The Dra-C and Delaz Fleet Mobile Suit composition

The future is now. This is the place for mecha and science.
User avatar
Calubin_175
Posts: 1105
Joined: Sat Oct 27, 2007 8:06 pm

The Dra-C and Delaz Fleet Mobile Suit composition

As Newtype 100% reports that the Delaz Fleet only had about 60 MS, I also read that the Dra-C production numbers were about 30. Since most of their mobile suits were ones left over from one year, the Dra-C were manufactured at the shoal zone. It is unsure whether all produced Dra-Cs were assigned to the Delaz Fleet tally. Could Axis of 0083 have had some Dra-Cs as well?

So that only leave around 20-25 Zaku F2s and 5-10 Rick Dom IIs left if most Dra-C were deployed. Also, is there an in-universe explanation as to why they only had 06F2s and 09R2s without any regular versions? Did the surviving Delaz Fleet from One Year War only had these modified models with them? Or they they modify some in the shoal zone?

Regarding the Cima Fleet, the novel version states that they have more than 30 Gelgoog Marines. But I think in canon there should only be about 30 MS in total. Within that, did they have any Zaku F2s as well?
User avatar
Black Knight
Posts: 598
Joined: Sat Nov 10, 2007 3:20 am

Re: The Dra-C and Delaz Fleet Mobile Suit composition

You're assuming that all of the ~30 Dra-Cs were still working by the time of Stardust, and I don't think that's necessarily the case. Gato's diversionary force at Solomon alone deploys 27 Zaku IIs & 6 Rick Dom IIs, and Delaz's main fleet is supposed to have another ~18 Rick Dom IIs and an undetermined force of Zakus. Just with those numbers, we're already at 51 MS, not including GP-02A, and not counting any Dra-Cs.

More likely, the Dra-C is not included in that tally as a "mobile suit". It's more like a small mobile armor or poorly-built space fighter, anyway, so despite it's MS-21 designation, I don't think it is likely to have been included in the figure of mobile suits. Its role as a nigh-unarmed recon & patrol craft also argues against it being counted as a MS; it's more like a better-engined Ball.

The only time Cima's force is shown deploying a Zaku II is when she's trying to buy Kelly Lazner's mobile armor on the moon, and one of her flunkies takes out a Zaku II F2 and gets himself shot. Assuming her six Musai's can each carry four Gelgoogs and another six on the Lili Marlene, 30 MS is the most her force can deploy, outside of the Komusais. While it is something of a stretch to think she would have maintained all 30 Gelgoogs for so long after the war, all indications are that she did in fact do so, though the Newtype 100% Collection indicates her force did take on additional MS after joining with Delaz; we just don't see her deploying them with her main force.

The Zaku II F2 is supposed to have replaced the original F-type on the production lines sometime in the summer of '79, which would go a long way to explaining why so many are still around in '83, but unless it also replaced the J-type it's less clear why so many of them are still kicking around Earth.

The Rick Dom II is a more interesting case. Possibly it is similar to the case of Rommel's forces in ZZ, where the reason the MS have been upgraded is because the Zeon holdouts have been pilfering Federation stocks, though in the Delaz Fleet's case, perhaps under-the-table support from AE is a better reasoning; that could be how Gato met Nina.
REMecha00Q
Posts: 67
Joined: Tue Nov 16, 2010 9:40 pm

Re: The Dra-C and Delaz Fleet Mobile Suit composition

I know this may be off topic, but what was the source you got the Dra-C production numbers from?
User avatar
Black Knight
Posts: 598
Joined: Sat Nov 10, 2007 3:20 am

Re: The Dra-C and Delaz Fleet Mobile Suit composition

Both MS WARS and Newtype's 100% Collection claim "about 30" as the production totals for the Dra-C; there may be others, but Calubin probably is citing Newtype's 100% Collection, as he references that source in his post. I've never heard any other total for the Dra-C, however. 20-30 is pretty standard as far as production totals for a very minor machine go.
REMecha00Q
Posts: 67
Joined: Tue Nov 16, 2010 9:40 pm

