Loum With A View

[toysdream]

Well, now you've probably all seen the few minutes of battle footage from the first episode of "Gundam The Origin". (If not, here's the official YouTube preview posted by Gundam.Info.) This is only the second time the Battle of Loum has been depicted in an official filmed work, and since it's all the Loum footage that appears in the first episode of The Origin, that's as much as we get for now.

Readers of the comic may have noticed that the animated Origin not only reduces the battle to a few minutes of highlights, but also changes or omits some details. Notably, when Dozle pulls his fleet back out of the Tianem fleet's firing range, in the comic he turns around and charges straight through the approaching Revil fleet instead. This surprise attack deals a major blow to Revil and his fleet, creating an opening for the ensuing mobile suit ambush. In the animated version, it seems like Dozle simply runs away, and the mobile suits attack without any ship support.

As discussed in previous threads like this one, there are a lot of conflicting accounts of these battle in the Japanese publications, some of which are clearly incompatible with the recent filmed works and/or basic U.C. geography. If we limit our consideration to only these filmed depictions - episode 1 of MS Igloo and the animated version of The Origin - what can we say for certain at this point?


MS Igloo gives us an explanation for the battle. The Battle of Loum is a trap set by the Zeon forces, who have leaked false intelligence saying that a Zeon fleet is gathering at Side 5 to carry out a second Operation British. This intelligence motivates the Federation's main fleet, which has been hiding at Luna II since the beginning of the war, to make a full-scale sortie. The date is given as January 15, U.C. 0079.

A battle begins in open space near Side 5. The Zeon fleet takes heavy losses from the Federation bombardment, until a mobile suit force suddenly leaps into the battle and ambushes the Federation ships. This was a deliberate trap laid by the Zeon side.


The Origin anime reduces the comic's Loum sequence down to a brief vignette that's largely compatible with MS Igloo, although it retains the comic's dateline of January 23, U.C. 0079. Here, we see Dozle's fleet engaging the Tianem fleet in open space near Side 5, while the Revil fleet approaches from directly behind Tianem. Dozle pulls back his ships and withdraws from the battle, and then the surprise mobile suit ambush hits the Revil fleet from below.

Unlike the comic, there's no reference here to the actual colonies of Side 5, and it's not clear where the Tianem and Revil fleets are coming from. In the comic, the Revil fleet launches from Earth and the Tianem fleet was already stationed at Side 5, but based on the anime it's possible that one or both of these fleets could have come from Luna II as described in MS Igloo.


Given the difference in datelines, it seems like the Origin production team may be more interested in fidelity to the comic than compatibility with previous works, and it remains to be seen how much of The Origin is intended to apply to standard U.C. continuity. Still, as filmed works, these two depictions appear more credible than the previous speculation in third-party books, so they seem like a good basis for further investigation...

-- Mark

[Brave Fencer Kirby]

One thing that seems a bit problematic almost regardless of which version of events you're looking at is the timing of the various fleets. The anime version of The Origin would have us believe that Dozle's fleet, Revil's fleet, and Tianem's fleet were all involved in the Battle of Loum. Depending on which fleet was stationed where, however, they all have to leave on different schedules in order to make it there at the right time.

The easiest is Dozle's fleet. There's pretty much only one place he could be coming from: Side 3, at L2. The trip from L2 to L1 (where Side 5 is) is just under a day. Simple enough.

There really only seem to be three places where a Federation fleet could've been at the time. In Side 5 itself is one option, at the EFSF's primary base in Luna II is another, and on Earth is the third. Why you'd have a space fleet stationed on Earth is beyond me, but apparently the manga version of The Origin has it that way, so go figure. Transit time to L1 from Luna II is about five and a half days, while it's only two and a half days from Earth.

There's a problem here: while it's clearly Dozle launching the attack, and it should only take him a day to get there, the EFSF would take between 2.5 and 5.5 days to get there depending on where they're coming from. That means they need a head start of either a day and a half, or four and a half days in order to make it to the battle on time. So what gives with that?

There's also the fact that, according to some sources, the EFSF assembled a fleet in an attempt to stop Operation British -- which failed, and took heavy losses in the process. According to Mark's timeline, EB39 specifically identifies this fleet as being led by Tianem.

