Gouf VS Dom: Which one is the BEST mass-production MS? (Gundam Lore/ Universal Century [OYW])
hi everyone gundam facts here for a third and brand new episode of our special edition lore of the Universal Century today we're going back to the lore of the One Year War in an attempt to answer a particular question which is in this video we are going to try to determine which one of these mobile suits is the best mass production model of course i'm aware that the notion of better is something to manipulate with extreme caution so in order to make a strictly and unpersonal we are going to evaluate both models partially and with an objective eye this means we are basing the evaluation on 5 different criterias which will be used to determine both machines capacities on different aspects but let's start by the beginning we will now properly introduce both machines the Gouf codenamed MS-07B was a close-range mobile suit introduced during the one-year war by Zeonic the weapon manufacturer who had pioneered mobile suit's business and had made its fortune by developing the Zaku I and the Zaku II lines the Gouf series was initially designed specially for the Earth's invasion this new series was supposed to replace the now-aging Zaku Ground Type which has shown its limitations and honestly seemed a dead-end from a technological point of view of course the Zaku Ground Type had spawned few variants but it had became clear to everyone that the J-series needed a drastic evolution in order to start a next generation line as shown by its name the MS-07B aka the Gouf Type B or was not the first incarnation of the Gouf series the first incarnation was actually the YMS-07A Gouf Prototype which was a drastic departure from the Zaku Ground Type but still retained some of its features such as the external pipes when testing on the Gouf Prototype were finished the Principality deployed a streamlined version in march UC79 known as the Gouf A-Type the 32 completed Gouf A-Type were actually never meant for mass production after all there were guinea-pig mobile suits too and Zeonic wanted to test extensively the redesigned basic frame before adding the optional equipment of the Gouf Prototype this meant that the Gouf A-Type wasn't equipped with the signature heat rod and the 75mm machine gun hand which were technologies which had already been tested on the Gouf Prototype in july of the same year the development of the B-Type was completed in comparison with the A-Type it wasn't that different it was more refined yes and had the heat rod and machine gun hand installed but these were the only major differences as a close-range mobile suit the Gouf B-type or the regular Gouf was quite difficult to handle since it required to approach the enemy to be effective because of that the Gouf was more popular with aces and experienced pilots than your average grunt when the Dom was introduced the Gouf-line found itself in a delicate situation and on the verge of being overshadowed fortunately for the Gouf but unfortunately for Zeon to defeat at the battle of Odessa proved that both designs wouldn't be enough to win the war for Zeon and the two designs coexisted for the rest of the war on the remaining fronts due to a lack of centralized infrastructure to choose a predominant model between the two mobile suits on the other hand we have the MS-09B nicknamed the Dom unlike the Gouf the Dom series were not developed by Zeonic but instead by its concurrent Zimmad which had initially competed and failed against Zeonic's Zaku I by presenting their own mobile suit the Zudah now the failure of the Zudah was partially because of its flaws but also because Zeonic had exploited said flaws to shame it publicly and Zimmad was not trying to reinter the mobile suit market after the unexpected success of their Gogg which had became a reference for amphibious mobile suits the heavy mobile suit known as the Dom was Zimmad new product and despite being planned to compete against the Gouf had a very close relationship with its opponent why well because the Dom was the end result of backroom deals between Zimmad and Zeonic and the byproduct of an exchange of favors Zimmad was able to obtain a Gouf from Zeonic and heavily modified into the Gouf Test Prototype which was used to test a brand new monoeye camera with a X-movement array a new cockpit innovative less spiked shoulders and the legs received thrusters enhancers which paved the way to the Dom hovering jet engines the Gouf Test Prototype was also outfitted with a prototype heat (saber) which became a norm for the rest of the Dom series the obtension of the Gouf which later became the Gouf Test Prototype was not the result of industrial hijacking Zimmad had previously created a competitor to the Gouf Prototype named the YMS-08A High Mobility Type but had realized the design was not sufficient to meet the expectation required instead they gave or at least sold the data to Zeonic something which proved instrumental in the completion of the Gouf B-Type so in the end Zeonic paid back the favor by letting them unofficially use the Gouf as a base for the Dom line once the evaluation of the Test Prototype was completed Zimmad sent back their data to