Movable frame construction material?

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amitakartok
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Movable frame construction material?

The idea behind the movable frame is easy enough for me to understand: a flexible frame the armor plates are mounted onto rather than integrated, armor plates that may be made of Gundanium, titanium or various alloys of the two.

The questions is, what is the frame itself made of? Titanium would be a logical choice due to its comparatively cheaper cost, ready availability and the fact that it's unnecessary to make a Gundanium frame due to the fact that whatever gets past Gundanium armor is already going to wreck the frame underneath, regardless of whether it's made of titanium or Gundanium. But considering that Gundanium apparently became readily enough available past Zeta that pretty much every mobile suit's armor was made of it, there's the possibility of movable frames being made of Gundanium just because it's available.

I'm looking for the answer to this to check whether a what-if idea of mine is plausible or not. Namely, that if the theory of the movable frame is already cracked by 0083, it would put the Gundam MKII's existence in 0087 into question since it was supposed to be a tech demo of this very theory.
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Dark Duel
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Re: Movable frame construction material?

I'm totally speculating, but I would suspect either titanium or some kind of high-tensile steel alloy, with IMO the former being more likely for any pre-0080s Zeke designs(IIRC, the early Zeke MS used a steel alloy for their armor, though I'm not 100% sure and too lazy to look it up ATM) and the latter more likely for any Feddie designs in general.

As for the movable frame, I'd always been under the impression that the concept was only just starting to be explored in the 0083-ish period, and wasn't actually used in the complete construction of an entire mobile suit until the Gundam MkII.
IIRC, the GM Quel only used a partial version of the technology in its arms, which would only later be developed into what became the Gundam MkII's full movable frame a few short years later.
Mind you, I'm going off memory here as well, and I have no idea whether that's even still the case or if it's been retconned.
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MythSearcher
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Re: Movable frame construction material?

Various materials.
There is one specific model we know the composition of, MSZ-006 Zeta series.
It is made of Gundarium gamma.
Older material(Gundarium alpha and beta and Ti-ceramic composite) has fatigue problem and thus before using Gundamrium gamma, AE cannot complete the project.(That and the revolutionary design by Kamille Bidan.)

We can kinda speculate the Gundam Mk-II's movable frame used Titanium alloy-Ceramic Composite, but that is just a speculation. Since EFF/Titans didn't have Gundarium gamma at the time, we can be sure it is not.

BTW, Gundarium is a type of Titanium alloy, the first of it, used on RX-78 Gundam was called Lunar Titanium (a new alloy produced on Lunar II, hence the name). It got its new name from Gundam, and since newer/better versions are made, that labelled them alpha, beta and gamma, Lunar Titanium being alpha.
On Epsy Gundam they used a Gundarium Epsilon, but didn't appear on other units.
Later on they seemed to drop the Greek letter and just call them Gundarium alloy, don't know if it is because everyone uses Gudarium gamma so they just ignore it, or a newer version is the common one.

All the above is in the UC timeline.

Gundanium is from a different timeline, the AC timeline for Wing Gundam.
Although we can see from a freeze screen bonus that the Sandrock uses Gundarium theta, and the Vayeate's beam cannon has a Minovsky particle Accelerator, there is no official connection of the two worlds.

The movable frame technology did started in 0083, Gundam Officials actually attributed the development of movable frame from the frame of GP01. Later, AE had their own primitive version called Block Build Up which is very close the movable frame technology, and was already mass-produced on Rick Dias, Block build up got some inspiration of Axis's Gaza C, but the Titans movable frame on Mk-II was the most advanced and after AE acquired the Mk-II, they spread the technology. Official stance still had Mk-II as the first movable frame model, any model before it had a more primitive version.
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amitakartok
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Re: Movable frame construction material?

Ooooh, I get it. That was exactly what I was looking for, thanks.
Gundanium / Gundarium
I know the difference in universes, I just never quite could remember which is which.
The movable frame technology did started in 0083, Gundam Officials actually attributed the development of movable frame from the frame of GP01.
The what-if scenario I'm collecting ideas for is that the GP01 has an actual movable frame, not just the basis of one. Namely, someone gives the idea to Tem Ray back in 0079, Tem goes "oh, that's genius; why didn't I think of that" and passes it on to Federation R&D as a might-want-to-look-into-this memo. It didn't affect the OYW due to the time needed to actually develop it, but the GP Gundams already used it. By 0087, it would be the go-to way to design a mobile suit, but still not widely adopted by the regular forces due to Federation bean counters being reluctant to throw out the thousands of GMs they accumulated in the meantime just because they still use the old tech and cannot be upgraded without losing out on backwards compatibility.

