Doven Wolf Weaponry Redundant?

[TDR-10M Thunderbolt]

Sadly, this is one case where I can't easily watch ZZ Gundam to find out since Daisuki's episodes for it were yanked a few weeks back... so I'm hoping someone can provide some insight on this. Before I ask my question, the specs in question can be found at http://www.mahq.net/mecha/gundam/zz/amx-014.htm

Basically, I'm confused by the Doven Wolf's beam weapons. It wields a one-handed beam rifle rated at 12.5 MW (it can also connect to the torso beam guns for even greater power, but that's not relevant for my question). It also uses a pair of beam cannons in the backpack, rated at 4.2 MW apiece (the same as the Schuzrum Dias' beam cannons are rated). With this laid out, here is my question:

Why does it even have the backpack beam cannons? With the numbers provided, wouldn't I be right in believing the rifle itself is notably more powerful than both cannons combined? Their inclusion makes more sense on the handful of captured Doven Wolves using the Jegan's beam rifle (I think those DWs might have been converted to Silver Bullets, though; this is going into 0096-era lore that might not be relevant here? Unsure), but on the original Zeon equipment I'm just left scratching my head. What's the point of the cannons if a more flexible handheld version is better than them?

[Strike105]

It's a simple answer. They're extra weapons and they provide extra firepower. The Doven Wolf has a lot of weapons because it's a "heavy" mobile suit, which often translates to mean a mobile weapons battery that excels in crowd control. One of the main goals in war involves trying to render the opponent incapable of fighting back. In Gundam, and many, many other mecha shows, one of the ways they go about this on the battlefield is by destroying their opponent's weapons. If your main weapon was damaged or destroyed in the middle of a huge skirmish, would you want to be left with only a blade to defend yourself with chaos occurring all around you?

The power ratings given to us for beam rifles in bios look impressive, but if you look at the weapons in animation, very few seem that different from each other outside of long range launcher weapons and Unicorn's beam magnum, as they all destroy things with relative ease. I can't speak for Doven Wolf, as I haven't watched all of ZZ, but the point stands. Those numbers don't matter.

[TDR-10M Thunderbolt]

So basically 'back-up weapons and a way to fire three shots at once instead of just one, if you're so inclined to spend the extra energy'? I can see that making sense. Just feels weird to have cannons be the backup to the rifle (or not at all, if we go by your 'numbers don't matter' notion... which could well be true). Interesting thoughts; thank you for chiming in!

[HalfDemonInuyasha]

Yeah, it's largely said that one shouldn't put all their faith in output numbers in the specs.

Look at the Alpha Azieru, for example. Its primary mega particle cannon is listed as 19.5 MW and, obviously in animation, it IS quite large in size, the size of a MS torso really. However, it also lists the output of each of its large Funnels at 20.4 MW, even greater than its primary mega particle cannon, yet in animation (like with the other Funnels Neo Zeon Newtype MS used), their beams look very thin, almost laser-like in appearance.

[JEFFPIATT]

it also helps that the Doven Wolf was an quasi-psycommu system equipped unit and being based on the Psyco Gundam Mk-II and other EFF psycommu based units its fitting that it is armed to the hilt and the units quasi-psycommu system allows the pilot to actually aim all of those guns at the same time.

[TDR-10M Thunderbolt]

Jeff: That's a really good point. I had forgotten about that. Or rather, I only limited its advantages to 'can control Incoms.' The idea that the system could help aim multiple other weapons at the same time didn't even cross my mind. Pretty interesting!

Inuyasha: ...Wow, that IS a pretty big disparity in specs versus animation. Definitely a good mark against using them even within the same era (I'd seen some of Mark's work suggesting they're not consistent across eras/shows and thus cannot be used for 'which machine is better?' thoughts, but to think they're that far off even within the same work... wow.)

[Heaven Piercing Man]

Speaking of the incoms, where was initially said the Doven Wolf had them? They didn't use them AT ALL in ZZ

[Gelgoog Jager]

We need to consider the other weapons of the Dooben Wolf to see where the beam cannons are meant to be used:

-First of all, the Dooben Wolf's beam rifle needs to charge for a few seconds before firing when connected to the chest of the Dooben Wolf, which render it non-operational for that time window, and during that time the beam cannons are the primary means of defense.

-When engaging the enemy in hand to hand combat, the beam cannons allow the Dooben Wolf to even dual wield while retaining ranged attack capabilities.

-When deploying the hand as remote weapons, the beam rifle should be more difficult to operate (if at all).

