Macross Δ (Delta) Mecha/Technology Thread - READ 1st POST

[Seto Kaiba]

Argh, I was just looking at pictures of this the other day, including a discussion of how to cram the Koenig Monster into the Quarter's carrier, and I can't remember how I got to them. Google isn't giving any familiar hits. Help?

Per Chronicle, the Macross Quarter can just barely fit the VB-6 into the taller aft hangar section normally used for battroid maintenance (this is also where they store the Queadluun-Rhea units).

Even so, the available space is not wide enough to accommodate it without folding the wings.

[SebastianP]

So... a couple points here.

• I think you may be counting several of these turrets two or three times apiece. I've given it an eyes-on review and only found twenty-four turrets in total spread across the entire ship: fourteen on the main body, and a further ten split evenly between BASTER-L and BASTER-R. I'm not counting CIWS guns here.

• Just for the record, the "Quarter Cannon" is just another name for a super dimension energy cannon... there are a good dozen different variations on that theme these days, depending partly on who's using it, how the beam is aimed, how it's focused, etc.

• Given that a standard stealth cruiser has eleven beam cannon turrets and the Macross Quarter-class can have anywhere from ten to twenty-four, having fourteen beam gun turrets doesn't give the larger Macross Elysion much of an advantage... especially given that the ship's unusual shape of the ship builds some fairly significant blind spots in the coverage of those turrets.

• Also, as a side note, it's worth remembering that the Battle-class official specs give them not just the large turrets mounted on the upper hull... but also a large, indeterminate number of retractable beam cannon turrets scattered around the rest of the hull. The ones you mention are simply the heaviest guns it has, not the only ones. (These guns have been seen firing in official art, but not in animation that I can recall offhand.)

That would be supposition, not a fact. It's probable, but it's not confirmed.

Also, the Elysion's macross cannon doesn't seem to be particularly powerful... certainly much closer to the Macross Quarter's than the one on a Macross-class or Battle-class.

We've gone over your claims about size and the unreliability of that dojinshi you cite several times, so we don't need to rehash that again.

First off, you missed one turret then, as there's one at the back of the crotch that's only been visible very briefly.

Second, I'm not counting anything double, I'm just counting the Aether and Hemera, as well as the BASTER L/R, as part of the Elysion and using the combined turret count.

But if you insist:

Elysion: 3 Twin Converging Beam Cannon turrets, 12 Twin Super Dimension Energy Cannon turrets

Each BASTER-type: 5 Twin Converging Beam Cannon turrets, four large apparent missile tubes, four large axial guns

Each carrier: 4 Twin Converging Beam Cannon turrets, 1 Macross Cannon.

As a complete fighting unit, the ship has more guns than the Battle Frontier and Macross Quarter Movie version combined, and if I'm not completely mistaken in my math, it can actually fire at least as many guns of each type in any given direction as either of the other ships. And the Macross cannon may not have been fired at full power - either because it didn't have enough time to charge up to full capacity, or because the ship was firing it in an atmosphere. There's also the whole deal with how the Macross cannons of previous ships have been much more impressive at range than up close - I think the shot in episode 13 is one of the closest range Macross cannon shots we've gotten to date, excepting when SDF-1 fires its last shot during the rebuild arc.

As for retractable guns - we don't have any official specs saying either one way or the other for the Elysion yet, so it might well have them too. There's certainly plenty of hatches that could be for Destroids, AA guns or missile launchers to pop out of. Not to mention all those tracers that fire out of nowhere in particular on every ship during battle.

Also, I don't need to cite the doujin anymore, given that pictures of the DX toy proved that even the doujin was way too optimistic about the internal spaces of the ARMD-L. There's absolutely no way you could fit Rabbit 1 inside the actual ARMD-L - it's too narrow and too shallow in the hull for most of its length, and the place where the hangar would go is where the arm *does* go. I suspect Rabbit 1 and the Queadlunns are actually hangared within the arm, not the ARMD...

Edited July 10, 2016 by SebastianP

[Seto Kaiba]

First off, you missed one turret then, as there's one at the back of the crotch that's only been visible very briefly.

It shall henceforth be known as Turret #2 for reasons that should be obvious.

As a complete fighting unit, the ship has more guns than the Battle Frontier and Macross Quarter Movie version combined, [...]

As indicated previously, the Battle-class has far more guns than merely those that are mounted externally on the upper hull.

Also indicated previously was the fact that the number of gun turrets on the Macross Quarter-class varies from ship to ship.

The third previously indicated point was that the existence of a macross cannon on both the Aether and Hemera is purely conjecture at this point.