Re: The Dra-C and Delaz Fleet Mobile Suit composition

Are there any estimates for the Delaz Fleet mobile suit compistion (including numbers) for the final phase of operation stardust (final battle)?
User avatar
Black Knight
Posts: 598
Joined: Sat Nov 10, 2007 3:20 am

Re: The Dra-C and Delaz Fleet Mobile Suit composition

I am unaware of any official sources providing information on what's left; I've never even seen an indication of how much of Gato's diversionary force at Solomon actually survived. The fact that Newtype's 100% Collection is only cited as providing numbers for before Gato heads to Solomon makes me think that that's the only time it lists the MS strength. Possibly the 0083 novelization has more detail, but you'd have to ask someone who actually has a copy of either of those works, which would probably be Mark...
REMecha00Q
Posts: 67
Joined: Tue Nov 16, 2010 9:40 pm

Re: The Dra-C and Delaz Fleet Mobile Suit composition

I'll take note of that.
How do I contact Mark?
User avatar
Sume Gai
Posts: 3909
Joined: Mon Apr 07, 2008 3:57 pm
Location: side 3; watchin' out for Zabis

Re: The Dra-C and Delaz Fleet Mobile Suit composition

REMecha00Q wrote:I'll take note of that.
How do I contact Mark?
Raise your Eyes to the heavens Clasp together your hands and call out. If He is feeling benevolent perhaps he may dyne to descend into our midst to share his great knowledge.

Or you could PM him I suppose, His user name here is toysdream.
"If You are a man you'll do what's important before you grieve" -Captain Harlock

"I like the SAGA. Its what Rambo would pilot if he was in Gundam 00" -Kylern
teslashark
Posts: 550
Joined: Fri Jan 04, 2008 7:40 am

Re: The Dra-C and Delaz Fleet Mobile Suit composition

WMG-ly speaking, the 06F2 and 09F are what the producers wanted the toylike Zakus and Doms to look like, they redesigned them.
In-universely speaking, pherhaps all old Zakus and Doms on Delaz's hand had been worn out after 4 years and all the half-broken ones turned into spare parts for the more advanced 06F2s and 09Fs.
Junior mod at forum.spacebattles.com
toysdream
Posts: 3164
Joined: Mon Mar 06, 2006 12:24 pm
Location: San Francisco, CA
Contact:

Re: The Dra-C and Delaz Fleet Mobile Suit composition

A lot of sources (Keibunsha's Gundam 0083 book series, Gundam The Movies V, Gundam Officials, etc) say that the Delaz Fleet only has about 60 mobile suits. I think the Newtype 100% Collection is one of the sources that doesn't support this; based purely on the number of ships, it estimates that the fleet's 13 Musai cruisers alone carry 52 mobile suits, with an unknown number aboard the Gwaden as well. It also claims that the mobile suit forces have a 3:1 ratio of Zakus to Rick Doms, with a few Dra-C units as well.

Meanwhile, the Keibunsha books (and the other sources that cite them) estimate that the Delaz Fleet has 15 Musai cruisers, and that its mobile suit forces include 20 Rick Dom II units.

It seems simple enough to reconcile these numbers. If the Newtype book estimates 13 cruisers and 52 mobile suits, not including the Gwaden's complement, then the rival claim of 15 cruisers and 60 mobile suits probably doesn't include the Gwaden either. When you throw that in, you'd have more like 80 mobile suits - 20 Rick Doms and 60 Zakus, exactly the ratio proposed by the Newtype book. Ta-dah!

What about those Dra-C units, though? Well, we never really see them being deployed from Musai cruisers; when Gato's fleet launches its mobile suits to attack Solomon, the Dra-Cs appear to come from behind the line of cruisers. Since they're 30 meters long, it would be hard even fitting these things into a Musai hangar, and I suspect that they're actually carried by supply ships. That gives us a grand total of 110 mobile suits, 80 of which are carried aboard actual warships.

-- Mark
User avatar
Black Knight
Posts: 598
Joined: Sat Nov 10, 2007 3:20 am

Re: The Dra-C and Delaz Fleet Mobile Suit composition

When Gato's force is launching at Solomon, we see some Dra-Cs come from behind his Musais; earlier shots established that some Pazock supply ships were back there, implying that these ships are able to launch the Dra-C.

