The Principality of Zeon in Enterprise era Trekverse

[Zor]

Its 2151, just after that whole mess with the Xindi was sorted out when the Principality of Zeon's (as of the onset of the one year war) O'neill Cylinder and space naval assets are teleported into the Trekverse at their lagrange points.

What happens?

Zor

[Juubi Karakuchi]

Fortunately I know a bit about Zeon and its capabilities, so I can answer. My answer is, in a word, trouble.

Earth might not notice their arrival straight away, depending on whether the phenomenon in question is detectable, since the Zeon colonies occupied a lagrange point behind the moon. This was significant in that it made Zeon that little bit less accessible to Earth. My first question would be whether this includes to the Fortresses of Solomon and A Boa Qu. If so, then Earth is somewhat more likely to notice (in the case of Solomon, being on the L-5 point and visible to Earth), and Zeon would be somewhat more secure.

As far as military capabilities are concerned, Zeon has a number of advantages straight off. It has a significant ground and space capability in being, the starships being of particular relevance. The archetypal Zeon warship is the Musai class Light Cruiser, one of my favourite Sci-fi warships. It is 234 metres long, 98 metres wide and 74 metres tall, armed with 3x twin particle cannons, 2x heavy missile tubes and 10x light missile tubes. Unfortunately I have no quantifications regarding firepower. It also carries a single Komusai shuttle and 5x Mobile Suits, which will most likely be Zaku Mark II. It's acknowledged weakness is a lack of Point Defence capability, which is addressed in the late production model with 10x twin 120mm machine guns replacing the heavy missile tubes. Gundam Wiki gives the weight of a late-production model at 26,200 tons. Without firepower quantifications, it is difficult to say how a Musai would perform against an NX-class starship. Zeon does have a numerical advantage however, with nine standard Musais being named (Camel, Falmel, Kuwamel, Swamel, Tokmel, Primus, Baromel, Remul and Brave). Zeon starship weapons cannot be much more powerful than those of starfleet, since Zeon's idea of an orbital bombardment is a colony drop (which they only did once, and it pretty much wiped out Australia). A lack of suitable colonies means that this is not a viable tactic.

The most common Zeon Mobile Suit is the iconic Zaku II, at 17.5 metres tall and weighing in at 58.1 tons (73.3 max). It comes with a 951 kW generator, a thrust capacity of 43,000 kg and a sensor radius of 3.2km. Its standard armament is a 120mm assault rifle, with a 280mm bazooka option. (Tech specs from GundamOfficial.com). The rifle gives it the same firepower as a modern MBT as a conservative estimate (differences in explosive substances being the issue).

Zeon also has three major disadvantages. First is the lack of faster-than-light capability, giving Starfleet a strategic advantage. The second is a shortage of resources and population compared to Earth, though this may not be such a problem if they achieve a rapid victory. The third is isolation, to wit, an utter lack of allies, whereas United Earth can potentially call in Vulcan or Andorian support.

If Zeon decides that this alternate Earth is to be conquered, then the most viable strategy would be to launch full-scale attacks against Earth's orbital and lunar assets, capturing them if possible and destroying them if necessary. A functioning warp-drive would be the ultimate prize, and their likely first priority. There is a risk to this, however, since it will be necessary to prosecute any armed warp-capable starships, lest Zeon come under attack from the rear. This could be countered by deploying sufficient fleet and/or Mobile Suit assets around Zeon itself, though it would limit the assets available to attack Earth. Assuming they succeed in gaining space dominance over Earth, there is still little they can do about the other planets, though in turn there is little they can do to intervene. Thus, the matter turns to Earth itself, which must be conquered or otherwise won over. The difficulty or ease of this is dependant to a considerable extent on how much weaponry was junked in the name of peace, love, and brotherhood. A largely disarmed Earth will fall easily (Zeon was able to hold down 70% of Earth against heavily-armed Federation resistance, though admittedly with a significantly smaller population), though a lack of information about Terran weaponry in this period (aside from small arms), makes it difficult to judge the effectiveness of armed resistance.

