Super Macross Mecha Fun Time Discussion Thread!

[aurance]

Does this "higher performance variants for squad leaders" thing have any basis in the real world? Seems like an odd thing to do.

[Sanity is Optional]

4 hours ago, aurance said:

Does this "higher performance variants for squad leaders" thing have any basis in the real world? Seems like an odd thing to do.

Going back to WW2 command variants for armored vehicles were not uncommon, but usually they just had additional communications equipment I believe.

[Seto Kaiba]

6 hours ago, aurance said:

Does this "higher performance variants for squad leaders" thing have any basis in the real world? Seems like an odd thing to do.

Offhand, I am not aware of anything I could point to as a firm example of an aircraft squadron leader being issued a higher-performance aircraft as a matter of regulation or protocol the way Macross depicts.

Military aviation's formative years in World War I did see a number of cases of squadrons composed of a number of different models or variants of aircraft, most infamously ace of aces Baron Manfred von Richthofen's "Flying Circus".  That was more a consequence of the rapid pace of aircraft design development and refinement based on feedback and the preference of the experienced pilots of the era leading directly to the rapid release of iterative improvements.  The Baron von Richthofen is probably the origin of the trope, since despite his fame largely tying him to his Focker Dr.I triplane he actually frequently switched aircraft based on availability as new models were introduced and/or his current aircraft's maintenance needs.

(He's also the origin of the whole "ace pilot color scheme" schtick, thanks to a decision to paint his Albatros D.III bright red.)

I think, all told, the closest you'll get is probably the US Army Air Force's "Flying Tigers" (1AVG) in China during World War II... everyone was flying some extensively modified Curtiss P-40's B, C, and E variants.

 

Mind you, it's worth noting this action figure-friendly choice is the exception rather than the rule in the New UN Forces.  Most main variable fighter models are "one variant fits all" types like the VF-4, VF-11, VF-171, and VF-31.

Edited August 31, 2021 by Seto Kaiba

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, Sanity is Optional said:

Going back to WW2 command variants for armored vehicles were not uncommon, but usually they just had additional communications equipment I believe.

This is true, though there was some variance in the design concept.  

Some command tanks like the Russian T-54K and (Nazi) German Sd.Kfz 267/268 Tiger II sacrificed some of their magazine capacity for additional radio equipment but were otherwise no different from the standard models.

Others, like the (fascist) Italian M42 and British Valentine OP, sacrificed their main weaponry to become dedicated command and control vehicles.

[Keith]

On 8/31/2021 at 6:12 AM, aurance said:

Does this "higher performance variants for squad leaders" thing have any basis in the real world? Seems like an odd thing to do.

Pretty sure it's Char Aznable's Zaku IIS (3 times faster) mixed with real world "Ace" color schemes.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Keith said:

Pretty sure it's Char Aznable's Zaku IIS (3 times faster) mixed with real world "Ace" color schemes.

That's not real world, though.

[Keith]

9 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

That's not real world, though.

Real world in that Kawamori was a huge Gundam fan.

[pengbuzz]

2 hours ago, Keith said:

Real world in that Kawamori was a huge Gundam fan.

Real world is that we don't have ginormous robots just yet. And I could really use one for the next time someone cuts us off in the drive-thru at McDonald! 😠

 

[Seto Kaiba]

4 hours ago, Keith said:

Real world in that Kawamori was a huge Gundam fan.

I mean, there is that... but that connection gets drawn more to Milia than anything, since her signature color is red and she's the enemy "one man army" top ace.

There's no real world precedent I can find or recall for squadron leaders to be issued different variants of the squadron's aircraft with higher performance.

[Keith]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I mean, there is that... but that connection gets drawn more to Milia than anything, since her signature color is red and she's the enemy "one man army" top ace.

There's no real world precedent I can find or recall for squadron leaders to be issued different variants of the squadron's aircraft with higher performance.

That's why I'm pretty sure the origin is equal parts adapting the concept of Aces having custom paint schemes with 70's super robot tropes of team leaders having the "cooler" robots. Think "Black Lion" in Golion, or flying the Cosmo Zero when Kato & his team had the Cosno Tigers.

[Seto Kaiba]

21 minutes ago, Keith said:

That's why I'm pretty sure the origin is equal parts adapting the concept of Aces having custom paint schemes with 70's super robot tropes of team leaders having the "cooler" robots. Think "Black Lion" in Golion, or flying the Cosmo Zero when Kato & his team had the Cosno Tigers.

I'm still doing some research on the topic... the aces-with-custom-paint-schemes thing was a very real thing in the Imperial German Army's Flying Corps.  That much is pretty well-precedented.  Having trouble finding examples of mixed-composition squadrons though.

