Gundam Tanget Thread

[Black Knight]

So, during my correspondence with Josh, he mentioned how the trend of Zeon-affiliated senior officers has been to be very skilled at winning particular battles, and absolutely terrible at achieving overall ends. Other than for narrative purposes, where it makes the badguys seem more fearsome if they win frequently, but the audience demands that the good guys usually win, and even Sunrise grudgingly admits that the Zeons are the badguys, this seems like a common enough trend among all Zeon commanders & successor groups to be worth considering more deeply. It's most glaring with 0083 and ZZ, but present throughout MSG and arguably CCA, too.

It seems as if Zeon lacks professionalism among their senior ranks. Surprise! Not really unexpected when considering the senior posts go to either members of the Zabi family or to their best sycophants. This is exacerbated among even the competent senior officers like Dozle & Kisheria by family infighting & jockeying for position/power, where Dozle was unwilling to ask for support from the MAF because he was afraid of appearing weak. To say nothing of Gihren's offering his own relatives and bases on the chopping block in order to solidify his own position.

Clearly, the Principality's military never developed the proper experience with large scale operations to learn effective strategy. Their tactics were often brilliant, most notably in 0083, but they always screw up the strategy. "You may know how to win a victory, Zeon, but you do not know how to use one," to paraphrase one of Hannibal Barca's officers. The relative youth of the Principality's armed forces as an organization is doubtless the root cause. They never had the time or the opportunity to practice fighting a war until they started one, and so they went about it rather amateurishly. "Amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics." Their officers were still developing the necessary skills to command large formations, and so while they're often good with small ones, different abilities are required between commanding a company and commanding a division, and Zeon never had the time to properly develop them. Losing a high proportion of their pre-war trained personnel at the start doubtless didn't help (it did the Federation no good, either,), making it rather WWI-ish, though the competition and politicking between the MAF and the SAF is clearly inspired by the lack of cooperation between the IJA and IJN during WWII.

Haman's Rock Zeeks are probably the most egregious in their lack of military professionalism and acumen, while paradoxically the Zeon remnants she allies with in Africa are probably the most tactically proficient group to ever serve under the Zeon banner. But while a fair number of the Principality's military personnel escaped to Axis, there's no evidence of them when the Rock Zeeks return to the Earth Sphere, as the youth & inexperience of Haman's forces is constantly highlighted by their childish actions and the ease with which they are distracted by shiny objects and/or someone yelling "Squirrel!"

The Federation, so accustomed to large formations, suffers from McClellanism, where they always want more troops and are afraid to act, but otherwise show pretty decent strategic insight, mostly lacking only the will to carry it out, prompting the more intelligent and capable Federation officers to go gallivanting to the rescue on their own.

[GX_Divider]

From my own personal experience, I firmly believe that a lack of professionalism among senior personnel directly reflects in the actions their subordinates take. When the head of your Department is a simpering, childish idiot, it undermines everything that he might be working for, starting with his direct subordinates and eventually working its way down to even the lowliest E-2.

However, this is not just the mark of a force that is "untrained" for war. It's merely a mark of putting the wrong people in charge. Tactical brilliance on the part of a few individuals is fine and good, but when the middle to lower ranks of your organization don't know what they are fighting for or are so far gone morale wise to be almost worthless (As I'd imagine most Zeeks earthbound to be, rallying speeches be damned, I know it's bad enough for me to be in another country, much less a totally different environment), it renders most of the point moot.

Perhaps my opinion is more informed by being one of the rank and file than it should be, though.

[ainamacil]

If you gents will permit a humble civilian to chime in, I have to say I agree with the "We've never done this before! We're new at this! Oh God, please don't yell!" theory. I will add that when we DO see small-scale Zeon units, it seems as though we're generally watching an experienced officer at work. Ramba Ral is the quintessential example here, but you can also look at Norris Packard, Steiner Hardy, and (because I love Rise From The Ashes way out of proportion to its contribution to the timeline), Visch Donahue (who, I assume, has some sort of experience given the eye patch- I know it could've been a terrible stapler accident, but I don't care).

Ral earned fame at Loum (but is only a Lieutenant, apparently?). Packard seems like he's probably some kind of political appointee because of his connections with the Sahalin family, but acquits himself very well in combat (and has the rank of Captain). Hardy is another Lieutenant, and even if he wasn't ultimately intended to succeed (instead being cannon fodder for Killing's plan), he still clearly knows what he's doing. For Visch's part, he negotiates a ceasefire and safe passage out of Alice Springs for his forces (which saves a whole bunch of civilians) and managers to shepherd his forces (who he at one point remarks are "just kids following orders") relatively well through the nasty fight that Operation Rainbow Valley begins.

