By chance it was December the first time I watched 0080, and in the years since I’ve made rewatching it part of Advent’s furniture. Moderate lateral spoilers follow.
This time around, I noticed the brief scene in which Killing instructs a subordinate (pictured) to attack Side 6 with nukes. I think this is the last of this dapper white-haired Zeon officer’s brief appearances in 0080. When he checks that Killing is serious a lowered head and what might be clenched teeth are the only signs that he’s uncomfortable.
0080 provides a brief, purely verbal report of the battle which stopped his fleet. All we learn is that at least one Zeon ship was destroyed and at least two, including the one carrying the nuclear weapons (presumably this officer’s) surrendered. Maybe the only ships he had were the three shown when they’re loading the nukes, in which case that’s everything accounted for.
I can’t help wondering. Did he prosecute the battle to the limit of his abilities, or did he consciously or unconsciously pull his punches? Would a more fanatic officer have done a Crespo and refused to surrender? Did he perhaps lower his head and hide his eyes under his cap because he was already planning to disobey orders?
All rather irrelevant to 0080, yes, but entertaining as a parlour game.
(Relevant linkage to two of those who blog on tumbrel— sorry, tumblr: Pontifus, Coburn.)
Animanachronism 
I don’t think he pulled his punches. His name is Col. KILLING.
Seriously though, that’s an interesting question. Information is rather scarce, but there’s still a probable leap to be made by such a man from murdering a fellow officer in cold blood to destroying a colony full of people.
Killing’s not the chap who may or may not have pulled his punches, I’m talking about the unnamed officer in those images above, who has a very limited onscreen role.
I’m pretty sure Killing would cheerfully have fought to destruction, so those ships’ crews are lucky he wasn’t in direct command.
Oh my mistake!
It gives credence to how the combating military organizations aren’t monolithic and easily slotted in good guys/bad guys roles… reinforced by the further UC mini-series in the ’90s; though much can be said about how these works humanized Zeon while layering more evil on the Federation side.
Well, I don’t feel like keeping a ledger for these things, only that they seem quite relevant now that Gundam Unicorn will be dominating UC conversation for the next 2 years (at its current pace of releases).
Yeah, I remember that guy. Oddly enough I’d just assumed that he was on the ship that got shot down – in war, the decent bloke gets the short straw and all that. Of course, if he purposefully lost a ship of comrades in order not to nuke civilians he’d be doing the right thing, but not quite following the warrior code. A heroic defection is just about possible, but maybe his army is staffed with the likes of Private Ruthless and Major Bloodlust.
. . . and we can assume that a General Disaster was present somewhere in the command chain too.
Of course I could just be engaging in the kind of Rommelisation that I think jp called out when he wrote about Nadesico.
his name is Captain Von Helsing I would like to think he was a good commander a lot of zeonic soldiers like ramba ral black tri stars anavel gato were just brave soldiers