Date: Thu, 16 May 1996 21:49:33 -0400
From: Hard_Case <fzado@frost.oit.umass.edu>
At 06:10 PM 5/16/96 -0400, [ I ] 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?
Not particularly; I seem to remember some mention of a suit with a
Minovski radar or some such, but the idea hasn't been followed up on,
so evidently it wasn't a success. Then again, the idea of funnels
seems to have been lost or abandoned after CCA (given that they never
worked very well against Newtypes, and Newtypes (the only people who
can use funnels) don't need them to kill Oldtypes, it may be
abandoned).
To solve the problem you could:
Have (some of) the Macross pilots become Newtypes.
You could pull some super-science out of a hat and get around the problem.
But it would be hard to make either convincing.
>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.
You would think so, but no one seems to use heat seekers in the Gundam
universe. My *guess* is that the Minovski particles, which come
straight out of a suit's reactor, are hot enough to make precise
targeting useless.
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.)
This is not far from the Sparrow, or Pheonix (sp.) systems; the former
is 100% launcher radar guided, and I think the latter may also depend
on the launcher initally painting the target.
>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....
That certainly helps, but ... it's little use if you don't see the
enemy before he gets you. Historicly most planes are downed by
someone the pilot never saw. Of course, heroes by definition have
sufficiently good situational awareness they never get hit.
Maybe Hikaru and co. will find out they were Newtypes all along....
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.
I still doubt it, but we'll see.
- Harold