However, in Episode 5 the commander of Peer Gynt orders Dra-Cs to launch, and that Musai appears to be acting alone in its pickup of Gato's Komusai.
toysdream
Posts: 3164
Joined: Mon Mar 06, 2006 12:24 pm
Location: San Francisco, CA
Contact:

Re: The Dra-C and Delaz Fleet Mobile Suit composition

Black Knight wrote:However, in Episode 5 the commander of Peer Gynt orders Dra-Cs to launch, and that Musai appears to be acting alone in its pickup of Gato's Komusai.
Well, as far as we know. But we've still never actually seen a Dra-C entering or leaving a Musai hangar.

-- Mark
User avatar
Gelgoog Jager
Posts: 1640
Joined: Mon Jun 05, 2006 9:09 pm

Re: The Dra-C and Delaz Fleet Mobile Suit composition

The issue about the Delaz fleet has also troubled me more than once, specially when it comes down to the numebr of ships the fleet actually have. Recently I went to check again the number of ships that belong to Delaz fleet, Cima fleet and Gato fleet as they launch the attack on Solomon. The main problem is that there's a big issue with the consistency of these fleets:

Gato fleet:

After the credits of episode 6 there si an extra scene where Gato's fleet is seen leaving the Garden of thorns. At this point his fleet seems to be entirely made of a few Musais and at least 4 Papuas. As the fleet aproaches Solomon, we get a side view at the fleet as it advances and we can identify 8 Musais and 9 Pazocks. When the fleet finally reaches Solomon, we get another look at the fleet, this time from the front, and we can see 11 Musais and 7 Pazocks. At thsi point it seems that Gato's fleet consists on 11 Musais, 9 Pazocks and 4 Papuas.

A few moments later the MS begin to launch. during this time 3 Dra-C pass above the fleet. Soon afterwards we see several formations of 3 MS and eventually they converge with the Physalis and we can identify 8 teams of 3 Zakus and 2 teams of 3 Rick Doms equipped with bazookas (this is important; later one we see that Karius and Gato's other escort are both only carrying machineguns). A bit later the group of MS begin heading to Solomon. We continue to see the MS moving in formations of 3 MS, but now one team of 3 Rick Doms is replaced by a team of 1 Rick Dom and 2 Zakus. Finally, Gato orders that everyone except his 2 escorts proceed to perform a diversion.

All these basically point towards the presence of:
8 teams of 3 Zakus
2 teams of 3 Rick Doms equipped with Bazookas
1 team of 1 Rick Dom and 2 Zakus
1 team of 3 Dra-C
1 team of Physalis Gundam and 2 Rick Doms

A grand total of 13 teams of 3 MS. If we add up the Pazocks and Papuas, we get a total fo 13 transport ships. The few times we saw Gato's fleet on route to Solomon, we could observe a consistent ratio of almost 1 supply ship per Musai. Therefore I would assume here that Gato's fleet consists on:

Musai x13 (each carrying 3 MS)
Pazock x9
Papua x4

Delaz fleet:

I need some more time to check again the alst 3 episodes, but from what we can see when the Delaz fleet is moving around the moon, while Gato's fleet is heading to Solomon, we already have some consistency issues:

First we see a side view form far away of the fleet. From that point we can see the gwaden on the center fo the fleet and 10 other ships surrounding it. Upon closer inspection we can observe that the 2 ships right behind the Gwaden are Papuas, and the other 8 ships are Musai. but then things get weird; a closer look at the fleet shows the Gwaden, 2 Musais, 1 Papua and 2 Pazocks that could not be seen from the previous shot. The problem here is that these 2 Pazocks could be replacing Musais or were accidentally excluded from the first view. I hope that after checking again the last 3 episode I can clear out at least part of this mess.

