3s launching in 0087)
Military equipments do can stay in service for quite a while, at least in real life.
Zimmad maybe absorbed, but AE can still produce parts for maintenance.

It does explain a lot if the RZ are still using OYW machines, this way, parts can be leaked out by RZ and AE to other remnants of Zeon and support their maintenance of MSs.
Also, some old machines are sold to amusement parks(see ZZ), so parts still needed to be produced anyway.
MSV-R Return of Johnny Ridden even give explanation such as newer and improved parts are made for old MSs, so some of them(not RZ ones but same idea) LOOK like OYW ones, but even the armour are all new and using EFF top of the line material.

[Scorpius1321]

Zeta Gundam also had that Gelgoog the AEUG used for a while that they fixed up with Nemo parts. Heck, that Gelgoog was basically a Nemo with Gelgoog armor.

[Deathzealot]

Don't forget the FF-S3s in Unicorn as well.

[JEFFPIATT]

The key thing to remember about the situation in zeta is that both the EFF and the Roz are more or less broke and the Republic of zeon military is closed to the JSDF since the zeon forces were limited by treaty in to being an smaller defense focused military. and more than likely is stuck modernizing what ms that were not taken as war reparations by the EFSF and what units the eff would allow AE to sell them like the hi-zack. The EFF in addition to having it's economy trashed by the war the bulk of the military budget is going to the titans black budget building there exotic zeon tech based prototypes. leaving the EFSF and the worse off EFGF stuck with refitted GM units and oyo vintage zeon ms some of witch are new production runs using captured production lines to fill there ranks the ground forces get the bigest shaft since even by unicorn they still are deploying units from 0079 in places like the navy reverting to the aqua GM after the hi-zack line was phased out and no new models were ever made for the EFN the army at least gets old AEUG surplus the air force is worse offr since they are still useiing pre oyo aircraft due to the zeta line not takeing off and the few built units going to the EFSF.