It should, I suppose, also be noted that the sheer number of guns is no guarantee of power either...and that as a PMC ship its weapons are likely less potent than the military's, given previous statements about the restriction of arms sales to emigrant fleets and non-governmental organizations.

[...] And the Macross cannon may not have been fired at full power - either because it didn't have enough time to charge up to full capacity, or because the ship was firing it in an atmosphere. There's also the whole deal with how the Macross cannons of previous ships have been much more impressive at range than up close -

There's no indication anywhere in that scene that the Macross Elysion's macross cannon was firing at anything less than full strength. Surely it'd be a bit mental to NOT go all-in when your aim is to disable or even destroy an ancient Protoculture ship apparently many times more powerful than your own.

Also, I don't believe I've ever seen an official source say that energy weapons of any type are less effective or required to operate at reduced power in atmosphere. I've only ever seen that in the Palladium Books RPG lines... which is one of their sillier NERF-ings.

Use at range is kind of the point too... especially with the bigger implementations of the technology like the Battle-class's gunship or the Macross Cannon-class gunships which are essentially for destroying enemy fleets in one shot. It's only the small, comparatively low powered implementations that we see used at extremely short ranges.

I think the shot in episode 13 is one of the closest range Macross cannon shots we've gotten to date, excepting when SDF-1 fires its last shot during the rebuild arc.

Arguably, the SMS Macross Quarter's first outing in the Macross Frontier series was a macross cannon shot from as close if not closer... the Knight-class Vajra ship it destroyed took a hit from its macross cannon at a range of only a few kilometers.

As for retractable guns - we don't have any official specs saying either one way or the other for the Elysion yet, so it might well have them too. There's certainly plenty of hatches that could be for Destroids, AA guns or missile launchers to pop out of. Not to mention all those tracers that fire out of nowhere in particular on every ship during battle.

As small as the Macross Elysion is, I would assume that it's probably not equipped with retractable guns... unless they're AA guns. (There do seem to be a pair of large slits with AA guns on the sides of the legs.)

Also, I don't need to cite the doujin anymore, given that pictures of the DX toy proved that even the doujin was way too optimistic about the internal spaces of the ARMD-L. There's absolutely no way you could fit Rabbit 1 inside the actual ARMD-L - it's too narrow and too shallow in the hull for most of its length, and the place where the hangar would go is where the arm *does* go. I suspect Rabbit 1 and the Queadlunns are actually hangared within the arm, not the ARMD...

... so you're citing a toy instead. At best that's a lateral move in terms of reliability.

[SebastianP]

As small as the Macross Elysion is, I would assume that it's probably not equipped with retractable guns... unless they're AA guns. (There do seem to be a pair of large slits with AA guns on the sides of the legs.)

... so you're citing a toy instead. At best that's a lateral move in terms of reliability.

*sigh*

You say that as if the official specs were any more reliable than the toys or the doujins, for anything except the VFs.

The more I look at the actual footage, the more evidence I'm seeing that whoever writes the ship specs are talking out of their asses because the footage doesn't support the official stats. The ARMD-L can't be a mere 200 meters long, therefore the Quarter can't be 450 or whatever. The Aether can't be less than about 600 meters, therefore the Elysion can't be 828 meters. They may have intended them to be that size, but the final product dwarfs the intended size.

(even Frontier is rife with animation errors. The first shot of Alto's Super Messiah rising on the elevator in episode 7, which I'm watching right now? There is no elevator with that shape on the overall 3D model of the Quarter...)

Edit:

Supporting image found:

The flight deck is physically not thick enough to hold a hangar, and the actual hull is something along the lines of a hundred meters long and less than twenty wide - IF the ARMD-L is >200 meters.

Edit2: Since I just noticed that I added a supporting image for an argument I'd deleted, let's just put the argument back in. I was using the toy as a reference because it was the only one I had at the time for what the underside of the ARMD-L looked like, since all the reviews I've seen say it's really close to the line art except for the ARMD-R being too short in Cruiser mode (IIRC). The toy showed that there was no possibility of a battroid-height rear hangar, because that's where the arm of the Quarter goes. The image above proves the toy accurate in this respect.

Also, I figure I should mention that you can't see the elevators on the underside, meaning they have to retract solely into the deck. Which means the deck has to be thick enough to be a hangar, which means it has to be bigger than the 200 meters we're told it is, because the proportions of the deck thickness to ship length can be calculated...

It would be so much easier on everyone if the ship designers actually measured the finished design instead of using their initial design targets when writing the specs.