I needed your info to check whether making the MKII the first suit to use Gundarium (beta?) for the frame as well instead of just the armor, in an in-universe attempt to replicate the sheer durability of pre-movable frame suits like the Gelgoog without losing the agility of the movable frame, would be laughable or not. If the Zeta is canonically the first to do that, that's close enough for me; I just didn't want to potentially look ridiculous going all "this is the MKII's new gimmick" and someone else going "...dude, do your bloody research because that's always been a thing".
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Gelgoog Jager
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Re: Movable frame construction material?

I suggest checking this old thread which discussed the evolution of the EF's and Zeon MS construction philosophies:

viewtopic.php?f=17&t=16720

In short, based on a retcon from Sunrise' Mobile Suit Museum it seems that now movable frame is essentially an evolution of Zeon MS design philosophy, which during the OYW built MS around an "skeleton". Meanwhile, EF models such as the Gundam had a monocoque construction.

The ironical part is that after the OYW the EF seeked to adopt Zeon's philosophy, leading to the development of movable frame, while Zeon seemed to adopt the EF's philosophy leading to the development of the block build frame of the Gaza C (also later used on the Rick Dias).

Mark even mentioned that perhaps this current of "adopting the rival's tech" could have been the reason Axis developed Gundarium Gamma in the first place.
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MythSearcher
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Re: Movable frame construction material?

Gelgoog Jager wrote: Thu Nov 16, 2017 10:22 pm I suggest checking this old thread which discussed the evolution of the EF's and Zeon MS construction philosophies:

viewtopic.php?f=17&t=16720

In short, based on a retcon from Sunrise' Mobile Suit Museum it seems that now movable frame is essentially an evolution of Zeon MS design philosophy, which during the OYW built MS around an "skeleton". Meanwhile, EF models such as the Gundam had a monocoque construction.

The ironical part is that after the OYW the EF seeked to adopt Zeon's philosophy, leading to the development of movable frame, while Zeon seemed to adopt the EF's philosophy leading to the development of the block build frame of the Gaza C (also later used on the Rick Dias).

Mark even mentioned that perhaps this current of "adopting the rival's tech" could have been the reason Axis developed Gundarium Gamma in the first place.
The fun thing is the terminology used in official materials basically ignores the designs.
Also, the details of Gundam Officials actually called the Zeon design "Frameless monocoque"(yes, katakana transliterating English instead of a loss in translation).
The armour section in Gundam Officials is very much stuck to the Zeon monocoque vs EF semi-mono, going into details about how Zeon suffered after the Antarctic treaty because they have to change the armour of the Zakus from the heavy protection from their nuclear bazookas.

So MS Museum contradicts Gundam Officials. And you know me, I stick to my point of view that Gundam Officials as more official.

BTW, I didn't go into the details of movable frame in Gundam Officials that much last time I checked (since it is a 0087 tech and Gundam Officials is mainly until 0083) but it did say that the movable frame was a development from the skeleton frame of the semi-monocoque, took the idea of the detachable armour plates and implementing it to the frame itself, so the frame became modulized. (Kinda short paragraph) Why would that make it movable beats me.
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Gelgoog Jager
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Re: Movable frame construction material?

By the way: hasn't the whole idea of the MS-06C having NBC protection and using nukes being largely ditched/retconned by now?

Using MS Igloo as particular case of an animated works depicting the battle of Loum, it seems that they decided to drop the idea of both sides (or even just Zeon) extensively using nuclear weapons during the early battles. Even the idea of Zeon using GG gas to wipe out the population of the different Sides has been largely reduced to their limited use only for the colonies that were going to be used for colony drops (which may furthermore be reduced to the colony used for Operation British, given the mentions about the 2nd operation being a Zeon trap all along).

There's also the issue of the difference in population between U.C. 0079 and U.C. 0087 (essentially many of the Sides being "repopulated" by the later point), which makes more sense if you assume that Zeon didn't wipeout the entire populations of Sides 1, 2 and 4, as older sources used to claim. Incidentally that would also follow the line of thought about Zeon actually capturing colonies and factories on these Sides.

Back the the idea of both the EF/Titans and Axis/Neo Zeon using the technology and development trends from the other after the OYW may be reflected in more ways:

-In the case of ships, Zeon basically develops a mass produced White Base, the Endra, which is a dedicates MS carrier able to operate on Earth and Space. Meanwhile some EF ships start following some OYW Zeon ideas, such as a single huge Battleship/MS Carrier, the Dogosse Gier, or an aerial MS carrier, the Garuda. The overall design of the Alexandria seems to be inspired on the Musai. By the way: hasn't the whole idea of the MS-06C having NBC protection and using nukes being largely ditched/retconned by now?

