RGM-89 Jegan

The RGM-89 Jegan is a mass-produced general purpose mobile suit from the Universal Century timeline.

Technology & Combat Characteristics
As the successor of the RGM-79 GM series, the Jegan is the new mass-produced mobile suit of the Earth Federation Forces. The suit is lighter and more maneuverable than all the previous GM units, although it is not as well armed as the RGM-86R GM III. Nevertheless it performed very well and thus it was put into mass production.

As a mobile suit based on the GM series, the Jegan's design focuses more on being easy to use, easy to maintain, and possessing a high cost-effectiveness. Because of the size of the Earth Federation Forces, it was imperative to possess a mobile suit that could be easily used by a wide range of pilots, and used a wide set of common mobile suit parts that could be quickly and cheaply replaced.

For weapons, the Jegan has a beam saber and three hand grenades stored on the right and left side of the waist respectively, and can be equipped with a head-mounted vulcan gun pod, a forearm-mounted shield that had two 2-tube small missile launchers, and a beam rifle or a bazooka. As the Jegan remained in service over the years, it received periodic technological upgrades, producing a large number of variants.

Armaments

 * Beam Saber
 * The RGM-89 Jegan is equipped with a saber stored in a rack located in the right hip armor. It features a pair of beam emitters which can be adjusted to a high or low-output mode.


 * Hand Grenade
 * Three hand grenades are carried in the grenade rack mounted on the left side of the waist. They can be thrown and set to detonate upon impact with the target, or timed to explode after a preset time. They can also be launched directly from the rack, and function like self-propelled homing missiles via their own optical guidance systems.


 * Vulcan Gun Pod
 * The vulcan gun pod is an optional close-range defensive armaments mounted on the head that is based on the technology of the RX-178 Gundam Mk-II. The vulcan gun is a shell firing weapon with a high-rate of fire, but little power and are generally ineffective against mobile suits, though it can damage lightly armored areas such as the sensors. It is ideal for shooting down small, lightly armored targets such as missiles, small vehicles, etc.


 * Shield
 * The Jegan's shield also possesses offensive capabilities as it is built with two 2-tube small missile launchers. It is mounted on a swivel mount, and anti-beam coating is applied on the shield's surface like other shields. The small missiles are not very effective against large ships, and are more geared toward use against mobile suits and mobile armor.


 * Beam Rifle
 * A standard hand carried ranged beam weapon is the beam rifle. The beam rifle carried by the Jegan is a rapid fire, but short range type. Sensors built into the rifle provide interface between the weapon and the Jegan's camera sensor.


 * Bazooka
 * In place of a beam rifle, the Jegan can be outfitted with a bazooka. As with its human-sized counterpart, the bazooka fires explosive physical rounds at a high velocity that do significant damage on impact. Although it does not have the same penetrative power as a beam rifle, the bazooka does more extensive damage and is easily capable of destroying a mobile suit in one shot or break through the armor of a battleship.


 * Shot Lancer
 * Wielded by a pair of purple Jegans in Gundam Build Divers, it is the same close combat weapon as used by the XM-01 Den'an Zon. Electromagnetic acceleration is utilized to drive its tip through the enemy's armor, and its spearhead can also be launched like a missile. To increase the shot lancer's combat effectiveness, it also mounts a pair of heavy machine guns.

History
The Second Neo Zeon War was the first major engagement in which the Jegan was deployed. A total of 80 units were produced at the time of the Second Neo Zeon War. At that time, the unit was limited to the members of the Londo Bell Task Force, while most of the EFSF still used the GM III as of UC 0093.

During this conflict, the Jegan proved to be a formidable weapon because of its agility and light weight design in contrast to the aforementioned GM III, which empathized heavy firepower. During the following 30 years, the Jegan steadily became the mainstay mobile weapon of the Federal Forces.

As usual with most mass-produced Mobile Suits, the Jegan was used as a basis for specialized units such as the Stark Jegan, which was capable of mounting large missiles -even nuclear warheads- or the special operations suit RGM-96X Jesta.

Because of its simple and modular design, the Jegan kept itself relevant through frequent upgrades. For example at the time of Crossbone Vanguard uprising in UC 0123, the Jegan was still preferred by pilots than its more modern counterpart the RGM-109 Heavygun.

Variants

 * ESM Jegan
 * RGM-89 Jegan (Birnam Corps)
 * RGM-89T Jegan
 * RGM-89A2 Jegan Type-A2 (GR)
 * RGM-89B Jegan Kai
 * RGM-89D Jegan D Type
 * RGM-89J Jegan Normal Type
 * RGM-89S Prototype Stark Jegan

Notes and Trivia

 * In the 2008 PlayStation 2 crossover game Battle of Sunrise an original variation of Jegan appears in the sixth level called the Jegan Zondar, a hybrid of the original mobile suit and the zondars from the 1997 anime King of Braves GaoGaiGar. Seven of them existed in total, sporting a purple color scheme with red visors and could respawn after being destroyed until GaoGaiGar and God Raijin-Oh from Absolutely Invincible Raijin-Oh arrived as backup. Worth noting that the airstrip the rogue machines terrorize contain skybus cargo planes from the anime Armored Trooper VOTOMS.