The deployment of the Principality of Zeon's highly agile mobile suits, the MS-05 Zaku I and the MS-06 Zaku II, in the early phase of the One Year War had given the small nation a major tactical edge over the much larger Earth Federation. Due to the widespread use of the Minovsky particles, which interfered with radio transmissions and rendered beyond-visual-range missiles useless, space warfare was reduced to direct fire barrages between large starships and spacefighterdogfights. The Zakus, capable of propellant-less maneuvering thanks to their AMBAC systems and able to be retrofitted to suit a variety of missions and environments, easily outclassed the Federation's arsenal of conventional space fighters and laid waste to the Federation armada of dreadnought space warships. Realizing that the gap needed to be closed, the Federation instituted Project V (short for "Project Victory"), a development program that would produce a counterpart Federation mobile suit design, with the capability for mass-production a mandatory requirement. While the ultimate result of the program was the mass-produced RGM-79 GM series, the high-performance RX-78 series prototypes served as the main testbed for the Project V engineers to trial several new design concepts that proved profoundly influential for the coming decades. Some of the developments in the RX-78 models were later incorporated into the GM line, but many were scrapped due to cost and/or complexity.