Zeon as a power in the Battletech Universe

[SapphireFox]

The Minovsky Craft System, in use on such ships as White Base and Zeon's Adzam. The reactors in those craft are powerful enough to FLOAT the craft on subatomic particles. Do have any idea how powerful a reactor needs to be to put out enough electromagnetic force to defy gravity? As for Stark's claims I am quite sure he is right, but you don't put in more reactor than you need. More reactor means more weight and remember these are MOBILE Suits not mechs, mobility and maneuverability are paramount to survival.

? IIRC, isn't White Base and Adzam running on repulsor type technologies?

Minovsky Craft System

A lift-generating system which allows a vehicle to resist the pull of Earth's gravity. When Minovsky particles are released into the air, the positive and negative particles spontaneously align themselves into a three-dimensional cubic lattice. Because of the repulsive and electrostatic forces between the Minovsky particles, this lattice resists compression, and the Minovsky craft system uses this phenomenon to push the underside of the vessel away from the planet's surface.

Though the Minovsky craft system doesn't produce genuine anti-gravity, it does allow a vehicle to float over Earth's surface. Since the lattice of Minovsky particles it generates beneath the vessel repels plasma and ionized gases, this system also provides some protection from the heat of atmospheric entry. During the One Year War, the Minovsky craft system is employed by Pegasus-class assault carriers like the White Base, and by the mobile armors Adzam and Apsalus. However, the system's high power requirements and sheer bulk prevent its installation in a standard mobile suit.

As you can see it isn't an Anti-Gravity repulsor rather than a lift inducing float from spraying an insanely large amount of Minovsky Particles underneath the craft. You still need a bitch load of power to do something like that. Especially considering how little the weaker MS reactors need to put out in power and particles.

As you can see the Minovsky cycle reactor scales just as well as the BT style fusion reactor. Just to note the weapon of the junior mobile suit is capable of damaging and/or destroying an MS

Errr....... say what? The Btech fusion equipped car is literally the same size as your Toyota, and has min speed of 150kph.

*facepalm* the reactor is on the front of the junior mobile and is no bigger than then a ~V8-V12 car engine. There is no reason that you could not stick it in a electric car and drive normally, if at great speed.

Not to mention that the power is coming from the CAPACITOR not the reactor directly. If the reactor was powering it directly at that power level then you could auto fire the weapon constantly.(within heat tolerances)
This means that the charge must be built up to rather than judged from the discharge alone. This means it is pulling over several seconds reducing the demands on the reactor. We divide the output by the 3-4 seconds needed to get output means that the reactor is pushing in the 100 megawatt range to power the weapons. Given the numbering scheme for the reactor power It might be reasonable to assume that the power output of the reactor is the reactor number in megawatts.

The reactor power don't have a linear scaling based on movement speeds.

I won't comment on Cray and etc calcs since I always felt there were some points they missed out, yet, I'm uncomfortable challenging more than I ever did on CBT due to their status as well as technical training. I mean, Cray's an engineer. I'm not going to point my A level physics and say your reactor calcs don't make sense. Its more likely however that they were using it to show order of magnitude capabilities rather than accurate counts.

Ah so you mean that they are generalizing. I see.

So if they have a car crash and break the reactor you are telling me it won't go up? Bull, every reactor I have ever seen on a mech that gets trashed and doesn't safe itself by character shield and the like goes up in a nuke like explosion. Even if you put the most safety features you can on it there will always be a significant risk of rad poisoning if you either damage it or don't maintain it properly.

They don't..... Seriously. The wham bam exploding mech was explictly pointed out in mutiple publications as Stackpole mistake and all such incidents were mechwarriors setting their reactors to explode and then ejecting. It even earned its own FASA term in canon literature.
After Microsoft got their hands on the franchise, TechManual even addressed the new incidents by pointing out how such incidents were actually "mistaken" nuke explosions. Part of the example was how the gas was actually just superheat steam/plasma being released into the environment.
My personal retcon was that the Blakists convinced the Feddies to switch over to Microsoft.

