Neosapien Commonwealth vs UC Gundamverse

[Zor]

In this scenario as the War after the war between the Earth Federation and the Principality of Zeon comes on, a new faction comes in. The mars of the Gundam UC universe is replaced by that of that of the Exosquad Universe as of just before the Neosapien Invasion of the Homeworlds. Phaeton decides to go ahead and launch his invasion of the inner planets regardless.

Can Phaeton Succeed?

Zor

[Ford Prefect]

What era should we take this as? OYW, Gryps Conflict etc

[Stark]

Right after the OYW starts earth has just been hit by the most devastating WMD in history and Zeon has yet to make gains on Earth.

So uh, maybe not a good time for a crossover.

[Ford Prefect]

Oh derp I can't read :v

That said right after the One Year War starts is prior to the Antarctic Treaty so there is a ludicrous proliferation of nuclear weapons at basically every level.

[lord Martiya]

Just a question: how great is the Neosapiens' warships firepower? Ship-mounted beam cannons are quite powerful, after all... Plus, there's the question about Neosapiens' sensors: if they still use electromagnetic sensors, then they'll fight blind against the half-blind Zeon and Federation forces (they had the time to prepare themselves somewhat to the Minovsky effect)...

[Stark]

Depending in what kind of drive they use to travel to earth and on what scale they can do so, it might be moot anyway. More than a few days warning or less than ten million guys means they'll be in trouble unless they're massively OP. The Federation spotted the Axis asteroid coming months out. If they arrive after September I'd be similarly surprised if they would do well.

If I were a fanfic man I'd say their best bet would be getting in touch with the Man from Jupiter and shuffling some timetables.

[lord Martiya]

Found data on Universal Century firepower, thanks to Gundam: IGLOO and the QCX-76A Jormungand. The Jormungand is a wonder weapon with a (projected) beam output of 500 terajoules, ten times the firepower of a capital ship beam cannon, and a (projected) effective range of 300 km without Minovsky's interference (1,800-2,000 with an observation craft providing targeting data), superior to the effective range of capital ship's guns. We don't know if the Jormungand was actually that powerful (and in fact it had been made obsolete by the use of the mobile suit as a nuke bomber and the invention of mobile suit-portable beam weapons), but from the data said by its Zeon designers we can infer a capital ship cannon has a beam output around 50 terajoules and an effective range inferior to 300 km.
Much less data on the nuclear weapons: they seem to be pure fusion devices (Zeon would have had more than a little problem to find fissile material, after all. Plus we know for a fact that fusion reactor exist in the UC, at least those based on Minovksy physics), and those of the Zaku have a similar destructive power to capital ships' beam weapons (giving a yield of about 12 kilotons), but we also know that spaceships and ground forces too have nuclear weapons, and those seem to be quite bigger (particularly the one used by Zeon's ground forces, being about a third of the size of the Gundam).

[Stark]

Igloo and Jorgamund are probably not good benchmarks for a variety of reasons, and since capital ship beam weapons are regularly used for bombardment at BVR ranges I'd take it even less seriously. OYW beam weapons are seldom fired at anything inert, but immediately afterward mountain-penetrating, 100m-asteroid vaporising weapons are common. For most of the OYW the bulk of firepower will be provided by thousands of nuclear weapons and conventional weapons anyway. They have nukes that can destroy entire colony bunches in a single battle, so 15kt is probably not an accurate figure.

Since OYW weapons totally outmatch their defences and generally one-hit kill everything, it's probably more meaningful to talk about how durable the Exosquad guys are. But since it was a drive-by thread I doubt that's going to happen. :v

[lord Martiya]

Igloo and Jorgamund are probably not good benchmarks for a variety of reasons

I know. They are Zeon propaganda in-universe, and out of universe the staff forgot that the battle of Loum destroyed Side 5, for starters. But they're the only data we have, and the damage done by the weapons was the same done in the original series.

[Stark]

They... Really aren't. They're just not good examples (especially Jorgamund, which it pretty absurdly strange in behaviour). I have to question where you're getting your conclusions from, since you don't need to rely on such dodgey sources when we know the performance of MS scale beam rifles pretty well, even if beam cannons weren't frequently used on inert targets during OYW. It only matters in comparison to Exosquad anyway, and nobody has made even the slightest effort to quantify their firepower.

