What.
ôInstead, it has been decided to gauge the EvangelionÆs capabilities against a far more maneuverable craft.ö
Shinji was already inside the cityscape when he heard an aircraft passing overhead. For a moment, he thought about whatever it was that had prevented Roy from being in the command bunker this time. His friend had seemed unusually sullen when informing him. Then, the Eva pilot received the latest in the series of surprises that had been dropped at his feet since arriving on Macross Island û the jet transformed into a humanoid robot and landed on its feet several blocks ahead of him.
ôThis is the Veritech VF-1S, your opponent for this test,ö Gloval informed Shinji. ôAs before, the exercise ends when either of you gains a confirmed disabling shot on the other. Shinji, be aware that while you will be armed with non-lethal ordnance, the Veritech is using live ammunition.ö
ôWhat?ö
ôIÆm afraid I have my orders,ö Gloval apologized, deciding against directing an angry glare at the observing Colonel. ôThe Veritech pilot will make every effort to prevent injury, and medical teams are ready to act on a momentÆs notice.ö
Somehow, Shinji did not feel reassured by the Captain, but saw nothing to do about it now. Besides, it was not as if they really knew this æReflex weaponryÆ could harm an Eva. Nothing less than a N2bomb could hope to penetrate an extended AT field. He had nothing to worry about. Really.
ôMove into positions,ö Gloval ordered.
Shinji raised his rifle. The Veritech did the same.
ôBegin.ö
Opting to err on the side of discretion, Shinji vaulted Unit-01 down the left street, his rifle blazing in the hope that it might æhitÆ something. Hearing nothing, he peeked around the corner to see that the mecha was gone. Feet rooted to the spot, Shinji looked around, hoping for some clue to his foeÆs location. Such a clue came when the building he was hiding behind exploded, sending pieces of rubble everywhere. Through the haze, the Veritech was barely visible, but Shinji did not wait to get a clear look. Instead, he made another mad vault, this time to the top of a building in the hopes of ending this fight as quickly as the previous. To his surprise, his opponent transformed again, this time looking like a jet with legs as it rushed forward.
ôOh, come on.ö Shinji pleaded.
Diving behind the nearest building, the Third Child could hear the unmistakable sound of a large amount of missiles being loosed on a target. His worst fears were made manifest when the building providing cover was suddenly ventilated by the successive ordnance onslaught. Desperately trying to regain some measure of control, the pilot of Unit-01 opted for a strategy that consisted of running forward with guns blazing. The Veritech responded similarly and darted right under its opponentÆs line of fire.
Shinji loosed a frustrated sigh and spun around, hoping to catch the Veritech off-guard. Unfortunately, the enemy mecha was far too quick for the Eva and had already positioned itself out of range and reconfigured itself back to its humanoid form. Not even thinking about aiming, Shinji raised his rifle again to fire off several rounds, which the Veritech easily avoided. For the first time, the question of the identity of the opposing pilot popped into ShinjiÆs mind û whoever it was, he was good. The longer this lasted, the more likely it was that the Veritech would outmaneuver him. The Eva charged forward once more and the transformable mecha again dodged and watched as Unit-01 plowed into a nearby building, causing it to crumble. Inside, Shinji winced as he tried to regain his footing, knowing that his current situation left him wide open to attack.
ôManeuverability,ö Admiral Hayes said, inside the bunker.
ôSir?ö Gloval asked.
ôThe Veritech is performing well because of its maneuverability. It appears that modeling the Destroids for heavy firepower over maneuverability may have been a mistake, explaining its failure.ö
ôThat is one possible explanation,ö Colonel Leonard grumbled. ôHowever, it does not mean that Destroids would not dominate large-scale engagements at range.ö
ôMaybe,ö the Admiral responded, turning his attention back to the fight.