The funny part is, this is more accurate and plausible than wham bam exploding mech. A nuclear reaction isn't that easy.

TechManual does address the issue of irradiation of shielding material, but given the known safety record, this ONLY illustrates how effective such safety measures are.

So you are telling me that if you break open the live reactor you wont get irradiated?
As for it not going up like a nuke unintentionally I can see how that would be possible, but I would still worry about the radiation in the escaped material from the reactor.

[lord Martiya]

If other bases - i.e. the massive California Base - had remained in Federation hands, one could only imagine the mind-boggling numbers that could have been deployed against Zeon.

Actually, the Federation still had TWO large bases: Jaburo, that we know from Tomino to be as big as Tokyo in 1979, and Luna II, built into the asteroid 3 Juno. With California base, we would probably have enormous numbers (particularly in mobile suits), but not exactly mind-boggling.

[Balrog]

Correction: WE don't have to to the main asteroid belt. Given the at least hundreds of enormous colonies present in 0079, I think it's not unbelievable to assume that they may have snagged all the NEAs worth getting.

Unless there's some source somewhere that says they completely strip-mined every NEA, I find it doubtful. We have quite a few of them, namely over 7000 in the neighborhood. And that's without going to any of the other asteroid groups within the inner Solar system.

Dude I don't think the EF would have sat around and let the Zekes just snag some more asteroids to break the sanctions; the war would have started and they'd have lost the initiative.

Which has nothing to do with getting more asteroids after they've already spanked the EF and achieved space superiority.

I should point out that NONE of the Inner Sphere states have warships in 3050; only Comstar and the Clans have them, and most of Comstar's warships are in mothballs in 3050. All the IS has is a bunch of jumpships and dropships, most of which are armed but not heavily. If the Zekes can fit K-F Drives to their warship designs, they'll have a massive advantage over their neighbors. Even their slower-than-light ships would give them a serious defensive capability in-system. Add in the radar-fuck made by their reactors and particle beam weapons, and combat range against Battletech space forces will be even shorter than their lost technology has made it.

Except they won't; even the compact K-F drive used on WarShips takes up a whopping 45% of the ship's mass (standard drives take up 95% but cost 100 times less). The lightest you can possibly get a K-F drive down to is 2500 tons. So we won't be seeing any Musai with strapped-on K-F drives anytime soon, because Zeon is going to be busy retooling their shipyards to start producing FTL ships while their main fleet sits around and hopes no one decides to invade.

Meanwhile, spurred on by the Clan invasion (and probably, in this scenario, also the sudden appearance of another foreign human faction), the IS is going to have shipyards up in running in the next few years capable of building true WarShips. So both Zeon and IS are going to start off with budding WarShip fleets, and the IS is already starting with a pretty big territory, military and population advantage.

Dunno how Mobile Suits like the Zaku II would fare against battlemechs though...

Their primary weapon is a 120mm machine gun; the equivalent of an AC20 if we want to be generous. The same weapon is good enough to kill Zakus, so they'll certainly be vulnerable to BTech weapons. They're larger in size and weigh more than most any other BattleMech, and are comparably more maneuverable. So they might be harder to hit, especially if they abuse M-particle jamming, but if BTech side can pin them down in a fight they can kill them.

If Zeon lies in the path for one of the Crusader Clans, it may well be fucked if it doesn't resort to nukes and other superweapons, just because some of the Clanners are idiotic and "honorable" enough to throw themselves at the Principality over and over again for the challenge. The Clans have much better technology than the Inner Sphere at this point, so they'd be much more difficult to handle, even if they do fight like idiots and have limited numbers.

Given where they're situated, they probably won't see any direct conflict with the Clans (unless the Clans do better than they historically did).

[SAMAS]

Correction: WE don't have to to the main asteroid belt. Given the at least hundreds of enormous colonies present in 0079, I think it's not unbelievable to assume that they may have snagged all the NEAs worth getting.