their plant in Side 3 which immediately produced the next step which was the Prototype Dom matriculated YMS-09B two units were completed and sent back to Earth at the California Base after some field testing the prototype gave amazing results and the production of a cheaper version the MS-09B Dom was approved the Dom officially appeared in september UC79 but did not became a common model before november UC79 still its frame was much more explored than the Gouf and dozens of variants continued the Dom line even before the official mass production of the base model now is the time to examine both machines and determine which was the best mass production model of the two our first criteria is about their stats so their technical specification which mirrors their own paper performance first about their head height the Gouf is 18.2 meters tall against the taller Dom towering at 18.6 meters Late UC taught us that the smaller a mobile suit is the less likely it is to be shot down by an enemy attack so with this in mind the Gouf shorter height play in its favor in terms of weight we have a similar situation the Gouf weighting 58.5 metric tons is lighter than the Dom which weighs 62.6 metric tons of course the Dom is a heavy mobile suits while the
Gouf isn't one but we can still conclude that the Dom is heavier than the Gouf and has less agility as a result however the Dom with its 1270 kilowatt of generator output has a more powerful generator than the Gouf and its 1034 kilowatt generator output in the same vein the max acceleration and the thrust of the Gouf respectively of 0.54G and 40.7 tons are heavily outclassed by the 0.71G max acceleration and the 58.5 tons of thrust of the Dom the Dom has also higher detection capacities than the Gouf and exceeds them by nearly 2 kilometers on the other end the Gouf has a better running speed than the Dom and is more mobile as long as the Dom doesn't use its jet engines at maximum output so of the seven stats we examined the Gouf only have three of them in its favor so despite a close match the Dom seems to be better than the Gouf or at least on paper now we are going to compare the Gouf and the Dom with their frame versatility being used as a criteria but what is exactly the frame versatility simply enough the frame versatility is the capacity for a mobile suit design to be modified in order to spawn variants the more variants a mobile suit has the better is its frame versatility however the number of variants is not enough to define the versatility of a frame for a frame to be highly effective it must allow the development of variants with very diverse weapon equipment but also variants specialized in certain environments for a mobile suit to to be considered a successful mass production model it must not only be effective on the field but also be economically affordable mobile suits like the GMs which frame can be adapted for various environments as seen with the GM Desert Type GM Aqua or GM Cold District Type and for specialized purposes as seen with the GM Sniper Custom GM Cannon or GM Light Armor are considered among the best mass production units as their frame makes their manufacturers save a lot of money and efforts let's look at the Dom and the Gouf frame instead the Dom frame while not being universally perfect is a masterpiece despite its thickness the frame has shown to be easily adaptable and easily supports specializations it supports artillery roles as shown by the creation of the Dom Cannon I and the Dome Cannon II or even high mobility ground roles are showcased by the Dom High Speed Experimental Type the Dom Funf a variant with an exaggeration of the Dom versatility is also a testament of the great effectiveness of the Dome frame and even spawned many models when modified with parts from different other machines as shown by the Dom Tropen obtained when combining the Funf with Dom Tropical Test Type parts or the Dom Bei Nicht obtained when using Rick Dom parts the Dom frame is also very versatile when it comes to environmental adaptation since the Dom Tropical Test Type is anterior to the regular model we aren't going to consider it a valuable example but still it showed that the Dom line had something for jungle combat the frame of the Dom could support with minor modifications a lot of different environments artic combat and prolonged fight in snowy regions were made possible by the Dom Cold Climate Type and the Dom frame also showed to be compatible with desertic warfare through the Dom G-type also known as the Dowadge more surprisingly the Dom frame proved to be better than the Zaku frame when it came to amphibious adaptation while the Zaku Marine was a resounding failure the Dom was able to spawn a decent hybrid amphibious/surface mobile suits in the form of the Dom Mermaid which is another proof of the great versatility of the Dom frame the last proof is obviously the Rick Dom itself after all transforming a space mobile suit into a ground mobile suit is not that difficult but the reverse is very hard the Dom spawned the Rick Dom which is impressive on its own but also through very minor modifications such as by replacing the jet engines with rocket engines which is even more