Model: M69 "BARRUS" Heavy Ion Cannon
Type: Optional Heavy Energy Weapon
Location: Hand-held
Fire Arc: "turret" (hand-held, aimed by arms)
Crew: 1 (pilot)
Skill: Mecha Gunnery (OR Starfighter/Aircraft Gunnery)
Scale: Capital
Cost:
-Cannon: 10,000 ZAFT credits
-Energy Clip (10 shots): 1,000 credits
-Generator (for starships): 3,000 credits
Fire Control: 1D
Space Range: 2-10/20/40
Atmosphere Range: 50-1/2/4km
Damage: 6D
Ammo: 10 shot power cell (can be reloaded)
Rate of Fire: 1 per attack
Game Notes: As ZAFT built up their military forces and began making appropriate weapons for thise forces, the need existed for heavy anti-capital ship weaponry.  While missiles and other weapons could do the job, sometimes they required many uses to get the job done, expending many rounds of ordnance before larger vessels would be defeated.  This, the Coordinators of ZAFT and the PLANTS could not allow, for their numbers were much fewer than those of the Atlantic Federation and their Earth allies.  Energy weapons had existed for some time, but they had not been very important in military matters since good old designs could still perfomr and acomplish the job.  After the Bloody Valentine Massacre, Zaft manufactured massive amounts of Heavy Energy Weaponry to put them on par with their Normal counterparts and its greater military numbers, making the job easier of taking out large capital ships and heavily fortified positions, both in space and on the ground.  Though Normal humans also had energy weapons available, they were nowhere near as mobile or easily useable as those ZAFT made available for their mobile suits, something the Atlantic Federation and Earth still lacked and were hard pressed to match in the battlefield until the creation of the GAT series mobile weapons, later called Gundams due to their OS abrreviation.
   This weapon is an optional heavy weapon for hand-held use by mobile suits and could be used by any mobile platform, provided it has hands to grab and aim with.
   The BARRUS Heavy Ion Cannon is NOT an energy weapon in the sense of classic Star Wars weaponry.  Instead of neutralizing technological items and ships, it is more a destructive energy weapon, like a mobile turbolaser.  Other settings and systems use Ion Cannons this way, and that is how it is in Gundam Seed.
   The BARRUS can be adapted for use with other flying craft with modification.  However, with its long, protruding body, it may be best as a foward-firing weapon, fixed with no turret.  larger vessels may be able to make it intoa  turret, but they are best done so as capital ships, and probably not most, it not all, starfighter scale transports.