A History of Weapons

by John O'Bryan

  DATE OF ORIGIN: Early 1600s

  EVOLVED FROM: Wheellock and snaphance pistols

  PRECURSOR TO: Percussion cap firearms

  USED BY: Civilians and military personnel, who could fire the one-handed pistol from horseback

  FUN FACT: Flintlocks had their drawbacks, most notably their tendency to fire accidentally during the loading process. This is the origin of the phrase “going off half-cocked,” which disappointingly did not come from a man with half a penis.

  BLUNDERBUESS You’re on a ship that’s being attacked. Your cannons have failed you, and the enemy is boarding your vessel. It’s too late for cannonfire, and you’re not close enough to whip out your cutlass. But you’ve got a perfect midrange surprise for your adversaries hidden under your frock—your blunderbuss. This flintlock pistol was a precursor to the shotgun, packing plenty of wallop for the unsuspecting invaders. Although a blunderbuss can’t hit the broad side of a blue whale from eighty yards away, it does the job in the close quarters of a ship. The flared muzzle allows for easy loading in a pinch. Just shove in some black powder and metal pellets (or nails, rocks, broken glass, or whatever makeshift ammunition you can find) and fire. Odds are, at least one of your enemies is dead, and the rest are almost certainly terrified of the crude boomstick you’ve just produced. Take note: the blunderbuss has apowerful kick and is always fired from the hip, not the shoulder, unless the shooter wants to lose some teeth. Unfortunately, few weapons are as infamously maligned. Sure, blunderbusseses (blunderbi?) were used by explorers, stagecoach drivers, and pilgrims, but the weapon’s primary image has been firmly cemented by Hollywood movies as the firearm of pirates. Many marauding buccaneers used the blunderbuss to wreak terror on hapless shore dwellers. Many a port was pillaged and many a maiden was ravished at the barrel of a blunderbuss. Arrrggh!

  DATE OF ORIGIN: Early 1600s; used widely by 1700s

  ADVANTAGES: Sprays out metal pellets, killing everything within a 45-degree angle

  DISADVANTAGES: Might kill your own men (but how useful are they anyway?)

  MADE FAMOUS BY: Pirates!

  BRANDISTOCK Stealth weapons have always made things more interesting, even if they weren’t the most effective killers. The samurai had the tessen, the Chinese had the sleeve arrow, and Europeans had the brandistock. Allegedly carried by off-duty police officers, the brandistock appeared to be a walking cane or staff. But with a sharp motion of the wrist, this ordinary walking cane could deploy three retractable blades. Once the blades were shaken out of the shaft, they locked into place to become a vicious spiked polearm. The person you thought was “Giuseppe, the crippled guy from the bar”—was actually “Giuseppe, the guy with the hidden trident”! All of a sudden, you begin to regret some of the things you confessed to Giuseppe during long nights of drinking.

  DATE OF ORIGIN: 1500s

  BIRTHPLACE: Italy

  ALSO CALLED: Feather staff

  PRECURSOR TO: Seriously badass spy weapons

  USED BY: Off-duty police officers, who might need to surprise-attack unruly drunks; unruly drunks, who might need to surprise-attack police officers

  LANTERN SHIELD The Renaissance may have resulted in some important cultural achievements, but it also resulted in some of the dumbest ideas to ever leak out of the human skull. One of the most absurd weapons to be forged during this period was the lantern shield—a horribly convoluted clusterfuck of a weapon. Yup, take a moment and absorb its retardedness. Who were the great military minds that came up with this one, and what the hell were they possibly thinking? The answer to the first question is the Italians, and the answer to the second question is your guess is as good as mine. First, let’s start with the big sword protruding from the shield. This could have apractical use, as you could use your shield to stab as well as defend. Not a bad idea in and of itself, but then the lantern throws a couple more blades onto the steel gauntlet. “O-kay, lantern shield. Slow down,” you say. But then it adds a steel gauntlet for your hand and a serrated blade to the center of the shield. (This was ostensibly to use as a sword breaker, though the odds of catching someone’s sword with the blind spot in the middle of your shield are slim). But there’s more! The best part of the whole lantern shield is the hook that allows you to hang a lantern on it, so you can temporarily blind your enemy should they attack you at night. There was a fine line between genius and insanity during the Renaissance, and the lantern shield landed on the wrong side of it.

