Clay Bazooka?

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Mu La Flaga
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Clay Bazooka?

Ok so I've been wondering about this arnament the Gundam Mark 2 has.
What are the clay rounds supposed to do?, disable machines or do some kind of dis-orienting damage to things?

I mean if it were standard shrapnel metalic pieces, then I would understand a tad better if want to wreck an enemy unit better.

So yeah does someone know what the deal is with that?
fahentai
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Re: Clay Bazooka?

Mu La Flaga wrote:Ok so I've been wondering about this arnament the Gundam Mark 2 has.
What are the clay rounds supposed to do?, disable machines or do some kind of dis-orienting damage to things?

I mean if it were standard shrapnel metalic pieces, then I would understand a tad better if want to wreck an enemy unit better.

So yeah does someone know what the deal is with that?
well, this if you talk about this one...Its only use is to smash the main cameras of of other MS. And that is what it did in animation.
Personally, I'd prefer that this weapon is not very useful.
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AmuroNT1
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Re: Clay Bazooka?

IIRC, the clay bazooka is so named because it CAN fire adhesive rounds that non-lethally disable an enemy machine. It doesn't always, though; just as often we see it firing standard explosive rounds or scattering shrapnel shells.
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mcred23
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Re: Clay Bazooka?

Mu La Flaga wrote:What are the clay rounds supposed to do?, disable machines or do some kind of dis-orienting damage to things?

I mean if it were standard shrapnel metalic pieces, then I would understand a tad better if want to wreck an enemy unit better.
Well, the Gundam Official definition for the clay bazooka indicates that the clay shot is intended for the former, and Mark mentionedthat the Japanese sources talk about the actual Clay shot as essentially like a larger version of the sealant launcher mounted in the fingers of many MS (Think what the Rick Dias does in one of the first episodes). If that actually is the case, then since we never see the Clay shot used in the series, it's hard to say what it's really better for.

On the other hand, talking about those shotgun like shells used (AFAIK) that one time against the Asshimar, they seem to be mainly intended to disorient more than anything. Given the nature of panoramic cockpits, it would probably be intended for taking out not only the main camera and sensors in the head, but also some of the others mounted on the MS. However, I don't recall them being overly effective against the Asshimar, so it's hard to say just how well they really work.

And really, IIRC other than that one instance, ever other time the Clay Bazooka just uses normal explosive shells, so that may tell you something about just how effective all these other shells are compared to the good ol' normal ones. 8)
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JEFFPIATT
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Re: Clay Bazooka?

the Clay Bazooka was actually one of the Rick Dias hand armaments that later ended up being used by other AEUG suits the Bazooka has an c clamp on it toi allow it to mount on the rail on the back of the Rick Dias. the gundam's stock bazooka was the H-Baz-87-A*E/Ver.004 360mm hyper bazooka witch is an upgraded version of the model we see the gundam and GM use in 0079.
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Evex
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Re: Clay Bazooka?

You also have to take into effect that the A.E.U.G is, I believe, classified as a militia and not officially part of the federation. Most of their mobile suit force comprised of the GM II and Rick Dias until the Nemo was introduced. I can see the clay bazooka being used to capture enemy mobile suits to help reinforce the A.E.U.G fighting strength. Its also not crazy to think they might of been used on regular federation forces, if the A.E.U.G was forced into a fight with them. It wouldn't surprise me if the Rick Dias going in to capture the Gundam Mark II weren't equipped with clay bazooka's. It just happened to be Quattro and his wing mans luck that the units weren't being piloted at the time.
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JEFFPIATT
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Re: Clay Bazooka?

Well the AEUG seemed to lack funding when they captured the MK II they only had the Rick Dias as an exclusive model and what ever GM units the defecting EFSF Ships had on them. The Nemo exclusively reused armaments from other units it used the GM II beam rifle and the Clay Bazooka and beam sabers off the Rick Dias. oddly i don't remember them capturing an mk II with an Hyper Bazooka so it may have just for that one battle it got one off an GM II and some times it would get the Clay Bazooka from the armory.
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mcred23
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Re: Clay Bazooka?

