Seto Kaiba
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... not really. I'm just pointing out fairly obvious pieces of information from the production art and the shows and the occasional historical tidbit, the sort of stuff that would barely merit a "Related Matter" entry in Chronicle. Dunno, man... the radio call signs aren't really based on anything real-world, but the platoon-level stuff and squadron organization is based on real-world military organization. The UN Spacy has a mix of military traditions from Japan and the West. On the one hand they're shown to use a US-style Army/Air Force rank system with ranks that aren't used in Japan (the UN Spacy has an OF-6, Japan doesn't). On the other hand, their OF(D) is treated more like an actual officer along the Japanese model than a USAF OT, and their squadron organization is based on the IJA Air Service/JASDF traditions. It's not 100% realistic, but it's every bit as detailed as you'd expect from a military sci-fi show by a military otaku with a particular passion for aviation (and a particular love of Air Force prototypes).
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Yeah, all I can tell ya is that in Macross Chronicle there's no blue on that airframe... it's all light and dark grays. I kinda like the blue though, breaks up the monochrome feel a bit.
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Yes, and that's the real world... but in Macross, we clearly and repeatedly see radio call signs are rarely not indicative of how many aircraft are in a particular unit. It's that fun little fictional touch common in a lot of sci-fi. Take Frontier's SMS Skull Platoon for an example... its members are, respectively, Skull 1 (Leader), 2, 3, and 4 even though their modex numbers are SMS001, SMS003, SMS004, and SMS007 respectively. The same thing is in Zero, where the numbering is evidently arbitrary, and based only upon the number of pilots in the unit and their respective seniority. It doesn't seem to have any connection to the aircraft they're flying either... Alto's Skull 4 despite going through at least two VF-25F's. To be frank, it doesn't look like any Macross title followed a real-world callsign convention... That's not how it's done in Macross though. We consistently see that platoon callsigns when they're deployed as stand-alone units are in the form "Platoon Code - # based on the number of people in the platoon". When Hikaru was promoted to platoon leader at the rank of 2nd Lieutenant, he became Vermilion 1, and his wingmen were Vermilion 2 and Vermilion 3 when not operating with the rest of Skull squadron. There's really very little in the way of uncertainty here... the UN Spacy has never been presented as a "space navy", and there are very few, largely cosmetic references to Navy traditions and operations there. They use Navy-esque squadron designations and hull symbols, but in organization they're modeled a lot more closely on the JASDF or old Japanese Army Air Service at the squadron level.
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Um... there's a problem with your reasoning... Recall, if you will, that the one and only org. chart we've seen for a Variable Fighter squadron has 15 planes on it. Also recall that, when Hikaru is given his first combat assignment in the original series, he is Skull 23. In Macross: Do You Remember Love?, the former Vermilion Platoon trio of Hikaru, Kakizaki, and Max are numbered Skull 11, Skull 12, and Skull 13 before Roy dies. So... if a normal Navy squadron is 10-12 aircraft and a normal Air Force squadron is 22-24, all roads do kinda lead to Air Force on this one. They do, however, use a pseudo-naval squadron designation system for the UN Spacy's fighter squadrons... the designation given for Skull squadron is usually SVF-1. What applies to a carrier deck on a planet does not necessarily apply to a recovery of a space fighter by a spaceship... especially those that do not use carrier decks or arresting wires for recovery like an ARMD. EDIT: Also remember that the original intent for the ARMD-class was to be a "space airstrip"... Respectfully, you can believe it... but that isn't the same as it being true. There's a good amount of evidence that Kawamori and the other Macross co-creators put a terrifying amount of thought into how this supranational military was going to work, and accompany that with a large number of hints that everyone is actually speaking English... and included the appropriate English Army/Air Force ranks in print in the show.
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Okay, yeah... I was definitely on the wrong tack there. I thought you meant the dorsal stabilizers. The colored line art for Macross Chronicle on the aforementioned sheet shows that the ventral stabilizers are definitely two-tone... the body's white/light gray color and the same dark "cool gray" as the feet.
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Who would the natural enemies be to the Proto Devlin?
Seto Kaiba replied to Zinjo's topic in Movies and TV Series
Super dimension space doesn't exactly play by the same set of rules as the material universe... so it's possible that there might not actually be a food chain in that reality either. All evidence of the series suggests that, under normal conditions, the Protodeviln were probably not at all malevolent... or, rather, that their ancient malice was a malice born of desperation. Gepernich's big evil plot was basically an effort to turn spiritia into a sustainably-farmed resource instead of going on another galaxy-wide rampage like the one that obliterated the Protoculture. They're not malicious by nature... but the same can be said of the whales and the Vajra. They have enough power to seriously mess an attacker up in realspace, but they're technical pacifists. -
Who would the natural enemies be to the Proto Devlin?