-Last, but not least, the beam cannons are aligned with the protruded backpack sections, also loaded with many missiles and even 2 anti-ship missiles, so the cannons are also meant to be used in a situation where concentrated firepower is needed and these three weapons can basically be locked into the same direction at once to do so.

I recommend checking the Gundam Evolve episode about the Dooben Wolf to see some more it these MS in action, particularly the use of their incomes and their connected beam rifle.

[Arsarcana]

Regarding their Incoms, if they weren't used in ZZ (been a while, don't remember) then I'm sure that they were mentioning them at least since the old 1/144 model kit balofo posted manual scans of a few years back.

[balofo]

-Incoms were used in EVOLVE and UC 7, the backpack cannons(wrong beam color) and vulcans were also used in ZZ.
-The Beam Saber while stored doubles as a rear firing beam cannon for rear defense, recently reinforced by HGUC ZZ version manual.
-Anti Ship missiles are never seen equipped in any variation of the Doven in any media

Neo Zeon late MS were monsters in generator/thrust/weaponry. Neo Zeon was the only faction that really stood a chance of conquering the Earth Federation after the OYW. Civil war...

[TDR-10M Thunderbolt]

This has been really interesting. I knew the Doven Wolf packed in a lot of features, but some of these are new to me! The idea that the beam sabers can be rear-firing beam cannons in storage, in particular, makes me go "neat!" That Evolve episode also puts the beam rifle in better context; I had presumed even its handheld form was almost comparable to the mega launchers on the Z Gundam and ReZEL Commander. Clearly not the case, they're just 'moderately stronger than average beam rifles'... which would give some credence to the idea that the backpack beam cannons are as good or better than it.

Quite a fun MS design now that I understand it better.

[MythSearcher]

Jeff: That's a really good point. I had forgotten about that. Or rather, I only limited its advantages to 'can control Incoms.' The idea that the system could help aim multiple other weapons at the same time didn't even cross my mind. Pretty interesting!

Inuyasha: ...Wow, that IS a pretty big disparity in specs versus animation. Definitely a good mark against using them even within the same era (I'd seen some of Mark's work suggesting they're not consistent across eras/shows and thus cannot be used for 'which machine is better?' thoughts, but to think they're that far off even within the same work... wow.)

I must say that the output power has nothing to do with the look of the beam itself.
The really high power Beam Sniper Rifle in the OYW is laser like, it shows its precision and highly focused power for long range attacks, while much less powered(at least powered by the MS themselves without having the need to have an extra cooling unit or generator) Beam Rifles have a much larger flow of beam, which shows its less precised shot. The Apsaras beam cannon can be firing laser like beams and liquid like beams without problem.

In fact, having a 10m diameter laser and a 1mm diameter laser with the same output power is possible(given your lens can take the absorbed heat), while the 1mm laser will be much more focused and thus a much more instant damage, the 10m laser will have a much longer range(given diffraction)
Saying they don't look powerful by the diameter of the beam is just simply not going to cut it for logically deducing that the numbers don't matter, it is just an excuse for people to start making up their own biased way to ignore official settings.
The settings may not make sense at all, but they are, afterall, official and should not be ignored.

To the problem about cannons being secondary weapons/back up, don't forget what we are talking about here are ~20m vehicles, they call the main weapon a rifle only because it resembles human handheld weapons, most of the time the rifles are longer, with more sophisticated designed systems(at least much more detailed explained or at least drawn out), so they are cannons of their own if given to any non-humanoid machines like an MBT, so those being more powerful than the back cannons is nothing strange, just like if someone attaching two guns to your back and call them cannons, they won't necessarily be more powerful than the assault rifle you have in your hand.

[MythSearcher]

This has been really interesting. I knew the Doven Wolf packed in a lot of features, but some of these are new to me! The idea that the beam sabers can be rear-firing beam cannons in storage, in particular, makes me go "neat!" That Evolve episode also puts the beam rifle in better context; I had presumed even its handheld form was almost comparable to the mega launchers on the Z Gundam and ReZEL Commander. Clearly not the case, they're just 'moderately stronger than average beam rifles'... which would give some credence to the idea that the backpack beam cannons are as good or better than it.

Quite a fun MS design now that I understand it better.

Qubeley has rear firing beam sabres as well, Zeta's beam sabres can also be used at beam guns, explained as spraying the high-energy M-particle plasma out from the e-caps, instead of compressing them into Mega particles like the mega-particle cannons/Beam rifles or forming an EM field and I-field to trap the plasma in as the beam sabre.