Edited July 10, 2016 by SebastianP

[David Hingtgen]

Turret #2 is better than docking port #1 in the same scene....

[Seto Kaiba]

*sigh*

You say that as if the official specs were any more reliable than the toys or the doujins, for anything except the VFs.

The official stats are, as the term would imply, official... and therefore tend to have the last word on the matter.

The more I look at the actual footage, the more evidence I'm seeing that whoever writes the ship specs are talking out of their asses because the footage doesn't support the official stats. The ARMD-L can't be a mere 200 meters long, therefore the Quarter can't be 450 or whatever. The Aether can't be less than about 600 meters, therefore the Elysion can't be 828 meters. They may have intended them to be that size, but the final product dwarfs the intended size.

(even Frontier is rife with animation errors. The first shot of Alto's Super Messiah rising on the elevator in episode 7, which I'm watching right now? There is no elevator with that shape on the overall 3D model of the Quarter...)

So far, all we've seen from you on this is a circular set of unverifiable claims based on your particular interpretation of a scene, fan works, or toys.

Oddly enough, the toy doesn't support your contention... as the scale Valkyries that come with it do in fact fit in the deck elevators and there's clearly quite a lot of space to work with.

Turret #2 is better than docking port #1 in the same scene....

It's such a small docking port too... but then, space is awfully cold.

[SebastianP]

The official stats are, as the term would imply, official... and therefore tend to have the last word on the matter.

So far, all we've seen from you on this is a circular set of unverifiable claims based on your particular interpretation of a scene, fan works, or toys.

Oddly enough, the toy doesn't support your contention... as the scale Valkyries that come with it do in fact fit in the deck elevators and there's clearly quite a lot of space to work with.

Just show me where there's standing room for battroids or Queadlunns on that ship?

[calubin_175]

http://dalong.net/review/etc/md01/md01_i.htm

Manual of VF-31. Looks like all Siegfrieds are modified from VF-31A Kailos by Chaos. It is installed with a fold wave system. The multipurpose container could also be switched out for emergency supply drop pod, fold booster attachment unit, and atmospheric reentry personnel transportation pod.

[azrael]

http://dalong.net/review/etc/md01/md01_i.htm

Manual of VF-31. Looks like all Siegfrieds are modified from VF-31A Kailos by Chaos. It is installed with a fold wave system. The multipurpose container could also be switched out for emergency supply drop pod, fold booster attachment unit, and atmospheric reentry personnel transportation pod.

PDF of the flyer was released at the end of June so we know most of it.

[zathras]

PDF of the flyer was released at the end of June so we know most of it.

Seems like a hybrid transformation of the VF-19 and VF-24/25 frame. Looks more stable considering that the main body can twist left/right making it more flexible in combat so that it didn't need to turn the entire main body just to aim sideways.

Noticed some things, the cityship on Ragna is from the first generation of cityships that was built after the Megaroad ships weren't built anymore. I was under the assumption that as early as Macross5 cityships have the clamshell cover on them but the cityship Elysion doesn't have one. Since we saw a Megaroad class ship arrive at Windermere, did the colonists built their own cityship once they had landed. Was wondering where that Megaroad ship land on Windermere or did they continued exploring the rest of the Windermere star cluster?

Also has anyone found any birds on Windermere yet? For a culture that worships the wind and double winged birds, i haven't seen any birds at all. Then again nuking a planet with a dimension eater should cause catastrophic environmental change to its surface. On Eden, it's very windy with lots of wind turbine towers and there's lots of birds with a giant Sauro Bird too. I was expecting Windermere to be like Eden but probably colder.

[RedWolf]

Also has anyone found any birds on Windermere yet? For a culture that worships the wind and double winged birds, i haven't seen any birds at all. Then again nuking a planet with a dimension eater should cause catastrophic environmental change to its surface. On Eden, it's very windy with lots of wind turbine towers and there's lots of birds with a giant Sauro Bird too. I was expecting Windermere to be like Eden but probably colder.

We saw bird like creatures in Windermere scenes in an early episode right after their declaration of war.

At first it was ambiguous whether the Drakens can fold on their own without noticeable fold boosters but the latest ep showed they fold by themselves without support ships.

We have to wait for a magazine or Macross Chronicle to confirm it. It may be the Lil'Draken could serve as fold boosters.

[Seto Kaiba]

Seems like a hybrid transformation of the VF-19 and VF-24/25 frame. Looks more stable considering that the main body can twist left/right making it more flexible in combat so that it didn't need to turn the entire main body just to aim sideways.

