GAT-01D Long Dagger

The GAT-01D Long Dagger, is the first real production-type Mobile Suit for the Earth Alliance and when equipped with an AI Driven OS System it becomes the first Natural-Friendly Mobile Suit in the Earth Sphere. While not as cheap or easy to produce as the later GAT-01 Strike Dagger it still becomes a vital part of the Earth Alliance during the last year of the Bloody Valentine War.

Technical and Historical Notes
During the course of the Bloody Valentine War, the Earth Alliance would start their own mobile suit development project to allow them to stand on even ground with ZAFT and their mobile suit equipped forces. The G-Project would be the most successful of the mobile suit development projects for the Alliance and see the development of the G-Weapons. However the development process was taking longer then expected for the introduction of the G-Weapons, therefore the Alliance would use early development data from the GAT-X101 Rubicon G-Weapon Prototype to develop the new GAT-01D Long Dagger mobile suit.

The Long Dagger would be the official first mobile suit introduced by the Earth Alliance, however thanks to the rushing its development it doesn’t sport a needed Natural-Use OS System and therefore can only be used by Coordinators or equipped with a limited AI driven Operating System. Even then the Earth Alliance would build many of these mobile suits in an effort to start augmenting their forces with Mobile Suit equipped teams. While several would go to the remaining Combat Coordinators pilots, many would be equipped with AI OS and given to noteworthy Natural ace pilots. Even then the Earth Alliance had trouble producing these mobile suits due to the expensive AI OS and the higher-spec parts that where carried over from the Rubicon.

As a mobile suit the Long Dagger is vastly superior to the older First Generation Mobile Suit Designs like the GINN, and Guardian. On paper the design was vastly superior to any other current production-type mobile suit design; however thanks to the rushed development it has some problems in the design not only in the OS System but in some of the parts. These problems are only minor, and don’t take away from the design that much but still the mobile suit is not the best mobile suit design around.

Thanks to the introduction of this mobile suit the Alliance would start forming small experimental mobile suit teams to start gathering combat data for later use in developing a true mass produced natural-use mobile suit which would eventually become the GAT-01 Strike Dagger. The Alliance would first use these mobile suits at the Battle of Kaohsiung, but thanks to having only a handful ZAFT still managed to capture the Kaohsiung Mass Driver. Following this battle Long Daggers would be used in a few following battles including the Battle of Orbit where a team of Long Daggers operated by a team of specially trained Natural Alliance pilots would fly off the Avenger Class Pocket Carrier Charger recently assigned to the Eighth Fleet. While other Alliance ace pilots including Rena Imelia and Jean Carrey would be given their own customized Long Daggers were they would use them in several other early battles.

During these early battles the Long Dagger would be painted in a white and light gray paintjob that been made famous by the few GINNs or Guardians in Alliance service. The so-called White Coat Paint Job was a perfect choice for Alliance operated Mobile Suits thanks to many other Alliance personal associating it with the Alliance in general thanks to this early use of Mobile Suits by the Alliance. Only later produced Long Daggers would receive the later blue and dark gray paint job that would go on to be used by their mass produced counterpart the Duel Dagger.

Over time the Alliance would developed a few variants of the main Long Dagger design, mostly for testing purposes. However one variant would be the Launcher Dagger a unit equipped with an Agni Hyper Impulse Cannon. These units would become popular over the later produced and more expensive Launcher Equipped GAT-01A1 Daggers. Therefore these units could become the main assault unit of the early Alliance Mobile Suit units. Another of these test type variants would be the so-called Zero Dagger, or known officially as the Long Dagger Gunbarrel Testing Type, which equips the mobile suit with a new backpack equipped with four wired Gunbarrels similar to those on the TS-MA2mod.00 Zero Mobile Armor. Only three of these machines would be produced with one would be handed over to Lieutenant Mu La Flagga one of three survivors of the elite Zero Corps who would use it during several battles defending the new Earth Alliance battleship Archangel as it tried to make its way to JOSH-A.

Eventually the Long Dagger would be all out replaced by the Strike Dagger, and the vastly superior GAT-01A1 Dagger. Even then the Long Dagger would be used as base for the mass produced natural-use GAT-01D1 Duel Dagger and its own variants.

Mobile Suit Armaments
Like the Guardian and GINN Mobile Suits the Long Dagger sports several different weapons that it can use against its enemies. This includes the basic machine gun to the later introduced Beam Rifles that would become the primary weapon any future mobile suit.

Optional Hand Weapons
GAU-6M1 52mm Machine Gun 

The first primary weapon of the Long Dagger it is based slightly on the MSW-15A1 52mm Assault Rifle produced for the Guardian Mobile Suit and therefore it allows the Long Dagger to easily counter any enemy mobile suit.

GAU-6M3 120mm Heavy Semi-Automatic Rifle 

A heavier counterpart to the GAU-6M1 that is most often used against heavier opponents like heavy mobile armors and light capital ships.

M700 57mm Beam Rifle 

The main beam rifle for both the Rubicon and Duel G-Weapons. It is produced in limited numbers for the Long Dagger but due to some problems in production it isn't introduced till later. Even then it is quickly replaced with the slightly superior M701 Beam Rifle based on the Strike G-Weapon Beam Rifle. However it is still used by some pilots thanks to the attached grenade launcher.

M701 57mm Beam Rifle 

Based on the Strike G-Weapon's Beam Rifle which allows it to be easier to produce in some numbers for the Long Dagger however even then it is not produced in large numbers.

M703 40mm Lightweight Beam Rifle 

The main beam rifle for the later produced GAT-01 Strike Dagger and thanks to it being lighter it is easier produced in large numbers however only a couple Long Daggers are equipped with this weapon instead favoring the larger heavier beam rifles.

GAT-01D1 Duel Dagger
The mass produced version of the Long Dagger, and sports the new Natural OS while some of the more high-spec parts of the Long Dagger where replaced with regular parts downgrading the design a bit. It also would come standard with the Fortressa Armor, though it can operate without it if needed.

GAT-01L Launcher Dagger
A variant developed to give the early Alliance Mobile Suit units a heavy combat unit. It is equipped with a hard-wired “Agni” Hyper-Impulse Cannon, and a new backpack that is equipped with a second battery to make using the Agni easier on the main battery of the mobile suit. Several of these units would go continue to serve the Earth Alliance throughout the war mainly due to these units cheaper to maintain then the later produced GAT-01A1 Dagger that is capable of equipping Strike packs including the full-on Launcher Pack.

GAT-01D/X Zero Dagger (Long Dagger Gunbarrel Test Type)
Another of the test-type variants introduced by the Alliance to gather test data on Gunbarrel equipped mobile suits which would later be useful in the introduction of the Gunbarrel Strike Pack for the later produced A1 Dagger. Like many of the other early introduced Long Daggers all three produced Zero Daggers would be given an AI-Driven OS System that would allow Naturals to pilot them.

GAT-01F Armor Dagger
Mainly a testing and development variant that is equipped with the new Fortressa Armor Shroud that is heavily based on the Armor Shroud developed by ZAFT for the GINN, and later the capture Duel G-Weapon. This armor would later become standard on the later produced Duel Dagger.