impressive in comparison the Gouf is of a poorer quality of course the Gouf frame has proved to be well fitted for weapon specialization after all the Gouf had spawned multiple variants with various specialized weapons loadouts the most common example being the Gouf Heavy Arms Type which has two 85mm machine gun hands and a 30mm headmounted machine gun there is also the Gouf Combined Test Type which was the first Zeon mobile suit to use the Core Block System and had a dead copy of the Core Fighter the Little Dopp which plugged in its back MSV-R introduced us to two other variants which are the Gouf Vijayanta meant to be more mobile and breach obstacles so to be used as a scout and protect other mobile suits and the Gouf Tactical Assault Type which is a step over the Gouf Heavy Arms in term of firepower as it has a gatling cannon inherited from the Zaku Cannon and a composite weapon made of a firethrower a machine gun a rifle and even a small rocket launcher however the versatility of the Gouf frame disappear when it comes to environmental adaptation aside the Gouf Hunter which is a variant specialized in jungle warfare and the Desert Gouf which is a failed prototype made for desertic warfare the Gouf doesn't seem to have spawned any other significant variants specialized for hazardous enviornments which is the proof that the Gouf frame is either too difficult or too costly to work with to produce such variants either way thid shows that the Gouf frame is extremely bad in this field of course the Gouf series is known for being extremely well-shaped for aerodynamically designs and that's why the first mobile suits capable of self-sustained flight were the Gouf Flight Test Type and later the Gouf Flight Type but no this will be not the redemption for the Gouf frame why well because we're considering the regular Gouf so the B-Type and all the Gouf Flight Type are developed from the Gouf A-Type and not the B-Type while the A and B Types may be very similar remember that the B Type frame is streamlined in comparison with the A-type so less versatile which mean that the successes of the A-Type frame cannot be attributed to the B-type as well so in term of frame versatility the Dom is again superior to the Gouf time for our third evaluation now we are considering the inbuilt arsenal of both mobile suits but let's explain what it means first inbuilt weapons are basically all the weapons a mobile suit possess which are not handled but are directly integrated in the mobile suit frame for some mobile suits they are mounted in the head as seen with the RX-78 60mm vulcan guns but it is also very common for other mobile suits especially artillery units like the Guncannon to have the weapons fixed on their shoulders or on their arms by definition you can't disarm a mobile suit of its inbuilt weapons of course you can disable or destroy them but you get the point these inbuilt weapons are going to be the last thing which will allow a mobile suit to continue the combat after the main weapon is lost as you can easily understand having inbuilt weapons is important for a decent mobile suit and most important for a mass production model since rookies tend to lose their weapons pretty easily so let's compare the Gouf and the Dom inbuilt arsenal shall we the Dom inbuilt arsenal is pretty restricted and quite confusing the only built weapon it has is a chest mounted scattering beam gun now at first sight this seem to be a very good asset after all beam weapons are extremely effective but in that case this weapon is quite shitty into term of offensive capabilities the fact is that the beams fired by this weapon aren't powerful enough to even scratch the armor of enemy mobile suits and can barely damage the sensors and this only ar close range then why did they retained it well in the Rick Dom for example this feature became optional and the hole in the armor of most Rick Doms are actually fake ones pilots could demand to have one installed of course but unlike the Dom it wasn't a standard feature anymore now this weapon was very useful on some occasions when fired on an enemy mobile suit the fired beams would act as a sort of makeshift flash grenade and honestly blinding the enemy for several seconds would come handy if as a Dom pilot you had your heat saber ready to slash but frankly it wasn't the best weapon and as an inbuilt asset it was kind of mediocre the Gouf didn't have such problems in fact the Gouf had not one but two inbuilt weapons the first one was the 75mm machinegun hand which were machineguns installed inside the fingers of one of the hand unlike the 60mm vulcans they could actually damage mobile suits and were particularly effective against aircrafts aside the cost and unpracticity it was rather a good tech which allowed the Gouf to be able to continue mid-range combat even after the loss of its main weapon the second inbuilt weapon of the Gouf is the heat rod which is mounted on the other hand and didn't compromise the hand manipulator as its name suggests the heat rod is a thick metallic rope which is usable in many different ways not only it can be used as a simple grappling weapon but it can also be used as a sort of flayer in order to destabilize