Using MS Igloo as particular case of an animated works depicting the battle of Loum, it seems that they decided to drop the idea of both sides (or even just Zeon) extensively using nuclear weapons during the early battles. Even the idea of Zeon using GG gas to wipe out the population of the different Sides has been largely reduced to their limited use only for the colonies that were going to be used for colony drops (which may furthermore be reduced to the colony used for Operation British, given the mentions about the 2nd operation being a Zeon trap all along).

There's also the issue of the difference in population between U.C. 0079 and U.C. 0087 (essentially many of the Sides being "repopulated" by the later point), which makes more sense if you assume that Zeon didn't wipeout the entire populations of Sides 1, 2 and 4, as older sources used to claim. Incidentally that would also follow the line of thought about Zeon actually capturing colonies and factories on these Sides.

Back the the idea of both the EF/Titans and Axis/Neo Zeon using the technology and development trends from the other after the OYW may be reflected in more ways:

-In the case of ships, Zeon basically develops a mass produced White Base, the Endra, which is a dedicates MS carrier able to operate on Earth and Space. Meanwhile some EF ships start following some OYW Zeon ideas, such as a single huge Battleship/MS Carrier, the Dogosse Gier, or an aerial MS carrier, the Garuda. The overall design of the Alexandria seems to be inspired on the Musai.

-All these come after Operation Stardust, before which the EF gave another shot at its gunship concept after the end of the OYW. On a more dubious spot is the Musaka, which although considered a successor to the Musai, is overall a smaller ship with more balanced firepower, similar in concept to a Salamis Kai, or at least more than other Zeon ships. The closest Zeon ship design is the Musai Late Production Type (0083), but which was on the opposite side of the cost spectrum: the Musai LPT was considered too expensive to mass reduce by the end of the OYW, when Zeon instead switched to the Musai Final Production Type (0080) which was oversimplified, but also cheaper than the standard model, and in theory could have allowed Zeon to try to close the gap between the numerical disparity in both sides fleets.

-During the OYW the EF and an ambitious plan to mass produce the RX-78 as the RX-81, which use luna titanium alloy. In the end these plans are cancelled, and MS made with less expensive materials, ranging from GM to Zeon MS, are adopted. Meanwhile, Axis/Zeon went on to develop Gundarium Gamma, which would become the material used on the majority of their MS all the way into the 1st Neo Zeon War, ranging from Gaza C & Gaza D units to mass produced Qubeleys and Doven Wolfs. In comparison, while the titans had been pushing for mass production designs such as the Marasai and Barzam that used solely Gundarium Gamma, the EF settles for the GM III which only partially uses the material and largely switches back to older titanium/ceramic composite, a change that would be completed with the mass produced Jegans which don't use Gundarium at all.

-Sub Flight Systems and external weapon systems such as the Hizack's Mega Launcher could be considered derived from Zeon's Dodais, Skute and Skiure. There's also the cases of the colony laser or the titan's sue of G3 gas.

Looking at the big picture, during the 0080's both sides tried to copy what they thought was effective or had potential from the other side during the OYW, and it wouldn't be until the aftermath for the 1st Neo Zeon War that the EF finally seemed to scale back on that trend and eventually remove most of the Zeon influence from their ranks.
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MythSearcher
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Re: Movable frame construction material?

Gelgoog Jager wrote: Mon Nov 20, 2017 10:28 pm By the way: hasn't the whole idea of the MS-06C having NBC protection and using nukes being largely ditched/retconned by now?

Using MS Igloo as particular case of an animated works depicting the battle of Loum, it seems that they decided to drop the idea of both sides (or even just Zeon) extensively using nuclear weapons during the early battles. Even the idea of Zeon using GG gas to wipe out the population of the different Sides has been largely reduced to their limited use only for the colonies that were going to be used for colony drops (which may furthermore be reduced to the colony used for Operation British, given the mentions about the 2nd operation being a Zeon trap all along).
To my knowledge, no.
It has long been a case where they simply ignore the anime depiction and claim that you just can't see the differences.

Or you can just say that the bazookas are nuclear in nature, just not as powerful as the GP02A atomic bazooka(which is true because the GP02A Mk-82 is a new warhead)

The GG gas has been limited to only a very few quite long ago.
I haven't checked earlier sources, but at least all the way back in 08th MS team, they already have the idea of only using GG gas on the ones they plan to drop, others are just nuked.

Earliest sources didn't go into details anyway, and just say that Zeon used nuclear and chemical weapons to do the cleaning.