Seto Kaiba replied to Zinjo's topic in Movies and TV Series
We really don't know much about the life cycle of the space whales from Macross Dynamite 7 to know what they eat (if anything)... there are allusions to the Vajra sustaining themselves by pulling energy from super dimension space, so it's possible they might become accidental predators of the Protodeviln, if nothing else. -
Based on this screen capture, the center of the tail is supposed to be the same color as the center fuselage... there's a blue tinge to the entire scene, but it looks like Macross Chronicle's coloring is right on.
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Who would the natural enemies be to the Proto Devlin?
Seto Kaiba replied to Zinjo's topic in Movies and TV Series
Do they need one? The ones encountered thus far were perfectly benign energy lifeforms until they were accidentally trapped in realspace by the Protoculture's folly. -
It's either "Space Army" or "Space Military"... "Space Navy" would be written 宇宙海軍 (Uchuu Kaigun) instead of just 宇宙軍 (Uchuu-gun). Not wishing to be rude, but please re-read the post you quoted. The Spacy uses Army/Air Force ranks. Bruno J. Global's title is 艦長 (Kanchou), which translations almost invariably render as the word "Captain", but that is not a rank. It's a title that denotes someone who has overall command of a ship, much like the tradition that a person in command of a ship in the West is referred to as "Captain" regardless of his/her actual rank. It would be like calling someone "Shipmaster" or "Skipper". Global's rank as given in the dialog is 准将 (Junsho), a non-standard rank in Japanese that equates to Brigadier General. You say the SDF-1 should have been commanded by a Brigadier General, and, in point of fact, it was. We had capital space ships commanded by officers with Army/Air Force ranks, carrying fighters piloted by pilots with Army/Air Force ranks. There are a lot of things you can do in the navy, but holding the ranks of Staff Sergeant or First Lieutenant aren't among them. Seems perfectly logical to me, since the US Air Force Space Command is responsible for, among other things, testing and usage of reusable developmental space flight assets like the Boeing X-37. Unless there were a significant change in the organization of the military, we would expect a space fleet developed today to fall under the supervision of the Air Force.
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Hey now, I thought everyone knew you had to say my name 3 times... like Beetlejuice. On consultation of Macross Chronicle, which has color line art of the VF-0A on Macross Zero mechanic sheet UN 02A, the center of the stabilizers are supposed to be the same mid-gray as the body... with the control surfaces the same light gray as the wing's control surfaces. EDIT: It's a "cool" gray... so there's a tiny amount of blue tone to it, but not enough to make it actually look blue.
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Lucy's kinda... minor... for such a major plane. The exact specifics of how EX-Gear improves piloting control precision are unknown, but a brief explanation of the basic mechanism is given in Macross Chronicle (Technology Sheet 17B: "EX-Gear") and in Great Mechanics.DX 9. Apart from the suit providing the basic controls (pedals, throttle, stick), there's learning computer in the system that combines the input from the conventional controls with input from electromyographic (EMG) sensors which track impulses in the pilot's muscles and recorded data of the pilot's particular style of flying to improve responsiveness and ease of control while also providing some tactile feedback through the controls to the pilot so the pilot can "feel" the airframe response directly (providing the feel of the aircraft being a direct extension of the pilot's body).
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It definitely wasn't the most sound design choice ever made... esp. since those were supposed to be atmospheric-use packs. IIRC, it was Sheryl Nome who got made into a YF-19 mecha musume in Macross Chronicle.
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Yeah... definitely not a favorite of mine either. I shed no tears at their exclusion from Macross 30. Oh, yeah... as pictured in the picture I posted, it's the same YF-19-style FAST pack arrangement but with the boosters added.
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M7-style "shoulder kibble" would be my guess... it's in the same section as the M7 FAST pack. But yes, it does look to be the exact same booster model used on the VF-11B (not the economized model used on the VF-11C).
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I was able to get a decent-ish pic of the image in the book, to give you an idea.
