"Ooh, what's that? A missile backpack?
Well, I guess you'll be alright if a fucking bird attacks!"
Well, I guess you'll be alright if a fucking bird attacks!"
The Ammunition Backpack is cool and all, but having to lug both it and your gun may be a hassle. Why not combine them both and get yourself a Backpack Cannon! Yeah, it would probably be really hard to aim, but come on.
Compare Shoulder Cannon, Weaponized Animal, Awesome Backpack, Jet Pack, and Weaponized Exhaust.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
- Transformers: Robots in Disguise: Optimus Prime has laser blasters on his upper back. The Decepticons Mega-Octane and Armorhide also have cannons mounted on their backs.
- Transformers: Armada: Starscream has a pair of laser cannons on his back that can only be deployed when he combines with his Mini-Con Swindle.
- General Catton in Samurai Pizza Cats had a double backpack cannon.
- The Gundam franchise has many examples from pretty much every universe.
- The most iconic examples would be the Guncannon and Guntank from the original series.
- The RX-78-01 from Gundam: The Origin had a backpack-mounted cannon and one beam sword rack, instead of the traditional pair of saber racks. The RX-78-02, Amuro's Gundam, could have one of the racks replaced by a similar cannon. And of course, this also applies to the Origin versions of the Guncannon and Guntank.
- The GM Cannon II and Xamel from Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory. With the Xamel, the weapon's size actually makes it easy to mistake it for a Shoulder Cannon.
- The Zaku Cannon, introduced in Mobile Suit Variations, was found to be unstable due to its backpack being too heavy and the recoil being too great, though some units were later used by the Earth Federation in Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, and by Zeon remnants years later in Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn.
- The OZ-07MS Tragos from Mobile Suit Gundam Wing featured a backpack cannon and a hoverskirt that made it resemble the original Guntank, although both could be detached to allow the Tragos to function as a conventional mobile suit as well. The manga adaptation of the series gave a similar cannon pack to Heavyarms.
- After War Gundam X: The titular Gundam features the backpack-mounted Satellite Cannon system. Its Mid-Season Upgrade, the DoubleX, naturally has twin cannons.
- The Doppelhorn Striker Pack from Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny is basically this. It isn't seen too often, but can be attached to any Striker-capable Mobile Suit (such as the standard-issue 105-Dagger). The Integrated Weapons Striker Pack from SEED-MSV line has this amongst its many weapons.
- Fumina's Powered GM Cardigan from Gundam Build Fighters Try can swap between beam cannons and Gatling guns, though the latter never appear in the anime itself, only in the model kit and video games.
- The most iconic examples would be the Guncannon and Guntank from the original series.
- Code Geass: The Lancelot Conquista's main weapon is the large Hadron Blaster on its back that folds forward and docks with the VARIS rifle in order to fire. And it's so freaking powerful that nothing except the Guren SEITEN's upgraded radiant wave surger can stop it.
- The eponymous Dougram of Fang of the Sun Dougram has a gigantic linear cannon mounted on its back — to fire it, it's pulled down over its left shoulder.
- Digimon Fusion has PawnGaossmon, a DigiXros of Gaossmon and PawnChessmon that uses the latter's shield and spear as one of these. The now explosive spear is fired like a missile from under the shield, which is now attached to each Gaossmon's back. Combined with the Gaossmons' Zerg Rush tactics, this makes for a small Macross Missile Massacre.
Comic Books
- Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW): In issue #13, Rough and Tumble use new weapons granted to them by Eggman. Tumble's weapon is a prosthetic club tail while Rough uses a back-mounted cannon which fires Stink Bombs.
- The Transformers: Last Stand of the Wreckers:
- Ironfist's lightformer cannon is his backpack... but he has to take it off to use it.
- The tank mode turret of Ironfist's teammate Guzzle is situated on his back when in robot mode, with the barrel extending far past his head.
Films — Live-Action
- In Predator this is one of the eponymous Predator's weapons.
- From Star Wars, Boba and Jango Fett's Jetpacks can fire rockets.
- Transformers Film Series: Sideswipe has machine guns on his back which he likes to fire downward at foes while flipping over them.
Literature
- The Action Prologue of Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers features “Y-racks” on the Powered Armor. They launch pairs of HE bombs a few hundred yards to the left and right. The mission was to just smash stuff, so there was no need to aim.
- The War Against the Chtorr. A malfunctioning Spider Tank robot orders McCarthy to Put Down Your Gun and Step Away (unfortunately it's stuck in a loop and won't go to the next stage of verifying his identity). McCarthy does so, then remote-triggers the rockets in his backpack to provide a distraction while he makes a run for the bigger rocket launcher in his jeep.
Tabletop Games
- Shadowrun. The Ballista Multi-Role Missile Launcher, which is worn as a backpack.
- Battlelords of the 23rd Century: The Cizerack (large quadrupedal catlike aliens) have been known to wear weapon systems mounted on their backs. See a picture here
.
- Likewise Battle Cattle (pic here).
- Most of the power armor in Rifts has this, notably the Glitterboy and its variant armor.
- In Warhammer 40,000, the Tyranid Biovore is a living Backpack Cannon.
- Tau battlesuit jetpacks have mounting points for either support systems or weapons, with missile launchers most commonly shown in GW's in-house models fitted to the jetpack. The old Broadside models had the best demonstration of this in the franchise; their backpacks were fitted with a pair of railguns, which are at least twice as long as a man is tall - one on each shoulder (the newer ones now wield their weapons like a rifle, replacing the missile launcher "hands".