 

[aurance]

He probably saw me with my friends when I was a kid and they were all bald and only I had the ornate mohawk, clearly the squad leader.

[Seto Kaiba]

So, I've basically come up dry in my research into that topic.

My best guess is that it's a nod to some of the practices in the First World War where ace pilots tended to rotate through multiple aircraft and receive the latest models first, but that's less a deliberate organizational choice and more a matter of those aces being the pilots who came back alive and whose feedback was used to refine aircraft designs.

Either that, or it really is a Gundam reference as @Keith said.

[pengbuzz]

It would seem to be a genre thing, where the pilot who demonstrates himself to be an ace/ hero gets rewarded with a spiffier model than the rest of the squad.

[Gerli]

I always wonder if the Northampton Frigates and other spaceship of that size can land on planets or are made only for use in space... We saw some Zentradi ships landed on Frontier, so maybe they have some kind of landing gear...?

[deathzealot]

6 minutes ago, Gerli said:

I always wonder if the Northampton Frigates and other spaceship of that size can land on planets or are made only for use in space... We saw some Zentradi ships landed on Frontier, so maybe they have some kind of landing gear...?

Wasn't there a shot somewhere in Macross 7 which had Northampton Class ships of the Macross 5 Fleet landing on a planet (Rax?)?

[Keith]

1 hour ago, deathzealot said:

Wasn't there a shot somewhere in Macross 7 which had Northampton Class ships of the Macross 5 Fleet landing on a planet (Rax?)?

Those were water landings. Since they were settling down on Lux, they may not have intended them to lift off again.

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

It would seem to be a genre thing, where the pilot who demonstrates himself to be an ace/ hero gets rewarded with a spiffier model than the rest of the squad.

Granted, it's that way now... but as far as I know that was a mostly unbuilt trope at the time Super Dimension Fortress Macross was made.

In the original Space Battleship Yamato, there was a "hero" fighter in the form of the pair of (prototype?) Cosmo Zero fighters aboard the Yamato to supplement the existing squadrons of Cosmo Tigers.  It's wasn't a squadron leader machine, it was just kinda... around.  The only example that really matches is in Mobile Suit Gundam, where a few of the mobile suits that Char Aznable used (the Zaku II, Z'Gok, and Gelgoog) had command variants.  Though Char was the only one ever really depicted using them in the series so it wasn't immediately clear that they weren't an Ace Custom (and they were, but they were an ace custom OF a command version).

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Gerli said:

I always wonder if the Northampton Frigates and other spaceship of that size can land on planets or are made only for use in space...

Some of the New UN Spacy's postwar ship designs are specifically designed around the idea of operating as conventional navy vessels in addition to operating as space warships.

The Battle-class and Uraga-class, as well as the Saratoga II-type, are examples of this.

Others, like the Guantanamo-class, are supposedly meant for use exclusively in space but can apparently enter the atmosphere and sustain flight using gravity control.  Some may be able to make water landings and then take off again using gravity control.

 

1 hour ago, Gerli said:

We saw some Zentradi ships landed on Frontier, so maybe they have some kind of landing gear...?

Well, one... but it was the assault landing bow section of a Queadol Magdomilla-class command ship, which is specifically meant to enter a planet's atmosphere and land troops.

On other occasions, as in Macross Delta's first episode, the Zentradi ships were shown to simply hover using gravity control rather than land.

 

1 hour ago, deathzealot said:

Wasn't there a shot somewhere in Macross 7 which had Northampton Class ships of the Macross 5 Fleet landing on a planet (Rax?)?

Yes, in episode 23... but it's the command ship attached to a Three Star-class factory ship.  It may have been intended to disconnect itself and return to orbit.

That was a water landing, though, which seems to be the preferred method for landing the larger spacecraft in Macross going back to Macross II: Lovers Again where the UN Spacy had a large water dock complex immediately adjacent to its headquarters that was servicing both captured Zentradi ships and human-built space warships.

[Keith]

5 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Granted, it's that way now... but as far as I know that was a mostly unbuilt trope at the time Super Dimension Fortress Macross was made.

In the original Space Battleship Yamato, there was a "hero" fighter in the form of the pair of (prototype?) Cosmo Zero fighters aboard the Yamato to supplement the existing squadrons of Cosmo Tigers.  It's wasn't a squadron leader machine, it was just kinda... around.  The only example that really matches is in Mobile Suit Gundam, where a few of the mobile suits that Char Aznable used (the Zaku II, Z'Gok, and Gelgoog) had command variants.  Though Char was the only one ever really depicted using them in the series so it wasn't immediately clear that they weren't an Ace Custom (and they were, but they were an ace custom OF a command version).

Yup.

[seti88]

Just putting it here for breakdowns/points of concern....

