The chronology of Full Armor

[Shinji_Shinigami]

Okay, with the new Thunderbolt series my understanding of the RX-78 Full Armor types is a bit...irritated.

As far as i understand, the FA option was thought upon to keep the RX-78-2 a fighting chance against evolving Zeon Mobile suits but was discarted for technical reasons.

So where does the thunderbolt FA Gundam come from? was it totally newly built? i mean beneath it is "just" a RX-78-2. Where does all that fit in with the cheapness of the GM for mass producing, yet having the ressources for something like that?

Thanks for answering and sorry for my bad english.

[MythSearcher]

Okay, with the new Thunderbolt series my understanding of the RX-78 Full Armor types is a bit...irritated.

As far as i understand, the FA option was thought upon to keep the RX-78-2 a fighting chance against evolving Zeon Mobile suits but was discarted for technical reasons.

So where does the thunderbolt FA Gundam come from? was it totally newly built? i mean beneath it is "just" a RX-78-2. Where does all that fit in with the cheapness of the GM for mass producing, yet having the ressources for something like that?

Thanks for answering and sorry for my bad english.

First I have to declare that I don't like TB. Its author, like in his own Moonlight Mile series, love to sneak in more and more irregular stuff until it gets totally out of hand and no longer follow the original world setting.

However, from a military stand-point, a dozen of specially built units doesn't really have that much of an impact. Even the supposedly poorer side in WWII,(as compared to USA and USSR) Hitler still got a bunch of toys to play with, not to mention USA also had its own handful of toys. As long as it is not really mass-produced(in hundreds) a dozen of Gundams will still be reasonable, especially they didn't change the basic design too much and didn't have to reengineer the whole thing, thus using existing parts or at least building methods can build one without all the costly redesign fees.

Think about it like this, when you are building hundreds of GMs, a Gundam that cost somewhere around 10 GM is expensive, but not too expensive to build around 10~20 of them, especially when you consider them to be testbeds of newer technologies that might be able to embed into the GMs. As long as you don't think of producing somewhere like a hundred or a thousand Gundams, it won't really matter that much.

[Kuruni]

It start with Perfect Gundam, but the thing is poorly design that Kyoda later modifies it into Perfect Gundam II.

When the designs got integrate into UC continuity as part of MSV, they rename the Perfect Gundam II into Full Armor Gundam.

[HalfDemonInuyasha]

Also, at that time in the One Year War, the FSWS / Full Strike Weapons System ideas also were being rendered a bit moot considering Amuro and his Newtype abilities, along with the simple application of magnetic coating to the RX-78-2's joints, easily allowed the otherwise unmodified RX-78-2 alone to still fight off Zeon's even more advanced mobile suits/armors. It wouldn't be until Char in the Zeong that there was a unit capable of even stalemating the Gundam (and even then, considering the Core Fighter, the entire torso of the Gundam that contained the Learning Computer, which was its most important feature, was still operational, one could say that Amuro still barely edged out a win).

Whether a Full Armor unit like the FA-78-1 add-on parts or the FA-78-2, or more advanced Gundam prototypes like the Gundam ALEX, in Amuro's hands would have changed the outcome, sadly, we'll never know.

[Shinji_Shinigami]

So simply speaking, the argument, that ressources were extremly limited, which resulted in scaled down versions like the GM, is not applied to every piece of story.

That makes things a bit ...strange in my understanding of the OYW but okay.
Yeah i truly would have liked to see Amuro in an heavily upgraded RX-78-2 or something similar.
Does he get an better upgrade in the retelling of the story, origin?

[Dark Duel]

Not really. The only thing that changes substantially is that the RX-78-02 occasionally uses an alternate backpack with a single beam saber and a back-mounted cannon. Apart from that, it gets a fairly comprehensive overhaul late in the story to boost its base performance, but it's still just the base RX-78-02.
The only other thing is that in The Origin, the RX-78-02 did not originally have a full Core Block system with an independent core fighter-style cockpit block - that is installed IIRC while White Base is at Jaburo.

[Shinji_Shinigami]

Too bad. but to get back to the Topic, i would still like to know if there was a development process of the Full Armor Equipment. I've seen several versions of a Full Armor setting for the RX-78-2 on the Gundam wiki, yet i did not fully understand, which was first and so on.

can anyone help me out with that?

[Gelgoog Jager]

In the novels Amuro pilots the G-3 after the RX-78-2 is destroyed at the Texas colony.

Also, the RX-78NT-1 was developed with Amuro in mind, which is why it is classified as a NT use MS, which has extremely high mobility and an optional Full Armor system (Chobam), yet the only new weapon it adds is the fixed gatling guns on its arms.

Anyway, I also found an interesting post from Mark on the FA Gundam and the RX-81 G-Line:

A bit more on this business of the FA-78-1 and RX-81. Here's the relevant page from MSV Handbook 2:

Plans To Enhance The Gundam With Additional Weapons
The Federation Forces arms buildup centered on the RX suits, which proceeded as a AAA secret, involved mobile suit mass production and performance enhancement. From Operation V could be seen the Newtype awakening that the upper ranks had hoped for, and to accompany these expanded abilities, improvements were requested in the performance of the mobile suits themselves.