  DATE OF ORIGIN: 1500s

  BIRTHPLACE: Italy

  ADVANTAGES: Excellent conversation piece for nutjobs

  DISADVANTAGES: Tries to do too many things, does none of them well

  WOULD YOU LIKE A GUN WITH THAT AXE?

  The Renaissance and early modern periods resulted in some pretty ridiculous weapon combinations. The thinking of the era was, “Hey, if two things are good separately, then they must be twice as good together, right?” In some cases, this was true. Early firearms took an eternity to reload, so it made sense to have another weapon that you could use in between rounds. Infantry would fire a volley of musket shot, then charge in and stab the enemy to death with their bayonets. This made sense. But the genie of the combination weapon was out of its bottle, and there was no putting it back in. The trend of hilarious hybrids continued for the next three centuries. Axes were combined with rifles, scimitars were combined with war hammers (really), and intercontinental ballistic missiles were combined with bullwhips (not really). The Apache was a favorite among Parisian gangsters of the nineteenth century. It looked like a set of brass knuckles welded onto the barrel of a revolver, with a switchblade underneath. Indo-Persian countries made shields with built-in guns. And someone even made spoons with flintlock pistols in the handles—presumably to teach shitty waiters a lesson.

  CHAIN SHOT & BAR SHOT The late Renaissance ushered in an era of creative artillery as well. People were no longer slaves to the same old boring round cannonballs that they had used for two hundred years. Chain shot and bar shot took the artillery scene by storm, providing bored cannoneers with a new, exciting way to tear things apart. These innovative cannon shots were primarily used by naval vessels to wreck the masts and rigging of enemy ships. The bar shot would either have a solid bar or a telescoping one between the balls. The chain shot would expand to full length in flight. Both would take out a larger chunk of boat than a plain round shot. Occasionally, chain shot was also used to mow down wide swaths of infantry, who probably only caught a micro-glimpse of the long metal chain flying at them before they were divided in half.

  DATE OF ORIGIN: 1600S

  ADVANTAGES: Can take out ship masts, immobilizing the vessel so user can commandeer it

  DISADVANTAGES: Less accurate than round shot due to its tumbling end over end; must be used at close ranges

  MADE OBSOLETE BY: Armored steamships, which didn’t have masts to destroy

  PUCKLE GUN In the seventeenth century, Muslim Turks were still mired in a seemingly eternal war with the Christian nations of Eastern Europe. One bright English attorney named James Puckle decided to do something to stop these swarthy “others” from invading fellow Caucasian lands. He invented the Puckle gun: the world’s first machine gun. Puckle’s “defence gun” looked something like a revolver that had been fed a steady diet of synthetic testosterone. It could fire about nine shots per minute, whereas the fastest musketeers of the time could only pull off about three. But that’s not even the most remarkable aspect of the Puckle gun—it was also the world’s first racist weapon. James Puckle, Esq., hated the Turks so much that he designed two versions of the weapon: one that fired round bullets to be used on Christians, and another that shot square bullets to use on Muslims (no shit!). The reasoning was that square bullets would ostensibly hurt the victim more. Only then, while dying in pain from the right angles of the square bullet, would the nonbelieving Muslim realize how much God hated him. Puckle’s idea never quite caught on, but his defence gun had already set the bar high for machine guns and whi
te Christian supremacy.

  DATE OF ORIGIN: 1718

  ALSO CALLED: Defence gun

  USED WITH: Racist bullets, which inflict more pain on nonwhite targets

  PRECURSOR TO: Dr. Klaussen’s infernal Jew ray

  THE GUILLOTINE

  A Not-So-Instant Death?