the enemy the best features the rod is electrified and can deliver powerful shocks capable of knocking down the pilots and the monitors of a high performing mobile suit like the RX-78 Gundam and the rod can also be super-heated and used to slice the enemy like a heat hawks or heat saber/sworld would do the Gouf in-built weapons were unconventional for sure and more difficult to use than the Dom's but they were actually really well made and surely made the Gouf pilot less easy to disarm that its collegue inside a Dom so in terms of inbuilt weapons the Gouf is without questions this time superior to the Dom now let's talk about both suits tactical use the tactical use of a mobile suit is basically the way in which these mobile suits can fit in the grand shame of things and how can it impact the global strategy of the entire army in short terms we're considering these mobile suits with the eyes of a Zeon high officer who would want to see which of them would be the best assets for its military campaign we will have to remind ourselves that the Gouf was intended to phase out to the Zaku Ground Type and that the Dom was meant to surpass the Gouf this being said we can conclude that both models were made to replace the Zaku Ground Type so in order to be tactically reasonable they would need to be able to fit the same role which means they would have to be a unit capable of fighting in large numbers guarding facilities disperse guerilla groups and so on and as soon as we say that as a Zeon commander we realize the problems with the Dom the Gouf is about 1vs1 combat mostly but episode 22 of Mobile Suit Gundam showed us that the Gouf can operate in large numbers as a sort of upgraded Zaku Ground Type squadron and honestly they did the job correctly for grunt antagonists but when we think of the Dom it becomes problematic the Dom is a heavy mobile suit with almost no inbuilt weaponries so you can forget fighting against guerilla groups unless you use the 120mm machinegun which is not the best weapon for the Dom and is pretty much a waste against civilians honestly the Dom is meant to strike hard and fast and in a certain way it's a sort of Blitzkrieg tactic that the Dom is meant to carry in Stardust Memory the Dom Tropens of the Delaz's fleet showed us how the Dom should perform basically first the Dom squad needs fire support in that case in the form of the Xamel then they burst into the base butcher every mobile suit using their superior mobility and then retreat when the fire support ends the scene also shows us that without this fire support the Dom sluggish and not that maneuverable would be easily picked up by its enemies this is exactly the reason why we never saw platoons exclusively made of Doms in the franchise and why they either operate by group of three as seen with the Black Tri-Stars or either why only one Dom-type mobile suit is assigned to a platoon as seen with the Midnight Fenrir Corps so sending out waves and waves of Doms is practically a waste the Dom is tactically very useful but as a replacement of the Zaku Ground Type well good luck with that not only it would be ill-suited for the pacification and the patrolling of the countryside but it would also become dull weight in the case of trench warfare so as a replacement the Dom is a poor choice while the Gouf is a decent but not outshining mobile suit now about something you would want to know as an officer how long till the units reach the frontline how can i move them effectively with the Zaku Ground Type there were four options either you embark the units on a Fat Uncle class and hope the copter is not destroyed mid-air either you transport each Zaku via Samson truck either you move them one by one with their own feets or either you embark them on Dodai YS bombers the last option is something you would want to remind when on the Dodai the Zaku can still fire and can benefit of the weapons of the bomber as well before being dropped tactically it's the perfect match now about your Doms they are much larger than the Zakus so you can put them neither on the Dodai neither on the Samson you can put them into the Fat Uncles but it's not the best deploying option in the world the Dom have a great hovering speed and surely will be much faster on their own than your Zakus but you will need plenty of fuel to transport them and in the case the terrain is not flat anymore checkmate the Gouf on the other hand doesn't have all these problems it fit in the Fat Uncle in the Samson too and is even better than the Zaku when it comes to using the Dodai why well because the Gouf has something the Zaku and the Dom lack which is an amazing jumping capacity with the Zaku the Dodai was a sort of one-way hoverboard if the Zaku was hit or jumped down the Dodai it couldn't really place itself back on the bomber even if it wanted to on the other hand the Gouf could actually do it on the condition that the crew of the Dodai was aware that the Gouf pilot planned to jump back to do such move with a Zaku the Dodai was merely a transporter but with the Gouf it was a proper sub-flight system hell even in Late UC sub-flight systems were used so it showed that tactically they remain one of the best assets