Approach view:

Fighter underside view:

 

Fighter top view:

Fighter sideview:

 

Fighter close-up:

 

Mag scan posted before;

Edited September 20, 2021 by seti88

[aurance]

Did I already say it looks like a VF-14? Definitely does.

[seti88]

Boggles my mind how the animators can animate that with so many intricate lines. Yea 3d modelling or so forth, but still ...mind blown..

[Knight26]

What I am finding interesting is that the video shows it with a quad-wing layout, but the mag scan is a twin wing.  Makes me wonder if what we see in the video is a variant, if the second set of wings/engines are FAST Packs, or if the magazine scan is an early concept.

I am definitely getting a Variable Glaug crossed with VF-14 vibe out of it.

[seti88]

30 minutes ago, Knight26 said:

What I am finding interesting is that the video shows it with a quad-wing layout, but the mag scan is a twin wing.  Makes me wonder if what we see in the video is a variant, if the second set of wings/engines are FAST Packs, or if the magazine scan is an early concept.

I am definitely getting a Variable Glaug crossed with VF-14 vibe out of it.

Similar to the x wing unfolding and you will see that the wing splits with the wingtip and the top half of the engine, separating from the bottom half of the wing. It’s the same wing and not another fast pack.

[Knight26]

8 minutes ago, seti88 said:

Similar to the x wing unfolding and you will see that the wing splits with the wingtip and the top half of the engine, separating from the bottom half of the wing. It’s the same wing and not another fast pack.

Quite likely, that was my other guess, especially after looking at the Battroid mode.  Those weird RGB neon lines and color saturation though make it harder to make out the details.

[snakerbot]

2 minutes ago, Knight26 said:

Quite likely, that was my other guess, especially after looking at the Battroid mode.  Those weird RGB neon lines and color saturation though make it harder to make out the details.

I think the second set of sub-wings are just visible beneath the main wings.

 

[Bolt]

Surely all that neon must mean it doesn't need a fold booster  😜

[aurance]

30 minutes ago, Bolt said:

Surely all that neon must mean it doesn't need a fold booster  😜

On a related note, I wonder if at some point in the future Kawamori will design Macross fighters with integrated fold boosters.

[pengbuzz]

The Vampire on LSD...

 

[Bolt]

1 hour ago, aurance said:

On a related note, I wonder if at some point in the future Kawamori will design Macross fighters with integrated fold boosters.

I'm assuming it's inevitable. Maybe for project " Uber Nova" 😉

Although, that's one less accessory Bandai gets to dangle in front of us and not release 😜

[Seto Kaiba]

OK, yeah... this new crop of images definitely feels like confirmation of my earlier hypothesis that this is a General Galaxy-made Variable Fighter.

I'm gonna go ahead and call it now.  This is a further development of the Neo Glaug and Neo Glaug bis, the unmanned variable fighter that was the rival prototype to the Ghost X-9 way back in 2040 and found further utility after being reconverted back into a manned variable fighter for the NUNS Marine Corps.  We know the Neo Glaug bis was in use into the late 2050s and 2060s with the Marines and that a few had fallen into the hands of anti-government forces like Naresuan's group Fasces.  

 

2 hours ago, aurance said:

On a related note, I wonder if at some point in the future Kawamori will design Macross fighters with integrated fold boosters.

I have a feeling that's still a good ways off.  Efforts to miniaturize a fold system were problematic enough, since energy storage is the main determiner of a fold system's range and the initial model miniaturized fold systems ("fold boosters") were only good for a one-way trip of not more than 20ly.  It'll be a long time before they can make the unit small enough that it can fit into a VF, and longer still before they can have one store enough power to actually go any useful distance.

[Bolt]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I'm gonna go ahead and call it now.  This is a further development of the Neo Glaug and Neo Glaug bis

Yes, but at what point did CLU come into the users world and take over General Galaxy?? 😜

[Seto Kaiba]

Hm... for a question elsewhere on the boards, I was looking into a section in the VF-25 Master File book that talks about one of the first combat actions of the VF-25 against something other than the Vajra.  

The "Lost Children" segment in the book mentions an engagement where Macross Valiant (Macross-16) is fleeing from a Zentradi main fleet it bumped into and one of her escorts - the CV-455 Barbarossa - goes off on a solo mission to rescue the passengers of an environment ship that wasn't able to get clear in time.  The text describes a six hour engagement against the Zentradi while just forty VF-25s held off several hundred battle pods, racking up 482 confirmed kills with no losses while defending the Barbarossa's evacuation of 1,200 civilians and one terrified dog.  

(The reason I originally went looking for that section was because it described the New UN Forces blowing up one of their own ships - the environment ship in question - with two MDE warheads to prevent it from falling into Zentradi hands.)

[Bolt]

That sounds like one epic battle..!