A big question is what to do about aliens. Playing on fears of a hostile galaxy post-Xindi would be a viable strategy for winning over the population of Earth. Even if Zeon uses force, defeating the UE space assets with a minimum of civilian suffering would only prove its power, and thus its ability to defend Earth. If Zeon goes so far as to be anti-alien, then it may find an ally in the form of John Frederick Paxton (there's something very Gihren Zabi-like about him) and his Terra Prime movement. On the other hand, Zeon can't afford to annoy the aliens too much. All it takes is a pissed-off Archer and his repaired Enterprise to zip out of the system vowing to return, and Zeon may find a Vulcan and/or Andorian fleet biting it in the proverbial (don't underestimate the power of dramatic speeches). They need to either persuade the Vulcans and Andorians that they are not an intolerable threat, or else get their hands on warp technology very quickly.

Overall, I'm leaning towards a fairly quick Zeon victory. They may not have warp drive, but they don't really need it to begin with. The ability of the UE to survive depends on its unknown ability to resist Zeon ground forces and whether or not it can acquire outside help.

[Jade Owl]

Just a quick question, since I’m not familiar with Gundam technology: do they have any means of blocking a transporter? Because if they don't, I think that would pretty much neutralize their mecha forces, since it would be a simple matter for the United Earth forces to beam the pilots of the Mobile Suits, and since this would be a war situation, I don't think Starfleet would be too concerned about the unreliability of mid 22nd century transporter technology.

Then there’s the little matter of the verteron array that the United Earth uses in the terraforming efforts on Mars. That thing is used to redirect comets and crash them in to the Martian surface, and as the Terra Prime incident showed, it can be used militarily at interplanetary distances, with the capacity to hit targets on Luna and Earth’s surface, so an O’Neill cylinder in the Lagrange point behind Luna would be pretty much a sitting duck, and the Zeons wouldn’t even be aware of it’s existence. Which brings me to my next question: if the Zeons become aware of the verteron array, are their warships even capable of making the trip to Mars in a viable timeframe to attack it?

[tedisbest]

In UC Gundam, there are Minovsky particles, which provides jamming, can form mega particles for beam weapons, is used to contain heat in the construction of small nuclear reactors in mobile suits, can be formed into I-fields to block beam weapons, and is used to shape plasma torches into beam sabers. Would those abilities be enough to disrupt transporters?

No Gundam series has FTL travel.

[Juubi Karakuchi]

Then there’s the little matter of the verteron array that the United Earth uses in the terraforming efforts on Mars. That thing is used to redirect comets and crash them in to the Martian surface, and as the Terra Prime incident showed, it can be used militarily at interplanetary distances, with the capacity to hit targets on Luna and Earth’s surface, so an O’Neill cylinder in the Lagrange point behind Luna would be pretty much a sitting duck, and the Zeons wouldn’t even be aware of it’s existence. Which brings me to my next question: if the Zeons become aware of the verteron array, are their warships even capable of making the trip to Mars in a viable timeframe to attack it?

A fair enough claim. Earth and Mars are 54.6 million kilometres apart at the closest (also the range of the Verteron array, since it was able to strike Earth). An optimistic estimate for real-life travel to Mars is two weeks using nuclear rockets. The moon, by comparison, is only 380,000 kilometres away. It isn't listed anywhere, to the best of my knowledge, how fast Zeon starships can travel. For a conservative estimate we have Apollo 11, which got to the moon in 3 days, and that includes at least one Earth orbit. Dyarstraights.com puts the travel time from Earth to moon or vice versa at the same, and it broadly fits the events of the anime. As such, it would take Zeon ships about a year or so to reach Mars.
But all is not lost for Zeon. If this event takes place just after the Xindi arc, then the UE is still in control of the array. Zeon will not just launch large-scale attacks immediately after arrival. They will take time to figure out where they are and what has happened, including monitoring communications, and they will be spotted fairly quickly. The UE would first try to hush up Zeon's presence (a bit tricky if there are a significant number of people living on the same side of the moon as Zeon, and then there's passing ships to worry about), then make tentative contact. As such, it will not take them all that long to find out about the array. It will not take that much longer for John Frederick Paxton to make contact.
Paxton is critical in this instance. He has been planning to take control of the array for a while now, and the appearance of Zeon represents the opportunity of a lifetime. Ideally for him, he will take control of the array, use it to provide covering fire (or else force abject surrender), then Zeon makes him the ruler of Earth. His only bargaining chip is his ability to get to the array (since the UE apparently doesn't know about his warp-capable base) and then the array itself. If he controls the array, he can cover Zeon's rear, but also stab them in the back if they attempt treachery. No doubt Gihren Zabi will smile and nod (can he smile?) as Paxton lays out his plans, but he will have something else in mind.
It all depends on whether Paxton lets slip that his base is warp-capable. If so, Zeon will most likely deploy a spec-ops team to take the base for themselves. What happens next will depend on how many relevant personnel they can turn or coerce, or how user-friendly the warp-drive is. If they get the base working, they will copy Paxton's plan, thus removing a serious threat and acquiring a means of keeping the Vulcans away. If not, they will dismantle the warp drive and take it back to Zeon to study. They can either dispose of the Terra Prime personnel (the safe option) or turn them over to the UE as a show of good faith. If he does not reveal it, then Zeon will have to find out about it for themselves, either by infiltrating Terra Prime or turning some of its members. If that base goes to warp without Zeon personnel aboard, then their only option will be to give him away to the UE and have them deal with him, putting them back to square one. In this case, the only way to deal with the array is to gain warp capability for themselves, which will depend on how many warp components or complete drives they can capture, and how many warp scientists and engineers they can turn. Either way, no simple matter.