Shinji, meanwhile, was trying everything he could think of, but to no avail. Having discarded the rifle in favor of a pistol, he Eva pilot had attempted everything short of a song and dance in order to get the enemy to stand still long enough for him to get a clear shot. Yet, as the battle wore on and on, all he had managed to do was level the surrounding landscape. The original engagement zone resembled something akin to an impact crater and the outlying area did not look much better. Every time Shinji made a move he hoped would shift the tide of battle, the Veritech acted accordingly. A suspicion was growing in the back of the boyÆs mind that he was being toyed with.
Deciding it was time to go for broke, Shinji hurled Unit-01 against the building next to him, pushing it over and forcing his opponent to æjumpÆ back to avoid getting hit. Ripping off the side of another building, he used it as a makeshift shield as he charged his opponent. As the VeritechÆs gatling cannon tore the barrier to shreds, Shinji tossed it above the mecha, hoping that would force it to stay on the ground, where it would be vulnerable to counterattack. Shinji raised the EvaÆs AT field, trusting that it would block any incoming fire.
It was a fatal mistake. A sharp pain tore through ShinjiÆs left arm as he realized what had happened. The cannonÆs attack had passed through the AT field like it was not even there.
This is a story with good narrative so how could he miss the -scale- between such things? The VF-1 has in battroid mode
Height 12.68 m
Width 7.3 m
Wingspan same as in Fighter mode
Length 4 m
with a maximum takeoff weight of about 37 tons. Meanwhile, the Eva should stand at least 25, more like 50, and
iseventy-five meters in Rebuild while weighing
thousands of tons. These things can tank Cruise Missiles even -without- the AT-field. Hell, a 55mm gunpod should not even be able to rip a building to shreds, unless it's a really small building. Why? Because concrete works great as an ablative. Conctrete is laid over a structural steel framework, and thus unless that framework is torn apart the whole thing will hold together. As with the end of Evangelion, Unit 02 outright -ignores- 120mm (or even larger) anti-armor rounds and mass spam of air to ground missiles. Most A2G missiles function through the -shaped charge- against armor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armor_piercing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaped_charge
The 55mm Depleted Uranium-round gunpod is based off the GAU Avenger cannon, which tears up tanks just fine. However, tanks have a problem with blow-through. There's only so much space inside, that practically anything that penetrates its armor will kill the crew. In comparison, since an Eva is basically an upsized human being, it (and we) should survive something to the equivalent of being stabbed by small needles.
Remember, the force of impact is k = m v squared. A 55mm round has only so much mass, and its velocity cannot really compensate for that because it's a chemical-fired weapon. A gauss-fired round can achieve sufficient velocity (ref: recent research in EM-propel guns for warships) but a GUN? From what range? Remember, the Veritech was trying to dodge. The very moment a round leaves the barrel, its velocity starts to drop. Its kinetic energy at the impact point is diminished. Even lasers have to deal with attenuation.
Granted, I haven't read that far yet, but how the hell is a 55mm able to penetrate an AT-field? It's a -projectile-, and AT-fields are supposed to be good enough against kinetic strikes. Did he miss an Eva -catching- something from orbit in the TV show? I like Macross, and Roy, but this is just MacrossWank. A crossover that disrespects both sides of a meshed setting, no matter how well-written, is just going to sound like self-indulgence.
We can assume that since there was a WW3/Global Civil War, and the discovery of (other) aliens, NERV's funding is diluted to such an extent that they're making -sucky- Evangelions. However, this begs the question, what's the point then? Why not just blast an Angel with a particle beam from orbit? They have compact nuclear Fusion reactors inside their Veritech fighters. Logically therefore, an Evangelion with an upscaled version need never fear ever running out of power. Its AT-field should be stupidly powerful.
But no. What, is it something to do with the protoculture? Can't the two be used at the same time or in proximity? How is the Angel even expected to get to, much less -threaten- the incoming protoculture-using Zentraedi fleet massing in the hundreds of thousands of ships?
