by John O'Bryan
DATE OF ORIGIN: Circa 1829
INVENTED BY: Arkansas blacksmith James Black, with help from Jim Bowie
ALSO CALLED: Arkansas toothpick
FAMOUS VICTIMS: Major Norris Wright, who was stabbed to death by Bowie on the sandbar. Had he won the duel, we might be talking about the “Major Norris Wright knife” instead.
THE KENTUCKY RIFLE This firearm is often thought of as the first truly original American weapon, but it was actually German colonists who brought it to the States in the early 1700s. Originally known as American longrifles, these guns were different from the smoothbore variety in that they had spiral-shaped grooves carved inside their barrels. This is what made the bullets of the American longrifle spin like the tight spiral of a well-thrown football. The spinning made the projectile more stable in flight. This meant it could fly much farther and straighter than the bullet of a British smoothbore, which lobbed its shot the way an English schoolgirl throws rose petals. This lone firearm didn’t exactly win the Revolutionary War for the Americans, but the longrifle, combined with the American frontiersman’s buckskin clothing, burned a striking image in the minds of the British. This was the weapon of possum-eating hicks from the backwoods of the Appalachian Mountains. The “lobsterbacks” (British troops) wouldbecome utterly terrified of the American riflemen who could put bullets in their eye sockets from two hundred yards. This made the Brits tentative in battle, and Americans would soon win their freedom to marry their cousins and eat possum without being taxed by the king. Now that’s fucking freedom.
BIRTHPLACE: Lancaster, Pennsylvania (go figure)
ALSO CALLED: Pennsylvania rifle; American longrifle; “hog rifle”
FAMOUS VICTIMS: The British at the Battle of King’s Mountain; the British at the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812
ADVANTAGES: Barrel is longer than most previous rifles, giving it longer range; smaller caliber saves precious lead
DISADVANTAGES: Takes longer to load than a smoothbore musket due to the tightness of the rifled barrel
MORTARS It wasn’t long before somebody figured out the limitations of solid cannonballs. They could blast holes in walls, which was all well and good, but where the hell were the explosions? People began to wonder: “What if we hollow out the cannonball, fill it with gunpowder, and develop some sort of fuse that blows the thing up just as it’s landing?” Through trial and error, the first timed artillery fuses were developed in the late seventeenth century. This was even harder than it sounded. Bombs that weren’t timed properly could easily explode before they were launched, which could ruin a cannon operator’s day. They couldn’t be used with a traditional high-powder cannon either, as this would destroy the bomb casing before it ever got to the target. That’s where the mortar came to the rescue. This special low-velocity cannon was designed specifically to lob exploding artillery at a 45-degree angle. This enabled the projectile to be launched over troublesome obstacles like forests and walls before exploding on the other side. But in order to pull this off, you needed a team of highly educated geometry nerds to accurately predict the trajectory of the mortar shell. You also needed a buttload of slide rules and graph paper, which were not easy to come by in the colonies. America had to make its first run to Staples.
EASE OF USE: (needs math nerds)
SIMILAR TO: Howitzer, which fires at a slightly lower trajectory than the mortar
ADVANTAGES: Can launch explosive “shells” over enemy fortifications
DISADVANTAGES: This means you might not get to see the explosion
DERRINGER By the turn of the nineteenth century, people were getting fed up with the flintlock firing mechanism. It misfired, it couldn’t be used in the rain, and it suffered from a delay between ignition and firing. Americans were busy making America, and they didn’t have time for all that bullshit. In the 1830s, the new percussion cap mechanism took the United States by storm. It featured a hammer that struck a metallic cap filled with fulminate of mercury (some poisonous exploding stuff). Though it took forever for percussion caps to catch on in military circles, they immediately found favor as personal firearms. Right around the same time, a Philadelphia gunsmith named Henry Deringer (the actual spelling) began making small, single-shot pistols that were as big as a person’s palm. These pistols were relatively weak. In fact, the bullet of the derringer moved so slowly that you could allegedly see it in flight. Nevertheless, these adorable tiny firearms caught on like wildfire, especially with ladies, who could stuff them in their garter belts or coat pockets just in case some jerk tried to get fresh. Gamblers, ministers, politicians, and anyone else who needed a concealed firearm turned to the derringer for secret protection. It could even be carried inconspicuously into a crowded theater, which is exactly why John Wilkes Booth used it to assassinate Abraham Lincoln.