in the time of mobile suit warfare here we can say that the Gouf was a better replacement for the Zaku Ground type and had a better deploying rate so in terms of tactical use the Gouf is again superior to the Dom now we are basing our fifth and last evaluation using a down to earth criteria i'm obviously talking about the ratio between the screen time appearance of both models and their destruction rate so let's see which of the Gouf or the Dom is actually the most survivable the first Gouf introduced in the franchise is the mighty unit of Ramba Ral aka the Blue Giant this Gouf appears back in episode 12 of Mobile Suit Gundam and is the new scooby-doo antagonist until episode 19 where the Gouf pierces his backpack which destroy the unit the Gouf B-Type come back in episode 22 in larger numbers at the beginning of the episode one Gouf which is defending one of M'Quve's bases jouts with the gundam with its heat hawks before being fatally pierced by the beam saber and blowing up as well later in the same episode another Gouf is able to knock down the Gundam but is quickly gunned down by the Gundam as it was trying to use the heat rod shortly after another Gouf is destroyed by the combined efforts of the Gundam and the Guncannon and its backup comrades two others Goufs meet a similar fate the first one is brutally slashed by the beam saber and the other unit is mauled by an enraged Amuro next the episode reveals four other Goufs which all survive as they force the White Base mobile suit team to retreat in the following episode three other Goufs mounted on Dodais are sent by M'Quve to ambush Matilda transport the first is destroyed by the Gundam Core Fighter while the second fall of its Dodai and has it leg slashed which trigger an explosion destroying it the last one gets a longer fight mid-air against the G-fighter and the Gundam but is also destroyed as well the last appearance of the Gouf B-type in the franchise is in episode 29 during the battle of Jaburo three Goufs are first seen drop from a Gaw and another unit is later seen landing in the jungle so we saw a total of 17 Gouf B-type in the franchise with 9 of them being destroyed on screen the casualty rate is thus of 53 percent which is more than decent for an antagonist mobile suit now let's compare with the Dom the first Doms ever seen in the franchise are the three units of the Black Tri-stars Mash unit is destroyed in episode 24 of Mobile Suit Gundam by being slashed in half by the Gundam beam saber and Ortega unit is bysected in the following episode Gaia unit survive until the end of episode 25 but is also destroyed by the Gundam like the Goufs more Doms appeared during the assault against Jaburo two Doms are seen dropped from a Gaw and a third dropped unit is seen being shot down by Jaburo air defenses two additional Doms then make an appearance and safely land later beyond Jaburo river in Mobile Suit Igloo two Doms appears as well during the battle of Odessa but the first one is pathetically put to the ground by Arleen's Guntank and the second one soon fall after by being straffed into oblivion the last appearance of a regular Dom in the whole UC saga is in the 8th Mobile Suit Team this unit is the only Dom of the base and is quickly destroyed after a failed attempt against the Guntank mass-production type of the 11 units seen in the whole franchise seven of them are destroyed on screen which make a 63 percent casualty rate which is decent again for mass production antagonists but nonetheless higher than the Gouf own casualty rate according to this the Gouf at least based on its on-screen performance would be more survivable than the Dom this on-screen performance criteria is relative of course but since the first Gouf survived a couple of encounters against the Gundam and that a group of four Goufs made the Gundam and Guncannon retreat something that no Dom ever achieved we can still consider this fifth evaluation to be relevant now let's move to our conclusion as we have seen earlier the Dom has superior on paper performance and has a more versatile frame than the Gouf so two criteria in its favor the Gouf on the other hand has proved to have better in-built weapons a better tactical usability and of course a better on screen performance which mean it has three of the five criteria in its favor so we can conclude that the Gouf is a better mass production mobile suit than the Dom now i won't lie that i am slightly disappointed by this result as much as i love the Gouf i fonder of the chunky Dom but as i said at the beginning of the video this analysis was not meant to be personal however i think it's still important to remind everyone in the Dom favor that while it was not as cheap as the Zaku II it wasn't as overpriced as the Gouf was and this is something which explained very well while the Dom did so well against the Gouf and we have now completed our Dom versus Gouf analysis this will be all for today's video but stay tuned for future lore content delivered on the same channel hit the like button and most importantly comment and subscribe as it will really help the channel to flourish so long fellow Newtypes under the time of our next special edition
2021-07-16 03:13