In UC Gundam, there are Minovsky particles, which provides jamming, can form mega particles for beam weapons, is used to contain heat in the construction of small nuclear reactors in mobile suits, can be formed into I-fields to block beam weapons, and is used to shape plasma torches into beam sabers. Would those abilities be enough to disrupt transporters?

I forgot about those. Since they can contain energy, and tend to disrupt scanners, it is possible that they would prevent or at least complicate beaming, since it would be necessary to scan the Mobile Suit in order to lock onto the pilot. As a side point, the Minovsky effect is electro-magnetic in nature (note Rura-Pente's magnetic shield in Star Trek VI: TUC).

[Jade Owl]

The proto-Section 31 that is active on Earth at during this period must also be taken into account. While nowhere near as powerful and effective as it will eventually become, it could still represent a significant wild card in this scenario. Especially since (like its later incarnation) this Section 31 seems to get away with maintaining near absolute secrecy about its very existence.

Even if they're unable to infiltrate Zeon itself, they could very well disrupt the Zeon's attempts at establishing alliances with other groups in the Sol system, such as Paxton’s group. Again, being unfamiliar with Gundam I hesitate to speculate on whether Zeon’s leadership would be able to deduce Section 31’s existence in time to counter it or not.

[Vehrec]

As far as military capabilities are concerned, Zeon has a number of advantages straight off. It has a significant ground and space capability in being, the starships being of particular relevance. The archetypal Zeon warship is the Musai class Light Cruiser, one of my favourite Sci-fi warships. It is 234 metres long, 98 metres wide and 74 metres tall, armed with 3x twin particle cannons, 2x heavy missile tubes and 10x light missile tubes. Unfortunately I have no quantifications regarding firepower. It also carries a single Komusai shuttle and 5x Mobile Suits, which will most likely be Zaku Mark II. It's acknowledged weakness is a lack of Point Defence capability, which is addressed in the late production model with 10x twin 120mm machine guns replacing the heavy missile tubes. Gundam Wiki gives the weight of a late-production model at 26,200 tons. Without firepower quantifications, it is difficult to say how a Musai would perform against an NX-class starship. Zeon does have a numerical advantage however, with nine standard Musais being named (Camel, Falmel, Kuwamel, Swamel, Tokmel, Primus, Baromel, Remul and Brave). Zeon starship weapons cannot be much more powerful than those of starfleet, since Zeon's idea of an orbital bombardment is a colony drop (which they only did once, and it pretty much wiped out Australia). A lack of suitable colonies means that this is not a viable tactic.

Zeon is laughably outclassed in spaceships here. Single bolts from the NX class's phase canon weapons are effectively 1 kiloton tacnukes, and the first generation proton torpedoes have entered service, meaning that they're effectively fucked in a shooting war. Seriously, if we ever saw any Musai killed by anything less substantial than a strategic nuke, they have very little chance of winning a shooting war against someone with FTL sensors and drives.

[Juubi Karakuchi]

Zeon is laughably outclassed in spaceships here. Single bolts from the NX class's phase canon weapons are effectively 1 kiloton tacnukes, and the first generation proton torpedoes have entered service, meaning that they're effectively fucked in a shooting war. Seriously, if we ever saw any Musai killed by anything less substantial than a strategic nuke, they have very little chance of winning a shooting war against someone with FTL sensors and drives.