But, for every experienced low-level unit leader, you have some real nutjobs in high command. I guess the lesson here is don't trust anyone who's O-4 (unless it's Neuen Bitter) or greater. The aforementioned Killing, M'Quve, anyone whose last name is Zabi, Conscon, etc. Anyone who's not a dithering ignoramus is a scheming politician, insane, or both. Sure, there are exceptions (Bitter and Delaz come to mind), but they are certainly exceptions, and not the rule.

Worth noting is that of the "good" commanders I mentioned, only one of them (Packard) seems to be well-connected and supplied. Ramba gets denied the Doms he wants (from M'Quve...there's a pattern here), Steiner's behind enemy lines, and aside from his shiny (and unexplained) gelgoog in the last days of the war, the best thing Visch sorties in is a Gouf, and his forces never have more than a few Zaku II's at their disposal... and we're talking late November and December here. Consider Bitter and Delaz hiding out in their respective areas and conducting guerrilla operations with Dra-C's and Zaku II F-types. The point I'm making is that it seems like sometimes the better commanders (and the units they lead) might be better as a result of having to get by with less.

For what it's worth, you have a lot of morons in Federal high command too. Notable exceptions being Reville and Cowen.

I'm not even touching anything post-Delaz.

[Black Knight]

Norris is mentioned as being an old family retainer of the Sakhalins, which likely explains his high rank & special equipment, if not his decent piloting skills, since Ginias used his political pull back home to execute his entire Superweapon-of-the-week scheme.

It's relatively easy to become good at lower commands, the timeline required to go from bumbling idiot to well experienced is pretty short, and what's more can be easily aided through training exercises. Its a lot easier to stage a company-sized training event than a multi-division one, and only a handful of senior officers can benefit from that rare big exercise, while at the same time dozens of more junior personnel can be getting experience at their operations. So I think it's quite appropriate for Zeon to have some decent low-level commanders, especially in the OYW era, though the lack of them among the Rock Zeeks is pretty glaring, Haman seems to choose her sub-unit commanders for either their Gato-like devotion to her or for their Newtype abilities. Not a lot of skill to choose from, and the veterans who escaped to Axis are notably absent, though 0083 shows a lot of them with the Axis Advance Fleet (and despite that name, people were still surprised Axis came to the Earth Sphere in Zeta? Silly writers...)

On the other hand, Ramba Ral, Steiner Hardy, and Norris Packard are all essentially the same character, and clearly written to be such. They're all jaded against their superiors, but carrying out their duties to the best of their abilities anyway, they all pilot blue MS (two of them even Goufs), and all are clearly more reasonable & rational officers than their superiors deserve to have. And all die stupidly as failures.

There are others, like Dren, who never achieve high rank, but seem pretty professional & competent. But despite the number of warships seen fleeing A Baoa Qu, and which were reported to proceed on to Axis, there don't seem to be a lot of experienced people. I'm pretty sure CDA doesn't cover this issue.

[Native Jovian]

Axis reportedly had pretty terrible living conditions early on -- crowded conditions, supply shortages, rampant disease, etc. Hell, even Minerva's mother -- a VIP as the last surviving adult Zabi, even if only by marriage -- died on Axis due to the conditions. Between that and whatever infighting surely went on there (you can't tell me there wasn't any, even if I can't recall it being explicitly mentioned), that could easily account for a large number of Axis' veteran soldiers and officers.

As for the original question, I think it's a matter of political reliability vs. warfighting effectiveness. Most of the high ranking officers we see are appointed by the top down, rather than being promoted from the bottom up. The ultimate bosses, the Zabis, are more worried about their armies turning on them than they are about their armies being destroyed by the EFF (which, admittedly, might not be a bad policy on their parts, given the rampant spread of Chronic Backstabbing Disorder through Zeon's officers). This doesn't preclude competent officers being chosen (Dozle seems to be a fairly effective commander, as does Kycilia), but it doesn't really encourage it either. Competency is dangerous, after all -- you can never be sure if your brilliant underling is really loyal or is just biding their time to get rid of you... and if you are certain that they're loyal, then that just makes them a huge target for your enemies.

Most of the really effective Zeon officers I can think of were promoted up from the rank-and-file rather than being appointed by the head honchos. Ramba Ral is probably the best example (he was killed at least in part because M'Quve refused to support him); Char, who commanded a warship after all, is also a good one (he was fired by Dozle for the largely-political reason of letting Garma die, and would've remained out of the war effort if he hadn't been snapped up by Kycilia later). Other examples of effective Zeon officers we don't know much backstory on, but they don't seem to enjoy particular political support or suffer under conspicuous loyalty to a specific commander (Yuri from 08th MS Team, who's killed by Ginias; Neuen Bitter from 0083, who's abandoned in Africa and effectively sacrificed to allow Gato to escape; also from 0083, Cima is an effective small-unit commander who is very conspicuous about her lack of loyalty).

