[MIW] SD RGM-79 GM

 

Mobile Suit Gundam - Universal Century (UC)

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In the early stage of the One Year War, the Earth Federation's dependency on their traditional warships proved to be a grave mistake after their Space Force was decimated by the Principality of Zeon Zaku II mobile suits. This lead to the development of Operation V, to test out the prototype unit RX-78-2 Gundam, which resulted in the Federation's first mass-production mobile suit - the RGM-79 GM. The GM (pronounced as Jim) is the cheaper version of the highly expensive RX-78-2 as a counter plan for the Zeon's Zakus. Though being a substandard version of a Gundam to boost production, the GM has the same tactical design of one - an all-rounder unit capable of beam weaponry. Similar to the Gundam the GM was armed with a beam gun, a machinegun or a bazooka, a single beam saber, a head-mounted Vulcan machinegun, and a shield. An important thing to note here is that the Feds choose to equip their mobile suits with beam guns, instead of the shell-firing gun of the Zeon's suits that is ineffective against heavy armor. Although the GMs are inferior to Zeon's better armor and high-performance unit such as the Rick Doms and Gelgoogs the Feds won almost every campaign by having superiority in MS production and repair capacity. 

The two opposing sides have been approaching a different strategy throughout the war. The Feds championed the idea of quantity over quality, with their fastly produced RB-79 Ball and the GM outnumbered the Zeon's forces.  Meanwhile, the Zeon aimed to win the war by keep producing experimental high-performance mobile suits, that cannot be deployed fast enough to the front lines. They are probably clinging to their early strategic victory of the superior Zakus against the Feds aging fleet. But at the end of the war, the element of surprise is no longer there as the mobile suit's development of the Feds has been on the same level, unlike before. And that's why I love MS Gundam. Not only because of the mobile suits, and the battles, and the political drama, but also the lessons that we learned from it.

This papercraft was designed by MIW, a talented papercraft modeler from Thailand who made SD papercraft models. You can follow his Facebook page here. He generously gave out free models like this one and many more. I would highly suggest you support him by buying his premium models (it's not expensive). They all look good and of high quality. And with SD, means that you have lesser part and are easier to build. For this RGM-79 you can download the template below.