True, Zeon has no FTL drive or sensors. Combat will take place at sublight speeds, though warp drive will allow UE ships to choose the time and place of combat, also allowing them to escape in the event of defeat, along with being 'stealthed' while at warp. It is fair to say that the NX-class represents the biggest single threat to Zeon in this scenario, based on the potency of its weaponry and its Warp 5 capability. The Daystrom institute puts its Phase Cannon output at 10 Terawatts, which is significant. An NX/Musai comparison is effective in this case, since the NX-class is about the same size and tonnage as a Musai. Alas, I can find no quantifications for beam cannons, nor can I think of any usable real-world examples (e.g. blasting a scaleable asteroid). I've only seen Musais get blown up by in-universe weaponry. Incidentally, I-fields would not offer much protection against phase cannons or torpedoes, since they apparently only work on Minovsky-based weapons (interaction effect), until late in the Series. We need a Gundam junkie, stat.

The proto-Section 31 that is active on Earth at during this period must also be taken into account. While nowhere near as powerful and effective as it will eventually become, it could still represent a significant wild card in this scenario. Especially since (like its later incarnation) this Section 31 seems to get away with maintaining near absolute secrecy about its very existence.

Even if they're unable to infiltrate Zeon itself, they could very well disrupt the Zeon's attempts at establishing alliances with other groups in the Sol system, such as Paxton’s group. Again, being unfamiliar with Gundam I hesitate to speculate on whether Zeon’s leadership would be able to deduce Section 31’s existence in time to counter it or not.

Another unknown. There isn't much info available on Zeon's espionage capability, other than that they have one. They would probably not notice Section 31 unless they happened to encounter it, or unless someone chose to reveal its existence. It is unlikely that Section 31 could infiltrate Zeon itself, because of the physical isolation of the colony cylinders and the likely effect of minovsky particles on transporters. Section 31 will not do nothing, however, and could prove highly disruptive to any Zeon attempts to form alliances (Terra Prime, etc) or acquire useful technologies.

[Icehawk]

While specific power figures for the ship mounted particle cannons on Gundam capital ships are not given, Zeon did make an anti-ship "space cannon" called the Jormungand which was about the same length as a Musai class ship at 231 meters. According to official stats, the beam output from this cannon is 500 terajoules and it is also stated to be approximatly 10 times as powerfull as the main guns from capital ships. This means Zeon ships should be capable of putting out atleast low terajoule level firepower from their main guns, which in this case should be close to what the enterprise phase cannons do.

[TimothyC]

Post Xindi (2154) we still have only one NX class, and Columbia doesn't launch until November. Intrepid is out there, but that is still just two higher end ships that the Earth has. If after Enterprise is refitted then Earth might just have Intrepid and the Delta ships (Presumed to be the Norway Class).

[avatarxprime]

If it's supposed to be 2151 as stated in the OP then there is just the one NX class ship and the Andorians cannot be considered allies to the UE. If it's supposed to be 2154 (post-Xindi as stated in the OP) then we might have more Intrepid class ships. Do we know if the Republic, Saratoga, and/or Shenandoah were Intrepid class? There are also the Sarajevo-type ships. According to Memory-Alpha they're Elite Observation Vessels, but that's based on a sketch.

[Darwin]

The effect of Minovsky particles is a big wildcard here. will they disrupt Starfleet transports, communications, sensors and targeting? The impact of the Minovksy particle is a defining aspect of UC technology. Musai cruisers may well have a firepower and range advantage given the minovsky sensor issue, and compressed mega-particles have a lot of (virtual) mass and physical impact which Treknology shields have historically been relatively weak against. Of course when hit, phasers and photon torpedoes would crush a Musai. They're too slow to run so they would have to rely on numbers and formations to have a chance. Mobile suits and mobile armors would be a huge surprise at first. Luckily for Zeon, their space fleet appears to be significantly larger that Starfleet's.

If Zeon tactics hold true, they'll lead a shock invasion of the planet with massive numbers of dropships and ZakuII's, probably following a large colony or asteroid drop on California to disrupt Starfleet's leadership. The big question is does the 2154 starfleet have the firepower or other tech to handle redirecting or stopping a miles-long O-neill cylinder or space rock on collision course?

[Zor]

If it's supposed to be 2151 as stated in the OP.

That was a typo that i did not get in time, it is in fact 2154. I appologize for this shortcomming.

