Chris Guanche wrote:
I think the Oggo can have the qualities you mentioned and still be a product
of desperation - they're not mutually exclusive.
Yes, indeed ridiculous weapons are created by the winning sides or
even peacetime nations just as much as by the losing sides. But a
nation about to lose a war is much more likely to shift a wacky weapon
to the center stage in futile hope of a miraculous turn-around. The
entire story of MS igLoo was just such an exercise. Except for
Jormungand, everything in igLoo is about wacky weapons put into
frontline use in desperation. Following the story/dialogue one is led
to think Oggo is part of the same pattern, in fact the extreme example
of this pattern: a suicidal capsule that lacks the punch to justify
the sacrifice of the pilot's life.
So let me rephrase it: the dialog in the anime sounds like the Oggo
was designed and constructed as if no one expect the Oggo pilot to
survive the first sortie. In particular the female officer was
especially upset because her brother was going to be sent out into a
(IIRC) minor mission in one of these things (the way she freaked out
makes you wonder if life support subsystem was unfinished or
something). Up to that point she's the one who was the
stiff-upper-lip play-by-the-rule duty-above-all-else stereotype (as
opposed to the passionate idealistic young guy or the slightly cynical
older captain).
It has to be simple, because
...
Yet these same principles/requirements/conditions led to the
development of countless unpractical, unbalanced war machines such as
Ze'gok and Big Rang. In fact the number of these crazy designs
increase linearly over the years (in real time).
junk that's thrown together, it does perform pretty well against the odds,
so it makes you wonder what it could've been like if the Zeon had seriously
developed it from the start rather than just slapping it together at war's
end.
Ahhh yes... that was exactly on my mind when I look at those pix. If
they had thousands of these (at least matching the number of Balls on
the Fed side), ... But then... if they had just more Doms, or even
just more Zakus, or if they had 10 Big Rangs instead of just one.
Perhaps if they even only had 3 Big Zams instead of one. Zeon might
have won the day?
But I think these are futile exercise, fog of war is part and partial
to the game of war. Every single war could have been different if one
side had precognition about what would work best in battle. In some
way, rock-paper-scissors is as good a simulation of war as the game of
chess.
Anyway, more and more I suspect the fate of Zeon was sealed when they
lost the Battle of Odessa. The way things played out could have
followed many different paths, perhaps having a few thousand Oggos at
Solomon would have given Zeon a negotiated peace instead of
unconditional surrender. But losing Odessa means that defeat was a
matter of historic destiny.
Now consider that Fed won Odessa with an essentially MS-less assault
force. (at least prior to 08MST retocon) Think about the possibility
the Fed _could_ have won the whole war without transforming the armed
forces to mobile-weapons-centric?
--
Dr. Core
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