Time to dissect this.
David also does have the tendency to go CQC (albeit shown only once), but he will spam the shit out of his Sandy.
So here's the thing, David's considered not as skilled in the cyberpunk universe in comparison to other legends due to his overreliance on cyberware (namely his iconic Sandy), but keep in mind that in a world like cyberpunk, you're dead meat if you aren't able to hold your own even for a day as a merc. Pre-Timeskip David was lucky af, but in this key, he's seasoned enough to take on a good number of maelstrom gangoons, who mind you are borged out with a good amount of combat cyberware. Pairing what he has with the speed of the sandy, he's able to catch Arasaka soldiers offguard, which have their own can of cyberware to pull up, beyond skill. As I've said, David's skill in his own series might not be the likes of Morgan Blackhand, but against Chisato, he's giving her a run for her money.
Dead links.
Anywho, this is where David's projectile launch arm comes in handy. Not only is this monster able to oneshot a Maelstrom Brute (should be around his level), but a 20% boost to this thing isn't anything to scoff at. Also, has Chisato dodged explosions before? If not, she's going to get hit with a big explosion, and even if David doesn't make it out unscathed, he's still going to be in better shape than her if he ever so chooses to shoot it point-blank.
I don't think AnPr alone is going to help with someone who spams Sandy and be a statue in his pov. Barring Smasher himself, others who have the same Sandy as him even struggle to tag him. She has to see him to even deduct something. Not to mention some of his guns won't translate to what she has learnt (mainly the Zhuo).
This is impressive, but she's got to pull her weight if she's going to fight against someone who can go toe-to-toe with borged out gangoons and corpo soldiers on a regular basis. The translation isn't really 1-1 here since most mercs suit up with the necessary combat cyberware to gain any available advantage. David in this key is reasonably chromed to where he has leg chrome to jump high to avoid a maelstrom hammer attack (said maelstrom had a sandy to try and counter his sandy however).
Will address the backpack in a bit,
here's how the average smart weapon works.
Average Gangoon feat
Would say that your average chromed choom have plating like these, yet the guns and bullets most mercs sport are enough to pierce through them like cheese. This is made worse by the fact that the projectile launch system completely invalidates this from ever being useful.