Zor

[Juubi Karakuchi]

If Zeon tactics hold true, they'll lead a shock invasion of the planet with massive numbers of dropships and ZakuII's, probably following a large colony or asteroid drop on California to disrupt Starfleet's leadership. The big question is does the 2154 starfleet have the firepower or other tech to handle redirecting or stopping a miles-long O-neill cylinder or space rock on collision course?

This represents their best chance of victory. They are unlikely to use a colony drop, however, since the only O-Neill cylinders they have are the ones being used by their own people, unless they overrun the moon and transfer the population there. An asteroid would be viable, assuming they have one handy. If Starfleet has already been neutralized by this point, and Zeon would be well advised to see to it, then the UE is unlikely to be able to stop the attack, since it is not portrayed as having any significant ground-based weaponry.

Zeon's priorities must be to ensure space dominance and then disable all interstellar communications, thereby ensuring that Earth cannot summon Vulcan reinforcements. Once these priorities have been achieved, then conquest of Earth itself would be comparatively easy. Then again, almost nothing is revealed about how heavily armed (or not) Earth is. We only know that some military organisations, notably the British Royal Navy, existed until relatively recently (Mal's great-uncle served on a submarine [Minefield]), that civilians have access to plasma-based small arms (Broken Bow) and that military personnel have access to phase pistols, SMGs, and rifles. Since phase weapons are relatively recent, this would imply that plasma weaponry was quite common, possibly along with missiles and lasers. The big question is how much of it got junked after World War III.

[Jade Owl]

If Zeon tactics hold true, they'll lead a shock invasion of the planet with massive numbers of dropships and ZakuII's, probably following a large colony or asteroid drop on California to disrupt Starfleet's leadership. The big question is does the 2154 starfleet have the firepower or other tech to handle redirecting or stopping a miles-long O-neill cylinder or space rock on collision course?

As it's been already pointed out, they don't have access to any spare O'Neill cyllinders so the question is: where would they get their hands on a large enough asteroid to redirect towards Earth? Given their speed limitations it would be practically impossible for them to get one without the UE finding out and trying to stop them.

Then again, almost nothing is revealed about how heavily armed (or not) Earth is. We only know that some military organisations, notably the British Royal Navy, existed until relatively recently (Mal's great-uncle served on a submarine [Minefield]), that civilians have access to plasma-based small arms (Broken Bow) and that military personnel have access to phase pistols, SMGs, and rifles. Since phase weapons are relatively recent, this would imply that plasma weaponry was quite common, possibly along with missiles and lasers. The big question is how much of it got junked after World War III.

It bears to remember that this is the same United Earth that will engage in a mayor interstellar war with the Romulan Empire in less than two years. Starfleet as seen on the show wouldn't have been nearly enough to sustain this level of conflict, and I find difficult to believe that the UE could have militarized that fast in response to the Romulan threat, so it's very likely that at this point the UE has retained at least some substantial military.

I mean, this is supposed to be the post First Contact Earth were poverty, crime and war have been eradicated; and yet a corn farmer in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma keeps a plasma rifle at home.

[Juubi Karakuchi]

It bears to remember that this is the same United Earth that will engage in a mayor interstellar war with the Romulan Empire in less than two years. Starfleet as seen on the show wouldn't have been nearly enough to sustain this level of conflict, and I find difficult to believe that the UE could have militarized that fast in response to the Romulan threat, so it's very likely that at this point the UE has retained at least some substantial military.

I mean, this is supposed to be the post First Contact Earth were poverty, crime and war have been eradicated; and yet a corn farmer in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma keeps a plasma rifle at home.

My impression was that the technology for plasma weaponry must have become as commonplace as that of real-world firearms, for a farmer to be keeping a plasma rifle at home. THis would suggest that it appears in other forms (plasma-armed hover tanks maybe?). Other likely weapons (based on real-world developments) would be missiles and lasers. I theorized that Earth might be lightly armed by virtue of humanity embracing peace, love, and brotherhood, thus junking a great deal of its weaponry. If there were still large amounts of weaponry available, then Earth would be able to put up a fight against Zeon and possibly defeat them by weight of numbers and superior resource access. Otherwise it would depend on how much weaponry Earth can churn out and how quickly, with Zeon bearing down on them (unless the UE got spooked and ordered rearmament before Zeon was ready to attack). The job of UE ground forces will be to either destroy Zeon ground forces or else hold them back long enough for Vulcan reinforcements to arrive.

