RGM-79 GM

RGM-79 GM (aka ""Jim"") was the first mass-produced mobile suit of the Earth Federation.

Technology & Combat Characteristics
The GM was armed rather simply, with most of its weapons basically scaled down verisons of that of the Gundam. The GM was primarily armed with a beam spray gun, which was basically a downgrade in most aspects of the Gundam's powerful beam rifle. It did have the distinction still of being the first mass produced beam weapon ever made - something the Zeon forces had yet to do. The beam spray gun had a much worse range than the beam rifles used by other Federation MS but it could still destroy MS in one shot and was just as accurate and had a higher rate of fire and more ammo. The GMs also used 100mm and 90mm machine guns, the latter having less ammo capacity but a better armor penetration rate. Heavy weapons wise, GMs used remakes of the Gundam's 380mm Hyper Bazooka. For close quarters combat, the GM featured a single beam saber, although earlier models had the twin-saber backpacks of the Gundam. Lastly, the GM had a pair of 60mm vulcan guns mounted in its head, which gave pilots backup firepower that was highly effective against aircraft and ground vehicles but woefully inadequate against mobile suits. Early in production, the beam spray rifle had yet to be completely mass produced so that most GMs were equppied with machine guns. By Operation Star One and Battle of Solomon, however, most the mobile suits used the beam weapon. It should also be noted that a small portion of the GMs stationed at the Federation General HQ in Jaburo also used the Gundam's beam rifle.

History
At the onset of the One Year War, the Earth Federation did not take the mobile suit threat seriously. This was until the Principality of Zeon's MS-06 Zaku II completely decimated the Earth Federal Spaces Forces in space and then invaded Earth. Thus the Federation developed several mobile suit prototypes, the most notable of that being the RX-78-2 Gundam. From the Gundam came the Earth Federation's first mass production mobile suit: the RGM-79 GM. The GM would serve as the Federation's primary mobile suit throughout the war. The GM would also serve as the baseline of the Earth Federation's mobile suits for over fifteen years.

The RGM-79 was far more mobile in space than the Zeon's Zaku II, with a maximum thruster acceleration of 0.94 gees, better than that of the Gundam's 0.93 gees of thruster acceleration. The Zaku II had roughly half of the GM's acceleration. On the ground, the GM again proved its superiority over the Zaku II with a top running speed of 102 kilometers per hour compared to its top speed of 88 km/h. Armor wise, the GM had a titanium alloy hull. This too was stronger than the Zaku II's super-high tensile steel armor, yet the thickness of it's armor was kept to a minimum in order to guarantee high mobility and keep production costs down.

Overall, the RGM-79 GM was superior is almost all respects to that of the Zeon's Zaku II mobile suit. Still the Zaku pilots had more experience with mobile suit warfare than GM pilots did. It was for this reason that the Federation went with the 'quantity over quality' approach. By the time of the GM's true introduction at the Battle of Jaburo, the Zeon forces had already started production of the MS-09 Dom, a mobile suit that was slightly better than the GM but had about a 50% chance of winning against a GM piloted by a pilot of equal skill since it's bazooka was ineffective against fast and mobile MS while the beam spray gun could destroy it in one shot. When the war went back into space, the GM out performed the MS-09R Rick Doms in most ways and were outperformed later by the MS-14 Gelgoogs, even though the Gelgoogs were better they weren't that much better and probably couldn't fight any more than 5 at a time if the GM's pilots were rookies and the Gelgoog's pilot was a veteran but most of the Gelgoog pilots were rookies.

However, this would not be the case towards the end of the One Year War. The Rick Doms and Gelgoogs would be held up by the bickering Zabi family politics and the equally insane high-level Zeon commanders attempting to bring down the White Base and Gundam. In the end, the Rick Dom was produced in too few numbers and the Gelgoog wouldn't be deployed until the last two weeks of the war. Even with these powerful mobile suits, the Zeon forces had to rely on pilots with little to no combat experience and barely enough training to make them able to properly use their mobile suits. Not only that, but the Zeon forces had to once again rely on their Zaku IIs and even the MS-05B Zaku I. It would be the RGM-79 GM's greater performance when compared to most Zeon MS and experienced pilots that would win the last few months of the war for the Earth Federation.

The GM line was first established through the RGM-79[E] GM Precession Type, a prototype GM verison that would set the basics down for the GM. During the One Year War, the GM would commonly be supported and paired with the RB-79 Ball mobile pod. The basic GM frame would later be updated and upgraded into the RMS-179/RGM-79R GM II during the mid-UC 0080s. The GM line successor would be the RGM-89 Jegan in the UC 0090s, until that time the GM would become of the most heavily modified mobile suits, spawning many variants.

Variants

 * Newtype Test GM Juggler
 * RAG-79 Aqua GM
 * RGC-80-1 GM Cannon Test Type
 * RGC-80 GM Cannon
 * RGC-83 GM Cannon II
 * RGM-79[E] Precession Type
 * RGM-79[G] GM Ground Type
 * RGM-79C GM Kai
 * RGM-79C Powered GM
 * RGM-79D GM Cold Climate Type
 * RGM-79F Land Combat Type GM
 * RGM-79F Desert GM
 * RGM-79FC Striker Custom
 * RGM-79FP GM Striker
 * RGM-79G GM Command
 * RGM-79GS GM Command Space Type
 * RGM-79HC GM Guard Custom
 * RGM-79KC GM Interceptor Custom
 * RGM-79L GM Light Armor
 * RGM-79N GM Custom
 * RGM-79Q GM Quel
 * RGM-79S GM Spartan
 * RGM-79 GM Scout
 * RGM-79SC GM Sniper Custom
 * RGM-79SP GM Sniper II
 * RGM-86R GM III
 * RMS-179/RGM-79R GM II
 * RX-121 Gundam TR-1 Hazel
 * TGM-79 GM Trainer
 * TGM-79C GM Canard
 * RGM-79(G) GM "Mad Dogs" Use
 * RGM-79N-Fb GM Custom High Mobility Type
 * RGM-79N-w GM Air Custom "Valkyrie" Use