Execpt that then by your reasoning 1 Heavy Plasma Cannon can only take out 22 cm of armor, yet I can take out an enemy fighter with only 1 shot.
If you’re referring to Prophecy, then you need to keep in mind that damage, shield, and armor stats are
not expressed in the durasteel standard, but simply in “damage points”. So yes, a single shot of a Heavy Plasma Cannon is enough, according to the stats, to take out any alien fighter save for the Ray Node, Manta, and Devil Ray.
A nanojoule, even if released in only a femtosecond, is still a nanojoule, even though it has become a gigawatt of power, it's still not got enough ENERGY to knock a child on his ass. And when damaging shields, it's ENERGY that's the name of the game, not power.
Maybe it’s just a matter of concluding we still don’t know a lot about the “mechanics” of the various guns.
To take a very rough example, say I fire off a single shot from a handgun. There are at least
four different energy stats that collectively describe the act. First, the energy my body, in particular my hand uses in pulling the trigger. Second, the potential energy that builds up in the gun’s hammer. Third, the energy initially released when the so-called propelling charge “detonates”. And fourth, the energy imparted to the bullet as it leaves the barrel.
For each stat, that particular amount of energy can be said to be “used” or “required” for a single shot. But from no single stat can we presume to know the total amount of energy expended or involved, let alone how the gun works overall to produce its final deadly force.
In short, when a manual says X-amount of nanoJoules or gigaJoules is used or required per shot, it’s hard to say what, exactly, we’re being told. (Though the references to the use of nanoJoules in KS, WC3, WC4, and Prophecy sound like only “trigger” energy.)
