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Look man... I thought this was the stuff of Japanese animation fantasies and video game fanboy wet dreams, but no. Turns out you CRAZY Germans went and made a REAL gun sword.

I told you you would have something to answer for.







This is from my very recent trip to New York/Manhattan and the Metropolitan Museum. Specifically the armory and guns exhibit. This is just the tip of the iceberg as far as pictures from the museum go, and I will be posting a big thread in AMP full of dinosaurs and buildings and Greek and Roman exhibits and so fourth, but I felt that you had to answer for this personally and in a public and humiliating fashion.

Well, now you know where the Japanese got the idea from. Still impractical as hell, though it's certainly a creative way to get around the slowness and unreliability of early firearms.

The fact that it has a calender on the blade is somehow really amusing. While I had actually heard about the real life combined weapons, this is the first one I've actually seen. It's kind of cool.

Well, now you know where the Japanese got the idea from.

Except for the Gunblades in Final Fantasy VIII. Tetsuya Nomura even went back after the game was made and said 'yeah, it is pretty strange, isn't it.'

I really like the fact that there are goddamn engravings on that thing. It's totally impractical, but it's great to see that our forefathers still abided by the Rule of Cool.

What I find most disturbing is that at some point in history a man looked at his sword that shoots bullets and said, "this wouldn't really be complete without a way to schedule my appointments".

If you think about it that's the exact same mindset that has given us the smartphone. Truly, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The German and Italians tried all sorts of combination weapons, they were probably intended to be showpieces, it is not known whether they were intended for actual use.

I have a book with beautiful images of maces, war hammers, axes and even halberds all combined with wheellock firearms. The halberd has two octagonal pistol barrels on each side of a leaf shaped blade. It's etched and gilt, very lovely. Most crazy would be the axe combined with five pistol barrels on the head, and a sixth in the hollow shaft.

I'd scan it in to share but I'm unsure of the legality of scanning a page from a published book?

Acidburns wrote:The German and Italians tried all sorts of combination weapons, they were probably intended to be showpieces, it is not known whether they were intended for actual use.

I have a book with beautiful images of maces, war hammers, axes and even halberds all combined with wheellock firearms. The halberd has two octagonal pistol barrels on each side of a leaf shaped blade. It's etched and gilt, very lovely. Most crazy would be the axe combined with five pistol barrels on the head, and a sixth in the hollow shaft.

I'd scan it in to share but I'm unsure of the legality of scanning a page from a published book?

As long as it's a single page for criticism/commentary/research purposes and it's properly referenced it falls under legal fair use.

As a general aside, I actually think that cleaver/pistol looks like the most practical combination I've ever seen. Which granted isn't saying much.

It's strange, yeah... but somehow it's not that strange if you consider that doing it the other way around (strapping a knife to your rifle) still has its use

It's not a bad idea in itself, though, the shooting-part just doesn't look really reliable. I've never seen something like this before, either, and I've visited my share of museums.

The Duchess of Zeon wrote:As a general aside, I actually think that cleaver/pistol looks like the most practical combination I've ever seen. Which granted isn't saying much.

I think the word you're looking for is GUNFALCHION.

And Acidburns, I'm really quite interested in seeing some of these other combination weapons. The idea of warhammers and maces with guns attached just seems so bizarre. We've had Ender scan pages from his Clone Wars Visual Guide, so you should be safe.

Alrighty, the book has many weapons split over 2 oversized A4 pages so it was a bitch to scan. The book is called Weapon: A visual history of arms and armour. ISBN 1-4053-1619-5.

It's a 2000 pixel wide image so I'll just direct link it here

Acidburns wrote:It's a 2000 pixel wide image so I'll just direct link it here

The Axe is really quite beyond... anything. This really is like something right out of WH40k. Ain't it cool how reality is just as insane as insane fiction sometimes?

I'm still a fan of that barrel-less revolver with the brass knuckes trigger/grip guard and the switchblade bayonet for the 'finishing work'. Can't remember who made it, but duelling was still fashionable and socially acceptable, so they thought it was an easy and honest buck.

Heh.

Yeah, german engineering back then was already known for being very complex...


