RB-79 BALL
The Ball is a suit developed to support the RGM-79 GM which is the main mobile suit of the Federation Forces.
Although the Federation Forces practical introduction of mobile suits was significantly delayed compared to the Principality of Zeon forces, the performance of the GM implemented sufficient trial production and came to surpass the Zeon with technology such as portable beam weaponry and a learning computer. However, the GM was an expensive weapon and even with the national resources of something as mighty as the Federation, it was impossible to amass a suitable amount against the Zeon forces who had deployed mobile suits as their main weapons at the start of the war. Therefore, by utilizing GMs only for missions that are difficult to carry out without mobile suits (for example close combat), inexpensive weapons for supporting attacks and the like were substituted and an idea came up to make up the number of weapons with a smaller budget. The Federation Forces foresaw a battle at Solomon and in the lunar orbit early on so substitute weaponry for mobile suits in space was planned under the same idea.
Thus, the RB-79 Ball was developed. Based on the fuselage of a single-person space pod for space work (the SP-W03) that was used for colony construction and other things, a 180mm low-recoil cannon and a turret are added to the top along with a main rocket on the back as well as armor plating and high mobility thrusters.
Also, the Ball lacks a thermonuclear reactor and instead it utilizes fuel cells as its power source. Due to this, its output is improved by nearly 50% compared to the space pod (its base), and with its surrounding design being largely reused, it is low in cost and highly reliable.
The lack of a thermonuclear reactor and simplistic structure makes it highly serviceable and it doesn’t suffer from serious cooling problems that plague reactors. Because they were able to operate even on ships that lacked large hangars, it was possible to swiftly deploy to combat zones with mobile suit operational motherships, though rare in the Federation Forces.
There is absolutely no expensive monitoring system or complex sensors like those in a mobile suit and even the control system is simple. The manufacturing cost of the Ball is less than a quarter of the GM and more than 1200 units participated in the battles at Solomon and A Baoa Qu at the end of the war. Although it yielded no spectacular results, it is said to be a weapon that led the Federation to victory through numbers.