  At the end of the 1700s, the French Revolution was separating heads from bourgeois bodies at breakneck speed. One of the cooler heads of the time—Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin—said, “Hey guys, we should at least make sure people aren’t being tortured. ’Kay?” With that, he invented the infamous guillotine. Its slanted blade ensured a clean cut, removing the head in one swipe. This meant the condemned person would always die instantly, without pain . . . right? Not so fast. As beheadings became increasingly regular, spectators began to notice eerie phenomena. Tales began to circulate about the death of the famous chemist Antoine Lavoisier. Before being executed, Lavoisier had agreed to blink after his decapitation, for as long as he was lucid. Witnesses claimed he blinked for fifteen seconds after his head was separated from his body. Many view the Lavoisier story with skepticism. But, that still leaves us with the countless other stories of lucid decapitation. Charlotte Corday allegedly looked quite indignant when her severed head was smacked by the executioner. Other severed heads have been described as “attempting to speak.” Some have moved their eyes and focused on people, as if responding to their names. Granted, there are also a number of stories of people who didn’t respond after getting chopped. Isn’t it possible that what we perceive to be cognitive responses are just the final gasps of the nervous system? Or are these “living heads” actually aware for a few seconds that they’ve been chopped? Scientists say there’s no way of knowing, but they allow that it’s possible for the brain to survive for about thirteen seconds without fresh blood. Gaaahh!

  Chapter 13.

  FAKIRS, THUGS & HEADHUNTERS

  ASIA, 1500–1900 CE

  BY THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, almost every place on Earth had been discovered. Europeans had pushed their way into Asia, and the exotic spices they found there were just what they needed to liven up their sucky Anglo-Saxon cuisine. A wealth of foreign goods began to pour into European markets, but the situation quickly deteriorated into a furious pissing match over which European country would get control over which Asian country. The English, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, and French all fought each other initially, then turned their weapons on the native ingrates who didn’t want to be part of their empire. They would soon discover that these fakirs, thugs, and headhunters on the other side of the Earth had their own nasty heathen weapons—bizarre creations that no proper Englishman could have dreamed of. And they used them in ways the good Lord never intended.

  PATA This strange piece of cutlery was surely looked upon with derision by Brits who set up camp in seventeenth-century India. After all, it wasn’t every day an Englishman saw a sword with its very own steel gauntlet built into the handle. Sure, the built-in gauntlet gave some protection to the wielder, but it took away all articulation in the wrist. This ran completely contrary to everything the Europeans had learned in fencing class. And to make it even weirder, the pata was heldby a grip that ran perpendicular to its blade. Nonetheless, the pata became a favorite among the Sikhs, Mughals, Marathas, and Rajputs who fought for control of the subcontinent during this time. In fact, it was the seemingly awkward grip of the pata that allowed Indian fighters to generate such power with the sword. The pata drew on the strength of the forearm and upper body instead of the wrist, which meant anything it connected with was probably going to be divided in two. Highly trained swordsmen could also wield the weapon with surprising agility. It was common to see swordsmen showing off their skills at Indian festivals—sometimes by cutting in half a leaf that was lying flat on the open palm of a friend. Not bad for filthy heathen swordsmanship. In real combat, the pata was typically wielded on horseback, where the brace of the gauntlet may have allowed one to stab without breaking his wrists. It was equally handy for infantry to use against cavalry, with the warrior sometimes wielding a pata in each hand and twirling them around like a whirling dervish of horse-chopping doom.

  DATE OF ORIGIN: 1500s, though not widely used until the 1600s

  EVOLVED FROM: Katar (see page 91)

  USED BY: Sikh, Mughals, Maratha, and Rajput warriors, especially from horseback

  FUN FACT: Patas were often made with ferocious animal faces on the hilts, which made it look like the wielder’s fist was a lion vomiting up a sword blade

  FAKIR’S CRUTCH The fakirs were originally a group of ascetics who practiced a mystical form of Islam called Sufism. They eschewed all luxuries, surviving entirely on alms and their connection with God, sort of like that guy Craig who sleeps on your couch for a month and never looks for a job. They were also forbidden to carry arms. This was problematic for them, especially since they had to sleep on the street. So like the Shaolin monks before them, the fakirs started to compromise their religious morals and look for ways to circumvent their ban on weapons. They began to develop hidden weapons that could be disguised as ordinary objects. (Hey, if it can’t be seen by ordinary humans, then it can’t be seen by God, right?) They came up with the fakir’s crutch—a walking cane that concealed a nasty secret weapon. Though the crutch wasn’t an ideal weapon to use in a battle, it could save the life of a fakir in a pinch. It was heavy enough to use as a mace, but its real power was the sharp blade hidden inside the cane. The fakir simply had to unscrew the handle and pull, and he had himself a small rapier that could keep him from being murdered by street thugs. He just had to remember to put the blade back in the handle when he was done so God didn’t know he’d been playing with weapons.