EASE OF USE:
ADVANTAGES: Easily concealed in a purse or pocket; definite killing power at close range
DISADVANTAGES: Pain in the ass to load; most models only fire one shot; shot is relatively weak, moving at about half the speed of a normal bullet
FUN FACT: Some derringers were made with two barrels, one on top of the other, allowing them to fire two shots before reloading
COLT REVOLVER Also in the 1830s, a bright young huckster named “Dr. Coult” was traveling around North America giving seminars on chemistry. He wasn’t a real doctor, or even a real chemist, but he was a man with a dream. That dream was to make a percussion cap pistol with a revolving chamber that didn’t require manual rotation. The dreamer was none other than Samuel Colt, American legend-to-be. His invention didn’t really catch on until the 1840s, when the Texas Rangers needed help fighting the Comanche Indians. The old single-shot firearms required twenty valuable seconds to reload. These seconds were costly, often resulting in the shooter catching a Comanche arrow in his neck. Mr. Colt came along and said, “Here’s my revolver, which can fire five or six shots without having to reload, all in the convenient body of a small sidearm.” Texas said, “Are you fucking kidding me?! Sold!” General Zachary Taylor ordered a big supply. The American West was all but already won.
DATE OF ORIGIN: 1836
SIMILAR TO: The pepperbox pistol, which had a revolving barrel and crazy-bad accuracy
ADVANTAGES: Fires five or six shots without reloading; pulling hammer back rotates barrel, so you don’t have to turn it by hand; skilled users can shoot by “fanning” the hammer with their free hand
DISADVANTAGES: Killing Indians will result in centuries of white guilt
FUN FACT: Later Colt models brought the revolver to a new level with their double-action mechanics. These guns featured a barrel that was rotated and fired by a single pull of the trigger, making gunplay even more economical.
EARLY SUBMERSIBLES If anyone ever asks you if you’d like to go for a ride in a Civil War submarine, your answer should be a resounding “Hellllll no!” These early submersibles may have broken new technological ground, but they were floating death traps. The first one ever to be used in warfare was an American invention known as the Turtle. This was essentially a wooden orb piloted by a single passenger. Its torpedo was a simple keg of powder that was to be fastened to the hull of British ships during the Revolutionary War. Even George Washington was skeptical of the Turtle, and he turned out to be right, as it never succeeded in blowing anything up. The next attempt at sub warfare came during the Civil War, when the Union army built a submersible called the Alligator to take on Confederate ironclad ships. The Alligator was a thirty-foot iron tube that was initially propelled by hand-powered oars, and later by a hand-cranked propeller. After miserably failing a series of test runs, the Alligator sank to the bottom of the ocean, never to be seen again. Then came the H. L. Hunley, the steam-powered submarine of the Confederacy. It required a crew of eight men tightly packed together in the narrow iron hull. In its test drives, the Hunley sank twice, killing all crew members. But it was raised from the water both times and recovered. The Hunley just wouldn’t give up—li
ke an underwater kamikaze version of The Little Engine That Could. Then, in 1864, the Hunley accomplished something—it became the first submersible to ever sink a ship, taking out the USS Housatonic by explosive charge. Of course, the Hunley immediately sank afterwards and asphyxiated all of its crew members yet again, but it had finally proven that perseverance pays off.
USED BY: Americans during the Revolutionary War; Union and Confederate troops during the Civil War
ADVANTAGES: Can theoretically navigate enemy waters without being detected
DISADVANTAGES: Will probably sink and kill everyone on board
GATLING GUN As if the Civil War wasn’t bloody and gruesome enough, the waning years of the conflict saw the introduction of the Gatling gun—a hand-cranked conveyor of rapid-fire death. Any time this multibarreled menace was wheeled onto the battlefield, it would only be a matter of seconds before every man, animal, tree, and rock was reduced to ribbons. Thanks to a gravity-fed ammunition supply, the Gatling fed itself new bullets as it shot. All the shooter had to do was turn its crank and the gun’s barrels would rotate, producing a continuous barrage of neverending hellfire. Although it saw limited action in the American Civil War, the Gatling gun was used extensively in the Spanish-American War of 1898. There, it became a favorite weapon of Colonel Teddy Roosevelt, providing him with a very “big stick” indeed. The irony of the Gatling gun: its inventor, Richard Gatling, claimed to have created it to reduce the number of troops committed in combat and make war so horrifying and absolute that it would become futile. In other words, the Gatling gun was his attempt to end wars. Just like how nuclear weapons were made to end nuclear war.
