The main armament of the Buster are a 350mm gun launcher and a 94mm high-energy rifle. Both weapons are mounted on the back of the suit when not used but are otherwise hand-carried. Each weapon can be used independently but if necessary, both can be combined to form two different long-range beam weapons - the Hyper-impulse Sniper Rifle and the Anti-armor Shotgun..
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The main armament of the Buster are a 350mm gun launcher and a 94mm high-energy rifle. Both weapons are mounted on the back of the suit when not used but are otherwise hand-carried. Each weapon can be used independently but if necessary, both can be combined to form two different long-range beam weapons; the Hyper-impulse Sniper Rifle and the Anti-armor Shotgun.
Designed as a heavy weapons assault 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
Gun launcher/High-energy rifle
The main armament of the Buster are a 350mm gun launcher and a 94mm high-energy rifle. Both weapons are mounted on the back of the suit when not used but are otherwise hand-carried. Each weapon can be used independently but if necessary, both can be combined to form two different long-range beam weapons; the Hyper-impulse Sniper Rifle and the Anti-armor Shotgun.
Missile launchers
Besides the two energy weapons, 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.
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.