Unless there's some source somewhere that says they completely strip-mined every NEA, I find it doubtful. We have quite a few of them, namely over 7000 in the neighborhood. And that's without going to any of the other asteroid groups within the inner Solar system.

And how many of them would provide useful materials? For the hundred or so Space Colonies, plus the various space fleets, both military and civilian?

Considering that they moved Axis out to the belt for almost ten years, it's a good bet they've already begun Belt mining operations.

[Stark]

Whoa, are we saying that robots that dodge tank shells and wire-guided missiles 'might be harder to hit' than Mechs? Regular tanks can kill Zakus; turns out that their agility and weapons make it hard. Luckily Mechs miss at 500m even without Minovsky effects.

Heh, luckily most missiles in BT aren't guided, I guess. No electronics to jam!

[Ford Prefect]

For the hundred or so Space Colonies

It's more like seven hundred. There are seven Sides, and each Side is made up of fifty to eighty Bunches. While there's some confusion about how many of these are paired, it seems likely that, given how closely they fit Dr O'Neill's specifications, a majority will be paired, so seven hundred cylinders seems fairly reasonable. So that means they've used about six trillion tons of quartz glass in the construction of the colonies, and at a lower end about three trillion.

[Stark]

Whoa, so once the EF is crippled and there's all those resources on Earth, Zeon should have engaged in long-term mining operations? They'd arguably STILL lose because the EF would develop and deploy Gundams FASTER.

Its seriously like saying HW made sense when the Hiigarans left their home planet ('there's nothing for us here') when they have tech to make ships of of dirt. Go farm asteroids, let's ignore that giant resource ball right there.

[Zinegata]

If other bases - i.e. the massive California Base - had remained in Federation hands, one could only imagine the mind-boggling numbers that could have been deployed against Zeon.

Actually, the Federation still had TWO large bases: Jaburo, that we know from Tomino to be as big as Tokyo in 1979, and Luna II, built into the asteroid 3 Juno. With California base, we would probably have enormous numbers (particularly in mobile suits), but not exactly mind-boggling.

Not exactly.

The remaining large Federation bases on Earth (prior to Odessa) included Jaburo, Madras, and Belfast. There's also a large gaggle of smaller bases (i.e. Torrington) that are military bases in the conventional sense, in that they don't combine military base with factory. Belfast was probably a conventional weapons factory as this was the base from which Odessa was launched (with massive tank forces).

In Space, the Federation's main production facilities where Side 7 (before the facilities were attacked by Char), Side 6 (around the time after Odessa, when Side 6 was moving closer to the EF), and Luna 2. Interestingly, even though Luna 2 has the potential to be a major production facility, it's not featured very prominently in the canonical MS kit manuals. I believe only the GM C (seen in 0083) claims to have been initially built at Luna 2. Most publications also claim that the Luna 2 fleet contained mainly survivors from the early war. Certainly - when it's visited by the White base - its garrison consists of just one Magellan class battleship and a cruiser or two in dock.

And that's just a tiny fraction of the Federation's potential production. Califonia base (which provided Zeon with its entire submarine fleet and amphib MS battalions) was just one of many that fell to Zeon control - there's still the East Coast Bases, New Guinea, Africa, and Odessa. In fact, it took the Federation a mere 3 years to build 100+ new capital ships that were featured in the 0083 naval review - despite the likelihood of the drawing-down of military forces with the coming of peace.

[Balrog]

And how many of them would provide useful materials? For the hundred or so Space Colonies, plus the various space fleets, both military and civilian?

Considering that they moved Axis out to the belt for almost ten years, it's a good bet they've already begun Belt mining operations.

Not entirely sure; if we want to break it down to 'bigger = better', there are around a thousand or so that are 1km in diameter or more, but then even a small asteroid has some useful material.

I thought Axis being so far out had more to do with, you know, losing the war rather than a need to get more resources.

How many of those are suitable for mining, and available for capture in a timeframe that would help the war?

