Will we ever see a Macross Rocket Punch?

[RedWolf]

You know I have to wonder. The Daedalus Punch is pretty iconic. Repeated in SRW Alpha with an ARMD and Macross Frontier with Macross Quarter and Battle Galaxy.

When you think about it Macrosses are really several ships that make up one ship and a humanoid attacker form.

So in the future of the Macross franchise will we ever see one?

[nexxstrait]

You know I have to wonder. The Daedalus Punch is pretty iconic. Repeated in SRW Alpha with an ARMD and Macross Frontier with Macross Quarter and Battle Galaxy.

When you think about it Macrosses are really several ships that make up one ship and a humanoid attacker form.

So in the future of the Macross franchise will we ever see one?

I hope not. besides, we already have a spectacular Gamlin Kick

[Agent ONE]

Daedalus attack was more like a goofy effort of desperation than something that was actually engineered. Remember it was because the cannons weren't working. The "punch" ides is kinda dumb in any other scenario.

Do modern soldiers carry swords? No. That would be stupid.

[Master Dex]

Regardless of the circumstances of the punch tactic or how it was conceived, when it comes to ship warfare (both naval and the fictional space based) it is a fact that one of the best attacks of last resort is the ever effective ramming the enemy ship with yours. The Daedalus attack gets away with the fact that while that part of the ship is ramming, it is protected by a shield. Most times, ramming maneuvers are finite and leave both ships out of the equation.

[thegunny]

I really hope to see world peace and above all an end to the never ending need to blame global warming for everything that happens.

[Seto Kaiba]

So in the future of the Macross franchise will we ever see one?

Possible... but very unlikely IMO. I think the best potential candidate for such a thing would've been the Daedalus II-class space carrier/ramship from the Macross II prequel games, but nobody ever attempts to dock any to one of the Macross-class ships that were around at the time (that we know of). The Daedalus II-class is the only ship I'm aware of in Macross that was actually purpose-built to execute the Daedalus Attack without the support of a larger ship, so that would make it the best possible candidate.

Do modern soldiers carry swords? No. That would be stupid.

Not to dig a colossal hole in this particular argument, but what's practical and logical on the modern-day battlefield doesn't necessarily hold true for science fiction... especially not where giant fighting robots or other unconventional things abound... after all, one of our biggest American sci-fi franchises is centered around a bunch of space monks who fight with laser swords, and possibly the most iconic robot show of all frequently features giant robots fighting with swords of both the physical and laser persuasion. Would a long-range Daedalus Attack really be less practical or believable than, say, dogfighting with giant knives like we saw in Macross Frontier?

[Bri]

Daedalus attack was more like a goofy effort of desperation than something that was actually engineered. Remember it was because the cannons weren't working. The "punch" ides is kinda dumb in any other scenario.

Do modern soldiers carry swords? No. That would be stupid.

Don't underestimate the power of stupid. Mad Jack Churchill fought in world war II with a claymore. Quite succesfully.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Churchill

[Robelwell202]

A 'Macross Punch' would be silly, but the one thing I really hope NOT to see in future Macross installments is a Macross Sword...

We're one step closer to it, with the Quarter carrying it's flight deck like a sheild, so I'm seriously wondering if there'll be a Voltron-esque 'Flaming Sword'.

Just something to worry about...

[VF5SS]

the integrity of my singing robot show is in jeopardy

[sketchley]

Regardless of the circumstances of the punch tactic or how it was conceived, when it comes to ship warfare (both naval and the fictional space based) it is a fact that one of the best attacks of last resort is the ever effective ramming the enemy ship with yours. The Daedalus attack gets away with the fact that while that part of the ship is ramming, it is protected by a shield. Most times, ramming maneuvers are finite and leave both ships out of the equation.

Good point. "Star Trek Nemesis" has a great illustrative sequence depicting just such an attack.

A 'Macross Punch' would be silly, but the one thing I really hope NOT to see in future Macross installments is a Macross Sword...

We're one step closer to it, with the Quarter carrying it's flight deck like a sheild, so I'm seriously wondering if there'll be a Voltron-esque 'Flaming Sword'.

Just something to worry about...

It's already there. The Macross Quarter is described as having a "sabre-shaped weapon" when the PPB is expanded around the ARMD-R. If memory serves, it was used in the last episode of MF to slice a hole in the belly of the Macross Galaxy.

Edited January 14, 2010 by sketchley

[Master Dex]

Yes, despite all that and even Sketchley bringing up that bit from Nemesis (Star Trek loves the ram as a last resort maneuver believe it or not), the reality is ramming a spacecraft into another as an attack is unlikely to ever work. Space warfare is most likely going to be a long distance endeavor where weapons are being fired toward each other while the two craft can barely see the other. They'll have it on radar or sensors or whatever they have. There is no real stealth in space after all. Even if a ship did try a ramming move, because of the distance, the other guy is going to notice what is going on an move out of the way. I will note though that with the size of spacecraft and the velocities they'd carry, a ram such as those would have tremendous energy release, like nuclear bomb levels of energy or more. The two ships would probably vaporize.