EASE OF USE:
AVAILABLE IN: Six- and ten-barrel models
PRECURSOR TO: The Maxim gun, the world’s first true self-powered machine gun
ADVANTAGES: Obliterates everything in its sights with a continuous stream of bullets; rotating barrels allows the gun to cool and prevent overheating
DISADVANTAGES: Tons of smoke; jamming is likely; will not actually end wars
MAXIM GUN Even though the Gatling gun was a terrifying beast of a weapon, it required manual cranking, which meant it wasn’t a proper machine gun. The Maxim gun, on the other hand, performed roughly the same function with virtually no manual labor whatsoever. This gave it the distinction of being the first self-powered machine gun ever to be used in combat. Truth be told, it took a tremendous amount of labor—four to six men—to get the Maxim gun into position. But once it was in place, it could be fired by a single person. The gun operated on an impressively efficient system that used the gas of the fired cartridges to feed the next round into the gun. It required no outside power source other than the ammunition itself. While the guy at the trigger had all the fun, the other members of his team had to feed a constant supply of water into the Maxim’s built-in cooling system, which kept the gun from bursting into flames. The gun’s firepower was worth it. Its shots were more powerful and more plentiful than those of any other gun on the market, including the Gatling gun. Because of this, the British were able to conquer half the planet, bringing tea time to every time zone on Earth. As a poem of the time put it:
“Whatever happens, we have got
The Maxim gun, and they have not.”
DATE OF ORIGIN: 1883
INVENTOR: Hiram Maxim, who has nothing to do with Maxim magazine
RATE OF FIRE: Six hundred rounds per minute in theory, three hundred rounds per minute in reality
ADVANTAGES: The most powerful firearm of its time, bar none
DISADVANTAGES: Jams like a motherfucker; needs constant supply of water; will eventually lose to Gandhi
INDEX
The index entries below are as they appeared in the print version of the book and are included here for your reference. Please use the search function on your eReader to search for terms of interest.
Aspis
Atlatl
Bagh nakh
Balisong
Bar shot, see Chain shot
Battering ram
Biological weapons, first
Blunderbuss
Bola (boleadora)
Bombard
Boomerangs
Bowie knife
Brandistock
Bronze culverin
Buckler
Caltrop
Catapult, early
Chain shot
Chain whip (nine-second whip)
Chakram
Chariot
Chu-ko-nu (repeating crossbow)
Claymore
Club
Colt revolver
Composite bow
Copper dagger
Crossbow
Dane axe
Deerhorn knives
Derringer
Dory
Egyptian mace
Emei piercers
English longbow
Estoc
Fakir’s crutch
Falx
Fire
Fire lances
First bombs
Flaming pigs
Flanged mace
Flintlock pistol
Francisca (throwing axe)
Fukiya
Gatling gun
Ge
Gladius
Gunstock club
Greek fire
Haladie
Halberd
Harpoon
Hun horses
Javelin
Jezail
Ji, see Ge
Kakute
Karambit
Katana
Katar
Kentucky rifle
Khanda (India)
Kpinga
Kris
Kukri
Kusari-gama
Kwan dao (China)
Lance
Lantern shield
Landmines
Lei o mano club (Polynesia)
Longsword
Macuahuitl (Americas)
Madu
Maka pahoa ko’oko’o
Mancatcher
Matchlock arquebus
Maxim gun
Maul
Meteor hammer
Metsubishi
Monk’s spade
Morning star
Mortars
Musket
Naginata
Neko-te
Neolithic bow
Ngombe execution sword (Africa)
Ninja, see Shinobi
Nunchaku
Onager
Parang
Pata
Pilum
Plumbata
Poisoned arrows
Puckle gun
Punji sticks
Rapier
Rock
Rocket arrows
Rope dart, see Meteor hammer
Sai
Sariss
Samurai
Scalding substances
Scimitar
Shillelagh
Shinobi
Shoku
Shuriken
Siege tower
Sickle sword
Sleeve arrows
Sling
Socketed axe
Spear
Staff
Steel bow
Stingray barbs
Stone blades
Submersibles, early
Sumpitan
Sword breaker
Swords, first true
Tessen
Three-section staff
Throwing knife
Throwing sticks, see Boomerangs
Tiger head hook sword
Toki
Tomahawk
Trebuchet
Trident
Urumi
Wakizashi
War elephants
War hammer
Zhanmadao
John O’Bryan was raised by professional whittlers in the backwoods of Western Tennessee. On Sundays, his father worked as a Baptist minister and instilled in him many of the Bible’s most important lessons on how to smite people. His mot
her would read him the Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual when he couldn’t sleep. While living in Memphis, he learned to run from the sound of gunfire. He once got stabbed by Cuban teenagers while vacationing in the Caribbean. He cut his writing teeth typing obituaries for Mississippi’s most prestigious newspaper and would later abandon his southern roots to write for Hollywood. There, he would use these life lessons to his advantage, writing for shows like Nickelodeon’s Avatar: The Last Airbender and Disney XD’s Motorcity. He currently lives in northeast Los Angeles with his two kids, two cats, and thirty-seven crossbows.
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