The VF-31's transformation is a slightly modified version of the transformation from the YF-30 Chronos in Macross 30: Voices Across the Galaxy... which carries the fairly straightforward explanation that the VF-31 is a further development (and production version) of the YF-30.

Noticed some things, the cityship on Ragna is from the first generation of cityships that was built after the Megaroad ships weren't built anymore. I was under the assumption that as early as Macross5 cityships have the clamshell cover on them but the cityship Elysion doesn't have one. Since we saw a Megaroad class ship arrive at Windermere, did the colonists built their own cityship once they had landed. Was wondering where that Megaroad ship land on Windermere or did they continued exploring the rest of the Windermere star cluster?

Well, yes and no. It's "yes" because it's clearly supposed to be one of the very earliest New Macross-class city ships, or one of the smaller support dome ships seen escorting the Macross-1 fleet in the pre-opening sequence early in Macross 7. It's "no" because the design that we're actually looking at is wrong... the CG model is a slightly tweaked reuse of the Island-1 model from Macross Frontier. To not have a shell, it has to be part of either the Macross-1 or Macross-2 fleets, since Macross-5 had a shell and we know that Macross-3 and Macross-4 settled on Eden 3 and Sephira respectively.

Given that we know Megaroad-04 established a human colony on Windermere, and that said human presence was pretty much wiped out by that dimension eater warhead seven years before Macross Delta, it's highly probable the Megaroad-04 was the center of the city of Carlyle (now the large, glowing crater known as Scarfell).

Also has anyone found any birds on Windermere yet? For a culture that worships the wind and double winged birds, i haven't seen any birds at all. Then again nuking a planet with a dimension eater should cause catastrophic environmental change to its surface. On Eden, it's very windy with lots of wind turbine towers and there's lots of birds with a giant Sauro Bird too. I was expecting Windermere to be like Eden but probably colder.

We've seen the Aerial Knights watching birds on a few occasions. No idea how big they are, since they're only ever seen from a distance. They do, curiously, appear to have four wings.

At first it was ambiguous whether the Drakens can fold on their own without noticeable fold boosters but the latest ep showed they fold by themselves without support ships.

We have to wait for a magazine or Macross Chronicle to confirm it. It may be the Lil'Draken could serve as fold boosters.

They keep cutting away from the fold effect while it's still open... so it's still not demonstrated that the Drakens can fold on their own.

(There may be a ship behind them, or they may be using something like the fold stones on Uroboros to traverse distances without a fold drive of their own.)

[kalvasflam]

I would be interested in how a standard NUNS battle fleet would be organized. The general doctrine appears to center around distant strikes using carriers as the long arm, and Northamptons and stealth cruisers more as defensive units. Have we ever seen a formal NUNS battle fleet or battle group? One where the ships would be used in more direct combat.

The closest one I can think of is the Galaxy rescue by the Quarter, there, the Quarter launched with Uragas, Northamptons, and Guantanamos in support. The fleet that was sent to Windermere is perhaps another example, but that was not different from a standard planetary defense fleet. It seems like outside of a Macross type centered group, the NUNS fleet isn't centralized about any particular type of command ship, perhaps a Uraga or a Stealth cruiser type ship. In a lot of ways, this seems strange since there are still rogue Zentradi fleets. In such a case, a standard defensive fleet would hardly seem adequate compared to the Zentradi ships that are more close combat types.

I would have envisioned a battle fleet being centered around a standard Macross class (SDF type) with secondary carriers, stealth frigates and cruisers in support, and may be a couple of Quarter type ships in advance combat role. That would give a rogue Zentradi fleet a run for its money. The Northampton heavy fleet with Uragas just doesn't seem as plausible.

[tout-puissant]

Well, with the arguable exception of the Battle 13 carrier, we have yet to really see a Macross-type ship operating independently of some large civilian / colonial organization. Pretty much since Macross Plus, whenever we've seen UNS/NUNS solo fleet action it's been with the smaller ships:

- Isamu's deep space assignment

- The research fleet that went to Varauta

- The VF-X teams from those games

The entire Earth planetary fleet in 2040 had no hint of anything bigger than an Uraga in orbit either, though I'd be reasonably sure there was SOMETHING Macrossesque up there - just not visible to distract we nerds from the YF-19/21 mecha porn.

