The Word - Articles - Beam Shield Technology

Beam Shield Technology - 09/02/2003

This is something I wrote over a year ago now and it needs a major update & revamp. However for the moment I have put it up in its original form so apologies if you actually read this and find it lacking.

Beam Shields

Sources: The initial text is all canon (official) and the primary source is from Gundam Project by Mark Simmons. The text after “Author’s notes” are my observations and theories from the Gundam animations. Some of it is canon to an extent and some of it is my explanation of events witnessed on screen but not confirmed fact.

The previously outlined technology for beam sabers can be employed in a more defensive manner. The first known example of this being the beam barrier used on the RX-93 Nu Gundam. The newtype weapon fin funnels were able to reconfigure their beam cannons to project a geometric shell around the mobile suit. A funnel would hover at each of the points of the shell and project planes of energy along the same lines as beam saber blades to form the surfaces of the beam barrier. The shield formed is capable of deflecting physical attacks including missiles and other projectile weapons (as well as beam weapons). This is an important advantage over the I-Field Barrier, which can only deflect beam weaponry. However the beam barrier of the Nu-Gundam is able to be collapsed under a significant enough attack (see author's notes).

Despite the era of relative peace after the Neo-Zeon War that introduced the Nu-Gundam, military technology still advances enough to the point where by UC 120 (the era of the F91 saga) beam shields have been improved significantly. The quest for less size and more performance (which by association meant higher reactor output) makes portable beam shields a reality on potentially all mobile suits. The beam shield (a simplified version of the barrier) is actually a plane of energy (composed in the same way as a beam saber blade) projected from a central generator unit. This can be used in the same way as a conventional shield to deflect all forms of attack. As the shield is formed in the same manner as a beam saber the suit computer has to deactivate any sections of it that would collide with the operating Mobile Suit! This does not mean, however, that the operator cannot use it as a primitive offensive weapon in quick close quarters combat.

The beam shield suffers from some obvious limitations such as its size and the ability to be collapsed under a powerful enough attack (like the one wielded by the Nu-Gundam). However it has much lower energy requirements than an I-Field (the only other defence against beam weaponry) and also protects against all forms of weaponry. By UC 150 (the era of V Gundam) almost every mobile suit has some form of beam shield and there are even some warships equipped with larger scale versions. The Victory 2 Assault Gundam uses a variant of the beam shield that harks back to the original one on the Nu-Gundam. The Mobile Suit has three remote controlled "barrier bits" that form the vertices of its larger beam shield.

Author's Notes: During the battle for the Axis asteroid portrayed towards the end of Char's Counterattack Amuro's beam barrier on the Nu-Gundam is attacked by a several heavy barrages of beams followed by missiles from Quess in the Alpha Azieru. This collapses the barrier but it seems to form back up again straight away. I would theorise that too much stress on the barrier weakens it to the point of dissolution but it takes a lot more to actually overload the generators with the strain (and therefore prevent reformation of the shield).

I would assume that the portable beam shields must run in a fairly efficient manner to be a valid defence option and to be continuously activated and reactivated. The reactors on the post UC 120 Suits must be extremely efficient to power them and the beam sabers too. A lot of the internal workings of the Suit's must be compressed by that time to allow for more space to store plasma and increase the size of the reactors. There are probably certain allocations to each of the pieces of equipment that require the reactor and plasma etc to make sure overuse of one thing does not disable another.

Last updated to KoRn - Kunt