Relying on the advantage that the beam weapon experimental model GuAIZ is relatively more flexible and maneuverable than the old mobile armor Moebius and the slightly bulkier Archangel in Debris Belt, Shiho Hahnenfuss successfully got rid of the pursuit and embarked on the return journey alone - or more directly, the retreat.
Relying on the excellent physical functions of Coordinator, Shiho Hahnenfuss can not only control the pre-production model GuAIZ, which is only in a relatively good condition but the experimental beam weapon is in a slightly worse state. In addition to maneuvering at medium and high speeds in Debris Belt, Shiho Hahnenfuss can also spare some thought to review and analyze the battle that just ended.
This is also a good habit that Shiho Hahnenfuss has developed over a long time to become an excellent developer and test pilot.
Regarding this battle, which can be called a major failure, Shiho Hahnenfuss conducted a top-down analysis. The first thing he discovered was a very simple problem that had been ignored before:
What is this fight taking place for?
After reviewing the morning spent Shiho Hahnenfuss quickly discovered that as the battle continued, the purpose of the battle had seriously shifted.
After all, as a member of Creuset Team, the mission that Shiho Hahnenfuss received was originally to 'search and rescue the missing Miss Lacus·Klein';
However, after encountering 8th Fleet's advance fleet, out of serious distrust of the Earth Alliance, the combat purpose was transformed into 'to eliminate Earth Alliance 8th Fleet's advance fleet that interfered with search and rescue'. Up to this point, the overall situation was actually quite normal;
However, when the mobile armor presumed to be Moebius and Type Zero driven by 'Hawk of Endymion' Mu La La Flaga suddenly appeared and carried out a surprise attack on Gamow, the combat purpose of his early-production GuAIZ team suddenly changed to 'defeat Archangel'.
Of course, in order to prevent Earth Alliance from recycling valuable test machines and test ships, 'defeating Archangel' itself does have huge strategic value;
However, it can only be said that there is no direct connection with the 'search and rescue Lacus·Klein' that is currently being executed.
Although some colleagues may 'reasonably' infer that Miss Lacus may be superior to Archangel, at present Shiho Hahnenfuss cannot agree with this inference regardless of reason or intuition.
However, although he noticed that the purpose of the operation had changed significantly, after looking back, Shiho Hahnenfuss still believed that even if it happened again, the situation would still happen like this.
On the one hand, this is because compared to the rigid Earth Alliance army, ZAFT has always advocated the tactical autonomy of frontline soldiers and is deeply proud of it;
Of course, after the Heliopolis incident, the headquarters also issued a reminder in this regard, but even the person involved, Creuset Team, actually did not take the headquarters' reminder too seriously.
On the other hand, after a whole year of fighting and relying on mobile suits to win many battles, everyone at ZAFT is convinced of its quality advantage, not to mention that Shiho Hahnenfuss is commanding the most cutting-edge early mass production GuAIZ team;
Therefore, facing the configuration of Archangel, which is at best 1 battleship, 1 mobile suit, and 1 Moebius, before the fight, Shiho Hahnenfuss also believed that "the advantage is mine."
But now it seems that just as the ZAFT mobile suit designed for the Earth Alliance battleship and old mobile armor has huge targeted advantages;
The targeted new battleships and new mobile suits designed by the Earth Alliance to counter ZAFT's mobile suits have also formed a basic performance advantage over ZAFT's current main mobile suits - at least in terms of the test machines of the 'G' plan, they undoubtedly show a generational lead.
In this regard, the most typical example is Ginn's physical heavy slashing sword.
This weapon, which originally had a very good damage effect on the weak points of battleships and Moebius, has now become almost a useless iron rod in the face of the new mobile suits specifically designed by the Earth Alliance.
From this perspective, the loss of the early mass production model GuAIZ, which uses a trident-type large beam weapon, has additional losses that far exceed its own losses.
Fortunately, at least Shiho Hahnenfuss has retained the battle record of the previous battle, which is enough to prove that the beam weaponization of mobile suit white weapons is a general trend;
The currently widely used Ginn standard solid heavy sword has reached the point where it has to be eliminated as soon as possible;
Unless Earth Alliance foolishly doesn't install the already mature new mobile suit, but continues to rely on Moebius.
Compared with the large-scale beam trident that performs well, the large-scale attack shield used to fight against Phase Shift Armor from another perspective seems unsatisfactory.
This is not to say that this idea of using up the limited energy of high-energy batteries after neutron interference through intensive firepower projection is not feasible.
It's just that compared to the effective countermeasures of large beam tridents that can threaten each other, the firepower projection is slow to be effective, especially in small-scale firefights, it is too deadly;
If there is no sufficient numerical advantage, it can easily turn into a very disadvantageous exchange model of exchanging battle losses for wounds.
However, for ZAFT, having a sufficient numerical advantage is simply an impossible goal, so this solution may be feasible for the Earth Alliance, but it is completely unfeasible for ZAFT.
Finally, there is Shiho Hahnenfuss's own experimental beam weapon.
Although Shiho Hahnenfuss himself is not very satisfied with the effects of several strikes, and after learning the relevant data of the 'G' plan and experiencing today's actual combat, he has to admit that the results of this project that he personally participated in are far behind in comparison;
However, Shiho Hahnenfuss is completely convinced that there is no doubt that various types of beam weapons will become mainstream weapons on the future battlefield.
In addition to the need to improve the directional thermal energy cannon that ZAFT is involved in;
Now that the High-Energy Beam Rifle series developed by the Earth Alliance has been obtained, it should be copied as soon as possible and improvements should be absorbed after thorough understanding;
In addition, according to rumors, there is another beam weapon with a very different basic logic over 'Celestial Being'. If there is a chance, I hope to see it - of course, it is best not to be on the battlefield.
Thinking of 'Celestial Being', Shiho Hahnenfuss couldn't help but think of the young man who drove Strike Gundam today.
Unexpectedly, the person driving the cutting-edge test machine for the Earth Alliance was actually Coordinator who lived in Orb. According to the information given by the director Creuset Team, the pilot clearly marked was Natural.
In fact, Shiho Hahnenfuss quickly thought of many details:
Coordinator boy who claims to be 'Heliopolis civilian';
Before the war, when confirming the details with the colleague who also belonged to Creuset Team and piloted the captured 'G', the son of Zala's chairman of the National Defense Committee - Athrun·Zala was vague;
Before switching to Creuset Team, I heard from other weapons development and testing departments, Zala Chairman of the National Defense Committee's encouragement that 'Earth Alliance has developed such a high-performance mobile suit that Natural can use, how can we fall behind';
And although it has been blocked publicly, it is still very popular in private "Celestial Being Formation Declaration", especially the accusation against Creuset Team.
Naturally, Shiho Hahnenfuss came up with a conjecture that he couldn't believe.
But at this time, passing through Debris Belt in front of him, 8th Fleet's advance fleet, which was still in a stalemate with Heine Westenfluss's senior team and Gamow, and the light of the battle between the two sides, had reappeared in front of Shiho Hahnenfuss's eyes.
For this reason, Shiho Hahnenfuss had to suppress some doubts and prioritize preparations to work with friendly forces to deal with the battle situation that became relatively serious after the attack of his early mass-produced GuAIZ team failed.