Gundam Project: Mobile Suit Classics




		Gundam World Index UC Timeline AC Timeline Space Colonization The Earth Federation Zeon and Neo Zeon Minovsky Physics Beam Weapons Mobile Suit Basics The One Year War Mobile Suit Classics Ace Pilot Gallery Mobile Suit Gundam, Z Gundam, Gundam ZZ, Char's Counterattack, Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket, Gundam F91, Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory, Gundam 0083: Last Blitz of Zeon, Gundam: The 08th MS Team, and Gundam W: Endless Waltz are copyright Sotsu Agency and Sunrise. V Gundam, G Gundam, Gundam W, and Gundam X are copyright Sotsu Agency, Sunrise and TV Asahi. Turn A Gundam is copyright Sotsu Agency, Sunrise and Fuji TV.		Mobile Suit Classics The Gundam saga has spawned literally hundreds of mobile suits, a never-ending parade of metal giants ready to square off on the high-tech battlefield. But for our money, none of them have quite the same kind of charm as the classic designs of the original Gundam series. How better to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the original series than with a series of in-depth profiles of our favorite primordial mobile suits? Illustrations by Mark Simmons The Early Years To kick off our retrospective of classic mobile suits, we'll begin with the very first incarnations of the ubiquitous Zaku, created before the outbreak of the apocalyptic One Year War. The initial development of the Zaku was done by the Zeonic Company, under the supervision of Kishiria Zabi. 01: MS-01 Mobile Suit 02: MS-04 Early Zaku 03: MS-05 Zaku I 04: MS-05 Zaku I 05: MS-05 Zaku I 06: MS-06A Zaku II 07: MS-06C Zaku II Outbreak of War During the savage opening weeks of the war, Zeon's Zakus made their first appearance in battle, culminating in an all-out clash between the Zeon and Earth Federation space fleets. Many of Zeon's most famous aces earned their reputations in this epic conflict, known as the Ruum Campaign. 08: MS-06S Zaku II 09: MS-06C Zaku II 10: MS-06S Zaku II 11: MS-06F Zaku II 12: MS-06E Zaku Recon Type 13: MS-06Fs Zaku II The Earth Invasion The destruction of the Earth Federation's space fleet, and the abolition of tactics of mass destruction by the Antarctic Treaty, forced the Duchy of Zeon to adopt a new strategy. In March of UC 0079 Zeon launched a massive Earth invasion, and new mobile suits were created for terrestrial combat. 14: MS-06J Zaku II 15: YMS-07A Prototype Gouf 16: YMS-08A Prototype 17: MS-07H Gouf 18: MS-07H-4 Gouf 19: MS-06M Zaku Marine Type 20: MSM-01 Zaku Marine Type The Ace's Zaku The Zaku II High Mobility Type was Zeon's first attempt to replace the venerable Zaku with a higher-performance space combat model. Though the R type was ultimately deemed unsuitable for mass production, this limited-production model proved enormously popular with Zeon's top ace pilots. As these veterans were wont to put it, "It's harder to get your hands on an R type than to sink a Federation battleship." 21: MS-06RP Zaku II 22: MS-06R-1 Zaku II 23: MS-06R-1 Zaku II 24: MS-06R-1A Zaku II 25: MS-06R-1A Zaku II 26: MS-06R-1A Zaku II 27: MS-06R-1A Zaku II The Terrestrial Front After Zeon's invasion of Earth, fighting continued on every front, particularly in Europe and North Africa. While Zeon's mobile suit developers prepared the MS-07 Gouf for mass production, the Earth Attack Force created new Zaku variants to meet pressing military needs and environmental requirements. Based on the J type Zaku, these later versions also incorporated some technology from the as-yet-incomplete Gouf. 28: MS-06G Zaku II 29: MS-06D Zaku Desert Type 30: MS-06D Zaku Desert Type 31: MS-06D Zaku Desert Type 32: MS-06K Zaku Cannon 33: MS-06K Zaku Cannon Operation V As word of Zeon's mobile suit development efforts began to leak out in the years leading up to the One Year War, the Earth Federation began a number of research projects to counter Zeon's rumored new weapon. When the war began, the Federation dramatically accelerated its own development program. In April of UC 0079, all ongoing mobile suit projects were consolidated into a single crash program called "Operation V." 34: RX-75-4 Guntank 35: RX-77-2 Guncannon 36: RX-78-1 Prototype Gundam 37: RX-78-2 Gundam 38: RX-78-2 Gundam 39: RX-78-3 G-3 Gundam The Jet Set By the time the engineers of the Zeonic Company had completed the Gouf, new technologies had emerged that made it effectively obsolete - ironically, technologies derived from the Gouf's own development process. It was the upstart Zimmad Company that devised the next generation of land combat mobile suit, a jet-propelled design that could hover swiftly across any terrain. 40: MS-07B Gouf 41: MS-07B Gouf 42: MS-07C-3 Gouf 43: MS-07C-5 Gouf Test Type 44: YMS-09 Prototype Dom 45: MS-09 Dom 46: YMS-09D Tropical Dom The Space Race The appearance of the Earth Federation's mobile suits, and the beam weapons they carried, threw Zeon's own development plans into disarray. Work on the MS-11, intended to replace the aging Zaku II as Zeon's space combat mobile suit, was restarted from scratch to incorporate beam weapons technology. In the meantime, Zeon's engineers scrambled to find a temporary replacement... 47: MS-06R-2 Zaku II 48: MS-06R-2 Zaku II 49: MS-06R-2 Zaku II 50: MS-06R-2P Zaku II 51: MS-06RD4 Zaku II 52: MS-R09 Rick Dom 53: MS-06E-3 Zaku Flipper Marine Machines With 70% of Earth's surface covered by water, the Zeon invaders made it a high priority to develop capable amphibious mobile suits. Heavily armored and armed with powerful beam weapons, these new mobile suits were lethal both on land and at sea. 54: MSM-03 Gog 55: MSM-04 Acguy 56: MSM-07 Zugok 57: MSM-07S Zugok 58: MSM-10 Zock