Weapon Systems

Part I: Ballistic Weapons

Vulcans: All Gundams are equipped with vulcans on either side of their head.  These weapons are generally used for anti-infantry and light armor purposes.  Roughly 60mm in diameter, vulcan rounds cannot seriously damage a Mobile Suit, save a critical hit, such as a main camera or actuator

Machine Cannons: Most Gundams come equipped with machine cannons on their shoulders.  These rapid-firing machine guns range from 90mm to 120mm in diameter, which is equivalent to a modern tank round.  Machine cannons can destroy Leo's and Aries' and other mass-produced and lightly-armored Mobile Suits, but could do very little damage against another Gundam or a Tallgeese-type Mobile Suit.

Rifles: A standard Leo rifle fires 105mm shells fully-automatically, with a magazine size of 100 rounds.  Rifles are generally more accurate than machine cannons, and can carry more ammunition.  They are meant to take abuse and can fire even under harsh conditions like a desert environment.

Dober Gun: Firing a large, explosive projectile at high speeds, the dober gun can completely destroy a Leo, Tragos, Aries or similiar Mobile Suit with a single round.  The dober gun also seems capable to fire beam or missile projectiles with little external modification to the weapon.  The dober gun can be used by a Leo, however, the recoil from this weapon can cause stress on the Leo's joints, although the dober gun is already fitted with a standard muzzle brake to lessen the effects of recoil.

Part II: Beam Weapons

Beam Guns: Carried by some Leo space-types and the Mercurius, the beam gun is a weak and inaccurate weapon with a moderate rate of fire.  Although more powerful than a ballistic weapon due to its higher velocity, the beam gun is usually added to a Mobile Suit as a last thought weapon.

Beam Rifles: Seen carried by Taurus Mobile Suits, beam rifles are more accurate than beam guns and inflict enough damage to pose a problem to the Gundams.  Having a fast exit velocity, it can be difficult to avoid enemy fire when they are equipped with beam rifles.

Beam Cannons: A much larger version of the beam rifle, the beam cannon can envelop an entire Mobile Suit in its blast.  Carried by the Virgo Mobile Dolls, these weapons use a lot of energy and create a lot of heat, thus the Virgo's had a built in generator to power this weapon.  The Gundam Wing and Vayeate used a slightly larger version of the beam cannon.

Mega Beam Cannons: This weapon is mounted on space vessels.  The Libra's main cannon was a very large mega beam cannon.  Taking a lot of time to charge and causing enough damage to destroy entire cities from orbit, the mega beam cannon is the most destructive weapon in Gundam Wing.  The Wing Zero probably used a scaled-down version of this weapon.

Beam Saber: Using an I-Field to shape a bladed type weapon, and then filled with super-heated plasma, beam sabers are efficient close range weapons.  It is possible to shape the I-Field into a variety of shapes, including scythes and tridents.  Depending on how much output a beam weapon creates and the power of the Mobile Suit using it determines the beam weapons' ability to cut through armor.

Part III: Missile Weapons

Bazooka: Bazookas fire a large, explosive warhead ranging in size from 260mm to 380mm in diameter.  The detonation and blast radius caused from this warhead can destroy several grouped Mobile Suits and the shock from the blast and the resulting shrapnel could possibly destroy a Gundam with a single direct hit.  While normal infantry bazookas are one shot weapons, Mobile Suit bazookas are more like rocket launchers, with multiple rounds or warheads contained within a removable magazine.  Some bazooka rounds could possibly come in heat-seeking types or incinderary variations.

Rocket Launcher: Firing large, explosive warheads much like bazookas, rocket launchers will generally fire more than one round at a time, as seen on the Aries' missile pods.  The rockets themselves are usually non-guided warheads.

Torpedo: A maritime version of a gas-propelled warhead, torpedos are used by the Cancer and Pisces Mobile Suits.  Torpedos can also be launched in an arc onto the land to assist in a fire-support role to allied Mobile Suits.

Part IV: Miscellaneous Weapon Types

Heat Blades: Made of a high melting-point metal, and heated to a red glow, heat blades are every bit as deadly as beam blades.  Slicing through Mobile Suit armor as though it was butter, heat weapons require the Mobile Suit using them to have a much higher power ability than a Mobile Suit using a beam bladed weapon.  The main reason for this being that it takes more force to cut through armor using a metal blade than it does when using a thermal energy one.  Fortunately, both the Sandrock and Heavyarms have some of the highest power abilities in Gundam Wing.