This pattern of choosing people for their personal loyalty rather than their fighting effectiveness is later repeated by the Titans, who wanted solid Earthnoids first and foremost, with good piloting abilities being seen as an added bonus rather than a requirement to entry. Going out on something of a limb here, I wonder if it's a throwback (conscious or not) to the feudal era (which anime loves to reference, after all), where soldier's and officer's loyalty was usually tied to a specific individual (their lord) rather than an abstract notion like "our nation". Zeon has always had some trappings of the feudal kingdom, even if they never to my knowledge assigned actual noble titles to anyone outside the "royal" family.

[Zinegata]

Their officers were still developing the necessary skills to command large formations, and so while they're often good with small ones, different abilities are required between commanding a company and commanding a division, and Zeon never had the time to properly develop them.

It really depends. I tend to notice that many of the highest ranking Allied officers in WW2 never really had command of large formations. Their jobs (particularly Eisenhower) was almost purely political - getting everybody to stop bickering, agree on a plan, and get it going.

It seems that there's a very specific skill set needed to be a strategic commander, which is different from a tactical commander. Some can transcend this limitation and be good at both (Marlborough for instance, for most of the War of Spanish Succession), but for the most part the staff officer and the frontline officer are two very different types of leader.

The Federation, so accustomed to large formations, suffers from McClellanism, where they always want more troops and are afraid to act, but otherwise show pretty decent strategic insight, mostly lacking only the will to carry it out, prompting the more intelligent and capable Federation officers to go gallivanting to the rescue on their own.

It might be less McClellanism and more of self-imposed caution. The first major space battles the Federation fought resulted in the loss of, what, 80% of their battlefleet and several billion people? I certainly don't think they were slow to react in the early days of the war (or else the Ruum would never have happened). But the trauma of having lost so badly at these first few fights may have imposed a measure of caution throughout the Federation ranks.

Moreover, I get the sense that the Federation may have realized that they simply had more staying power than Zeon, and they were going for a Fabian strategy ala Rome vs Hannibal. Even without Project V, they certainly had enough material superiority to inflict a crushing defeat on the Zeon forces at Odessa.

[Black Knight]

Zine, that's exactly what commanding large formations is about, getting people to work together. Something Zeon's leadership in all eras was quite incapable of doing. It also requires skills in logistics, something else the Zeon military does not seem to have emphasized.

As for the Federation's McClellanism...I'm pretty sure the Union Army took large numbers into the south, and got beat repeatedly, during the early days of the US Civil War, which led directly to McClellan's behavior. So, I'm really not seeing whatever it is you're trying to say. The OWW was part of the Federation's McClellanism, making the Zeons into the same bugaboo of unbeatable foes that the Union suffered against the Confederates for some time.

[Zinegata]

BK->

The thing is, I don't think command of large formations is a skill that can be developed. Rather, you need to pick which guys are good at it, cram them through staff college, and have them command Overlord (ala Ike). In contrast, if you're gonna limit yourself to promoting field commanders, you're probably not gonna get outstanding logisticians.

I'm not saying the skill set is different. I'm saying acquiring the skill set requires a different route, and most people aren't equipped to do both.

Also, no Southern victory resulted in the destruction of 80% of the Union Army, nor half of the North's civilian population. Especially during McClellan's tenure - Bull Run was hardly a massacre, and Shiloh (the bloodiest battle) was actually a Union victory. The worst Union losses in terms of casualties in fact came after McClellan's tenure - i.e. Fredricksburg, Chancellorsville, and Cold Harbor.

The Federation, by contrast, had suffered the equivalent of Cannae with the added loss of billions of dead civilians. I think the Federation's caution was rooted more on realism than McClellan's constant fear of his own shadow.

[Black Knight]

Zine: as there are numerous examples of people starting in command of field units, being brilliant, getting promoted, and continuing to be brilliant as they command armies and such, I don't know that I can completely agree. Certainly, there are also examples of people who were better in command of one or the other. But from what we've seen, the Zeon style of leadership is very personal; people are promoted either because of their relationships to the Zabis or because of individual combat skills. Sometimes good field commanders result from such patronage systems (Marlborough, Wellington, Archduke Charles), and sometimes its a bit of a disaster (the Duke of York). It tends to be more successful the better educated the people are, but having education does not automatically make a person a good high commander. This is doubly true when potential education is designed expressly for military purposes, as seen with the institution of a General Staff in the Prussian army, which turned their military from a bunch of bumbling provincials to a force able to defeat Napoleon, and more importantly, avoid defeat BY Napoleon.

As for the Federation/Union comparison, as Zeon lost about 80% of its forces, too, even as the casualty rate between the Union & Confederate armies was about the same, I don't think you can use the Federation's 80% losses as much justification. What you're talking about with the Federation and I'm talking about with the Union is the sense of inferiority, which both groups clearly developed, and which most definitely played into McClellan scaring himself into inaction. The severity of the losses that created those senses of inferiority doesn't seem as important as the fact that those senses of inferiority exist.