In truth I don't know the orbital patterns for all seven thousand objects; however, we are hardly talking months-long travel times like, say, from the Earth to Venus. The orbits of these objects, by their definition, come to within 3 to 44 million kilometers of the Earth. Surely that is a better deal than the additional fuel, money, and other dangers of trying to lift off materials from Earth.

Whoa, are we saying that robots that dodge tank shells and wire-guided missiles 'might be harder to hit' than Mechs? Regular tanks can kill Zakus; turns out that their agility and weapons make it hard. Luckily Mechs miss at 500m even without Minovsky effects.

Heh, luckily most missiles in BT aren't guided, I guess. No electronics to jam!

Turns out it's easy to dodge things when fighting in environments which gives the middle finger to physics? BTech mechs can generate their own electronic jamming, but I admit it has nothing on that wanky stuff Of course, given the numbers disparity, BTech could just spam suppressive fire into the area and hit the Gundams if they really had to.

[Stark]

Turns out it's easy to dodge things when fighting in environments which gives the middle finger to physics?

What? Its 'easy' because ... you don't like it?

BTech mechs can generate their own electronic jamming, but I admit it has nothing on that wanky stuff

You're missing the point. You said they were big and heavy and so would be easier to hit; I pointed out that they're far faster and more agile so BT would probably struggle to maintain their baseline (ie, terrible) accuracy.

Of course, given the numbers disparity, BTech could just spam suppressive fire into the area and hit the Gundams if they really had to.

Just like how endless LRM spam is super useful in ... oh wait. I can't really imagine any engagement where a BT force would have more mechs than mass-produced MS anyway; Zeon made something like tens of thousands of Zakus, and each one is probably worth an assault mech.

[PainRack]

As you can see it isn't an Anti-Gravity repulsor rather than a lift inducing float from spraying an insanely large amount of Minovsky Particles underneath the craft. You still need a bitch load of power to do something like that. Especially considering how little the weaker MS reactors need to put out in power and particles.

Not really. Given that description, what you need to know is how much the electrostatic force each particle produce and then measure the amount its being dumped. Its no different from basic rockets......

*facepalm* the reactor is on the front of the junior mobile and is no bigger than then a ~V8-V12 car engine. There is no reason that you could not stick it in a electric car and drive normally, if at great speed.

A direct size comparison MIGHT have illustrated your point better, ja?
Pointing to a 2m tall suit and claiming that the engine shows scalability is not exactly a good illustration.

So you are telling me that if you break open the live reactor you wont get irradiated?
As for it not going up like a nuke unintentionally I can see how that would be possible, but I would still worry about the radiation in the escaped material from the reactor.

I DIDN"T. I pointing that the lack of known incidents suggest that the safety materials used make this extremely rare.

Whoa, are we saying that robots that dodge tank shells and wire-guided missiles 'might be harder to hit' than Mechs? Regular tanks can kill Zakus; turns out that their agility and weapons make it hard. Luckily Mechs miss at 500m even without Minovsky effects.

Heh, luckily most missiles in BT aren't guided, I guess. No electronics to jam!

Ahem. You're also pointing to a universe that dodges and deflect LASERS.

Come on Stark. If you wish to ignore the model I come out with regarding accuracy and etc, then feel free to explain how the fuck they do that.

[Stark]

So... what? Hell, Minovsky 'interference' can mess with the inputs on a wire-guided missile... somehow. The idea that BT is going to find it easy to hit MS seems baseless.

[SapphireFox]

A direct size comparison MIGHT have illustrated your point better, ja?
Pointing to a 2m tall suit and claiming that the engine shows scalability is not exactly a good illustration.

Perhaps it would have. Although at the time I thought that it fairly obvious to everyone that the needed reactor size for a 3m suit would be quite small enough to fit in a car. I will remember that for the next time.

I DIDN"T. I pointing that the lack of known incidents suggest that the safety materials used make this extremely rare.

Fair enough.

Whoa, are we saying that robots that dodge tank shells and wire-guided missiles 'might be harder to hit' than Mechs? Regular tanks can kill Zakus; turns out that their agility and weapons make it hard. Luckily Mechs miss at 500m even without Minovsky effects.

