At 06:10 PM 5/16/96 -0400, you wrote:

  I fail to see how this is a 'fatal flaw.'  If the author were to ignore
  the existence of such a problem, then I would be more inclined to agree
  with you.  However, we have yet to see the Gundam universe yet, so it is
  too early to assume that the problem will not be dealt with by the author.

I'll be amazed to see him get out of this conundrum....

        Well, to explain my take, I'm the guy who was mentioned in the
author's forward (who surmised 'Wouldn't it look cool to see a Gundam and a
Battroid duking it out in deep space??'). We both kinda went on tangents and
started our own works (hey, he's faster, plus I'm doing Gundam research up
the wazoo!).
        The question here you have to ask is: Yes, Minovski particles would
be very damaging to the sensor capabilities of the VF fighters, but if the
pilot had extensive training in battroid mode (say, combating enemy Powered
aromor suits..) he/she would not need to adapt much, already being used to
line of sight targeting with weapons. Then again (as I hope to deal with),
what if there are other ways around Minovski particles?

The pilot would be able to function, but he'd be limited to his weak
laser and the ammo in his gattling gun.  Plus all their doctrine and
training has got to be based on a radar illuminated battlefield.

Question (since part of my research deals with Minovski particles):
Heat seekers? I mean, from what I can gather, Minovsky particles render all
radar based signals dead. This does not however mask heat signatures such as
a Gundam's booster jets/pack. Also, what about laser guiding? I would assume
that if you can fire laser weaponry, you can possibly adapt a system to do
line of sight laser guiding (yes, in a fray this would be complete suicide,
but it is a valid way out.)

In the Gundam universe, optical and IR sensors with limited utility do
what radar normally does, but evidently IR is fuzzed up enough that
nobody uses IR seekers.  The missiles are pretty much unguided
rockets.  And lets not forget melee weapons.  And Newtypes.

Hmm...Yeah, I have to give credit. Newtypes make things really difficult. I
think, though, that it almost balances out with manouverability. Take the VF-17D
Nightmare Valkyrie. This thing has a 5 to 1 thrust/weight ratio. It moves
like a motherfucker. Or just look at some of the things the YF-21 was able
to do (the missile dodging exercise in ep 1 of Plus). You take these things
into consideration, and all in all it's a fairly level playing field.
Granted the 
Macross pilots will have to do some adjusting, but it's not that bad.

Well, just thought I'd drop my 2 cents worth.
Oh, and all you who commented on the story, the comments have been given to
the author.

|  Frank 'Hard_Case' Zado, Otaku, computer guru, madman!   |
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