RGC-601 Guncannon Trooper

The RGC-601 Guncannon Trooper is a mobile suit from Mobile Suit Gundam Alpha. It is initially the Earth Federation Star Force's mainline mobile suit, serving as the main power behind its military force before and during the First Galactic War.

Appearance
Looks like a RX-77D Guncannon Mass Production Type from Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket, but redesigned to fit the futuristic setting of GC. Colors vary, but the standard type are the Federation's trademark gunmetal grey with navy blue highlights. The unit utilized by Sayla Mass is painted in blood red with black highlights, while retaining her "Valkyrie of Riah" sigil on its left shoulder.

Technology & Combat Characteristics
After the advent of the Guntank series and the RB-300 Ball, the Earth Federation once again came to produce a new mobile suit to meet the demands of the cosmic battlefield. Deciding to create a mobile suit that could be used both on and above a planetary surface as well as in space itself, the EF soon produced the Guncannon. While not straying far from the original ideal of a mobile suit being a free moving weapons platform against capital ships and armor, the Guncannon was a totally new force to be reckoned with.

In many ways the Guncannon was a major step up from the preceding Guntank line. While the Guntank was more "tank" than mobile suit, the Guncannon was a true mobile suit with limbs as well as fully functional Apollo Engines, allowing it to fly in space as well as within atmosphere rather than transverse across terrain with a hoverbed system. This design ideology would eventually become the standard philosophy for mobile suits, transforming them from ground support units to fully mobile weapons platforms that could be used in virtually any environment, in turn establishing them as the dominant weapon systems of the Galactic Century.

The first of the Guncannon line, the Trooper, was from the start designed to be the Federation's mainline mobile suit, and so was designed specifically for ease of production. Following along the Federation's philosophy of mobile suits essentially being fully mobile gun platforms, the Trooper, as its name would suggest, was armed with twin beam cannons on its shoulders, granting it ideal medium range firepower, as well as double beam vulcans for defense at close range. To supplement these weapons, the Guncannon Trooper had the ability to hand carry a beam rifle for greater firepower and a beam shield projector on its left arm for additional defensive measure.

Compared to later mobile suits developed in the First Galactic War, the Guncannon line was less mobile but more heavily armored. Unfortunately, the extra armor provided very little protection against beam weapons, and powerful conventional weapons (such as the railguns) were capable of causing severe damage. It also lacked any sort of melee weapon, making it helpless when an enemy mobile suit got too close. These flaws would be severely exploited at the onset of the First Galactic War by Zeon ZMS-006 Zaku pilots, as well as by those of other Outer Powers, in which they would utilize the superior mobility of their suits to close-in on Guncannons and attack them at melee level, where the Guncannon' s weaponry provided little cover. That being said, more than a few Star Force pilots would be able to utilize the Guncannon' s strengths to make up for these weaknesses in turn, proving that the Guncannon, even the basic Trooper, could hold its own against Outer Power machines. Such pilots would usually go onto become aces.

Armaments

 * M323 Beam Cannon
 * The Guncannon Trooper 's primary weapons. Mounted over the suit's shoulders, these beam cannons are essentially scaled down capital ship weapons, and so function in a similar vein to a cruiser's main guns (i.e. capitalizing on power over rate of fire). Unlike the aforementioned however, they are small enough to be utilized against other mobile suits, though Trooper pilots tend to prefer using their beam rifles against such mobile targets while reserving the cannons for their ideal anti-ship and anti-fortress functions. Can be retracted into the Trooper's backpack when not in use.


 * M239 Beam Vulcan
 * Standard weapons for Federation mobile suits. Vulcans are miniature rapid-fire beam guns stored on the sides of the Guncannon' s head. Having the greatest rate of fire of all the Guncannons weapons, they are primarily used to ward off advancing enemies, shoot down missiles or hit other fast moving targets. They are also useful as anti-spacecraft and anti-personnel weapons. The vulcans however have a difficult time piercing heavier armor (though they are capable of destroying mobile suits when fired at close range) and thus are not often used against larger, more heavily armored foes. Still, the vulcans are useful in preserving energy for the  Guncannons more powerful weapons.


 * MSD89 Beam Shield
 * The Guncannon Trooper is equipped with a beam shield generator on its left arm. As its name suggests, the beam shield generates a miniaturized energy field over an area of the Guncannons left arm, allowing it block and deflect enemy attacks quite effectively. With its emphasis on durability, a  Guncannons beam shield is more powerful than most other mobile suits of its generation, though it still offers only limited protection against enemies of superior mobility.


 * M490BR Beam Rifle
 * A revolutionary weapon for it's time, the beam rifle is the primary handheld weapon of the Guncannon. A further scaled down version of the beam cannon, the beam rifle exchanges overt firepower for rate of fire and ease of usage, granting the Guncannon an ideal weapon to utilize against smaller, faster targets, namely other mobile suits and other small craft. Such is the power of this weapon that it can destroy an enemy mobile suit in a single shot, even with a glancing blow. That being said, its primary weakness is that it can only fire single or limited numbered bursts at once, which enemy units may evade or deflect with their beam shields.

History
As one of the first "true" mobile suits to be produced, the Guncannon series would, for a time, become the dominant weapon of the Galactic Century as well as a symbol of the Earth Federation's military power upon rollout. The power and the performance of the Guncannon on the battlefield would in fact provide further emphasis to the idea that the EF's dominance over the galaxy was absolute, all the while other nations would work to match the Federation's newfound weapon with their own. And though many more MS would be designed and produced as a result, the Guncannon would retain superiority through this period of time, contesting other such models as the Sanc SK-006 Leo or the Orb MBF-M1 Astray.

However, when the Earth Federation's primary rival power, the Zeon Empire, would begin to take steps to oppose the Federation, one of its first acts was to create a mobile suit that could counter the Guncannon: the ZMS-006 Zaku. Not long after, a war would break out between the Inner and Outer Powers, and Federation commanders would soon find their Guncannon forces to be easily overwhelmed by the superior Zeon machines, as well as units that followed their design philosophy like Cosmo Babylonia's XM-001 Denan Zon and Zanscare's ZM-001 Zoloat. This gap in power would lead the Federation to bring about Project V, which would introduce new mobile suits and technology for the EF to utilize against their enemies.

As per Federation privilege, certain pilots that have displayed great combat skills have been permitted to paint their Guncannons in their own personal colors. One such example is the unit belonging to Lieutenant Junior Grade Sayla Mass of the 105th Mobile Suit Squadron “Shrikes”, who had painted her suit blood red. Sayla would utilize this unit well into the war, before switching over to the RGX-780 Gundam "Unit Gamma" for her choice unit.