Gunblades

[Joose]

Just read a thing on FF and it got me to thinking about gunblades. The thoughts are now buzzing about my head so I am going to try and purge them here.

Whenever the subject of gunblades comes up someone will often point out how silly they are. I have generally been of the opinion that yes, they are massively silly, but they are also cool looking. They are pretty much exclusive to anime, and in anime cool looking trumps realism every time, so it doesn't matter.

I've been giving it some thought this morning on the Thinking Throne and slightly revised my position. Here is my reasoning.

The complaints against gunblades are generally thus:

1) Having a great big sword hanging off the front of your gun is going to make aiming hard
2) Whacking things with the sword is going to mess up the aim/mechanism of the gun

Firstly, i'm not sure the above complaints rule out gunblades as a concept so much as specific kinds of gunblades. Yes, combining a greatsword and a sniper rifle is not going to work well. However, I could see the advantage of having a combined short sword and shotgun (short barreled, like a sawn off). Aiming wouldn't be so much of an issue, as you are only talking short range and aiming is going to be of the "hit everything in that general direction" kind anyway. The mechanical aspect of a shotgun is pretty damn simple, so it shouldn't be too easy to break, and if you are having an up close sword fight I can imagine having a shotgun go off inches from your face is going to fuck up your riposte even if it doesn't hit you at all.

In fact, whilst the impact of blocking an attack might damage the gun, lets not forget that there's a lot of real world swords where directly blocking an attack (your sword at right angles to thiers, stopping all the momentum of their blow dead) is a bad idea. Despite all the mythology that surrounds them, katanas (for example) are actually pretty fragile. At best blocking like that will put a nasty nick in your sword, at worst it might snap clean in two. Thats why its almost always preferable in sword fighting to deflect a blow instead, pushing the incoming attack to one side so it misses you rather than trying to take the full impact of the attack. That puts much less horse through the sword. You often see people in films smacking people with the but of thier rifles or whatever, and I doubt there is much difference between that kind of impact and properly parrying an attack. (Before someone says that it depends on how heavy the attacking sword is: sure, but if someone swings a bloody great zweihander at you, you don't parry. You get the hell out of the way)

But lets go one further. The complaints above pretty much assume that the world with the gunblade in has a similar level of technology to our own. Looking at the rest of the world in which gunblades find themselves usually shows that isnt true. So maybe they have advance materials and manufacturing techniques available to them. If the blade was made out of some kind of superstrong, superlight alloy then having two feet of metal sticking off the front of your gun wouldn't be as much of an issue. In fact, this would also explain how characters with wrists the width of my little finger can use swords that look like someone has put an edge on a blast door. The gun could have some kind of dampening built in to protect it from damage and self correcting sights. In worlds that are usually both sci fi *and* magic infused this doesn't seem like that big a stretch.

No particular point to the above, just wanted to vent it from my skull.

[FatherJack]

In Final Fantasy they weren't necessarily combined weapons, Squall's one in VIII didn't shoot bullets - pulling the trigger vibrated the blade (to generate crits), Claire's one in XIII transformed between gun and blade. However Pistol Swords really did exist.

[Dog Pants]

Just playing devil's advocate here, with no real evidence:

A gun with a handle like a sword would either be rendered unusable by recoil or so puny as to be hardly worth firing.
A sword with a handle like a gun would require spaz hands to fight with.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

A sword with a handle like a gun would require spaz hands to fight with.

I suppose if you were beadle-handed, you could use your big hand to hold the trigger, and the little one between foregrip and sword for extra stability without making the contraption too big.

[Dog Pants]

A sword with a handle like a gun would require spaz hands to fight with.

I suppose if you were beadle-handed, you could use your big hand to hold the trigger, and the little one between foregrip and sword for extra stability without making the contraption too big.

I think this is an idea worth pursuing.

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHHB00Nu3Ak[/media]

[Joose]

Just playing devil's advocate here, with no real evidence:

A gun with a handle like a sword would either be rendered unusable by recoil or so puny as to be hardly worth firing.
A sword with a handle like a gun would require spaz hands to fight with.

Not really. If we are talking something pistol sized then a kukri has a very similar shape to an old flintlock, so that would work fine. If we are talking something bigger then the guard of the sword could double as the guns handle (really big swords often have a blunt grippable bit in front of the guard for holding on to anyway, so there's a foregrip for the gun, and a big sword can have a big grip, so there is something to brace against your shoulder)

[Mr. Johnson]

However Pistol Swords really did exist.

They did.

DSC_0907 by Mr.Johnson, on Flickr


And why stop at swords? Why not put guns on everything?

Like halberds, or axes, or even hammers?

DSC_0903 by Mr.Johnson, on Flickr

DSC_0902 by Mr.Johnson, on Flickr

Or a god-damned pocket knife?

DSC_0910 by Mr.Johnson, on Flickr

When the heavens open up on you, shoot back.

DSC_0908 by Mr.Johnson, on Flickr

Or why not combine all your favourite weapons into one superweapon?

DSC_0911 by Mr.Johnson, on Flickr

How do you lock your doors at night? Like a pussy? Don't be a pussy, close your doors with this handy gun-key.

DSC_0906 by Mr.Johnson, on Flickr

Also, this hilariously ineffective pistol bayonet.

DSC_0904 by Mr.Johnson, on Flickr

[Dog Pants]

Loving the hammer.

[buzzmong]

Fun fact on this topic, Henry the 8th had a morning star with guns in it called Henry VIII's Walking Stick and used to wander around London at night checking on the local Police officers.

[Joose]

That book looks amazing. I need it!

[Mr. Johnson]

Well, the one with English text is called Swords: a visual history and the other one is The Illustrated History of Weaponry (except mine's in Dutch).

[tandino]

Well, the one with English text is called Swords: a visual history and the other one is The Illustrated History of Weaponry (except mine's in Dutch).

I'm currently learning Dutch as you know MrJ and I can actually understand a lot of that now. Apparently the knowledge is sticking!

[Mr. Johnson]

I'm currently learning Dutch as you know MrJ and I can actually understand a lot of that now. Apparently the knowledge is sticking!

Expect a quiz soon, grapjurk.

[fabyak]

That's Dutch for Gringo right?

[HereComesPete]

I think he's calling him a comedian. But prefer to read it as clown.

[FatherJack]

I think he's calling him a comedian. But prefer to read it as clown.

I'd go with "clownshoes" like that guy in Fallout 3 calls you when you walk into his little harem. Briefly, before his head falls off. A lot of it, like "Pistoolzwaard" and "Dit wapen kwam in Marokko, Noord-Afrika" seems to be merely English pronounced in an exaggerated fashion. I'm sure I saw "fookin prawns" somewhere there.

[Joose]

"Pistoolzwaard"

I read that as Pistol Wizard.

[Dog Pants]

"Pistoolzwaard"

I read that as Pistol Wizard.

I only realised it wasn't that when you pointed it out.


He's a pistol wizard
There has got to be a twist.
A pistol wizard,
S'got such a supple wrist.

[Mr. Johnson]

"Pistol Wizard" sounds like a great RPG class.

Also, since I only just remembered I posted something in here, grapjurk literally means "joke dress" and is derived from the more official version grapjas ("joke coat"), it's what you call someone after he or she makes a bad joke (see: puns). Grapjurk or grapjas are not that common in the Netherlands though, where they prefer the inferior lolbroek ("funny pants"). Also I felt pretty sure it would be heard to figure out with just google translate and some Dutch basics.