If they can't shoot through mountains they're probably fucked.

[lord Martiya]

They... Really aren't. They're just not good examples (especially Jorgamund, which it pretty absurdly strange in behaviour). I have to question where you're getting your conclusions from, since you don't need to rely on such dodgey sources when we know the performance of MS scale beam rifles pretty well, even if beam cannons weren't frequently used on inert targets during OYW.

I simply saw it's the only source that bothered to quantify the firepower of capital scale beam cannons, even if indirectly, and that the destructive effects of beam weapons there are the same as in the original series. It doesn't matter if the Jormungand was actually that powerful (in fact it didn't look like that, explaining why the thing wasn't put back in the line when the Federation started the counteroffensive), it's that the engineers who made the thing knew what they were talking about when comparing what they expected the thing would do with what capital ship guns do.
That and the Gundam's beam rifle was a little less powerful than capship guns (two hits to down a Musai against one from a capital ship weapon).
Finally, we got an idea on how powerful UC nukes are: you need two Zaku nukes to take down a Salamis and two or three to take down a Magellan (unless you're lucky and the nuke initiates in the reactor. As far I know, only Char pulled it off so far), and Zeon beam cannons from the capital ships needed to hit twice to kill a Salamis and two or three to kill down a Magellan, unless you happen to hit something vital with the first beam (easier than with nukes, as the beams have shown superior piercing power).

It only matters in comparison to Exosquad anyway, and nobody has made even the slightest effort to quantify their firepower.

If they can't shoot through mountains they're probably fucked.

When it comes to ship-to-ship combat, I agree. Just three questions.
1)How good are E-frames against warships?
2)How good are E-frames weapons against tanks and fighters? Just to have a comparison with MS: what takes down a Federation tank usually takes down a Zaku II with the same amount of hits.
3)Nukes in the setting?

[Darksider]

If they can't shoot through mountains they're probably fucked.

Wasn't it just the effing huge beam cannons on the mobile armors that took chunks out of mountains? I don't remember mobile suits or warships having that kind of firepower.

[Stark]

Arpsalus was powered by three whole zaku. It's not a one-off Death Star level thing; later weapons can push whole asteroids and mobile suit rifles fully penetrate/flash shatter absurd asteroids etc.

And seriously using the stupid numbers for Jorgamund is just retarded. Dialogue sucks anyway, and Jorgamund did some pretty fruity stuff. Things like Solar Ray and Solar System and Hyper Mega Particle Guns are much more sensible examples (even if late/immediately post OYW). Choosing a single piece of evidence is always stupid, but choosing a problematic one from a dodgey source is moreso

That you think Igloo shows zakus using nukes is pretty bizarre. Who is telling you this stuff? Just looks like regular bazooka fire to me. Saying UC tanks and MS have similar durability is just astonishing, since even Igloo shows a single shot from a zaku 120 blasting tanks to pieces and throwing them through the air, and they can't even penetrate GM shields.

And again, it's all irrelevant because there are no Exosquad numbers at all.

[Connor MacLeod]

the first thing I noticed with the Jorgamund thing was 'its rated in joules and not watts' which makes it harder to actually apply to things. Then I noticed that they had a 'power output' for the weapon as 150 MW, which while a respectable power output in and of itself, would require a little over five weeks to charge up at those numbers.

And then I notice they describe it altenrately as a beam weapon and a projectile weapon. AT this point I threw my hands up and closed the browser and just decided it would have been easier if they'd gone with a gun-launched nuke or something.

[Terralthra]

Well, in Exosquad, an unknown entity blew up Mars and scientists from the Neosapiens put the fragments back together into a planet again using a focused gravity field, which was originally intended to destroy entire fleets (and did so at least once).

They had nuclear weapons set up as booby-traps and "doomsday" MAD on Venus, the Moon, and under Chicago on Terra. The one under Chicago, in particular, was designed to destroy Terra as a habitable planet, in revenge for Mars having been blown up. There's also a fusion pulse cannon that takes up most of an installation on Sinope, one of Jupiter's moons. When its energy supply is damaged in a raid, the next time it's fired, it blows itself and the entire moon up.