To a certain extent this is reasonable - you don't have the big bad guns merely floating around. In the Macross verse, your principal element of force projection would be your colonial fleets, so you'd give them the Macross-type ships to meet the bad guys in unexplored space. Closer to home in controlled space, which arguably includes the Brisinglr cluster, you don't need it to simply keep the peace (unless you're a contractor like Chaos, who could need a cool symbol to rally around). In today's military, the USN has carrier groups, but aside from that all the other smaller task forces are groups of destroyers and cruisers who cruise around in very small deployments or even solo (and in the case of submarines, exclusively so).

So I'd imagine that almost all the Macross-type ships in the Delta era are busy fulfilling their primary mission of protecting colonial fleets. I've no doubt there would be bigger guns free-floating, but they would be pretty rare and perhaps hard to mobilize - physically or politically. Thing is of course, if it were THAT simple to bring in an NMBC (or whatever else they have that could level large parts of a given planet's topology), they'd simply do it and make for a less exciting show.

But if you think about it, the governments today IRL have access to doomsday weapons and don't use them either to invade countries or to enforce policy. Perhaps by having an NMBC come in and destroy the capital city of whoever was disagreeing with them, NUNS would look REALLY bad to everyone else...

Mark

[kalvasflam]

I'm not so sure I'd agree with the force projection through colonial fleet concept... because that isn't the primary charter of the colony fleet. The NUNS principle charter is to essentially spread like cockroaches so that it is hard to eliminate all of humanity at once, Battle classes would be the key defenders of each said colony. But in a serious conflict, would have its hands tied defending the colonist and not be quite as free to operate with impunity. I.e. making a tactical withdraw when necessary. I would think that it still make sense to have certain very large assets in major developed worlds against the potential of a rogue Zentradi fleet or the Vajra show up.

I would agree that it would be reasonable to not have a bunch of big guns free floating, but you would suspect that there would be major bases around which significant naval assets are based. You can imagine for example in the Earth system, there could be a couple of major orbital bases, where Battle class, or Macross class are routinely docked. They would periodically go on cruises just like USN carrier groups. They would potentially follow the deployment pattern of the USN, i.e. one or two battle class with support ships roaming around a certain region while other SDF classes attached to certain regional commands are usually docked and at a lower state of readiness.

It would be an interesting to see more about it, sadly, we won't get that chance in the series. There is also the question of how fold travel actually works, and the topography of the galaxy given the existence of fold faults.

[RedWolf]

The Varauta colony built for itself the 4km long Fleet Flagship Carrier with the firepower of 8 Macross cannons and 10 large reaction missiles able to kill an entire 1,000 ship Zentradi fleet by itself. And under the Protodevlin they built a fleet numbering 502 ships in two years.

Varauta colony was confirmed to have several hundred thousand colonists how they were able to build such a fleet is a mystery.

Now we see colonies in Delta with comparable or greater population numbers yet are not fielding the numbers Varauta did.

Maybe they lucked out with a Protoculture factory satellite like Ouroboros did.

Edited July 12, 2016 by RedWolf

[tout-puissant]

Perhaps "force projection" isn't the best terminology, but the big colonization fleets are what Earth has getting the flag out that Humanity is rockin' the galaxy, crisscrossing known and unknown space looking to propagate the species (and succeeding -with the "then what happens?" question being addressed in Delta to a large extent).

But the Macross verse should be a relatively peaceful, if flawed, society on the whole. And we know that NUNS was reorganized so that they wouldn't NEED a huge fleet of doomsday ships patrolling known space for the next upstart state to cause a ruckus.

So wither the big ships? In theory, lots of those initial colony fleets should have found a place to settle by now. We've always thought that the UNS/NUNS fleets that accompanied them would form the local garrison, but if so, where are up to two dozen Battle-class ships? Sitting around like Elysion was on Ragna, pulling an SDF-1 impression? Perhaps Kawamori and co were careful not to show an NMBC in those flashback sequences to keep people from concluding that there WOULD be a big ship somewhere local?

Mark

[kalvasflam]

More likely it is a plot device. After all, no one cares if a Uraga dies, but a Macross or Battle class. That will make people howl. This is always a problem for making hero units. The death must be rare and climactic.

And not many people care about Northamptons and Guantanamos.

Now, what might make sense is that there are a few Macross and battle class ships as stand alones, but as each colony fleet settles, the corresponding Battle or Macross are released and become I would guess the defender of the system. As the system defense improves, the corresponding class is then released to join a local group of heavy ships. Sometimes they are called away never to be returned, sometimes they get killed, sometime a single ship out of several in a cluster of system is set up as a defender of the cluster (especially if the cluster is peaceful or a backwater) or even get turned over to private contractors. That might explain the Elysion situation. Especially if all the local planets got stronger and stronger fleets.

