Number of shots in a single funnel

[J-Lead]

^Topic. It's something that came to mind recently. Is there an established number of shots that a single funnel has? (standard funnels, not the fin type) With their extremely small size, I always imagined the E cap to be able to hold enough M Particles to fire around 2-3 shots before having to be, but I never actually found any official answer to the question.

If this has been covered before, just point me out to it if possible.

[razgriz]

im going to take a guess in that the power of the shot can be varied to conserve energy. otherwise you can have a full power shot that is guaranteed to obliterate your enemy but your funnel will be drained in a couple shots versus medium power shots to extend it to maybe 10 shots before exhaustion and needing to go back to the rack to recharge. or you can conserve even further and have 20 shots and tickle your oppenent to the point of annoyance.

[Cardi Doorl]

Y'know, the answer to this is basically the same as the answer to any "how many shots can [type of beam weapon] shoot?": It depends in no small part on which funnels, exactly, you're talking about. It's not hard to believe that the capacity for the Qubeley's funnels differ from the Geymalk's, which in turn differ from the Jagd Doga or Sazabi (of course, it's also possible any or all of these have the same capacity, but still).

In the case of CCA units, I don't think there's any evidence, in animation or publications, as to how many shots the funnels have. I wouldn't know about the ZZ units, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's the same situation there.

[Brave Fencer Kirby]

I seem to recall some speculation that most true funnel weapons (ie, not bits such as the Elmeth's or Nu Gundam's remote weapons) fired lasers rather than beams. (I've actually heard that some ship-based anti-MS weapons -- notably the Ra Cailum's AA turrets -- were actually lasers too... But I can't remember the source for either of those claims, so take them with an entire shaker of salt.) A laser weapon's ammo count would be restricted only by the amount of energy it could store, while a beam weapon would have to worry about both energy and Minovsky particles.

In either case, the answer is "not much." Funnels have to return to the mobile suit that deployed them rather frequently, to recharge their batteries and refill their propellant tanks.

[DeltasTaii]

It's rather easy for them to refill on Minovsky supply while they're there too, so I dunno where this laser idea comes from. The fact that anyone say, Kamille and Quattro survive Zeta rather suggests Quebely isn't firing anything at the speed of light.

[Mwulf]

IIRC The Elmeth's bits have independent power-sources, so they don't need to return to the MA to recharge.

Inside of the anime (and excluding Elmeth, since it doesn't use funnels) I don't think we ever see a single funnel shoot more than 3 times.

[HalfDemonInuyasha]

I think I asked this same question a while back...I also thought that the number could depend on the size (in general for Funnels) or the size/power of the generator (for Bit-type weapons).