How will Unit 01 being inside SDF-1 add anything to the tension in the story? It's a lumbering beast that is easily defeated by Veritech fighters and Veritech-scale weaponry! Mass spam with BattlePods should be able to take it out, much like battleships were made obsolete by bomber aircraft. If you have removed the utility of the AT-field against conventional weaponry and thus removed its entire point of existence, right? What the hell is up with this story? One is a psychological horror while the other is a straight-up shooter with mass-produced mecha. It just doesn't MESH until one takes serious thought into adapting the setting into each other. It's not enough to say "Oh, it would be cool if Shinji met Roy and Rick, and maybe Miriya too." but that the settings must be reconciled with their vast disparities in materials technology.
Improvements from Macross should necessarily influence NGE. As said before, compact Fusion reactors mean no more unsightly umbilical cables. On the other hand, NGE biotech means that instead of bulky or heavy hydraulics, much lighter myomer and artificial muscle can be used to move joints. Robotech has Reflex warheads. Huh. Surprisingly, this actually carries with how NGE have weaponized antimatter, only taking the opposite route of directed-fire weapons. Robotech brings high-power fusion engines for flight. NGE brings stupidly tough armor. Combine these two and you have
A forced ramjet means it can loiter up there almost -forever- (or at least for months on end) while the sheer strength of its armor means immunity to all but the most powerful of directed-fire weapons.
For god's sake, the Monster is at the scale of an Eva at about 20m high
and it only weighs a meager 280-300 tons. It's slow as fuck, and that is why sensibly it operates as artillery. Why the hell would they allow something that masses in the -thousands of tons- exist solely as a -close combat specialist-? That being said, about Eva speed and maneuverability, there is also that bit from Sahaquiel's episode where
Unit 01 runs fast enough that it's "too fast for the eye, or camera, to follow" . That thing left over there is a building under construction. Now, it is not necessary that the Eva break the sound barrier; just because it's so flipping huge, it's going to be pushing a lot of air out of the way.
It should NOT be able to move like that!
Evangelions are -magitech-. For something grounded in conceptual reality as Robotech/Macross, there are serious considerations that must be ironed out before scientists start going insane from how much they break the laws of physics every time they fight. Seriously, take Sachiel. You have a particle beam in the shape of a cross. How come it doesn't disperse out into the atmosphere? What's keeping it contained? The AT-field? So does this mean it can -exist- in discrete packages
away from the Angel?
They have gravity control technology. Do you understand what this means? The Evangelion MAY FLY. If it had a sufficiently powerful AT-field, it could just blow through a fighter screen at speed and begin to RIP N TEAR capital ships. Remember, the Zentraedi don't -have- shields, and their main gun Reflex cannons of course require moving the whole ship to aim. The smaller guns seem like particle beam cannons.
Serious, serious lot of thinking before this can go through. Most important however, is that a -plot- must be worked out ahead of time. A lot of shit in NGE could not have been accomplished without three Evangelions there. Sahaquiel, for instance. Or Deus Ex Machina from Yui's influence. Leliel. How about a psychological attack against which there is no defense? Arael. What, you'd have to bring in Makinami Mari? She's -competitive-. Asuka and Mari would not make for a good working environment. Surprisingly, Mayumi Hamagishi is sufficiently Shinji-like to perhaps balance things out.
The problem is that the story would happen in two places; on Earth and inbound from Pluto. It took Macross the better part of a year to get back. That is also the timeframe of NGE from Shinji's arrival to Third Impact. Splitting the focus between two locations and two entirely different set of characters would be jarring to the reader. Of course, one could just focus on the travails of SDF-1, maybe have the Angels attack it instead, but... (points to the geofront) Adam and Lillith. Yeah, a LOT of more Angels are needed, for a true melee a'trois where everybody is fighting basically everybody. It would be a magnificent clusterfuck, but unless properly set up, it's just going to end up being an Asspull instead of Awesome.
