Actually, a railgun theoretically works by launching a large depleted uranium rod using magnetic rails at 5x to 100x as fast as a rifle bullet depending on who you ask. It would hold a absolutely ridiculous amount of kinetic energy, so my money is on the rail gun doing major damage on either.

 

G1, namely because he's not stupid enough to suck enemies into his mouth, plus he's not as easily blow-up-able because he's formed from solid-looking vehicles.

Movie Devs, however, has lots of little bits overlapping little bits, and half his face got destroyed by Mudflap (who was sucked into his head), and then got defeated by gravity when the railgun blew off his arm. G1 Devestator fell down lots of times and gravity didn't seem to be a problem for him sticking together.

 

....Uncrion would crush both... after defeating the Death Star.

 

G1 for the easy win.

 

I'm going to say G1.

Movie Devastator just seemed to be a glorified vacuum cleaner who couldn't handle want-to-be gangsta bot or the human weapon. G1 Devastator was able to go toe to toe with the Dinobots.

Plus G1 Devastator didn't have balls that he could be kicked in.

 

Perceptor once shot Devastator apart with one shot, didn't he? In that awful Carnage In C Minor?  

 

  nicely put Aernaroth and i agree Movie Devastator would lose and lose badly

 

Movie Devs, He loosk More dangrous and more stornger than g1 devs

 

If depleted uranium was used, its possible it wouldn't even transfer the majority of that kinetic energy (we see the rail gun punch through devastator and keep going, right?). Depleted uranium is used as a penetrator (and then as a incandescent/self-shrapneling AP device due to some interesting material properties), while against a robot like devastator, it would be more desirable to have the round deform after striking to transfer the maximum amount of energy (even better if the round could deform after penetration, like a bullet in the human body). Or, an explosive could be used in the round to further increase the energy transferred beyond that imparted by the initial acceleration, additionally causing fragmented shrapnel damage (this is assuming the grenade it fires isn't specialized to damage cybertronian bodies in other ways, which it likely good be).

But the issue here is we're arguing in theoretics. Rail gun technology is still in development, and we're comparing it to another fictional device that showed up in a movie made 25 years ago for a minute or two. My reasoning is that cybertronian weapons technology in TFTM '86 is likely to be beyond that of the US military in ROTF, and that in being designed for cybertronian use, the "balista" could likely project a much more effective payload (these are guys who use particle beam cannons as sidearms, I figure they'd have something a lot more impressive if it was a dedicated weapons platform 3 times larger than they are).

 

G1 is a bit more mobile and, as others have mentioned, could make use of his separate 'bots if necessary.

 

Depends who's writing the story...

 

I'm going to have to go with... G1 Devastator.

 

What people forget, it is GRAVITY that did movie devastator in, NOT THE RAILGUN, while the gun knocked him off balance, it was the HUGE fall of coming off that pyramid that killed devastator.......on flat ground, Movie devastator would win, for he is more stable

 

The winner of these two is irrelevant since you know Broadside is lurking above the battle just waiting to drop himself on both of them.

Gotta love Carnage in C Minor.

 

While they're fighting, Trypticon can stomp on them with one foot...

 

G1 Devastator gets my vote.

 

Railguns use a depleted uranium CORE...it's not the whole round. The core is designed to make the round incredibly heavy. Since it's magnetically propelled getting the round to go fast enough is obviously not a problem (20-30 times as fast as a bullet is totally believable). A heavy round slows down less because it has more inertia. This would give the round an almost completely flat trajectory. Upon impact the shell around the depleted uranium fragments like a regular round...except with an exponentially larger amount of kinetic energy transfer. The results would be devastating....not to mention that rounds that large, fired from a battleship, usually have explosive armament on the tip.

Hell, based on what I've seen a REGULAR ship based gun do, I think that would probably work too.

 

Movie. Probably bigger than G1stator, and more savage and powerful.

 

I´d say G1 Devastator wins. He´s a bit more agile in combiner mode and also has a large rifle.