As far as the Earth-Romulan war is concerned, there isn't much canon information about that either. In any case, in a planetary invasion the advantage lies with the defender, because the defender has access to raw materials and industry on site, and can therefore churn out all the weaponry needed, whereas the attacker has to got to the trouble of shipping it. As such, the planetary forces deployed to conquer a given planet will be proportionate to the number of defenders and how heavily armed they are (small forces for small colonies, big forces for major planets). Under such circumstances, it would be more efficient for Earth's more developed colonies to look to their own defence, in the context of planetary warfare. Therefore, Earth would likely prioritize starship construction over expansion of its planetary forces, unless they judged a direct attack on Earth likely.

[avatarxprime]

If it's supposed to be 2151 as stated in the OP.

That was a typo that i did not get in time, it is in fact 2154. I appologize for this shortcomming.

Zor

No it's cool I just wanted to be sure about the intended timeframe. In that case there seem to be several ships floating about in space under Starfleet's command, with numbers at least roughly equal to Zeon's if not greater given Jade Owl's post about the coming Romulan War. However, as of the end of the Xindi arc, there are what, 4 ships immediately around Earth to defend it, not counting the Columbia. Zeon still has the chance to take out Earth's defenses and make considerable planetfall inroads by the time any other ships arrive to help.

[Darwin]

No it's cool I just wanted to be sure about the intended timeframe. In that case there seem to be several ships floating about in space under Starfleet's command, with numbers at least roughly equal to Zeon's if not greater given Jade Owl's post about the coming Romulan War. However, as of the end of the Xindi arc, there are what, 4 ships immediately around Earth to defend it, not counting the Columbia. Zeon still has the chance to take out Earth's defenses and make considerable planetfall inroads by the time any other ships arrive to help.

Given the OP, I'm assuming that Solomon and A Bau A Qu are teleported as part of Zeon's naval assets. Either could be used as a projectile in a pinch.

Zeon's main liability is it seems is again their speed and lack thereof. It will take them several days to move the fleet from L3 to Earth orbit which could give them time to muster a significant defense, assuming they'll be detected soon after clearing Luna's shadow, while Starfleet vessels seem to be able to make that trip on impulse in mere minutes. They may as well be a stationary target while in transit.

I'm starting to wonder what impact powerful newtype pilots like Char (given OP's timeframe overwhelming newtypes like Lalah Sune, Haman Kharn and Four aren't yet available) will have on the outcome.

[Darksider]

I'm starting to wonder what impact powerful newtype pilots like Char (given OP's timeframe overwhelming newtypes like Lalah Sune, Haman Kharn and Four aren't yet available) will have on the outcome.

Precisely dick, given that Mobile suits are going to be slower than proto-feddie capital ships, and their weapons far less effective.

Mobile suit weapons are supposed to be roughly analogous to Zeon and EFF capital ship weapons, right? and they're pretty much one hit kills against anything that doesn't have main characters on it. Proto-feddie warships can take a lot more punishment than Zeon ships if the pounding that Enterprise withstood in the Xindi Arc is any indication.

There's a good video that shows a mirror-verse NX-class withstanding a barrage of multi-KT/MT torpedoes and Phaser blasts from a TOS-era Connie in PST right now, and the ship sustains no visual damage until the final shot blasts off a huge piece of it. I think that their "Hull polarization" acts like a sort of proto-shielding when it comes to withstanding damage.
Does anyone know how powerful the nuke was that took out half the Earth Federation fleet in 0083? If it was comparable with modern nukes then there’s going to be a huge survivability gap between the two sides.

[Darwin]

Does anyone know how powerful the nuke was that took out half the Earth Federation fleet in 0083? If it was comparable with modern nukes then there’s going to be a huge survivability gap between the two sides.

The Mark82 warhead is never explicitly rated, but the 300 megaton figure is thrown around some, as it was designed as a strategic nuclear system as opposed to tactical. I'm not sure how realistic this is considering the physical size of the warhead (almost identical in shape to the Fat Man dropped on Nagasaki, but apparently smaller) though given the micro-fusion tech in UC it seems easily plausible.

[Sidewinder]

While specific power figures for the ship mounted particle cannons on Gundam capital ships are not given, Zeon did make an anti-ship "space cannon" called the Jormungand which was about the same length as a Musai class ship at 231 meters. According to official stats, the beam output from this cannon is 500 terajoules and it is also stated to be approximatly 10 times as powerfull as the main guns from capital ships. This means Zeon ships should be capable of putting out atleast low terajoule level firepower from their main guns, which in this case should be close to what the enterprise phase cannons do.

