RX-78-3 G-3 Gundam

RX-78-3 G-3 Gundam is the third RX-78 specification, and it comes from the novel version of Mobile Suit Gundam (1979, U.C. 0079) rather than the television series. In that text it is the machine handed to Amuro Ray after he loses his Gundam; Mobile Suit Variation later fixed it as a unit with its own model number. It wears a grey and light purple scheme meant to lower its visibility.

What it does in the story

The G-3 has no single screen battle to point at: it was written for the novel and afterwards folded into side material. In the novel Amuro takes it into the last stretch of the war, with magnet coating on the joints to answer a Newtype's reflexes. Other accounts treat it as a test unit at Augusta or Luna II, and one side story puts a damaged G-3 aboard a ship at A Baoa Qu too late to fight.

What makes it different

• It is the testbed for magnet coating. The membrane treatment went onto the G-3's joints before it went onto the RX-78-2, where it cut the time needed for a change of direction by roughly 27 percent. Field motors lose less friction with the coating, which is why later machines in the line are built around the process.
• Its reactor runs a different laser accelerator. A new laser accelerator for the thermonuclear reactor is what gives the G-3 twice the manoeuvrability of the RX-78-2 on paper. Thrusters were strengthened at the same time to keep the higher output balanced across the frame.
• The learning computer is a generation newer. The G-3 carries the NICN system rather than the ICN fitted to the RX-78-2. NICN is the high-speed, large-capacity type that also went into the RX-78NT-1, and the two programmes exchanged data while both were still in development.
• The paint is part of the specification. Grey with light purple panels, chosen to make the machine harder to pick out at range. Reference books record more than one version of the scheme; the partly purple pattern is the one usually reproduced on kits.

How big is it?

• Overall height: 18.5 m, with a head height of 18.0 m, according to Bandai's official spec
• 1/144: roughly 12.5 cm
• 1/100: roughly 18 cm

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Frequently asked questions

Background sources: RX-78-3 G-3 Gundam — Gundam Wiki · ガンダム（架空の兵器）G-3ガンダム（日本語版 Wikipedia）