YMS-14J ReGelg Prototype with Stutzer Mega Particle Cannon Test Unit, “Komet”- Zeon Remnant
by ChaosdocAt the end of the One Year War many Zeon Remnants fled the Earth Sphere to various scattered asteroid bases determined to regroup, rebuild, and renew their crusade against the Earth Federation. The Remnants, after the exodus, continued to develop new MS technology and wage guerilla warfare during the interim.
The MS-14 Gelgoog, the last mass-production mobile suit fielded by the Zeon military during the war, had proven itself as an excellent high-performance unit. However, more powerful and advanced mobile suit technology was being developed by the Earth Federation and the Titans, and the Remnants had to keep pace in this arms race and train its pilots to handle better mobile suits.
Hence, the Remnants proposed and tested various upgrades to its surviving Gelgoog units including several Stutzer configurations. One project line would eventually lead to the MS-14J ReGelg (short for “REfined GELGoog”). The prototype ReGelg or “Komet”, as it became to be known, was equipped with oversized shoulder binders, each housing additional thrusters and verniers for unprecedented speed and maneuverability.
This radical thruster and vernier configuration used tremendous amounts of fuel and stressed the test pilots with near intolerable g-forces limiting both flight time and mission configuration.
A major concern about the design was the short flight time, which never met the projections made by its’ designers. With such short endurance, the YMS-14J ReGelg Prototype truly was a dedicated point defense interceptor similar to the Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet of WWII Germany, its’ namesake.
External propellant/coolant tanks were attached to the legs in addition to an oversized rear fuel pack in the attempt to provide the Komet with an acceptable flight range on par with lighter and more modern mobile suits.
Since the unit lacked mission duration it was determined that it would make up for it in sheer firepower. A Mega Particle Cannon was adapted to a Stutzer cowling to disguise the offensive and defensive range of this powerful, if not entirely reliable, new Zeonic energy weapons platform configuration.
When operational tests began, as expected, the prototype was extremely fast, and for a time the Titans’ mobile suit pilots were at a complete loss as what to do about it. Singly or in pairs, they attacked the Titans fleet and MS formations, often faster than the opposing MS could deploy in an attempt to intercept them.
A typical tactic was to charge directly into the fleets’ formations firing amongst them at point blank ranges allowing and the Stutzer Mega Particle Cannon to recharge in between passes. With luck, this would afford the pilot a brief chance to fire off a few rounds from his cannon before he had to evade and escape back to a base of operations or camouflaged refueling asteroid. At the speeds necessary for this tactic accuracy suffered, thus only fleet ships were targeted.
Titan MS pilots quickly noted the short duration of this tactic. They would wait it out until retreat began, and then pursue the retreating Komet(s). They quickly began to identify the asteroid refueling depots the Komets operated from and started bombardment of the asteroid after the MS docked. Most of the Komets were destroyed in their hangers before an adequate number of pilots could be trained on them, and it was soon clear that the original plan for a huge network of “Komet Satellite Bases” was never going to happen.
The YMS-14J ReGelg Prototype was a tremendously ambitious yet highly specialized improvement over its successful, tried-and-true previous Gelgoog form. With a better infrastructure the Komet could have been developed more thoroughly and successfully, and the Komet’s fully realized role of point defense could have possibly turned the tide for the Remnants against the Titans.
In any operational sense the Komet was a failure. More were lost before deployment than were ever responsible for MS or fleet kills. Due to fuel shortages, limited supplies, and production delays, very few actually went into combat. It took an experienced pilot with excellent shooting skills to achieve kills with the Komet due to its great speed and sensitive control features. At the same time the Komet was a remarkable design that pointed the way to the future of Zeonic mobile suit advancement.
At the time of the destruction of the Aswan and its exotic mecha by the AEUG only one Komet remained operational and it is pictured here.
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