Their individual e-frames are ~3m tall, being more like fully-enclosed power armor than full-on giant mecha. Main weapons are small missiles, "beam" guns with widely variable power, projectile weapons, and a few other more esoteric weapons. I haven't watched the show recently enough to do much quantification of individual e-frame weapons power, save that the average e-frame missile tends to, if it hits another e-frame, blow it up with little in the way of visible debris. Given sound effects and so on, the e-frames themselves are probably made from terrestrial metals, e.g. steel, titanium, etc.

[Stark]

It also tosses a capital ship around like a toy in a bathtub when it misses. I don't really think anything about it makes sense; its a reference to those booster guns the Germans built, and represents the dawn of the decisive mobile suit age.

It cores a Magellan, but just a few episodes later a single scattering beam gun slices one up like a roast. I don't think there's anything in Igloo that suggests its the high end of power; its just a huge piece of artillery that has no place in the battlefield. It's certainly nothing at all compared to the real superweapons of the OYW. For all the oooohing and ahhhhhing, it's super because it kills a battleship in one hit... something pretty much every warship gun does anyway. I don't even think its based on mega-particles, so its probably quite an old project that's just cast aside.

Y'know, like EVERYTHING ELSE IN IGLOO IT IS A CENTRAL THEME OF THE SHOW. How anyone can call something about the Zeon government's lies, mismanagement, delusions and atrocities 'in universe propaganda' is just ... its bizarre.

EDIT - haha so it's 'entire solar system vs earth sphere' best vs ever thanks zod

[lord Martiya]

And seriously using the stupid numbers for Jorgamund is just retarded.

It's the only source we have. Give me a better source and I'll use it. Teach me how to do the job myself and I'll bring out my DVD, rate the firepower and show you the calculations.

Dialogue sucks anyway, and Jorgamund did some pretty fruity stuff.

And that's why we know it would have been scrapped even if it hadn't been obsolete: among his various problems, the thing was a glaring failure, delivering less destruction than it was supposed to (if the 'plasmoid' actually had the expected power, that Magellan would have been disintegrated, not transformed in a cylinder and then explode when the reactor blew up), having that strange magnetic effect, no defensive capability, and a low rate of fire to boot.

Things like Solar Ray and Solar System and Hyper Mega Particle Guns are much more sensible examples (even if late/immediately post OYW).

And the thing about Solar Ray and Solar System is that the only idea of their power that we have is that Solar Ray can dig a hole through Solomon while destroying dozens of Zeon ships and the other disintegrated a large portion of the Federation fleet.

That you think Igloo shows zakus using nukes is pretty bizarre. Who is telling you this stuff? Just looks like regular bazooka fire to me.

To me too, that and Zaku machine guns (there was a scene were the bazooka explosion could have been a nuke, but we didn't see the effect, only that it had a different colour from the other explosions). My bad, I failed to mention the source: the manga Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin. It has some differences with the regular series (for example, Char's five battleship kills at Loum are explained as a propaganda distortion, as of his five kills three were Salamis and one a Columbus used as carrier that he nuked in the hangar early in the battle), but the destructive power of the beam cannons is the same of the original, and in their version of Loum we see that you need two nukes to destroy a Salamis, unless you get the reactor (Char at Loum).

Saying UC tanks and MS have similar durability is just astonishing, since even Igloo shows a single shot from a zaku 120 blasting tanks to pieces and throwing them through the air, and they can't even penetrate GM shields.

And yet the few times a Federation Type 61 tank managed to hit a Zaku II the MS was toast, just like when a Zaku II managed to hit a GM and not the shield (those could resist more than a few hits with little visible damage, I won't deny it. In fact I don't remember a single case where the GM shield got more damage from a 120mm than scratched paint). The problem was to actually score the hit.

the first thing I noticed with the Jorgamund thing was 'its rated in joules and not watts' which makes it harder to actually apply to things. Then I noticed that they had a 'power output' for the weapon as 150 MW, which while a respectable power output in and of itself, would require a little over five weeks to charge up at those numbers.

And then I notice they describe it altenrately as a beam weapon and a projectile weapon. AT this point I threw my hands up and closed the browser and just decided it would have been easier if they'd gone with a gun-launched nuke or something.

And that's why I care only about the in-universe engineers giving the data on what the thing was supposed to do in the series. Whoever wrote the out of universe data had less technical knowledge than me...