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Yeah. They only do that in Master File, and it looks weird as hell... (pages 60-62 of Variable Fighter Master File: VF-19 Excalibur)
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Unless it's fan-made, we probably won't see them until such time as they actually appear in some official Macross show or game. (The more I consider it, the more I'm miffed that they didn't use the VF-19EF/A in Macross 30 as Isamu's upgrade plane instead of the YF-29.) That location's where the VF-11-style FAST packs attach on the Master File version, among other things. They appear to be pretty much identical to the initial YF-19/VF-19 FAST packs, and those held a B-7 pallet of 12 HMM-20e's each.
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Huh... if the toy is any indication (thank you Andras) the count is higher, with 23 missiles in each shoulder instead of the fuel tanks that normally occupy that position. That'd make it a nice round 250 plus whatever's in the leg bays. I really, REALLY wonder how in line with Kawamori's intent that toy is right now... I'm not a toy collector myself, so the details of the toy passed me by completely. The official information is painfully sparse. The Official Complete Book for Macross Frontier: the Wings of Goodbye is says nothing of value about the plane, and declines to even give it a proper identification. Great Mechanics.DX 17 identifies it only as "VF-19 SMS Version", and gives useful info about performance or armament. Macross Chronicle gave it a shared mechanic sheet that gives it a designation (but not the one that's used to promote the toy) and talks about its development, but says nothing whatsoever about its FAST packs. I'm giving serious thought to seeking out the novelization in the hope that it'll have some firm details there (IIRC that's where the "VF-19ADVANCE" designation actually comes from... Macross Chronicle identifies it only as VF-19EF/A "Isamu Special"). On the toy, that certainly appears to be the case. Thank you for sharing that, I genuinely had no idea that was like that there. The pack looks almost identical to the existing one on the YF-19 that was a fuel tank.
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Sorry, I quoted this but forgot to reply to it in my first reply. As far as the relative strength of the micro-missiles... the OTM-based explosives used in missiles would blow conventional munitions into the weeds. The VF-1's AMM-1A Arrow multipurpose medium-range missile had a 20kg warhead equivalent to 200kg of TNT, based on the one source to actually describe it in depth. Missile technology in Macross has improved a lot since the AMM-1 as well. Those HMM-25 micro-missiles are probably at least as powerful as the AMM-1, and very likely significantly more so (designed, as they were, to be used against something far tougher than even a VF-1).
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The VF-19EF/A Excalibur ADVANCE's payload with the Super Packs it's shown with would be 204 (90 in each booster, 12 in each conformal leg pack) plus the contents of the internal bays in the legs. My hunch would be that, since the packs on the wings block off most or all of the pylons (I haven't seen the physical model up close, and it's too hard to tell from the CG model), the internal ordinance bays inside of the legs would be used for longer-ranged missiles the way they were in Macross Plus. (Isamu kept the leg bays full of CHM-2's when he took the YF-19 to Earth.) (The VF-25 has less of a problem on that front.... the NP-FAD-23 leaves 2 or so pylons on each wing clear there.)
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Ah, OK. All told, the YF/VF-19 1st type's bays have enough room for one pallet each... and the conformal FAST packs add another pallet each. That's twelve HMM-20e's per pallet, for a grand total of 48 between the leg bays and packs. (Plus whatever's hung on the six wing pylons.)
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Which "1st Gen" VF-19 packs do you mean? Thanks to Master File there are three distinct sets of VF-19 FAST packs... there's one that's more or less the same as the VF-11B's (Master File exclusive), the conformal packs for the YF-19/VF-19 1st type, and the one seen in Macross 7 on the VF-19F/S. I suppose technically it's four if we count the one-off VF-19EF/A "ADVANCE". #1 is a version of the Super Pack that retains the CIMM-3A launcher assembly but also includes additional fuel tanks for the boosters. #2 is the (rejected) atmospheric variation of the Strike cannon. #3 and #4 are your basic Strike package.
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Yeah, that's an acknowledged problem more than a lot of folks have noticed with the NP-FAD-23 art in Master File. The caption on the image says the Bifors CIMM-3A micro-missile option pack holds a maximum of 90 HMM-25 micro-missiles. Though there is no official stat for the CIMM-3A's capacity in Macross Chronicle or any other source that leaps to mind, the 90 fits better with the other official information about the VF-25. If it has 686 micro-missiles, that would give the VF-25's Super Pack WAY more firepower than the Armored Pack (allegedly the most heavily armed FAST pack). The 90 per CIMM-3A figure gives the VF-25 Super Pack a total of 226, less than the Armored Pack's 244 (274 if you count its anti-armor rockets).
