HOW ARE DESTROIDS DIFFERENT FROM THE ORIGINAL ANIME MECHA?
Firstly, the Destroids are fusion-powered in the Japanese originals. In addition, the guns on the arms of the Raidar X and the MAC II are not lasers, but respectively, 78mm autocannon and missile launchers. Macek has commented that in his view, all weapons in Robotech were beam guns (recall that all of this was before the release of _Aliens_, which brought conventional projectile weapons back in vogue in American Sci-Fi, whereas they had been the rage in Japanese anime for years, working alongside lasers and particle guns). Finally, there are the names. While Destroid names are rarely mentioned in the show, the Japanese ones seem to be the ones most often used. (The exception is a reference in the background to a ‘Gladiator squadron’.) However, with the release of the Matchbox die-cast Destroids, new names were given. What Matchbox calls the Excalibur was originally the Tomahawk, the Raidar X was originally the Defender, the Gladiator was originally the Spartan, the Spartan was origina
