"What you mean is... the biggest factor currently preventing our forces from equipping Mobile Suits on a large scale isn't hardware or technical issues, but software and pilots?"
Duan Harbalton stroked the two small mustaches above his lip and fell into deep thought.
Clearly, this was quite different from what he had imagined—acquiring the new machine, putting it through combat testing, then immediately mass-producing and deploying it.
After all, if a war weapon could not be deployed on a large scale, then it was meaningless. At most, it would become a toy for a handful of elite units.
Allen nodded lightly. "That's right! Like I've repeatedly emphasized before, piloting an MS and piloting an MA are two completely different concepts. It places extremely strict demands on a pilot's spatial awareness. Even among Coordinators, those qualified to pilot an MS are few and far between. In particular, the current control system often requires the pilot to operate more than thirty buttons and control levers while remaining fully focused on enemy images captured by various sensors during combat. For most Naturals, that is almost impossible."
"I see!" Duan Harbalton's face showed sudden realization.
Since they had never captured a relatively intact ZAFT Army mainstay unit—a Ginn—before, most of his knowledge about MS came from experts' speculation. He had no idea what the inside of a Ginn's cockpit looked like.
This had created a misconception: that the ZAFT Army had been grinding the Earth Alliance into the dirt since the war began simply because of the Ginn's powerful performance, nothing more.
If the Earth Alliance could build the same thing, then it could rely on its absolute numerical advantage to easily launch a counterattack and win the war.
But after hearing Allen's explanation, Duan Harbalton suddenly realized that the ZAFT Army's outstanding record