Evex wrote:You also have to take into effect that the A.E.U.G is, I believe, classified as a militia and not officially part of the federation.
Of course the AEUG isn't part of the Federation, it's formed mainly by ex-Federation troops with the intent of stopping the Titans, a branch of the Federation Forces. :|

That said, there really isn't anything to suggest that the Clay shot was used by the AEUG to capture MS in the manner suggested. The do have a fairly large number of stolen GM II's that is their main MS during the first months of the war, but I'd imagine most were the MS teams of their similarly stolen (Or defected) Salamis Kais, or aquired in fairly large raids like the ship capture operation like the one we see in Granada in episode 9, rather than them stealing them one by one with weapons like the Clay shot (Which strikes me as an overly complicated way of getting GM II's anyway, even for a sometimes desperate group like the AEUG).
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Ryujin
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Re: Clay Bazooka?

mcred23 wrote:Well, the Gundam Official definition for the clay bazooka indicates that the clay shot is intended for the former, and Mark mentioned that the Japanese sources talk about the actual Clay shot as essentially like a larger version of the sealant launcher mounted in the fingers of many MS (Think what the Rick Dias does in one of the first episodes). If that actually is the case, then since we never see the Clay shot used in the series, it's hard to say what it's really better for.
I have to wonder if, given the properties of genuine Clay shot, someone has ever thought of using it to help in making hasty repairs to a breached spacecraft hull or colony wall.
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Re: Clay Bazooka?

Evex wrote:You also have to take into effect that the A.E.U.G is, I believe, classified as a militia and not officially part of the federation.
...And along those lines, maybe there's another angle to this thing: A fair bit of AEUG's MS design work had to be kept under wraps. Classifying the Clay Bazooka as something other than an offensive, destructive weapon may have been useful at some developmental stage as a way to keep from drawing attention to the project.

In other words, AEUG approaches Anaheim asking for a bazooka to be produced to go with their new MS. Officially the project is to be labeled "Clay bazooka" and most of the externally visible information about the project will deal with the weapon's use as a large-scale birdlime launcher. But the weapon is actually being built with a military-grade targeting system and the ability to fire explosive rounds - information on that side of the project, and development and testing of the rounds themselves is kept under wraps by AE workers sympathetic to the AEUG.

Someone (i.e. Titans members auditing Anaheim or whatever) not looking too closely at the project might just read "clay bazooka" and not concern themselves with the fact that it's being developed into a capable anti-MS weapon. And then when AEUG actually fields the weapon, they usually load explosive rounds into it instead of the clay or birdlime rounds it was supposedly designed for.

(I think the above is an appealing rationalization - but that's really all it is. Alternately one could imagine that the "clay bazooka" fires something like a HESH round - though that goes against pretty much every official bit of info about the weapon... Really, I think the most likely explanation is simply that, when the show was being developed, and the Rick Dias designed, the creators expected there to be more instances of the AEUG capturing enemy MS - but by the time they got to actually animating, they'd turned it into more of a pure combat scenario.)
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Re: Clay Bazooka?

Ryujin wrote:I have to wonder if, given the properties of genuine Clay shot, someone has ever thought of using it to help in making hasty repairs to a breached spacecraft hull or colony wall.
The hand-mounted birdlime launchers of the Rick Dias seemed pretty effective at dealing with small ruptures - it seems to me that if the basic concept can be that effective at such a small size, then scaling it up to the size of an anti-MS bazooka would be overkill. If you have a hole in your ship big enough to need that much birdlime, then you probably don't have much of a ship left. :)
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Ryujin
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Re: Clay Bazooka?

1-4-4 wrote:The hand-mounted birdlime launchers of the Rick Dias seemed pretty effective at dealing with small ruptures - it seems to me that if the basic concept can be that effective at such a small size, then scaling it up to the size of an anti-MS bazooka would be overkill. If you have a hole in your ship big enough to need that much birdlime, then you probably don't have much of a ship left. :)
I won't even bother commenting on how big a hull breach a warship can take before it's deemed untenable, but Rick Diases with built-in birdlime launchers won't always be on hand in any case. Even if it seems to be 'overkill,' said sealant option would be available for any MS capable of handling a Clay Bazooka (and in many critical situations, it's quite acceptable, even preferred, to perform overkill--better safe than sorry, especially when you don't have time to waste on calculating the precise amount of effort needed for the task).

The versatility that comes from its ability to handle different types of munitions also makes it that much more attractive to resource-challenged groups like the AEUG.
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