ZM-S22S Rig Shokew

The ZM-S22S Rig Shokew is a mobile suit from Mobile Suit Victory Gundam.

Technology and Combat Characteristics
The ZM-S22S Rig Shokew is a mass-production version of the prototype ZMT-S12G Shokew. However despite the fact that the Rig Shokew's production was decided upon thanks to the Shokew's performance, the design mass-production version has been extensively overhauled and modified from the original. Part of the overhaul was simply to incorporate a more powerful fusion reactor, additional verniers for greater maneuverability, and a greater amount of more powerful rocket thrusters to increase acceleration performance. The Rig Shokew also has a slightly higher amount of titanium incorporated in the alloy of its armor, giving it better durability.

The more prominent design changes were to the physical features of the basic frame. The Rig Shokew stands a meter taller than the prototype, and the added size adds a bit to the empty weight, yet when fully-loaded it is lighter than the original Shokew. There has also been a substantial change to the armaments. First the beam rotor/shield of the original has been replaced with a standard beam shield mounted on the left arm. Without the beam rotor the Rig Shokew loses the original Shokew's ability to maintain independent flight. A second major change is that the 2-barrel beam gun has been removed from the design, removing part of its ranged offensive abilities. Unlike the prototype the Rig Shokew seems to have been designed to specialize more towards melee combat in mind. To this end a 3-barrel beam string emitter has been added in the form of the head antenna, and a pair of beam fans were added to its built-in hand armaments. To compensate for the lack of the shoulder guns the Rig Shokew has a greater variety of optional hand carried beam weapons, and additional weapons can be mounted onto the back and leg hardpoints giving the Rig Showkew access to a large number of both melee and ranged weapons at any given time.

History
With the success of the ZMT-S12G Shokew the mobile suit's design was overhauled and its flight data was used to mass-produce the ZM-S22S Rig Shokew to serve as the Zanscare Empire's next-generation front-line mobile suit. The advanced Rig Shokew would serve as the successor to older mobile suits such as the ZM-S06S Zoloat and ZM-S06G Zollidia. Because of its versatility and power the Zanscare Empire would have BESPA quickly produce the machine so that they could replace the older mobile suits on the front-lines.

One Rig Shokew that would give the League Militaire would be piloted by League Militaire traitor turned Zanscare Empire supporter Katejina Loos.

Eventually a new limited-production model of the Rig Shokew would be produced, the ZM-S22G/ZM-S22SC Imperial Rig Shokew.

Variants

 * ZM-S22G/ZM-S22SC Imperial Rig Shokew