The only person being blamed for using GG gas in-universe is Cima, who operated on the dropped colony(Shirou Amada's home colony) as instructed and thought the gas was only a tear gas.(The General who ordered the attack accused Cima in the war tribunal)
The Side Story 宇宙のイシュタム (I guess can be translated to Ishtar of Space?) which is definitely not canon but drawn by Umanosuke Iida (2nd director of 08th MS team) also give the account like that.(Just ignored Cima in the whole plot and you have overly powerful power suit technology)
There's also the issue of the difference in population between U.C. 0079 and U.C. 0087 (essentially many of the Sides being "repopulated" by the later point), which makes more sense if you assume that Zeon didn't wipeout the entire populations of Sides 1, 2 and 4, as older sources used to claim. Incidentally that would also follow the line of thought about Zeon actually capturing colonies and factories on these Sides.
Another explanation can be that of the population on Earth was much more than expected, and they populated the colonies with those Earthnoids.

The official sources still maintained the claim of Side 1, 2, 4 being functionally, if not literally wiped out.

I do support the idea of a significant portion of the population in Side 1, 2, 4 and 5 being alive. Given the possibility of survival, if the colonies are simply being nuked and not systemetically traced and hunted down, there are numerous shelters and spaceships and spacecrafts that can provide temperory life support for a certain period(say, at least a month or two), and the holes of the colonies can likely be patched even if created by a tactical nuke.
Back the the idea of both the EF/Titans and Axis/Neo Zeon using the technology and development trends from the other after the OYW may be reflected in more ways:

-In the case of ships, Zeon basically develops a mass produced White Base, the Endra, which is a dedicates MS carrier able to operate on Earth and Space. Meanwhile some EF ships start following some OYW Zeon ideas, such as a single huge Battleship/MS Carrier, the Dogosse Gier, or an aerial MS carrier, the Garuda. The overall design of the Alexandria seems to be inspired on the Musai.

-All these come after Operation Stardust, before which the EF gave another shot at its gunship concept after the end of the OYW. On a more dubious spot is the Musaka, which although considered a successor to the Musai, is overall a smaller ship with more balanced firepower, similar in concept to a Salamis Kai, or at least more than other Zeon ships. The closest Zeon ship design is the Musai Late Production Type (0083), but which was on the opposite side of the cost spectrum: the Musai LPT was considered too expensive to mass reduce by the end of the OYW, when Zeon instead switched to the Musai Final Production Type (0080) which was oversimplified, but also cheaper than the standard model, and in theory could have allowed Zeon to try to close the gap between the numerical disparity in both sides fleets.

-During the OYW the EF and an ambitious plan to mass produce the RX-78 as the RX-81, which use luna titanium alloy. In the end these plans are cancelled, and MS made with less expensive materials, ranging from GM to Zeon MS, are adopted. Meanwhile, Axis/Zeon went on to develop Gundarium Gamma, which would become the material used on the majority of their MS all the way into the 1st Neo Zeon War, ranging from Gaza C & Gaza D units to mass produced Qubeleys and Doven Wolfs. In comparison, while the titans had been pushing for mass production designs such as the Marasai and Barzam that used solely Gundarium Gamma, the EF settles for the GM III which only partially uses the material and largely switches back to older titanium/ceramic composite, a change that would be completed with the mass produced Jegans which don't use Gundarium at all.

-Sub Flight Systems and external weapon systems such as the Hizack's Mega Launcher could be considered derived from Zeon's Dodais, Skute and Skiure. There's also the cases of the colony laser or the titan's sue of G3 gas.

Looking at the big picture, during the 0080's both sides tried to copy what they thought was effective or had potential from the other side during the OYW, and it wouldn't be until the aftermath for the 1st Neo Zeon War that the EF finally seemed to scale back on that trend and eventually remove most of the Zeon influence from their ranks.
Adapting to the enemy's idea is quite common even IRL. Nazi German adaping to tanks for example.
BTW, Alexandria is inspired by Musai even in official sources.

The Musaka and Rewoola are smaller in size because of the advancement in technology and Neo Zeon really had resources problems. At least that's what official sources tell us.

SFS systems, the Mega Bazooka is likely derived from EFF's own Bustliner from M-MSV.

About the mass-production of Gundarium Gamma, there might be a simple reason on the EFF not using it on the most common models, simply, the scale is too large in their production.
For Zeon, their mass-production is likely in the hundreds, while EFF will be in the thousands.
With a target enemy like the Zeon, EFF can still claim a large budget to do various things. With the decline of Zeon and a serious civil war within EF, they likely can no longer support such an expensive force, and have to settle with less costy material.
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