Patlabor WXIII

Watching this made me nostalgic for the first two Patlabor films. Patlabor is an extremely atmospheric series that fills me with love even if I'm not paying the fiercest attention. I was not outraged by the limited appearances of Special Vehicle Unit 2.
It was a very nice mood piece, but I will have to watch it again. As always, I was impressed by the architectually idealised model of Tokyo presented.
Question: Was WXIII set before Patlabor 2? I thought the unit had pretty much broken up in it - and I remember being struck by the mature Noa's distance from her Labor.