Cima fleet:

Episode 9 actually shows at least 3 times that Cima's fleet still has 7 Musais as they perform the colonyjack. If we consider the one shot down by the Birmingham, we can confirm that Cima's fleet originally had 9 ships: the Lili Marleen and 8 Musais. If we considered 4 MS per Musai, that would give us a total of 38 Gelgoog Marines. But what if we consider that Cima's Musais also carry only 3 MS? That would give us a total of 30 Gelgoog Marines, which matches the commonly heard figure.

Things get complicated if we also consider Evolve 4, which shows 12 more Gelgoog Marines along with 6 Zaku F2, and an unseen warship, which according to the seen barrage seems to be a Musai. The MS from this episode were wiped out, although the fate of their mothership remains uncertain.
toysdream
Posts: 3164
Joined: Mon Mar 06, 2006 12:24 pm
Location: San Francisco, CA
Contact:

Re: The Dra-C and Delaz Fleet Mobile Suit composition

Nice spotting, but remember that the Musai version used by the Delaz Fleet carries four mobile suits in its hangar, and we have no reason to doubt that they're filled to capacity (although Gato's flagship seems to have a vacant slot in its hangar). Even if they form into teams of three after launching, there's no reason to waste that valuable hangar space. Your tally gives us 39 mobile suits - a near-perfect match for the roughly 40 machines cited in the novels - which would fit inside ten cruisers, or only nine if the Dra-Cs are carried elsewhere. (Ignoring, of course, that vacant slot in the hangar of Gato's ship.)

The size of Delaz's group is really unclear, and makes it seem like the staff weren't paying much attention to the ship counts. If two of those eight Musais are actually Pazocks, then Delaz would have six cruisers, which added to the low-end estimate of nine ships for Gato gives us the fifteen cruisers cited in most of the reference books.

According to the liner notes in the first CD Cinema volume, the Cima Fleet has eight Musai cruisers, which would be reduced to seven after one is destroyed by the Birmingham. So that, at least, is consistent. It also gives the Cima Fleet enough extra space to carry a few Zakus as well as their 30 Gelgoogs.

-- Mark
REMecha00Q
Posts: 67
Joined: Tue Nov 16, 2010 9:40 pm

Re: The Dra-C and Delaz Fleet Mobile Suit composition

If there were mobile suits stored in the transport class ships, then does anyone know how many suits were stored in the pazocks/papua, or saw how many were launched from them?
teslashark
Posts: 550
Joined: Fri Jan 04, 2008 7:40 am

Re: The Dra-C and Delaz Fleet Mobile Suit composition

A Papua can carry 6 MSs, 3 each side.
Junior mod at forum.spacebattles.com
toysdream
Posts: 3164
Joined: Mon Mar 06, 2006 12:24 pm
Location: San Francisco, CA
Contact:

Re: The Dra-C and Delaz Fleet Mobile Suit composition

teslashark wrote:A Papua can carry 6 MSs, 3 each side.
That seems reasonable enough given what we see of the hangar interior, but it's not an official spec. (The only published figures I've ever seen are 3 machines as per Entertainment Bible 3, and a ridiculous 20 as per Gundam Officials.)

-- Mark
REMecha00Q
Posts: 67
Joined: Tue Nov 16, 2010 9:40 pm

Re: The Dra-C and Delaz Fleet Mobile Suit composition

Sounds reasonable. Still how many mobile suits did the delaz and gato fleet store in their transports, because I doudt there filled them to full capacity ( if gato+delaz fleet did have a combined total of 11 pazocks and 5 papuas, then max capacity would be 151 MS)?
teslashark
Posts: 550
Joined: Fri Jan 04, 2008 7:40 am

Re: The Dra-C and Delaz Fleet Mobile Suit composition

I read the Legacy series (or some other comic featuring PS2 characters) before and one episode have a Papua luanching MSs. Three Doms come out of one "half" and inside the "half" there are no more room for MSs.
Junior mod at forum.spacebattles.com
User avatar
Gelgoog Jager
Posts: 1640
Joined: Mon Jun 05, 2006 9:09 pm

Re: The Dra-C and Delaz Fleet Mobile Suit composition

I just remembered about this summary, regarding a battle at Solomon's Sea that is nto covered by the OVA.

