[Punipuniman] RB-79 Ball

 

Mobile Suit Gundam - Universal Century (UC)

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Today we have the RB-79 Ball. As the name suggests, it is..well, in fact, a ball, fitted with two mechanical arms and a cannon. At first look, you'll be wondering why such a thing was mass-produced for a war against Zeon's mobile suits. But there's a good reason for it. During the One Year War, the Earth Federation is losing against the Zeon's MS-05B Zaku I and MS-06F Zaku II. Lack of any mobile suits, the Feds eventually developed a weapon program that produced the prototype RX-78-2 Gundam. The RX-78-2 was meant to be the base model to mass-produced the cheaper RGM-79 GM. But the production of the GM is not fast enough to counter the Zeonic forces. So they turned to the technology that they already have...the Ball. The Ball was initially a construction mobile pod deployed to build the space colonies. Being cheaper and faster to build (costs only a quarter of a GM) it was fitted with armor and cannon and was sent to the battlefront. As expected the Balls are going to be overwhelmed by the superior Zakus and earned the nickname "Mobile Coffin" among the Feds pilots. 

It is not without any advantage though. Due to its small footprint, the Ball is a difficult shooting target. And with its lighter weight than its opponent it also has a higher acceleration rate and can outrun most contemporary mobile suits. So the Ball is suited for guerrilla-type hit-and-run tactics when facing the Zakus and the Rick Doms. The Federation strategy is not making RB-79 their main forces mobile suit, but more of a support unit for the GMs. The threat is not with a single Ball, but with numbers, thousands of them. Probably the best achievement of an RB-79 that we can see for ourselves is from The 08th MS Team OVA series. To save a GM pilot - Terry Sanders Jr., the series protagonist Shiro Amada single-handled defeated a Zaku prototype unit piloted by Aina Sahalin. Although to be fair, the RB-79 Type K piloted by Shiro at that moment was probably plated with heavy plot armor, due to its capabilities to survive a direct machine-gun attack to its cockpit. 

The papercraft was designed by punipuniman, with a single sheet of template of colored and a non-colored option. Click below to download the template.