In Macross though this is still possible, it is in a long line of sci fi shows that doesn't bother with the correct scale (not that this is terrible though) and has the ships relatively close to each other when they fight. Makes it more dramatic, which is why it is done, and that is good enough for me.

[Vile]

the integrity of my singing robot show is in jeopardy

Don't worry, there could be a perfectly realistic explanation ... maybe a punch is needed in police actions, where use of the cannon would be overkill ... like stopping drunken space pilots or something ...

[Cuda]

PIN POINT BARRIER PUNCH!

[bluemax151]

Do modern soldiers carry swords? No. That would be stupid.

Don't Rangers still commonly carry Tomahawks?

I'm pretty sure I saw something on the military or history channel about this.

[Agent ONE]

Don't Rangers still commonly carry Tomahawks?

I'm pretty sure I saw something on the military or history channel about this.

NO! They are issued for ceremonial use. Like USMC swords.

[Agent ONE]

the integrity of my singing robot *with boobs* show is in jeopardy

Fixed it for ya.

[bluemax151]

NO! They are issued for ceremonial use. Like USMC swords.

Considering the Ranger claimed to have split an insurgent skull with it I doubt it

[VF5SS]

Fixed it for ya.

you seem to have a fixation

[reddsun1]

Don't underestimate the power of stupid. Mad Jack Churchill fought in world war II with a claymore. Quite succesfully.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Churchill

Truth is stranger than fiction, eh?

Seriously, this is the stuff great action movies are made of. You can't MAKE this kind of sh*t up.

As for swords in modern combat? Maybe not. But edged weapons, i.e. bayonets, are still integral skills that soldiers are trained to have/use.

[Marzan]

Not to dig a colossal hole in this particular argument, but what's practical and logical on the modern-day battlefield doesn't necessarily hold true for science fiction... especially not where giant fighting robots or other unconventional things abound... after all, one of our biggest American sci-fi franchises is centered around a bunch of space monks who fight with laser swords, and possibly the most iconic robot show of all frequently features giant robots fighting with swords of both the physical and laser persuasion. Would a long-range Daedalus Attack really be less practical or believable than, say, dogfighting with giant knives like we saw in Macross Frontier?

Let's not forget Legends of Galactic Heroes were the infantry have a go at each other with huge battleaxes.

In space...

[Killer Robot]

Truth is stranger than fiction, eh?

Seriously, this is the stuff great action movies are made of. You can't MAKE this kind of sh*t up.

As for swords in modern combat? Maybe not. But edged weapons, i.e. bayonets, are still integral skills that soldiers are trained to have/use.

I think that's the key here. Bayonets, knives and rifles - the battroid is conceived pretty solidly as giant modern-style soldier, in contrast to a lot of sci-fi franchises, like Star Wars or Gundam, that cast their mecha/warriors like knights, psychic warrior monks, or other historical/fantastic motifs. As such I think we'll see few features that would be out of place on a modern fighter or soldier, with minor exceptions like PPB, ICS, energy rifles, etc, which are more general sci-fi ideas.

As for whether we see a capital ship with a sword or rocket punch or what have you, who knows? Macross moved its super robot features to the ship itself, so there is room for more craziness, especially if it's done as a desperation tactic rather than as a deliberate new feature.

[sketchley]

As for whether we see a capital ship with a sword or rocket punch or what have you, who knows? Macross moved its super robot features to the ship itself, so there is room for more craziness, especially if it's done as a desperation tactic rather than as a deliberate new feature.

Macross F's (not sure at the moment about preceeding incarnations) Battle class ships apparently are composed of 6 seperate hulls; each with their own means of propulsion as well as fold drives. Therefore, it'd be possible to have a Battle class ship do the rocket punch/kick 4 times, and possibly even launch the Gun ship as a spear.

And the Macross Quarter, in addition to the aforementioned shield and sabre weapons, it's also got another 4 parts/seperate-ships that can be sent off on their own.

So, the potential is there. Add in their strengthened energy conversion armour and some PPBs, and they just might survive an impact (presuming that the enemy ship doesn't also have enervy conversion armour, and the ensuing explosion (as all destroyed ships go boom in anime) doesn't overwhelm the armour, energy conversion armour and PPB of the sub-ship used in the rocket punch/kick.

[hulagu]

Let's not forget Legends of Galactic Heroes were the infantry have a go at each other with huge battleaxes.

In space...