This seems to show that Delaz is providing MS to other Zeon remnants. In this particular case it would seem that the Chivvay in question doesn't have any MS of it's own.

This made me consider a few things:
Black Knight wrote:However, in Episode 5 the commander of Peer Gynt orders Dra-Cs to launch, and that Musai appears to be acting alone in its pickup of Gato's Komusai.
In this scene we actually see that the ships picking up Gato are only 2 Musais and they deploy a total of 8 Dra-C, which as Mark says would match the standard capacity of a Late Type Musai.

The Musai's hangar are actually quite big, something we can appreciate when the first Zaku launches from a Musai as the Gato fleets launches it's MS for the attack on Solomon, and should easily fit even a Dra-C. Most likely, the only drawback would be that they can't be launched with the catapult.

Back to the Musais. After picking Gato, only one of these Musais heads to the Garden of thorns, so what if the other Musai is not actually part of the Delaz fleet, but rather belongs to a group of Zeon remnants that decided to cooperate with Delaz, probably even in exchange of those 4 Dra-C. On Earth it seems that Gato is the only actual member of the Delaz fleet, but is being helped by different remanats groups.

What I'm trying to point out here is that maybe the Delaz fleet itself only consists on 16 ships (15 Musais and the Gwaden), but for Operation Stardust it gathers other Zeon remnants, including both ships and MS.

In the episode 8, before reaching Solomon, the Albion runs into several groups of Zeon forces, that according to Kou, are trying to join the Delaz fleet. Right after the events concerning Axis and the advance fleet, we see Kou destroying a Zaku and he claims that it is the third enemy they have ran into that day.

As they get closer to Solomon, they run into another group of 11 MS, according to the Albion's crew, which is intercepted by Bate alone after Kou and Keith just returned and Adel's MS has to wait 2 more minutes for it's resupply. Later on more enemies are detected and Kou, Keith and Monsha are ordered to join Bate and Adel who were already engaging the previous group. The only machine we actually see here from this group is a Dra-C. Right after that we see that Gato's main group is still advancing in formation before he orders everyone except his two escorts to participate in a diversion.

I went to check again how many ships leave the Garden of Thorns at the end of episode 6. Other than the 4 Papuas, we can also see 5 Musais. The following episode we see how Karius has just joined the fleet, which means that the Peer Grynt was only carrying 2 MS when it left the Garden of Thorns. Karius also mentions that other remnants are going to join them soon. Also, when Karius Rick Dom's, and a Dra-C which seems to escort him, approaches at first to the fleet, the fleet itself appears as a large group of white dots, out of which 7 have red lights that are making light signals. Finally, he also mentions that his group ran into Cima's fleet and that they almost collided with them.

So this is what I propose:

Gato left the Garden of Thorns with only 7 Musais, which are the red lights Karius sees as he heads towards the fleet. Karius came with another fleet and when his fleet was getting closer to Gato's, he went ahead to greet him.

I also checked the ships that are moving with the Gwaden. If we try to identify the ships according to their position shown in both angles shown, the first being a side view of the entire fleet form far away, and the second a three-quarter close look at the Gwaden and the ships closest to it, this is what we can see:

The Papuas from the first view are replaced by Pazocks. The Musai below the Gwaden in the first view is repalced by a Papua. Finally in the second view we see a Musai moving at the same heigt as the Gwaden, which I will presume couldn't be seen in the first view. that gives us:

Gwazine x1
Musai x8
Pazock x2
Papua x1

If we add Delaz's 8 crusiers and Gato's original 7 Musais, we reach again the mark of 15 cruisers, but know can we consider that additonal ships join Gato right before the operation, which could reach the figure of 13 I originally proposed.

Regarding the unused 4th MS slot, I would actually think that the Musais do are carrying 4 MS each, but the 4th MS stays in the cruiser to defend the fleet, basically leaving 12 MS to defend the aproximately 26 ships (between crusiers and supply ships). Gato's ship would be the sole exception, most likely do to a space issue since the feet of the Physalis would most likely interfere with the loading of an MS below it.

I'll also like to add a few things regarding the Cima fleet, but this post is already long enough, so I'll leave that for later.
Locked