Zabi Palace Zeon "Gwazine"-class Heavy Battleship

Typhoon weather is good for modeling. Today, I continue with the hand-crafted Gundam battleship series. The "Gwazine" is the protagonist this time, scale 1:1700, printed in separate colors, no AMS required.

The Gwazine-class was the strongest battleship of the Principality of Zeon military during the One Year War, possessing the highest firepower, armor, and cruising range.

This class of ship was developed by the Principality of Zeon for use as flagships and heavy battleships for the Principality's various space fleets. The ship was equipped with three large twin-barreled MEGA particle cannons as its main guns, and ten twin-barreled MEGA particle cannon turrets as secondary guns. However, there is still much unclear information regarding the ship's armaments. There is debate over whether the Gwazine-class's secondary guns are particle turrets or traditional artillery turrets (the secondary guns on the ship's sides give the impression of "autocannons," but considering the ship's scale, they are presumed to be MEGA particle cannons). This was a period when the Principality's military was gradually replacing physical projectile artillery with MEGA particle cannons, leading to overlapping use of the two types of weapons, which caused some confusion in historical records regarding the ship's armaments.

The most significant feature of the Gwazine-class was not its powerful firepower, but its Mobile Suit (MS) carrying capacity. This class of ship could carry up to 20 MS units, more than three times that of the Earth Federation Forces' Pegasus-class. The ship carried external fuel tanks, allowing for unresupplied voyages from Earth to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. For the needs of long-term voyages, an artificial gravity zone utilizing centrifugal force was specifically designed within the ship.

In contrast, the Gwazine-class had very high logistical requirements; its massive hull and carrying capacity resulted in enormous resource consumption. Therefore, although the Gwazine-class had excellent performance, even surpassing the Earth Federation Forces' Magellan-class, its high manufacturing cost prevented mass production. It was usually assigned to the Zabi family or their associates, serving not only as the fleet's flagship but also as the ultimate symbol of the Principality of Zeon's dominance.

The first Gwazine-class battleship was put into service in U.C. 0076, becoming the largest known space battleship at the time. In U.C. 0079, two ships of this class participated in the Battle of Loum. Among them, the first ship, Degwin The Great, was the private flagship of Degwin Sodo Zabi. During negotiations with General Revil, it was destroyed by a solar ray fired by Gihren Zabi.

After U.C. 0083, the Zeon remnants of Axis designed and built successor ships to the Gwazine-class, the Gwadon-class and Gwaban-class.