Heh, luckily most missiles in BT aren't guided, I guess. No electronics to jam!

Ahem. You're also pointing to a universe that dodges and deflect LASERS.

Come on Stark. If you wish to ignore the model I come out with regarding accuracy and etc, then feel free to explain how the fuck they do that.

I would like to point out that the forces in gundam possessed an anti-laser coating to protect against weaponized lasers well before the one year war.

Semi-Transparent Coating

As described in the Gundam Officials and Mobile Suit Gundam the novel appendix, the semi-transparent coating (半透体コーティング) is originally used as the laser medium, mirror and partial mirror of laser weapons in the Universal Century timeline. It was also used before and early in the One Year War as an effective armour coating to defend against laser weapons. However, due to massive use of mega-particle/beam weapons and the necessity of developing an anti-beam armor, this technology is no longer a basic requirement on mobile weapons. This technology served as the basis of the beam-resistant coating and anti-beam coating although the only common factor is the multiple layers. Semi-transparent coating protect the unit by having multiple layers all reflecting a certain wavelength of light and thus effectively reduces the energy of different laser weapons. This technology is also used in the colony laser Solar Ray, deployed by Zeon forces before the Battle of A Baoa Qu.

Just thought it might be relevant.

[Zinegata]

Ergh, one sec guys...

Minovsky interferance only affects radio signals. So wire-guided missiles still work fine in a Minovsky envionment (see 08th MS Team). However, the BIG problem is that Minovsky interferance is persistent. It doesn't just go away if you want it to. Once you scatter the particles they persist in any major gravity well (i.e. the Earth) for a long time.

Also, a couple of notes about Gundam defensive technology...

Anti-beam coating has already been discussed. Most Mobile Suit hand-held shields are anti-beam coated.

Less well-remembered are the anti-beam clouds that can be dispersed using specialized missile boats. This technology was used during the Battle of Solomon, which greatly minimized the effect of the fortress guns firing on the incoming Federation Fleet.

Finally, there's also Luna Titanium armor - which armors the Gundam and quite a few other wartime Mobile Suits. It is an extremely light yet durable armor that can withstand any conventional munition up to a 175mm dedicated anti-tank round. I dunno about Btech conventional weapons, but I don't think most of their mechs will have conventional rounds that can penetrate a Luna Titanium armored MS.

Finally... regarding MS mobility... it is worth noting that the premiere ground combat Mobile Suit of the OYW is the MS-09 Dom Mobile Suit, which travels on a cushion of air an can travel in excess of 100kph. And it is equipped with a 330mm bazooka capable of penetrating Luna-Titanium armor. This model replaced the venerable Zaku and the failed Gouf around October in the assembly lines, and I'm pretty sure no B-tech mech cango as fast as these monsters.

[PainRack]

Perhaps it would have. Although at the time I thought that it fairly obvious to everyone that the needed reactor size for a 3m suit would be quite small enough to fit in a car. I will remember that for the next time.

Not really. Said 3m suit could easily have a reactor size 2m long and 4m thick if you haven't actually brought out the actual size.

I would like to point out that the forces in gundam possessed an anti-laser coating to protect against weaponized lasers well before the one year war.

And? Btech has its own Crystal Aligned Steel. Ignoring its own anti-laser armour. Can we stop throwing pure semantics and names around?

Finally... regarding MS mobility... it is worth noting that the premiere ground combat Mobile Suit of the OYW is the MS-09 Dom Mobile Suit, which travels on a cushion of air an can travel in excess of 100kph. And it is equipped with a 330mm bazooka capable of penetrating Luna-Titanium armor. This model replaced the venerable Zaku and the failed Gouf around October in the assembly lines, and I'm pretty sure no B-tech mech cango as fast as these monsters.

Any mech that goes faster than the Stinger exceed these speeds. Much less the venerable Saladin hovertank.

[PainRack]

So... what? Hell, Minovsky 'interference' can mess with the inputs on a wire-guided missile... somehow. The idea that BT is going to find it easy to hit MS seems baseless.