I know I am just rationalizing here.

[RedWolf]

Well with SDFNs we know it has two possible fate after completing a mission. The SDFN-04 Global was assigned to a research fleet. The SDFN-08 Vrlitwhai and another SDFN in Macross Extra got stay on an emigrated planet.

We know Eden 3 and Sephira in VF-X2 were settled by New Macross fleets but we haven't seen their City class or Battle class.

As for Barette City. I'm thinking it didn't come with a Battle class.

The docking port looks like the size of an Uruga.

The island when it first arrived on Ragna with Uruga escorts. Can't make out the lead vessel.

[JB0]

Perhaps "force projection" isn't the best terminology, but the big colonization fleets are what Earth has getting the flag out that Humanity is rockin' the galaxy, crisscrossing known and unknown space looking to propagate the species (and succeeding -with the "then what happens?" question being addressed in Delta to a large extent).

Also colony fleets apparently are (or at least used to be) under standing orders to eliminate any zentraedi fleets they stumbled across, and not to attempt to escape or "culturize" them.

That, by necessity, implies a not-insignificant surplus of power beyond what they need for a defensive escort.

And by "not-insignificant surplus", I of course mean that they haul planet-destroying quantities of firepower around just so they can fight their way through if they happen to stumble across a very low-odds encounter that they don't, tactically speaking, HAVE to fight their way through.

I think it is safe to say that, official charter or not, colony fleets are ABSOLUTELY about force projection.

Also, for a flippant comedy episode, Fleet of the Strongest Women was KINDA DARK just under the surface.

Edited July 12, 2016 by JB0

[RedWolf]

Also depends on the fleet government. Macross 29 has a pacifist stance that it s causing them a recession. Military-industrial complex is important to the economy who knew? Voldorans are fine with a NUNS presence on their planet as it props up their economy.

[This Confuses Gamlin]

Al-Shahal appears to have a role as a trading hub, but Ragna and Voldor look like they get by on tourism.

[Seto Kaiba]

I would be interested in how a standard NUNS battle fleet would be organized. The general doctrine appears to center around distant strikes using carriers as the long arm, and Northamptons and stealth cruisers more as defensive units. Have we ever seen a formal NUNS battle fleet or battle group? One where the ships would be used in more direct combat.

All told, I doubt the composition of a New UN Spacy battle group would be any different from the local New UN Spacy escort/defense fleets we've seen.

The Zentradi Army's fleets will always have the advantage of numbers and capital ship firepower, so getting drawn into a capital ship slugging match is fighting on their terms... which is suicidal at best. The ideal way to deal with the Zentradi is, ironically, the way they dealt with Earth: get the drop on them and deliver a knockout punch with overwhelming firepower before they have a chance to shoot back. Presumably it's that tactical ethos that's why the New UN Spacy has built so much of its fleet around stealth warships. Even the Battle-class supercarriers are stealth warships, supported by stealth carriers, stealth cruisers, and stealth frigates... the goal being to either hold them off long enough for a Macross Cannon to have the last word in the matter, or let the fighters take the enemy fleet to pieces with thermonuclear reaction missiles once they're shorn of their air cover.

It's a lot like how modern fleets work... the cruisers, the frigates, and so on are there mainly to protect the carriers, which carry the real offensive power of the fleet.

So I'd imagine that almost all the Macross-type ships in the Delta era are busy fulfilling their primary mission of protecting colonial fleets. I've no doubt there would be bigger guns free-floating, but they would be pretty rare and perhaps hard to mobilize - physically or politically. Thing is of course, if it were THAT simple to bring in an NMBC (or whatever else they have that could level large parts of a given planet's topology), they'd simply do it and make for a less exciting show.

That's why the situation in the Brisingr cluster is so confusing... there ought to be at least one, more likely several, Battle-class macrosses kicking around the cluster protecting the colonies there that were set up by the 3rd Generation and later emigrant fleets.

The Varauta colony built for itself the 4km long Fleet Flagship Carrier with the firepower of 8 Macross cannons and 10 large reaction missiles able to kill an entire 1,000 ship Zentradi fleet by itself. And under the Protodevlin they built a fleet numbering 502 ships in two years.

Varauta colony was confirmed to have several hundred thousand colonists how they were able to build such a fleet is a mystery.

Now we see colonies in Delta with comparable or greater population numbers yet are not fielding the numbers Varauta did.

Maybe they lucked out with a Protoculture factory satellite like Ouroboros did.