That kind of makes sense for the Rosenritter in their roles as space marines, as boarding actions are almost always close quarters against opponents in full body armor, and using heavy weaponry on board a spaceship is likely to cause explosive decompression. Besides the magic invisible particles that they sometimes deploy as a tactic causes energy weaponry to explode.

(Why no one switches to using projectile weapons is another question).

The actual infantry have and do actually use ranged weaponry in battle.

Edited January 16, 2010 by hulagu

[hulagu]

PIN POINT BARRIER PUNCH!

MACROSS DROP KICK!

(From Ultimate Frontier, I think it's the Macross Quarter ...)

[SchizophrenicMC]

Regardless of the circumstances of the punch tactic or how it was conceived, when it comes to ship warfare (both naval and the fictional space based) it is a fact that one of the best attacks of last resort is the ever effective ramming the enemy ship with yours. The Daedalus attack gets away with the fact that while that part of the ship is ramming, it is protected by a shield. Most times, ramming maneuvers are finite and leave both ships out of the equation.

This reminds me of the Keyes Loop in Halo: The Fall of Reach.

In a fast orbit, he launched a nuke going the opposite way around the planet, and proceeded to engage a Covenant ship along that orbit with the MAC in the bow. He then avoided a salvo of plasma torpedoes by using the emergency thrusters to launch it out of the way and over top of the enemy vessel. He rammed the bottom of his ship into its top, flaring the enemy's shields out, then used every Archer missile to finish it off. The nuke proceeded to detonate, destroying the shields of the other 2 ships in the enemy fleet, and he finished them off with MAC rounds.

I think I got all that.

Anyway, it ruined the ship. It had to be completely overhauled, as the lower section was vaporized by the enemy shield, the nuke's EMP fried 8 of the MAC coils, and all kinds of other problems.

This is why ramming maneuvers are last-resort.

[Master Dex]

This reminds me of the Keyes Loop in Halo: The Fall of Reach.

In a fast orbit, he launched a nuke going the opposite way around the planet, and proceeded to engage a Covenant ship along that orbit with the MAC in the bow. He then avoided a salvo of plasma torpedoes by using the emergency thrusters to launch it out of the way and over top of the enemy vessel. He rammed the bottom of his ship into its top, flaring the enemy's shields out, then used every Archer missile to finish it off. The nuke proceeded to detonate, destroying the shields of the other 2 ships in the enemy fleet, and he finished them off with MAC rounds.

I think I got all that.

Anyway, it ruined the ship. It had to be completely overhauled, as the lower section was vaporized by the enemy shield, the nuke's EMP fried 8 of the MAC coils, and all kinds of other problems.

This is why ramming maneuvers are last-resort.

I've heard of that maneuver, it is full of several inconsistencies but the basic idea you are mentioning is correct. Mostly the big problem is that the nuke's EMP effected them. Electromagnetic pulses can't happen in the vacuum of space where there is no magnetic field. In orbit of a planet you do have the field of the planet itself but planetary magnetic fields are very weak and in a high altitude like orbit the gamma rays from the nuke will disperse quickly and generate little to no magnetic field.

However this has nothing to do with the topic, the fact remains: ramming is generally a last ditch move.

[Agent ONE]

you seem to have a fixation

Many.

[Kronnang Dunn]

Well, since the Daedalus attack is made with one of the "hands" of a Macross type space fortress... And since mass produced versions of the SDF-1 "Macross" (like the SDFN-4 "Global") had ARMD carriers as hands... I think there could be a variation of the Daedalus attack where the ARMD carrier is launched from the space fortress arm while in "Storm attacker" mode... WHY NOT?

Edited January 26, 2010 by Kronnang Dunn

[SchizophrenicMC]

I've heard of that maneuver, it is full of several inconsistencies but the basic idea you are mentioning is correct. Mostly the big problem is that the nuke's EMP effected them. Electromagnetic pulses can't happen in the vacuum of space where there is no magnetic field. In orbit of a planet you do have the field of the planet itself but planetary magnetic fields are very weak and in a high altitude like orbit the gamma rays from the nuke will disperse quickly and generate little to no magnetic field.

However this has nothing to do with the topic, the fact remains: ramming is generally a last ditch move.

Yeah, that's the main inconsistency, but I was pointing out, mainly, that the effect of actually ramming the enemy destroyed many lower decks, leading to a need for a complete overhaul, whereas EMP damage to the MAC coils would have been a simple realignment. The point is, even 2 feet of "Titanium-A" armor can't withstand the brunt of 2 high-speed ships colliding, even on the longest surface to distribute pressure over.

Well, since the Daedalus attack is made with one of the "hands" of a Macross type space fortress... And since mass produced versions of the SDF-1 "Macross" (like the SDFN-4 "Global") had ARMD carriers as hands... I think there could be a variation of the Daedaluss attack where the ARMD carrier is launched from the space fortress arm while in "Storm attacker" mode... WHY NOT?

My god, he's right.