Time for some random speculation! Let's suppose that at the beginning of the war, Tianem was stationed at Side 5 and Revil was either at Luna II or on Earth. Zeon during the One Week Battle either ignores Side 5 because of the major EFSF presence there, or attacks and is repelled by Tianem. However, in response to Operation British, Tianem is forced to leave Side 5 and attack the colony falling toward Earth. The attack fails, his fleet takes heavy losses, and he withdraws back to Side 5. Revil decides that Tianem's much-reduced fleet sitting on Zeon's front door needs reinforcements, so sends a portion of his fleet to Side 5. Meanwhile, perhaps in response to the EFSF movement, Dozle launches an attack on Side 5.

That leaves the question of why Revil would command the reinforcements he was sending to Side 5 personally instead of just sending them to be placed under Tianem's command. Perhaps he meant to move the core of the EFSF to Side 5, so he could split his forces as necessary to respond to Zeon attacks?

There's also the tactical side of the battle to consider. Zeon's mobile suits appear to avoid the Tianem fleet currently engaged with Dozle's ships in order to ambush the Revil fleet approaching from behind the Tianem fleet. Even ignoring the question of how they managed to do that in open space without being detected (especially since being separated from their ships by that wide a margin would presumably leave them without the benefit of high Minovsky particle density), it seems to leave both groups of Zeon forces in a somewhat precarious position. Dozle's ships are last seen fleeing from the Tianem fleet -- who are presumably quite pleased with the chance to shoot up Dozle from behind, given that few Zeon warships can fire to the rear -- while the mobile suits are left with a hostile fleet between them and their rides home. It seems like a situation tailor-made to result in at least one of the Zeon groups getting wiped out; either the Tianem fleet pursues Dozle's ships to destruction, or else they break off the pursuit to prepare for an attack on their rear by the mobile suits. Despite the supremacy of the mobile suit in general, I think they'd find it difficult to repeat their success in an attack the Tianem fleet, given that they'd be attacking without the benefit of surprise, and presumably being low on ammo and propellant (not to mention having some of their own units damaged or destroyed) after the attack on the Revil fleet. I find myself wondering how the battle was resolved after the portion we see.

[Amion]

At this point I don't believe anyone in Japan who makes decisions cares if Loum is depicted in the way in needs to be. It's just a name for each writer to pluck from the bin and model however they like, consequences be damned.

The little bit of continuity that matters to me is how Side 5 became a debris cloud/was destroyed. Yet that part is always left out, which makes it sound like the destruction happens before or after the battle somehow. So if these animated depictions are the new official until we get a new official, what happened to Side 5 in these versions? Did it spontaneously combust?

[toysdream]

As far as travel times, it seems to take about three days to go from Earth to the moon (climbing out of the gravity well) and about two days to go from the moon to Earth (where you get an assist from gravity). That rule of thumb still holds as of Gundam Unicorn, which makes sense because we're talking about the most efficient orbits, regardless of propulsion technology. So going from Luna II to the moon by way of Earth is about a five-day trip.

In the Origin animation, we see the Revil fleet approaching from directly behind the Tianem fleet, with the Earth behind it. But that doesn't tell us whether it came from Earth, or from Luna II via Earth...


Regarding Admiral Tianem, last time around I missed a bit in the comic version of The Origin which says that Tianem was involved in the attempt to stop Operation British. We see the colony rounding the moon, and then a Federation fleet opens fire on it. The caption reads, "Vice Admiral Tianem's fleet, which had been heading for an engagement point with the Zeon forces, hastily changed its objective and tried to destroy (the colony)."

Given that the colony enters Earth's gravity well on January 15, just eight days before the Battle of Loum (as per The Origin's timeline), there wouldn't really be time for the Tianem fleet to go back to Luna II and then return to Side 5. So presumably, after the failed attempt to stop the colony, Tianem just parked his fleet at Side 5. This seems like a good staging point from which to intercept any future colony drop attempts, after all.

Since the anime version doesn't address the Operation British back story, this may not apply here, but if we're extending our speculation further back then it might be worth taking this into consideration.


Also not shown in the Origin anime, but depicted in the comic and described in the MS Igloo publications, is the idea that Zeon's ambushing mobile suits were deployed from a special detachment of Papua transport ships. So these may have been able to provide some Minovsky particle cover. I don't think the particles are actually mentioned in the anime dialogue, but the mecha profiles on the official web site claim that Minovsky particles impaired the defenses of the Federation ships during the Battle of Loum, so they must have been involved somehow.

