[Dan the Man]

Originally Posted by Sir Dearka

Yea, I personally watched just the movies of Zeta and the chosen episodes of the series but did not see Hyaku Shiki deflecting beams like SEED's Akatsuki did. But I admit I assumed that I must missed something when I read this on mahq:

Spoiler for from mahq:

The Hyaku Shiki was assigned to AEUG ace pilot Quattro Bajeena (the incognito Char Aznable - Zeon's "Red Comet" ace from the One Year War). The Hyaku Shiki was painted in a bright, highly distinctive gold paint scheme - ostensibly as a taunt to the Titans to prove that the AEUG could build mobile suits right under their noses - and had a reflective, anti-beam coating. Char would use the Hyaku Shiki as his personal mobile suit until the end of the Gryps Conflict, when it was heavily damaged in a battle against Axis leader Haman Karn's AMX-004 Qubeley in February UC 0088. A second Hyaku Shiki unit was later assigned to the troupe of young new pilots stationed aboard the AEUG's assault carrier Argama

Even if, for a unit that was getting quite old by the end of the series, it did fairly well, I think Especially with its pilot being like one of the best Zeon veteran pilots ever

Before I'd heard about the beam coating, my friends and I always thought the gold plating might've been used to reflect sunlight at an enemy during combat, like shining a flashlight in someone's eyes...

Well, the best way I can imagine it is that the coating might've been reflective to an extent, but completely beam resistant. Apart from that, I've always imagined Char/Quattro to be a pilot who wouldn't even take advantage of the coating. If I had the coating, it'd be a nice reassurance for protection, but I wouldn't rely on it.

Who knows? Maybe the Argama crew ran out of the stuff just before Operation Maelstrom and just gave it a coat of gold paint.

Now the Akatsuki on the other hand, that thing must've been made completely out of anti-beam coating. I've never seen a suit shrug off so many beams in my life!