Like the fleet flagship carrier, many of the warships that the Protodeviln employed were previously defense assets from the Varauta colony... built up over the 18 years between the establishment of the colony on Varauta and their accidental release of the Protodeviln. (Being reduced to an unquestioning slave-labor army probably helped speed construction of any new ships they needed to make too...)

Why there are so few NUNS ships kicking around the Brisingr cluster is a big nagging question hanging over the Macross Delta series. The average-sized 3rd Generation emigrant fleet had close on two hundred ships, and supposedly the average colony in the early 2030's had close to eighty warships in orbit. The individual worlds of the Brisingr cluster seem to never have more than 2-3 dozen at any given time, which is decidedly odd.

More likely it is a plot device. After all, no one cares if a Uraga dies, but a Macross or Battle class. That will make people howl. This is always a problem for making hero units. The death must be rare and climactic.

And not many people care about Northamptons and Guantanamos.

That's probably it, actually... if the local New UN Spacy defense fleets had been anything like the size that previous Macross works say they should be, then Windermere's Aerial Knights and/or Walkure and Delta Platoon would be up sh*t creek with neither paddle nor boat. It may be infuriating to watch, but it's not entirely unreasonable that the elite among the superhuman Aerial Knights could take out a few light warships and a dozen or so Nightmare Pluses each in a pitched battle... but I don't think anyone would be able to suspend disbelief if the couple dozen Aerial Knights and their handful of ships somehow defeated an actual full-strength defense fleet with over a hundred frigates, sixty carriers, a Battle-class supercarrier, and thousands of VFs. The law of averages alone would dictate that they'd end up with their bodies occupying the same space as roughly eleventy billion bullets and beam CIWS shots. Similarly, you could expect the Macross Elysion to hold out against a handful of warships while they sing the crews back to their senses, but they'd just get butchered if they were facing down hundreds of NUNS warships all at once.

[Ghostbear0]

Delta has the biggist arena and largest cast yet but everything seems to be decided by the same 20 people and 11 VF's. Where are the bloody Vared forces? They do their initial So as out then disappear. Is Windermere so tight on manpower they can't wrangle their zombie hord?

[eko.prasetiyo]

and are other kaos branch has "elysion" class macross as their local HQ on every planet?

[Nazareno2012]

and are other kaos branch has "elysion" class macross as their local HQ on every planet?

Based on episode 12 they use frigates and the Elysion is assigned to their HQ at Ragna.

[RedWolf]

Interesting thing Fulbtzs-Berrentz is pronounced as Furubusu-Valence. Which sounds like the the Sigur Valens (Shiguru-Valence).

[Zinjo]

The Varauta colony built for itself the 4km long Fleet Flagship Carrier with the firepower of 8 Macross cannons and 10 large reaction missiles able to kill an entire 1,000 ship Zentradi fleet by itself. And under the Protodevlin they built a fleet numbering 502 ships in two years.

Varauta colony was confirmed to have several hundred thousand colonists how they were able to build such a fleet is a mystery.

Now we see colonies in Delta with comparable or greater population numbers yet are not fielding the numbers Varauta did.

Maybe they lucked out with a Protoculture factory satellite like Ouroboros did.

That was the point I was going to make.

Though the flagship of Varauta appears to be a unique instance among colonies.

So far as we've yet to see anything like this with the older colonies of the Brisingr Cluster. Perhaps it was a joint defence pact between the worlds that saw no need to build a "big stick" ship like the Varauta Flag Ship.

It also gives credence to the idea that when a fleet colonizes a world it's Macross Warship is redeployed to other duties once the colony is determined to be self sufficient.

The Macross 4 Global appears as though it was re-purposed to the Galia 4 mission, I would expect it was, at one point, assigned to an emigration fleet.

Edited July 13, 2016 by Zinjo

[Solo Wing Pixy]

I would be interested in how a standard NUNS battle fleet would be organized. The general doctrine appears to center around distant strikes using carriers as the long arm, and Northamptons and stealth cruisers more as defensive units. Have we ever seen a formal NUNS battle fleet or battle group? One where the ships would be used in more direct combat.

The closest one I can think of is the Galaxy rescue by the Quarter, there, the Quarter launched with Uragas, Northamptons, and Guantanamos in support. The fleet that was sent to Windermere is perhaps another example, but that was not different from a standard planetary defense fleet. It seems like outside of a Macross type centered group, the NUNS fleet isn't centralized about any particular type of command ship, perhaps a Uraga or a Stealth cruiser type ship. In a lot of ways, this seems strange since there are still rogue Zentradi fleets. In such a case, a standard defensive fleet would hardly seem adequate compared to the Zentradi ships that are more close combat types.