  SIMILAR TO: Gupti, the Indian sword cane

  ADVANTAGES: Can save your life in a pinch; disguised as ordinary walking cane, so wielder doesn’t compromise religious beliefs; even fools God

  DISADVANTAGES: Some blades have to be unscrewed from the crutch, which can take considerable time during an attack

  BAGH NAKH If you ever get access to a time machine, you may want to consider visiting seventeenth-century India, if only to try out the bagh nakh. This dope-ass metal claw was about as close as mankind has ever come to actually becoming Wolverine. It could be worn over the knuckles in true Wolverine style or hidden inside the palm as a stealth weapon. Unfortunately, the people of medieval India didn’t know what they had. They treated the bagh nakh with scorn, calling it a seditious weapon of thieves and assassins. There was a reason for this reputation, though. In 1674, a group of Maratha rebels was at war with the Bijapur Sultanate. The rebel leader Shivaji had accepted a meeting with Afzal Khan, the Bijapuri general. Shivaji got word that Afzal intended to murder him, so he came to the meeting strapped and armored. When the two leaders embraced, Afzal attacked with a katar (the Indian “punch dagger”), but failed to penetrate Shivaji’s chain mail. Shivaji responded by disemboweling Afzal with a bagh nakh, which he’d smuggled into the meeting in his palm. The bagh nakh forever changed the course of Indian politics, as the Maratha rebellion soon grew into the Maratha Empire. The moral of this story: if you’re planning on surprise-attacking somebody, there’s a good chance he’s planning on surprise-attacking you, too.

  DATE OF ORIGIN: 1600s, possibly 1500s

  INSPIRED BY: Tiger claws

  FAMOUS VICTIMS: Afzal Khan, who had his guts plucked out by a bagh nakh

  ALSO AVAILABLE: Bich’hwa bagh nakh, a bagh nakh with a dagger on the handle

  ADVANTAGES: Concealable; turns wielder into fucking Wolverine

  DISADVANTAGES: Must be used close to target; not made of real adamantium like Wolverine’s claws

  MADU As time passed, the term fakir began to lose its Muslim association and came to mean “any raggedy-ass homeless person in India.” Like the Muslim fakirs, the Hindu ones weren’t supposed to carry weapons. They too became adept at making nontraditional arms, indicating that the Hindu pantheon must be as easy to fool as t
he Muslim deity. In addition to lying on beds of nails, the Hindu fakirs got really good at making weapons out of animal horns. “Fakir’s horns” were constructed of two steel-tipped antelope horns pointing in opposite directions. These horns could be fastened to a shield to make the madu—a handy defensive weapon. The wielder could use the shield of the madu to block, and the horns to parry. If he wished to toss his religion out the window entirely, he could stab with the sharp tips of the horns, easily gouging the windpipe or eyeballs of his attacker. Madu weren’t merely used by ascetics and beggars, either. They became popular with the Maratha military, who would parry with them in the left hand, while a sword or other traditional weapon was wielded in the right. In the hands of a pro, the blocks, parries, and attacks of a madu could happen so fast the enemy would think he’d been stabbed by the trident of Shiva himself.

  EASE OF USE: (awkward grip requires a surprising amount of training)

  USED BY: Fakirs, yogis, Hindu beggars, the Bhil people of Central India

  ALSO CALLED: Maru; “horny stabby shield”

  SIMILAR TO: The adarga, which is the Moorish version of the madu; fakir’s horns, which is a madu without the shield; antelope, which is an animal with horns but no shield

  ADVANTAGES: Surprisingly useful; can block, parry, and stab (if your religion permits it)

  DISADVANTAGES: Rhino-skin shield may aggravate allergies