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The story
On 5ch’s general live-commentary board (Nandemo Jikkyo G), a discussion took off from the question: “Can the machine guns mounted on Gundam-series warships actually shoot down enemy units?” Opinions split over how visual interception could even work under the in-universe radar jamming caused by Minovsky particles, and whether locally-controlled computers should be able to auto-aim without relying on radar at all. The thread also wandered into why bridges are designed to be so exposed, whether funnels are actually practical weapons, and why mobile suits’ limited range forces the mothership itself onto the front line.
What people said
That's basically how the old G Generation games worked.
Make a Newtype the ship's captain and its support fire hits 100% of the time.
It turned J.Q.'s Zaku into a beehive (riddled it with holes).
One of the iconic scenes.
It's outer space, so there's no air resistance to worry about,
and since there's no pilot aboard there's no acceleration limit either —
a weapon designed under those conditions,
and you're going to intercept it visually in the dark of space where radar doesn't even work?
I mean, they'd only use the machine guns once the target's within visual range or roughly locatable, surely.
Those were defensive weapons.
Dive bombers disappeared in the latter half of the Pacific War
because anti-aircraft guns got properly equipped.
Tracking and firing at a moving target is local processing, so jamming shouldn't matter.
Even mobile suits detect approaching objects and sound a warning, so they should be able to track it.
You think?
Radar targeting doesn't work because of Minovsky particles (nicknamed 'Mino-ko'), so visual aiming should matter a lot, no?
That's like manually going up against a cheater with auto-aim and auto-fire in a video game.
There's already the mega particle cannon for that.
At least in the retro-futuristic world of the original Mobile Suit Gundam, that's how it is.
Like I already said, it's local control, so jamming — i.e. Minovsky particles — shouldn't be relevant.
No human can match a computer that reacts instantly.
Mobile suits themselves already rely heavily on computer control anyway.
I mean in terms of target detection.
You can't fire while watching a radar screen, so it comes down to eyeballing it.
Victory Gundam actually shows that high concentrations of Minovsky particles mess with electronics.
Re: #40
Since it's local control, anything a human can visually confirm, a computer can too.
Even in a mobile suit, the pilot only sees anything through a camera in the first place.
Have you never seen the machine-gun turret seats on a Gundam warship?
That's exactly the point — the computer's 'eyes' are the ones malfunctioning.
Because a mobile suit alone doesn't have that much range.
Thrusters aren't infinite either.
Mobile suits are basically the only thing that can land an effective hit on a warship, and since their range isn't that long, the mothership has no choice but to push forward.
It wouldn't.
If the camera were malfunctioning, humans couldn't see through it either.
If it's working fine, then the local computer should be able to control it too.
And if even the local computer breaks down, mobile suits wouldn't be practical weapons in the first place.
That's why I'm saying the warship's gun seats aren't monitors.
So does that mean the computer does direct optical observation without going through a data cable…?
I'd love to see how that mechanism actually works.
Even by Unicorn's UC 0096, this is what radar still looks like:
Really?
As a weapon controlled by thought alone, it's pretty impressive though?
Makes sense as an evolution, since keeping 360-degree watch by hand would be brutal.
Re: #85
You should first point out exactly where all these flaws are.
In the story, funnels fall out of fashion but eventually culminate in something called 'Gengaozo.'
Same deal in Star Wars, though.
You need an obvious weak point.
Don't forget this is a promotional anime made to sell toys to kids.
In the back half of the SEED movie, when Murrue said 'Leave the rest to you!' and then moved to that punishment seat that's totally exposed from outside — that made zero sense to me.
I think there were wire-guided missiles, weren't there?
Knock out electromagnetic waves and guided missiles stop working — that was true back in the 1980s.
But as time went on, real-world missiles combining lasers, optical tracking, and AI showed up, verily.
The Universal Century's tech is outdated now.
Zipping around the battlefield at high thrust while scattering funnels everywhere seems like it'd be strong.
If you prioritize efficiency too much, the most practical mass-production unit ends up looking like this:
Background and Key Points of the Debate
In the Gundam universe, the presence of “Minovsky particles,” which jam radio waves, disables long-range radar and missile guidance, which is why the setting emphasizes visual confirmation and close-range combat. This discussion takes that premise as a given and asks how mobile suits’ own sensor capabilities square with the role of shipboard machine guns — it’s worth noting there’s no officially confirmed answer here; this is purely fan speculation. The thread split between those arguing that locally-controlled computers should be able to process information equivalent to visual targeting, and those countering that under Minovsky particle interference, visual aiming is unavoidable regardless — no consensus was reached. On the exposed bridge design, some pointed out that the reasoning likely has less to do with in-universe logic and more to do with production considerations tied to toy sales.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G) thread “A science major girl asks: ‘Do Gundam warships really need machine guns? There’s no way those could actually shoot anything down, right?’“
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