RGC-604 Guncannon Seafire

The RGC-603 Guncannon Hellfire is a mobile suit from Mobile Suit Gundam Alpha. As its name suggests, it is an amphibious variation of the RGC-601 Guncannon Trooper, meant to protect Federation oceanic settlements.

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 as well as possessing the original Guncannon's spray missile pods (now redesigned as torpedo launchers). Colors vary, but the standard type are the Federation's trademark gunmetal grey with navy blue highlights.

Technology & Combat Characteristics
As humanity's collective influence continued to spread throughout the galaxy, so to did the number of its colonies and settlements. Among the latter pair, more than a few would be established upon oceanic worlds, i.e. planets that are mostly or completely covered with water or other forms of liquid. And though standard mobile suits like the Guncannon Trooper were capable of operating underwater, they were greatly hindered in this environment, limiting to their combat performance. As a result, several star nations turned to developing amphibious craft, up to and including mobile suits, to protect these settlements (or attack them in certain cases). For the Federation, this was where the fourth iteration of the Guncannon line, the Seafire, was developed for.

Essentially a repurposed version of the Hellfire, the Seafire was developed specifically to operate above and underwater. Its body was modified with waterproof seals, while the frame and chassis were reinforced in order to withstand water pressure. The Apollo Thrusters were also adjusted for greater underwater performance than average, allowing the Seafire to function at deeper depths the way a Trooper could in outer space. And finally, the Seafire featured weapons adjusted and/or designed for amphibious warfare, namely a pair of torpedo launchers over its shoulders (which are actually Hellfire missile pods redesigned to carry torpedoes), as well as modified versions of the standard Guncannon vulcans, rifle and beam shield.

Armaments

 * MT95 Torpedo Launcher
 * The Seafire is equipped with a pair of torpedo launcher pods mounted on its shoulders, one on either side. These launchers grant the Seafire the same kind of firepower its Hellfire brethren enjoys with its missiles, except repurposed for underwater combat. Can be retracted into the Seafire's backpack when not in use.


 * M239U Beam Vulcan
 * Underwater oriented renditions of the Guncannon's vulcans. Though the standard line can function underwater well enough, their range and accuracy can be greatly reduced due to shifts in underwater currents. The Seafire 's weapons have no such limitations, as they are perfectly adjusted for firing even at lower depths. Other than that, these weapons function more or less the same as standard vulcans.


 * MSD89U Beam Shield
 * As with the rest of its line, the Guncannon Seafire is equipped with a beam shield generator on its left arm. Beyond it being modified for better performance when underwater, the beam shield is little different from standard models.


 * M490BRU Beam Rifle
 * An underwater oriented variation of the Guncannon 's standard beam rifle. As with the rest of the Seafires arsenal, this rifle has been modified for greater performance underwater, as well as to offset the hindrances that most mobile suit beam weapons suffer when operating in that particular environment.

History
Designed and manufactured well before the First Galactic War, when the concept of environmentally specialized mobile suits were considered quite lightly, the Seafire was initially believed to be the pinnacle of the amphibious mobile suit concept. Even when other nations such as the Sanc Kingdom began to develop "true" amphibious mobile suits (a la units designed from the ground up for underwater use), Federation strategists believed that the Seafire would be more than capable of defending or attacking underwater settlements by themselves. The Zeon Empire and other Outer Powers reneging on attacking oceanic worlds at the onset of the First Galactic War only reinforced ideals of the Seafire 's superiority.

Thus, Star Force was completely unprepared for when Zeon, upon deploying its ZMSM-007 Z'Gok line, at last turned its attention to oceanic worlds. As the Seafire was designed under the belief that, at best, Zeon and the other Outer Powers would utilize amphibious versions of their mainline mobile suits for amphibious warfare, they were utterly no match for a "true" amphibious mobile suit, much less one with such high performance as the Z'Gok. Despite this however, the Seafire, like the rest of the Guncannon line, would prove robust enough to at least slow the Zeon advance (if not outright hold the line of defense) on such worlds until the Federation developed a more capable design through Project V. The latter would eventually give birth to the RGM-709 GM Mariner, which, while not quite on equal performance level to Z'Gok in itself, would be enough to turn the literal tide against the Zeon and other Outer Powers upon aquatic battlefields throughout the galaxy.