You just described why the Zeonic superweapon is nearly useless against the UES.

Zeon did make an anti-ship "space cannon" called the Jormungand which was about the same length as a Musai class ship at 231 meters.

To someone w/out FTL, it'll be no trivial task to build, provide power to, and transport something this damn big within range of the target. That means the UES gets plenty of warning time, which it can use to interdict the Jormungand, or at least put up a blockade to prevent that thing from getting in range.

If worse comes to worse, Starfleet can move the United Earth's political and military leadership to Mars, and sustain the newfound "United Mars" with resources beyond the Solar System, w/out fear of Zeonic interdiction, thanks to the Principality's lack of FTL. In the years it'll take for the Principality to reverse-engineer FTL from preexisting UES tech, Starfleet will have plenty of time to launch an expeditionary force to overwhelm the Principality and retake Earth.

[Icehawk]

You just described why the Zeonic superweapon is nearly useless against the UES.

To someone w/out FTL, it'll be no trivial task to build, provide power to, and transport something this damn big within range of the target. That means the UES gets plenty of warning time, which it can use to interdict the Jormungand, or at least put up a blockade to prevent that thing from getting in range.

If worse comes to worse, Starfleet can move the United Earth's political and military leadership to Mars, and sustain the newfound "United Mars" with resources beyond the Solar System, w/out fear of Zeonic interdiction, thanks to the Principality's lack of FTL. In the years it'll take for the Principality to reverse-engineer FTL from preexisting UES tech, Starfleet will have plenty of time to launch an expeditionary force to overwhelm the Principality and retake Earth.

You are correct about that, but you missunderstood the intent of my post. I was merely using the Jormungand as an example to derive a rough estimate of the firepower for the *standard ship mounted cannons* on the main Zeon battleships based off of dialogue from the show comparing this weapon to their own ship mounted cannons and it's official stats. Thats it. In the show, the Jormungand was just a prototype weapon, and despite being able to easily take out a capital ship with a single shot if it hit, it was ultimately deemed ineffective for combat within it's own universe.

What matters is that UES is going to be facing a force of over a thousand capital ships that can each dish out firepower comparable to what their own few ships can. UES has the FTL advantage, and the few ships they do have are much more dureable and surviveable than individual Zeon ships, but can the UES manage to not ultimately get overwhelmed?

[Darwin]

What matters is that UES is going to be facing a force of over a thousand capital ships that can each dish out firepower comparable to what their own few ships can. UES has the FTL advantage, and the few ships they do have are much more dureable and surviveable than individual Zeon ships, but can the UES manage to not ultimately get overwhelmed?

The Zeon forces would need to be fantastically aggressive to try and force the terms of engagement, constantly threaten major resources and strategic targets with some serious firepower, and force the UES into a stand-up fight which minimizes their FTL advantage. If the UES is allowed to dictate the times and locations of the fights, their speed will be an overwhelming advantage and they'll be able to pick the Zeon fleets apart with impunity.

[Lord Revan]

btw just few questions but has Zeon faced FTL capable opponents and how would they react to ships coming out of warp (essentially out of nowhere if you don't got FTL sensors)?

this isn't exactly pointless musing either as the 2 sides seem to be roughly at the same tech level.

[Juubi Karakuchi]

btw just few questions but has Zeon faced FTL capable opponents and how would they react to ships coming out of warp (essentially out of nowhere if you don't got FTL sensors)?

this isn't exactly pointless musing either as the 2 sides seem to be roughly at the same tech level.

There hasn't been any FTL capability in the Gundam franchise. On the other hand they have enough scientific knowhow to understand the particulars of FTL travel, including the fact that a ship travelling FTL will be undetectable. The shock will be lessened by warning their personnel beforehand. They will simply have to maintain a high level of readiness, reacting quickly the moment a UE ship appears on their screens.

As has been said before, removing warp-capable ships from the equation quickly must be a top priority for Zeon once hostilities start. It ultimately depends on whether Zeon attacks straight off the bat or waits a while to gather more info (and take advantage of the political situation). They are going to have to deploy significant fleet assets to defend the colony cylinders from sneak-attacks anyway, so they might choose to allow the UE to deploy more ships to observe them. This would make said ships easier to find.