I would have envisioned a battle fleet being centered around a standard Macross class (SDF type) with secondary carriers, stealth frigates and cruisers in support, and may be a couple of Quarter type ships in advance combat role. That would give a rogue Zentradi fleet a run for its money. The Northampton heavy fleet with Uragas just doesn't seem as plausible.

Perhaps this could give some justification to the poor performance of NUNS pilots/mooks. Their presumed focus on combined arms doctrines means that they may have to trade off individual skill in exchange, considering the fact that the NUNS is a regular military force that is quite large.

[kalvasflam]

Perhaps this could give some justification to the poor performance of NUNS pilots/mooks. Their presumed focus on combined arms doctrines means that they may have to trade off individual skill in exchange, considering the fact that the NUNS is a regular military force that is quite large.

I just can't see that, combined arms still means a level of coordination, and we just don't see that in Delta. You can't argue that the Windermeres were anything but outnumbered from the beginning. The reasonable explanation for the mooks were that these guys were castoff in a backwater sector. In combined arms tactics, you still have to do your part. The tactics of a carrier centric NUNS fleet means the pilots have to be especially competent, because they are both the striking arm and just as important the defending arm of the heavy guns and the more vulnerable carriers.

From that perspective, even if the individuals aren't all aces, a full squadron of them should be able to work together to fight off the ace with few if any losses. Because if they can't do that, then they would fare very poorly against any kind of truly organized fighter attacks.

[This Confuses Gamlin]

Is it a genre thing, that it ends up coming down to one on one super pilots?

The first example that comes to mind about multiple pilots in less-maneuverable fighters versus a smaller number of pilots in better fighters is the US Navy fighting Zeroes in WWII. Mirage, Hayate, and Chuck try it versus Keith, and while it should work, it fails because Keith and Hayate have to Super Saiyan their problems.

[Mr March]

Interesting thing Fulbtzs-Berrentz is pronounced as Furubusu-Valence. Which sounds like the the Sigur Valens (Shiguru-Valence).

Oh, interesting. I didn't know that. I'll have to make a note. I think yo'u're right that there may be some connection just based on the similar sounding words. But perhaps it's nothing more than a small pronunciation hommage.

[RedWolf]

Reading the Macross F Japanese wikipedia page it seems to suggest Fold Ore is also called Fold Coal. As the name suggest Fold Ore are mined. We see this with Vajra harvesting asteroids near dead stars in Frontier. Fold Coal has impurities on it. Where as Fold Carbon can be produced by human technology to low purity quartz.

Which reminds me in Macross Plus the Planet Banipal has coal mines.

If the Brisingr globular cluster is rich in Fold Ore/Coal I can see why mining companies would want it taken back from Windermere.

Oh, interesting. I didn't know that. I'll have to make a note. I think yo'u're right that there may be some connection just based on the similar sounding words. But perhaps it's nothing more than a small pronunciation hommage.

Like Rudanjal Rom Mayan which means In the name of the king. Could be like the Mayan tribe worshiping the "Protokulcha" Windermereans have some programmed genetic memory going on.

Oh according to the Zentradi weapons Japanese wikipedia page the Golg Boddole Zer type main fortress occupied by the Vajra in Macross Frontier Wings of Goodbye novel adaptation was the Koper main fleet flagship Furubusu-Anfaresu.

Source: Kodachi Ukyo "Theatrical Feature Macross F (below) Sayonara no Tsubasa" Kadokawa Shoten, 2011, pg 52.

Edited July 14, 2016 by RedWolf

[Zinjo]

I am not sure if this has been mentioned but "Kairos" is a related term to Chronos. Each being a Greek term to express "Time".

Chronos = Sequential or continuous time

Kairos = A period in time, like a season

Nice way to tie the VF-31A to the YF-30...

Edited July 14, 2016 by Zinjo

[Mr March]

Like Rudanjal Rom Mayan which means In the name of the king. Could be like the Mayan tribe worshiping the "Protokulcha" Windermereans have some programmed genetic memory going on.

Oh according to the Zentradi weapons Japanese wikipedia page the Golg Boddole Zer type main fortress occupied by the Vajra in Macross Frontier Wings of Goodbye novel adaptation was the Koper main fleet flagship Furubusu-Anfaresu.

Source: Kodachi Ukyo "Theatrical Feature Macross F (below) Sayonara no Tsubasa" Kadokawa Shoten, 2011, pg 52.

Oh very nice. I've been wondering about that one. Gotta note that too. Thanks!