To be serious, though, a lot of that stuff never was deployed in the field. The persons who would have had the best reason to field it was the heavy cavalry. However, I do not know of anyone who ever fought with such a weapon.

That said, the smiths of the sixteenth were very famous for their craftsmanship and for the declining feudal nobility, especially in Germany, elaborate weaponry and luxury became a great way to compensate for the loss of political prestige. You see this also in english nobility and others former elites - as soon as they become superfluous, they engage in great displays of wealth and try to act as if they were special.

I have a spanish dagger-pistol replica. It was designed to be used in dueling or assasinations, where the trigger would be pulled AFTER stabbing the victim so that your shot was almost impossible to miss.

tim31 wrote:I'm still a fan of that barrel-less revolver with the brass knuckes trigger/grip guard and the switchblade bayonet for the 'finishing work'. Can't remember who made it, but duelling was still fashionable and socially acceptable, so they thought it was an easy and honest buck.

I sincerely doubt that those things were for dueling, but rather for personal protection.
Dueling was steeped in notions of honor and perceptions of chivalry; brass knuckles are pretty much an anti-honor weapon.

I absolutely adore 16th century German wheellocks, and not just freaky-deaky pieces like in the OP.
The narrow angle grips, the ornamentation, the clockwork firing, the fact that they were abhored by nobles for their potential as assasination devices, the whole "cold fire" revolution and all; no matches needed!

I had a single-shot French pistol-dagger replica. I think its main use was either as a potent surprise attack in the closeness of a duel... or to add a little damage after already stabbing someone.

You're absolutely right on the honor code Frank, I'm going to have to dig out my Big Boy's Firearms Picture Book and see what it says

tim31 wrote:I'm still a fan of that barrel-less revolver with the brass knuckes trigger/grip guard and the switchblade bayonet for the 'finishing work'. Can't remember who made it, but duelling was still fashionable and socially acceptable, so they thought it was an easy and honest buck.

That would be the Apache pistol

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2007 ... le-duster/

Apparently nothing to do with the Apache Native Americans but a gang by the same name of that time.

Yes, yes, that's the one! What an interesting little contrivance.

tim31 wrote:Yes, yes, that's the one! What an interesting little contrivance.

Bloody hell, look at the link below, the Russian TP-82 pistol.

Jade Falcon wrote:

tim31 wrote:Yes, yes, that's the one! What an interesting little contrivance.

Bloody hell, look at the link below, the Russian TP-82 pistol.

If your designated landing site is "the vicinity of bear country, nowhere", it sure makes sense to carry a big gun. Cosmonauts are still sent on wilderness survival training in case they both their landing.

Frank Hipper wrote:

tim31 wrote:I'm still a fan of that barrel-less revolver with the brass knuckes trigger/grip guard and the switchblade bayonet for the 'finishing work'. Can't remember who made it, but duelling was still fashionable and socially acceptable, so they thought it was an easy and honest buck.

I sincerely doubt that those things were for dueling, but rather for personal protection.
Dueling was steeped in notions of honor and perceptions of chivalry; brass knuckles are pretty much an anti-honor weapon.

I absolutely adore 16th century German wheellocks, and not just freaky-deaky pieces like in the OP.
The narrow angle grips, the ornamentation, the clockwork firing, the fact that they were abhored by nobles for their potential as assasination devices, the whole "cold fire" revolution and all; no matches needed!

Aye, I'm completely in love with wheellocks myself, and fancy someday owning an operational one; second to them would be a double-barreled cap-and-ball pistol. On the larger size, I'd like to have an Indonesian lantaka with the beautiful carvings in the octagonal bronzework on a swivel mount on a yacht someday for use as a saluting gun...

Bounty wrote:If your designated landing site is "the vicinity of bear country, nowhere", it sure makes sense to carry a big gun. Cosmonauts are still sent on wilderness survival training in case they both their landing.

Oh I can see the idea behind it upon reading up on it, but it just makes you wonder how some people think up the solution to problems like "We've got cosmonauts landing in inhospitable terrain, what do we do", answer, a shotgun, flare launcher, carbine and machete all in one weapon.