Technology & Combat Characteristics
A ground-use transformable mobile suit, the RXR-44 Guntank was capable of transforming between a bipedal mobile suit form and a tank form. In the tank form, the reduced height makes the Guntank less likely to be hit and stabilizes the aim of the weapons, but also reduces its mobility. In tank form, its head retracts into the chest, and vision is provided by the forehead sensor. Being a prototype unit, its head sensor mostly reuses Jegan-type sensors.
Unlike its ancestor, the RX-75 Guntank, which had a pair of 4-tube missile launchers in place of manipulators, the RXR-44 has a pair of manipulators with arm-mounted 4-tube missile pods for increased versatility. The fingers of the manipulators also double as finger launchers. The equipment of beam cannons were considered, but since the development prioritized miniaturization, it did not have space for beam weapons and was equipped with a pair of shell-firing 200mm cannons instead.
History
Developed sometime after U.C. 0100 as part of a next generation mainline mobile suit development plan, the RXR-44 Guntank was one of the many prototype mobile suits proposed to the Earth Federation Forces. It was not formally adopted and was abandoned after testing, only to be acquired by Roy Jung, a formal brigadier general of the EFF. Roy named the mobile suit "R-44", with R being his initial and 44 being his age when he acquired it.
After acquiring the mobile suit, Roy displayed it at his military museum in Side 4's Frontier IV colony. When the Crossbone Vanguard attacked the colony in U.C. 0123, Roy attempted to fight the invaders using the Guntank R-44, which was already more than ten years old by that point. However, the mobile suit's lack of maintenance soon showed: Its hatch was unable to close, and its left cannon suffered a barrel burst after a single shot. Soon after, a XM-02 Den'an Gei destroyed the right cannon with its beam saber, killing both Roy and Arthur Jung.
Seabook Arno and his fellow refugees then boarded the damaged Guntank R-44 and attempted using it to reach Pier 24 and escape the colony, with Seabook as the pilot. On the way, they were stopped by a group of Federation soldiers, who wanted to use them as human shields against the Crossbone Vanguard, but they were able to escape with the help of Leslie Arno, Seabook's father.
After the rest of Seabook's group boarded a space shuttle, Seabook chased after Cecily Fairchild in the Guntank R-44 and witnessed her being chased by Theo Fairchild at gunpoint. Seabook tried to stop Theo, who shot him in the side. The Guntank R-44 was then immobilized when Dorel Ronah's XM-04 Berga Dalas fired its shot lancer at its right front tread. It was abandoned by the injured Seabook.