[Ford Prefect]

And the thing about Solar Ray and Solar System is that the only idea of their power that we have is that Solar Ray can dig a hole through Solomon while destroying dozens of Zeon ships and the other disintegrated a large portion of the Federation fleet.

Well, no, the Solar Ray operators give a wattage during the charge period.

[Stark]

In IGLOO, in the episode that exists solely as a love-letter to tanks with a group of super tanks that actually win vs mobile suits, a pair of hits to the torso at point blank range does not stop them. I believe one even takes a pair of hits through their backpack and doesn't die. Regardless, the twin 155s are probably more powerful than the shots from the 120mm machineguns; they just have inferior rate of fire and the poor EFF doctrine means they took heavy losses before they learned how to successfully employ tanks against mobile suits.

There's a serious gulf between 'one hit blows tank literally to pieces with turrets flying through the air' and 'a pair of hits makes neat round holes in zaku', even ignoring that the 155s are probably more powerful. GM machineguns certainly don't destroy zakus in one hit, and definitely don't cause them to explosively discombobulate and send limbs all over the battlefield. You're clearly conflating 120mm machineguns with later beam rifles, which don't just one-shot mobile suits... they one-shot battleships. JUST LIKE JORGAMUND LOL.

It sounds to me like you have a preconception of how things work and you're just cherry-picking stuff to 'prove' it. We know, for instance, that hyper-mega particle guns can literally push millions of tons of asteroid around. That's a bit more useful firepower-wise than LOL PURPLE BLOB DRAGGED SALAMIS AROUND IN POOR SPECIAL EFFECT. And since jorgamund wasn't even particularly powerful (as explicitly shown in the episode that featured it), it's a stupid example of anything.

[Zinegata]

Gun wanking aside, there's a bigger question that needs to be answered: Logistics and numbers.

How big was the Neosapien fleet in the first place?

And which version of the Gundam fleet numbers are going to be picked? The EB 39 ones (which will have Zeon fielding thousands of Zakus), or the later figures which puts Mobile Suit figures in the mere hundreds? Also, are we to assume that the Federation and Zeon are going to drop all that animosity and fight together with no "political unreliability" rules, despite the fact those two factions can barely control even their own forces?

Quite a few top-level variables that still needs to be addressed before we even get to the gun power figures.

[Stark]

Don't be ridiculous. One post aside, nobody has posted anything about the Exosquad guys and its pretty clear nobody cares about the vs. It'd be pretty alarming if they had multiple planets and yet somehow couldn't out-produce the Earth sphere, however.

The idea of the OYW being called off because of some other guys is fascinating. Why did you come up with it? Do you think this is even remotely likely? Would the Exosquad guys even care about the spacenoids?

I'm sorry that refuting apparent misconceptions counts as 'gun wanking' now. I'll refrain from correcting any factual errors in future to avoid this appellation.

[Zinegata]

Stark, stop being a retard. When I say "gun-wanking" aside, I'm applying it to everyone. So stop your damn typical whining and "I AM A VICTIM! PITY ME!" bullshit.

My point is that people are already looking at specific weapons systems outputs when nobody has bothered to look at the overall numbers. You can wank all over the Zaku's output all you want, but if the Exo Squad fleet has thousands of ships and tens of thousands of E-frames and outnumbers Zeon / Federation 10:1 then the whole thing is moot: Neo Sapiens win because they have way more bodies to throw at the enemy.

I am not saying you are wrong about the Jorgumund BTW. I am saying I am disinterested in everyone's gun-wanking, and am interested in the overall numbers which NOBODY has bothered to provide.

So either provide the numbers, be disinterested in the logistics of it (which you seem to be), or go cry in a fucking corner because you love being a ridiculous drama queen. Otherwise, stop fucking harassing me everytime I ask a legitimate question because "It was posted by Zinegata", dumbass. You may not be interested in the "vs" aspect, but I am and want to get to something other than more arguments over the Jorgumund's output.

[Zinegata]

The idea of the OYW being called off because of some other guys is fascinating. Why did you come up with it? Do you think this is even remotely likely? Would the Exosquad guys even care about the spacenoids?

I didn't say it would be called off, but the original scenario seems to imply that it would be Neo Sapiens vs post-OYW Earth Sphere, which would include Federation and Zeon. It's unclear hence the call for a clarification.