At the point where the end of the war was in sight, the Federation Forces were working on two projects, the RX-81 and an additional weapons system for the RX-78 type. The weapons system would be produced in the same numbers as the remaining G-number machines, and special pilots would be gathered. The RX-81 was to have enhanced mobility and armament, to approximate an 78 type which was being used by a Newtype pilot. Basically, this type could be called a perfect mass-produced RX-78, making it hard to say that the RGM-79 was truly a mass production model of the 78. The facts were known only to a few people, but from the project plan's code name alone, it clearly didn't refer simply to upgrade parts for the 78. Since no records remain of the external appearance, specs, or military characteristics of the RX-81, it appears impossible to determine how far the research actually advanced.

The additional weapons system, which was on the verge of being implemented as a project plan, was given the code name FSWS, and an RX-78 equipped with this system was to have been known as an FA-78-1. Its parts were installed on sections of the armor which saw relatively high use, namely the chest, shoulders, waist, arms, and legs, and as with the RGC-80 they were designed to be easy to attach.

As for armament, a rocket launcher was integrated into the back parts, a twin beam rifle was attached to the right arm, and missile bays were installed in the shoulders and knees. Auxiliary thrusters were to be installed in the back and legs to supplement its mobility, and different arm and leg systems were also prepared as part of the project plan. The plan was that the legs could be equipped with Core Booster-class rocket engines that could be detached in emergencies, and beam sabers could be integrated into the arms as fixed weapons.

Since the RX-78 Gundam survived until the end of the war, it couldn't really be said that it was able to fully demonstrate satisfactory performance. Due to its increased weight, this additional weapons system was unable to demonstrate any practical effectiveness, but the RX-81 could be considered an extension of this plan.

In other words, it's not so much that the RX-81 itself was designed for Newtypes, it's that this machine was intended to match the performance of a souped-up RX-78 operated by a Newtype. So that's what they mean by "perfect mass production model of the RX-78": literally, a mass-produced machine that can do everything that Amuro and the Gundam could. Sounds like a tall order!

This is of course a very different design goal from the interchangeable parts of the RX-81 "G-Line" we're familiar with nowadays. There's a possible out, though. When the RX-81 appeared in SD-CLUB as part of the M-MSV series, the accompanying profile text explained it as follows:

The RX-81 was a mobile suit designed after the One Year War as a successor to the Gundam series. The original basic plan was to increase the melee combat performance of the RX-78, but after the war the designers went back to the drawing board with the new objective of making the mobile suit's parts interchangeable, and its armament changeable depending on the situation.

By this account, the M-MSV version of the RX-81 - which has now been revamped by Hajime Katoki into the RX-81 "G-Line" - is a completely different design from the RX-81 project that was under way during the One Year War. The interchangeable parts gimmick was only introduced when the RX-81 was redesigned from scratch after the end of the war.

The kit manual from the 1/144 Gundam Full Armor Type largely repeats the same info that appears in the MSV Handbook, but I note a couple of interesting additions. One of these is a third configuration for the FA-78-1, in addition to the "normal" type and the version with leg boosters and built-in beam sabers:

In the last plan, the lower body was essentially replaced with a booster, and four beam cannons were fixed in place. When deployed in its fully equipped state, this could not really be called a mobile suit-type combat weapon.

There's also a bit more about the "classic" RX-81:

It appears that, during the planning process, the performance requirements focused mainly on improved melee combat performance, and its standard combat-level reaction speed seems to have been raised to the maximum level of the RX-78.

-- Mark

http://www.mechatalk.net/viewtopic.php? ... =0#p288042

Considering that the post OYW RX-81 G-Line ends up using interchangeable parts that are mounted on top of the base MS, you could essentially consider it not only a true mass production version of the RX-78 series, but almost a mass produced FA-78 that can be configured as the situation requires it.

it's unfortunate that between the end of the OYW and 0083, the EF's MS development seems to largely stagnate, except for a few prototypes popping out here and there. The Delaz Conflict finally convinces the EF to drop their gunship centered fleet organization (which had produced new gunships such as the 0083 version of the Salamis Kai, which had no MS support capabilities) in favor of MS and ships that can support them, leading the EF to finally restart development of new mass production type MS with higher performance (RMS-117, RMS-179R and RMS-106)

[Shinji_Shinigami]

I read trough some gundam wikia articles and it appears, that the full amor concept, for gundams and grunt (or some specialised) units, seems to be used quiet a lot in side story material.

I think a true chronology or development tree is to far fetched with all the manga and video games.

But, given that the Full armor 78 from Thunderbolt, is the first animated debut of this kind of Gundam line, it raised two little questions in me.

First: I read originally the Full armor was issued as a MSV, so were all subsequent full armor concepts. with Thunderbolt making it canon, and it apparantly being a repainted RX-78-2 under it, it means that the EFF recreated an Gundam, which makes it take place late in the war.? How many of tem were made?

second: Given the visual awesome battles, it makes it look like that the FA could go againts modern time MS like the unicorn (the chasing scene reminded me of the chasing scene from Unicorn) and with its apparantly overpowering weapons, how much damage would it make against later Mobile suits? Plus why the laser canon on the shoulder? If it, and presumably the double rifle, drain the internal Cap both, would a balistic alternative not be better?

sorry for the english