- A handful of BattleTech Battlemechs have this with rear-firing weapons, some being literal backpacks that fire into the rear arc like two of the Medium Lasers mounted on the Atlas AS 7-D. The more typical 'mounted on the back but firing forward' variety is actually rarer, with the Shadow Hawk being the most well known, as it is based on the Dougram mentioned above. The Marauder certainly counts as well with the Autocannon 5 mounted over its hunched profile, later Reseen depictions would move the cannon mount to one of the side torso sections.
Toys
- BIONICLE: the Toa Hordika's Rhotuka Spinners.
Video Games
- Bangalore from Apex Legends has a smoke grenade launcher mounted to her shoulder.
- Mario's F.L.U.D.D. in Super Mario Sunshine
- The Buster Pod from Custom Robo Arena, which was just a cannon mounted on your robo's back.
- Pokémon
- Blastoise from Gen I is a giant turtle with two water cannons in its shell. Its Mega Evolution introduced in Pokémon X and Y changes it to a single, much larger cannon while giving it two arm-mounted cannons. Its Gigantamax form takes this even further, with it gaining at least 31 cannons on its back when it Gigantamaxes.
- Pokémon Black and White: Genesect, a Pokémon with a mounted cannon on its back, as modified by Team Plasma.
- Putrefaction has a hunchbacked Putrid Brute boss whose hump doubles as a mount for a minigun.
- Carol from Wild ARMs 5 uses a backpack-mounted missile launcher. She can't use it without falling on her ass, but it does pack quite a punch.
- The Taraba ninja from Shinobido use these as weapons. Yup, cannons, right...
- Shadow from Mega Man X: Command Mission has a "Pulverizer Cannon" on his back. It takes three turns to charge, and like its name suggests, it hurts a lot on all your characters.
- In Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X, Vile's cannon is mounted onto his backpack instead of his right shoulder like in the original game. And in X8, Vile Mark.V also has a backpack-mounted cannon as opposed to a shoulder-mounted one.
- The Dwarf from Sacred has this as a special weapon.
- In StarCraft II, the Thor superheavy siege walker and its Super Prototype Odin both feature a set of four backpack-style guns, described as 330mm high-ex cannon (you could fire a smallish person out of a gun like that). While they are used for single salvoes rather than being an alternate mode shift like the Siege Tank, the mech still has to hunch back and take up a firing stance, rendering it briefly immobile while the weapons are being fired. The results are usually worth the hassle.
- Game Mods for Tribes usually add at least one of these. Instead of carrying around a regular backpack, like a shield pack, you can stick a big gun on your shoulder, allowing you to use both your hand weapon and the backpack weapon at the same time.
- The Duke Nukem 3D boss "Overlord" has a back-mounted rocket launcher. In fact, the manual says that's about all that's known about it.
- From the Dusty duology'':
- Ganuk from Dusty Revenge is a gigantic Cruel Elephant boss who lugs a massive cannon on his back. Which he can fire bouncing projectiles from.
- Tortoise enemies from Dusty Raging Fist have turrets built in their shells, which they'll use to launch projectile attacks from.
- Seeing as the class is inspired by Boba/Jango Fett, Bounty Hunters in Star Wars: The Old Republic have an attack or two that launches rockets out of their jetpack.
- In Kaiju Combat, the S.C.U.D. attached to the kaiju Katyusha is one that can twist around and serve as a jetpack.
- In Dark Void, your jetpack has guns in it. Sort of justified in that they only get used in flight mode when they can be aimed.
- Samurai Warriors: Ishikawa Goemon has an actual cannon strapped to his back that he uses in various combo attacks as well as his Musou attack. In the first game he could also use it to blast open certain walls on some levels, revealing hidden loot or shortcuts.
- Destiny has Valus Tlu'urn, a Cabal commander who has a giant artillery cannon as his weapon of choice. note
- The Foot Soldier zombie from Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare has his ZPG rocket launcher strapped to his back, meaning he has to bend over to actually fire it. It also makes rocket jumping much easier.
Western Animation
- The Trigger-Happy Manchild known as Metal-Head on G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero packs a pair of back-mounted guided missile launchers as his primary weapons, which he likes to fire at every opportunity. He also has hip mounted missile packs, but those see less use.
- Similar to Metal-head are the Laser Vipers with laser cannons instead of missile launchers.
- A few of the various characters in The Transformers cartoon have guns on their backs. This is usually due to having parts of their alternate mode ending up there, with the most notable being Brawl and Onslaught of the Combaticons (a tank and an artillery truck, respectively). They are apparently still functional, but rarely used since they can only fire straight upward while standing, and few Autobots are airborne opponents.
Real Life
- In 1944 - 45, the German Army was working on what would have been a man-portable anti-aircraft weapon with limited surface-to-air capacity. It took the form of a six-barrelled rocket launcher looking not unlike a Gatling gun but capable of firing six rockets, either singly or in a volley. To make it easier for the operator, it was envisioned that this would be mounted in a modified harness slung over the back, and could be hoisted to the shoulder when it was necessary to fire it. This was another of those weapons that were timed out by the end of the war in 1945; it would have operated on the recoiless rifle principle with backblast angled away from the operator. Not much evidence exists as to whether or not it would have worked.
