The RB-79G Ball Work Type was a mass production work pod variant of the standard Ball deployed by the Earth Federation.
History
See also: History of RB-79 Ball
At the beginning of the One Year War with the Principality of Zeon, the Earth Federation lacked any sort of mobile suits while the Zeon forces held the upper hand in the war with their mobile suits.
The Federation developed a prototype mobile suit, the RX-78-2 Gundam, but it was too costly to be mass produced. Their first mass-production mobile suit, the RGM-79 GM, was not produced fast enough to be deployed at all battle fronts. Thus, the Federation refitted around 1,200 civilian-use SP-W03 Space Pods to be deployed in combat.
As an improvised conversion, the RB-79 Ball was initially seen as ill-suited for combat. However, it was smaller, more manoeuvrable, and more stealthy than a mobile suit. The Federation stuck to it for its low production cost and availability in large numbers.
The Federation produced several variants of the Ball. The RB-79G Ball Work Type specialised in recovery and construction purposes. The manouvrability and small size of the Ball Work Type allowed it to navigate through space debris to recover damaged units.
The Ball Work Type served till UC 0084. They were eventually replaced by worker type mobile suits when the cost of producing such mobile suits decreased significantly. Older mobile suits that had been retired or phased out were refitted for work duties.
Design
See also: Design of RB-79 Ball
The RB-79G Ball Work Type was similar to the RB-79 Ball. It had a crane arm fitted on the top for lifting purposes. It had a pair of claws that it used to for gripping whatever it carried. The Ball Work Type had a rocket-guided grappling hook that it used to latch onto its targets or for hauling purposes.
It had lights mounted on the front to provide extra illumination to assist the pilots in their work.
Known pilots
Variants
- RB-79C Ball Type C
- RB-79F Ball Type F
- RB-79K Ball Type K
- RB-79M Ball Type M
- RB-79N Fisheye
- RB-133 Type 133 Ball
Behind the scenes
Hajime Katoki is the original mechanical designer.