What being contended is your argument of Btech accuracy.

Seriously. You seem to have utterly ignored my work in this area, regarding how Btech accuracy is low as a result of their armour technology and the way they optimised their weapons in this area. Granted, a huge portion of the work is now outdated due to Techmanual and the need to incorporate new datapoints but unless one simply throws out a whole chunk of the Btech universe, the model "works"....(conceptually. The science is..... lolcat)

Hence, my initial statement on why I felt this thread was almost a necro topic. You and Bats have been raising issues which we have debated and discussed before. If you wish to simply throw away my model, fine. Then STOP blasting Btech for being slow lumbering mechs that will be sitting ducks and address how they can dodge lasers and missile attacks and ultrasonic rounds. Oh wait, I'm sorry. FanPro just updated the info. Its HYPERSONIC now.

[Zinegata]

This is why I stick to just knowing the Gundam side. The canon is apparently more stable than Btech's

[Ford Prefect]

Finally... regarding MS mobility... it is worth noting that the premiere ground combat Mobile Suit of the OYW is the MS-09 Dom Mobile Suit, which travels on a cushion of air an can travel in excess of 100kph.

Doms can run almost that fast while Rick Doms can actually run faster than 100km/h, let alone Rick Dom IIs. Even FZ-type Zaku IIs push a little past 100km/h. The speed of stock, hovering Dom around 240km/h. Stock Gelgoogs can also run at about 180km/h, Gelgoog Jaegers can manage over 190km/h, though they are of course the most powerful MS of the OYW. The Kämpfer can run at 215km/h, meaning it rivals the Dom in pure speed, and its superior thrusters and vernier arrangement means that it would be more agile.

ultrasonic

You keep saying this, but I'll be honest: I'm absolutely certain that it doesn't mean what you think it means.

[Zinegata]

Finally... regarding MS mobility... it is worth noting that the premiere ground combat Mobile Suit of the OYW is the MS-09 Dom Mobile Suit, which travels on a cushion of air an can travel in excess of 100kph.

Doms can run almost that fast while Rick Doms can actually run faster than 100km/h, let alone Rick Dom IIs. Even FZ-type Zaku IIs push a little past 100km/h. The speed of stock, hovering Dom around 240km/h. Stock Gelgoogs can also run at about 180km/h, Gelgoog Jaegers can manage over 190km/h, though they are of course the most powerful MS of the OYW. The Kämpfer can run at 215km/h, meaning it rivals the Dom in pure speed, and its superior thrusters and vernier arrangement means that it would be more agile.

I believe the 240 kph figure for a hovering Dom's maximum speed is correct, but the rest I cannot verify. For one thing, Rick Doms should never be see walking in the first place (being space-specialist-MS). However, a quick look at 0080 should be able to confirm/deny the above figures.

[Ford Prefect]

Space specialist MS can still be expected to engage into colony-side operations when necessary. In any case, the Dom Tropen which shows up in Stardust Memory is much faster: top speed when hovering is 360km/h.

[PainRack]

ultrasonic

You keep saying this, but I'll be honest: I'm absolutely certain that it doesn't mean what you think it means.

Mach 2.2, Mach 5 gauss rifles.

[Ford Prefect]

Mach 2.2, Mach 5 gauss rifles.

Yeah, no, that's not what ultrasonic means. I've never heard of ultrasonic being used to describe velocity. Everything up to mach 5 can be described as 'supersonic'. Mach 5 and above would be hypersonic.

[Balrog]

What? Its 'easy' because ... you don't like it?

Er, no, it's easier because the magic particles make it easier. Has nothing to do with dislike.

You're missing the point. You said they were big and heavy and so would be easier to hit; I pointed out that they're far faster and more agile so BT would probably struggle to maintain their baseline (ie, terrible) accuracy.

It's a lot easier to debate when, you know, you actually read the other person's arguments, considering I never said that.