Personally, my take is that it would be unrealistic if both Federation and Zeon simply got along versus the Neo Sapiens (and there'd be splinter groups trying to court Neo-Sapien support), but some versus threads revolve around specific political ground rules, which again I am clarifying.

As I said, need more top-level parameters. How big is the Neo Sapien Fleet? How big is the Federation / Zeon fleet? What political rules are in play?

[Terralthra]

Logistics are difficult to work out, but I can give it a try.

For a baseline: at the beginning of the show, the (peacetime) primary Exofleet (human military) consists of no fewer than 10 Exocarriers, with many more smaller support craft. Each Exocarrier has no fewer than a dozen, and the larger ones several dozen, squadrons of E-Frames, each roughly 10 e-frames or e-fighters (mixed squads and pure squads of each exist). So on the smaller Exocarriers, at least ~120 e-frames. Larger ones, 2-4 times that many. Further carriers are added throughout the series, generally getting more powerful and durable. They also have sizable defensive and offensive armament themselves. There are also light exocarriers, whose capacity is probably more on the order of 4-6 e-frame squads (~50 e-frames). Both fleet and light exocarriers are escorted by cruisers and frigates which are not designed to hold and service e-frame squadrons, instead being devoted to offensive/defensive weaponry. The general ratio of these was 1-2 cruisers and 2-4 frigates per exocarrier, with that number tending lower for light exocarriers and higher for fleet exocarriers.

The Neosapien Military was built by Martian industry turned to military applications secretly until the main Exofleet was lured out of patrolling the inner worlds by the threat of space pirates based in the Jovian/Saturnian moons and the 10th planet. It consisted of, at the outset, at least several thousands of e-frames and many scores of capital ships, both exocarriers and cruisers/frigates. This battle group was able to move against the remainder of the Exofleet in Earth orbit, some 4+ fleet carriers, some light carriers, and support craft, destroy them in a one-sided battle with few significant losses, and move on to occupy the Moon, Earth and Venus, smashing their ground-based defenses flat with apparently little trouble.

According to the story of the show, this fleet was built in a matter of days/weeks, between the Exofleet moving out of the inner worlds toward the gas giants, and them arriving there and engaging the space pirates, which is when the Neosapien Fleet struck. I don't remember them stating it exactly, but it's implied that it's no more than a week or two from outer planets to inner or vice versa, based on the events of the blitzkrieg of Earth/Venus, as the Exofleet actually gets a warning just before the blitzkrieg is launched and arrives too late to intercept it.

Given the manufacturing capability, the numbers of NeoSapien e-frames deployed on Earth/Venus/Mars/etc. exceeds tens of thousands by the second season of the show, with fleets consisting of 10+ exocarriers, equivalent in size to the Exofleet's fleet exocarriers, and support craft deployed at each planet.

I can go back and watch the show again for more details. This is comparing the NeoSapien fleet at the time of the blitzkrieg, yes?

[Zinegata]

Yeah, those look like a good baseline to start with. I also recall how the Neo Sapiens were apparently able to build a huge fleet in a matter of weeks to blitz the Inner worlds... albeit I wasn't sure how big.

Gundam numbers have varied a bit over the years, but the figures from the "canon" Master Grade manuals tend to favor much lower numbers of Mobile Suits (giant robots). The Federation produced about 300-odd GMs over the course of about 4 months. A generous figure would put the Earth Sphere's production capability at around 100-200 Mobile Suits (including some very powerful variants), with the number of actually active units being in the low thousands. If we assume the Federation and Zeon (plus its allies on the Moon) are cooperating without political unreliability rules, the above figures may be doubled.

Warship-wise, the Federation builds about 100 or so warships over the course of a year in preparation for its Space Offensive. Much of thise fleet is destroyed, and then rebuilt for a naval review 3 years later (which also gets destroyed), so we can probably assume an upper limit of 100 ships a year for the Federation, an equal number at best from Zeon, and a starting fleet of a few hundred ships.

Overall, I'd say that the Neo Sapiens would be fighting the war with a considerable numerical advantage, and have a much greater ability to replace losses than the Gundam factions. So barring super-weapons - which in Gundam does not always work and does not automatically confer victory (i.e. Solar Ray wipes out 1/3 of the Federation fleet but the Federation wins anyway), the Neo Sapiens do seem to have a pretty daunting logistical lead that would seem to guarantee their victory.