GAT-X103 Buster Gundam

The Buster is a Mobile Suit in the series Gundam SEED.

Combat Abilities
Designed as a long-range artillery mobile suit, the Buster's armament consists solely of long range weapons, including a gun launcher, a high-energy rifle and two missile pods. One weakness of the suit lies in its complete lack of any close combat weaponry. This fact is later corrected with the mass production model, the GAT/A-01E2 Buster Dagger.

Like the other X100 series G prototypes (GAT-X102 Duel and GAT-X105 Strike), the Buster is based on an agile, non-transforming frame system (it is in fact based mostly on an application of the Duel's frame).

Armaments

 * 350mm Gun Launcher


 * 94mm High-energy Rifle

The Buster is equipped with two 220mm 6-barrel Missile Pods, one in each shoulder, allowing the suit to fire a rain of missiles upon enemies.
 * 220mm 6-barrel Missile Pod

History
The Buster is one of the prototype mobile suits developed by the Earth Alliance during the Bloody Valentine War under G Project, to counter ZAFTs own mass production mobile suits. Together with the four other machines the Buster is stored secretly on the Orb Union controlled independent colony Heliopolis.

Buster was stolen by ZAFT pilot Dearka Elsman on Cosmic Era January 25, 71, and was used by him throughout the rest of the war. Dearka frequently dueled with TS-MA2mod.00 Moebius Zero/FX-550 Skygrasper pilot Mu La Flaga, neither pilot able to gain a competitive advantage over the other, La Flaga's greater experience and skill balanced by Elsman's raw reflexes and superior machine. Elsman was shot down and captured, his mobile suit severely damaged, by the crew of the Archangel in June 71, spent approximately a month in Archangel ' s brig and subsequently joined the Clyne Faction to bring about the end of the Bloody Valentine War. On the last day of the war, Dearka's mobile suit was severely damaged by the ZGMF-X13A Providence.

The Earth Alliance later developed two new versions of the Buster: one of them was the mass produced GAT/A-01E2 Buster Dagger, which combined the frame of a GAT-01A1 105 Dagger with the Buster's weaponry. The other suit was another Buster unit upgraded into the GAT-X103AP Verde Buster, which features more and advanced weaponry compared to the original suit.

Although not really based upon the Buster, the artillery support paradigm which the suit was designed around would be developed into a heavy long-range mobile suit, the GAT-X131 Calamity.

Variants

 * GAT-X103AP Verde Buster
 * GAT/A-01E2 Buster Dagger
 * LH-GAT-X103 Hail Buster Gundam