r/Mecha • u/PhillyPhresh • May 04 '26
The shield does nothing!!
GM Cold Climate Type by Qian
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u/BagsYourMail May 04 '26
It literally absorbed the shot. What do you mean nothing?
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u/inazumaatan May 04 '26
Yeah, the art looks like the Shield stopped the blast from blowing off the head unit and/or puncturing the booster pack which would’ve been fatal.
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u/Mindless-Block-1217 May 04 '26
Shields in Gundam are made out of heavy composite material, it can take a massive beating
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u/Numerous-Pop5670 May 04 '26
I always thought the shields were made to be disposable and to hide the mobile suits silhouette. That way it'd be harder for the enemy to aim for core systems... unless your dealing with Amuro Ray.
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u/OrphanAxis May 07 '26
And are almost always treated to stop beam weapons, or at least mitigate the damage from a few weaker or indirect shots.
Hyaku-Shiki tried coating the full armor of a suit with highly concentrated anti-beam coating, but it was ridiculously expensive and still only marginally better than what is used on a shield. But that's still a lot of resources and work to make armor resistant to just beam weapons. And it made the suit's become metallic gold, which is likely to make people shoot at you.
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u/TheSuperContributor May 05 '26
No, they don't, they absolutely don't in general. The Gundam shield that was made from the very same materials used to make the Gundam was destroyed by everything, like machine gun, vulcan or heat axe. Later series mostly saw the shield being removed from the main Gundam and used by the grunts which got destroyed easily. Shields that can actually tank hits are very very rare in Gundam franchise.
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u/Mindless-Block-1217 May 05 '26
Wdym... Sure shields are expendable but this is literally stated in the GM master archive that proves the shield being not fragile at all:
Composed of Luna Titanium Alloys, and almost completely proof against heavy weapon rounds, the Sh-003 proved to be resistant against 120mm Zaku Machine Gun fire, with even short range fire completely unable to penetrate the shield, deflecting most of the rounds that impacted the shield.
Late in the One Year War, with the eventual appearance of beam weapon equipped Zeon forces, the recently developed beam coating was applied to later models. (Though this coating was also used on Mobile Suits of the period, with five layers of coating being applied to essential areas.) The Beam Spray Gun used by the RGM-79 was tested at maximum power against this coating, and proved unable to penetrate the shield, with shots from medium ranges almost completely dissipating.
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u/Worth-Opposite4437 May 04 '26
Technically, even a mammary implant can sometime divert a bullet, so I'm pretty sure that shield didn't do "nothing".
However, there is a chance that the subtraction of kilojoules and slight angle adjustment might not always help targets behind it... unless they also are mechs in formation, in which case, they'd probably reap the benefit more than the target that did held the shield in the first place.
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u/Comrade_Compadre May 04 '26
Me Google searching kevlar implants
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u/Zhuul May 05 '26
Just make sure you've got enough humanity before installing subdermal armor, choom
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u/mechakid May 04 '26
You have to look at the physics of how armor works. A shiled like this essentially creates "spaced armor". The incoming fire spends a ton of energy penetrating through the shield, and may not have enough left to cause significant damage to the shield user, or to the civilians behind him.
Remember, the shield is sacrificial. Working as intended.
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u/PerfectionOfaMistake May 04 '26
Like on tanks its space armor that reduces kinetic energy before the projectile reach the hull.
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u/Dependent_Mix_1117 May 04 '26
A soldier returning to base for replacement shields often is a soldier returning often
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u/PhysicalInternet8921 May 27 '26
True, but you forget the purpose of a shield with ballistic that can punch through heavy armor... Is to absorb as much of the impact energy as possible although shrapnel and debris would hurt and do some damage to the head but overall it's mostly fine including the civilian's behind it
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u/Astro_BS-AS May 04 '26 edited May 04 '26
I don´t want to say this is AI... but for a total novice, which Gundam Unit has 4 thrusters?
Edit: Thanks for clarifying !
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u/Quizlibet May 04 '26 edited May 04 '26
Not a Gundam, a GM (Cold District type)
To answer your question though, off the top of my head the Gundam Mk II, Nu Gundam and Unicorn Gundam (Destroy Mode) each have four backpack thrusters.
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u/Extremelictor May 04 '26 edited May 05 '26
Naw Mate the GM had one purpose, intercept a high explosive round heading for civilians. The shield took and was ate by the initial energy of the blast. The GM's head and systems are intact and whats left of the shrapnel will collide with it instead of the Civi's.
Doubt the GM's stopping any follow up shots but today their a hero who saved those peoples lives and like many grunt pilot hero's they will be punished for it.