Forum - View topic[Question on Gundam spaceships.]
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Abarenbo Shogun
 Posts: 1573 |
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In virtually all the Gundam series and movies, all it takes to take out a capital ship is to send a beam saber into the bridge of said ship to make it go "ker-plooey."
Now, from a tactical standpoint, why have the bridge in such a vulnerable position? I know Char's Counterattack introduced the idea of "Combat Bridge" and some capital ships don't go "ker-plooey" immediately in Zeta and 08th MS Team, so why the idea? Or is it some unwritten Anime Law that make sit like thus? |
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apbt
Posts: 16 |
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Yes, why is that? In the mobile suits, the cockpit is in the chest, not the head. It is more protected in the chest, but then why have a head? The sensors can be placed anywhere, there is no need for a head. The moblie suits are cool to look at, but logically they should resemble the mechs in Mechwarrior. That's why they put the bridge on top, it's cooler.
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don'tlookbehindyou
 Posts: 44 Location: being distracted by shiny things. |
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Well they need a weakness otherwise they would seem too powerful.
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Nagisa
Moderator
 Posts: 6128 Location: Atlanta-ish, Jawjuh |
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Well, for one thing, trying to apply real-world physics to a Gundam series is—and no offense—an absolutely ridiculous and foolish idea to begin with. It not only renders the battleships ineffective, but such things as Minovsky particles, mobile suits, Newtypes, young civilian men that happen to be ace mobile suit pilots & 20-year old admirals, etc. as utter impossibilities. The truly real-world Gundam wouldn't have a Gundam at all...unless it were perhaps remodeled as a Yukikaze-esque next-generation fighter plane. 
Gundam was meant to be over-the-top fantasy space war drama. Over-the-top fantasy space war drama that tried to present a more "grounded" sense of reality than, say, the Leiji Matsumoto idea of 1800s steam engine locomotives flying through space, but over-the-top fantasy space war drama all the same. This also explains the reason the battleships are the way they are. The original Gundam series had a lot of World War II-era design flares in many of its weapons, shock-troop styled Zakus and the like. The battleships—at least the Federation battleships—are thus modeled after World War II-era allied battleships, which did indeed have the bridge up in the midsts of a sort of tower-like formation like that. And of course, as with many things in the Gundam canon, that sort of retro design for the ships kinda stuck throughout the ages. And as for causing the ship to explode by by hitting the bridge, it's much the same principle. Over-the-top fantasy space war drama; it's much more dramatic and impressive to see the mobile suit decimate the bridge (the "head" of the ship, if you will), than, say, sneak up under the rear, pinpoint the fuel tank, and fire. |
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Digital Dreamer
 Posts: 287 Location: Sydney, Australia |
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If you actually look at the amount damage that the mobile suits can dish out on a battleship, it really does not matter if you are in the main bridge or an internal combat bridge. You screwed either way. Specially in the case of some of the bigger Mobile Suits.
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Kruszer
 Posts: 7994 Location: Minnesota, USA |
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I don't really look for realism in a shows that have two story tall robots piloted mostly by teenagers. Although, I'm not really a nitpicker when it comes to my sci-fi, I really enjoy the Gundam series anyway. To their defense they do actually consider the scientific laws of space when they make the shows (decompression in a vacume, lack or minimal gravity, etc.), well except for the fact there's no conduction of sound in space. So you wouldn't be able to hear the weapons fire, only the impact sound as it hit you or the reverberation it made when your vessel was blasting away, if you were inside the ship with a pressureized atnosphere. Most sci-fi makes that mistake or just ignores it for sake of making those cool sound effects.
Last edited by Kruszer on Fri Feb 10, 2006 10:45 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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squeakyL
 Posts: 71 |
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Unless it's battlestar galactica =P
I've always found several of the "100 rules of anime" very blatant in gundam series' ie, the protagonist or his arch rival is unstoppable and can take down entire armies, but when it becomes desperate and dire in the end, somehow s/he decides to run headlong through enemies and get hit. Yes, there's fatigue, but how convenient. In reality, if a capital ship's bridge is knocked out, the entire ship wouldn't explode or anything, the ship would just lose control. Something like the executor class going down in the "Return of the Jedi" and crashing into the death star II after its bridge is (unrealistically) blown up by a single A-wing ram would be a tad more "realistic". In reality, disabling a ship by hitting it anywhere except for a few places, ammunition stores or fuel, probably wouldn't result in a spectacular explosion. But alas, this is gundam. |
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