They're larger in size and weigh more than most any other BattleMech, and are comparably more maneuverable. So they might be harder to hit, especially if they abuse M-particle jamming, but if BTech side can pin them down in a fight they can kill them.

The larger profile of a Gundam is offset by its maneuverability and Minovsky jamming, hence they will be harder to hit, but given the numbers disparity IS forces can overcome that.

Just like how endless LRM spam is super useful in ... oh wait. I can't really imagine any engagement where a BT force would have more mechs than mass-produced MS anyway; Zeon made something like tens of thousands of Zakus, and each one is probably worth an assault mech.

Considering MS numbers have apparently been downgraded, I find that claim laughable. Any one of the IS powers outnumbers them easily; IIRC the Lyrian Commonwealth had one of the smaller militaries before becoming part of FedCom, and they still had 60 Mech regiments. That's nearly seven thousand Mechs alone, never mind several times that number in armor, artillery, AeroSpace, etc. Even if Zeon started out with tens of thousands of Zakus, they simply don't have the means to transport them anywhere.

[lord Martiya]

If other bases - i.e. the massive California Base - had remained in Federation hands, one could only imagine the mind-boggling numbers that could have been deployed against Zeon.

Actually, the Federation still had TWO large bases: Jaburo, that we know from Tomino to be as big as Tokyo in 1979, and Luna II, built into the asteroid 3 Juno. With California base, we would probably have enormous numbers (particularly in mobile suits), but not exactly mind-boggling.

Not exactly.

The remaining large Federation bases on Earth (prior to Odessa) included Jaburo, Madras, and Belfast. There's also a large gaggle of smaller bases (i.e. Torrington) that are military bases in the conventional sense, in that they don't combine military base with factory. Belfast was probably a conventional weapons factory as this was the base from which Odessa was launched (with massive tank forces).

In Space, the Federation's main production facilities where Side 7 (before the facilities were attacked by Char), Side 6 (around the time after Odessa, when Side 6 was moving closer to the EF), and Luna 2. Interestingly, even though Luna 2 has the potential to be a major production facility, it's not featured very prominently in the canonical MS kit manuals. I believe only the GM C (seen in 0083) claims to have been initially built at Luna 2. Most publications also claim that the Luna 2 fleet contained mainly survivors from the early war. Certainly - when it's visited by the White base - its garrison consists of just one Magellan class battleship and a cruiser or two in dock.

And that's just a tiny fraction of the Federation's potential production. Califonia base (which provided Zeon with its entire submarine fleet and amphib MS battalions) was just one of many that fell to Zeon control - there's still the East Coast Bases, New Guinea, Africa, and Odessa. In fact, it took the Federation a mere 3 years to build 100+ new capital ships that were featured in the 0083 naval review - despite the likelihood of the drawing-down of military forces with the coming of peace.

Given that I know relatively little apart what was shown in the actual series, I can't contest. Particularly for Luna II. The one thing I have to point out is another: the numbers would have been mind boggling if Jaburo didn't need to retool its factories from tank production to MS.
Now, I have to ask something: do we know how much of Jaburo's production capability had been retooled from fighter/tank/other kind of non-MS materiel to GM production?

[Stark]

Considering MS numbers have apparently been downgraded, I find that claim laughable. Any one of the IS powers outnumbers them easily; IIRC the Lyrian Commonwealth had one of the smaller militaries before becoming part of FedCom, and they still had 60 Mech regiments. That's nearly seven thousand Mechs alone, never mind several times that number in armor, artillery, AeroSpace, etc. Even if Zeon started out with tens of thousands of Zakus, they simply don't have the means to transport them anywhere.

So... you're saying they can't move them, so they'll all be in the same place, and the Lyrans wouldn't have that many if they moved their entire mech army which is predominantly smaller-than-assault mechs?

And you're saying in a battle where BT mechs will be being destroyed, saturation fire will somehow win them battles? Is this saturation with 1-damage point LRMs?

I'm just glad all these threads exist so we can talk about how rubbish BT is. Less mechs than a colony society built in a decade? Apalling.