-- Mark

[zetatype]

Readers of the comic may have noticed that the animated Origin not only reduces the battle to a few minutes of highlights, but also changes or omits some details. Notably, when Dozle pulls his fleet back out of the Tianem fleet's firing range, in the comic he turns around and charges straight through the approaching Revil fleet instead. This surprise attack deals a major blow to Revil and his fleet, creating an opening for the ensuing mobile suit ambush. In the animated version, it seems like Dozle simply runs away, and the mobile suits attack without any ship support.

I don't think this is something you need to worry about. I get the impression that the prologue was intended to be more of a teaser for the Battle of Loum rather than the meat of it. We probably won't get to see the juicy details until the final episode.

That being said, I always have been a bit unsatisfied with the results of Origin's version of Loum since it seems to heavily clash with the animated works.

In Origins, Side 5 appears to be virtually unscathed which heavily clashed with the giant debris field of Side 5's ruins that gets mentioned (or shown) in other animated works. It also kinda takes away some of the infamy that made the Battle of Loum such a big deal.

Then there is Tianem's fleet. We know that after Revil's fleet gets trashed Tianem just bugs out and is pretty much unscathed. Since his fleet was roughly the size of Zeon's entire fleet before the battle, it means that the Federation's fleet is still bigger than Zeon. This makes the Federation's situation far less dire than it was made out to be in the past and also makes me wonder why they were considering surrender so soon after the battle. It also raises two issues.

1)In the TV series and movies we see Tianem's fleet launching from Jaburo. Why is Tianem's main fleet launching from Jaburo if his fleet is still intact? Launching from Jaburo implies the ships are newly built and that there was no fleet beforehand.

2)Where were his ships when Zeon invaded Earth? The impression I got in past was that Zeon's invasion was unchallenged because the Federation didn't have any ships to cover Earth since most of what was left was covering Luna II.

[toysdream]

I think the anime Origin does definitively rule out a role for Dozle in attacking the Revil fleet. Not only do they have no advance warning of trouble before Char's bullet sails through that warship's bridge, but the Revil fleet is depicted as being behind the Tianem fleet rather than approaching from the side as in the comic, so Dozle would have to sail straight through Tianem to get to Revil. Maybe they felt that scene was just too wacky for the anime.

As you note, the questions of "what happens to the Tianem fleet" and "what happens to the Side 5 colonies" aren't addressed, either here or in the comic. The now-deprecated account of the battle in Gundam Century and Entertainment Bible 39 at least had the fighting taking place in the middle of the Side itself, with colonies in the crossfire, but this isn't shown in any of the filmed depictions at all.

If we're filling in the blanks, I suppose the Origin anime - in which Dozle doesn't engage the Revil fleet - would leave the possibility for Tianem to pursue Dozle into Side 5 and suffer another ambush. That would tie up all these loose ends, but we'll have to wait a couple of years for the rest of the Origin flashback episodes before we know if that idea's plausible or necessary.

-- Mark

[Zeonista]

I didn't take away too much in the way of an attempt to create a definitive version of Loum from the beginning scene of the OAV. The emphasis was very much on Char Aznable building his reputation and the melee of the MS attack that completely reversed the outcome of the engagement, which had previously been Dozzle's fleet getting hammered in a outnumbered shoot-out between warships. Loum became one of those engagements where no plan survived enemy contact on either side, and the side that best adapted to circumstance won the day. So instead of giving us some nice orderly History Channel graphics, the story emphasizes the multitude of small group and individual actions proceeding almost beyond all flag-rank control.

The Zakus were much improved by the current generation animation in the depiction of their relative maneuvering capability compared to the EFSF ships and space fighters. They are after all mobile suits, and the scene brings that home in spades if nothing else. I also appreciated the idea of Char loading up his shiny new Zaku S-type with big assault-type weapons and deliberately hunting the Maggies to deprive the EFSF squadrons of their leadership and heaviest firepower. It still honored the old bushido heroics of "the Red Comet", but also gave Char a rational and modern military objective.

It would be good if another forthcoming OAV or two takes on Gundam The Origin's detailed and dramatic accounts of Operation British and Loum. There's a lot of detail involved, and the actions and decisions of the key players get a good airing. I'm sure something will be forthcoming, especially if the OAVs are meant to be a lead-in to a TV series.