Gunblades

[Elok]

About fifteen years ago, Squaresoft released Final Fantasy VIII, a magnificent epic of love, teen angst, and terrible gameplay balance. The game's main character, Squall Leonhart, uses a weapon called the gunblade, which is the stock and chamber of a gun attached to the blade of a sword. The end result is kinda like a kukri with a comically oversized blade. AFAICT from digging through Otaku websites, the idea is that, at the moment of impact, the guy swinging it pulls the trigger to fire a bullet into the base of the blade, causing it to rumble and do more damage.

I assume this would not do anything useful. But what would it do? Poly gun nuts: would the thing explode in your hands, smash the blade to bits, or just make the whole thing shake annoyingly, not unlike a game controller with feedback? Or something else? Bonus points if you can dig up evidence of somebody being silly enough to build and test one.

[self biased]

... They made final fantasy games after 6? I thought that the fell into development he'll, like those matrix sequels and the star wars prequels that were never made.

[The Mad Monk]

Depending on the actual load, it could do any of the above, once.

[Felch]

... They made final fantasy games after 6? I thought that the fell into development he'll, like those matrix sequels and the star wars prequels that were never made.

They made Final Fantasy Dimensions, but other than that, nothing.

I can't tell you what a gunblade would actually do without experimenting, but I'm willing to bet hard currency that it's a retarded idea.

[Aeson]

I've used those 22 cal nailguns. It could operate similarly. Just need to calibrate the charge with the weights involved, allow the blade to slide with proper venting of the exhaust. Would be one of those things where it could drive the blade 6 inches into concrete.

(Of course I'd still be willing to bet that any such project would end in catastrophe ... more because of the type of person likely to try to build one than any engineering difficulty.)

[loinburger]

Seems to me that a Warhammer 40K chain sword would do a lot more damage

[regexcellent]

Seems to me the Warhammer 40k chainsword would suffer from something called conservation of angular momentum.

[DinoDoc]

Here ya go:

[MRT144]

About fifteen years ago, Squaresoft released Final Fantasy VIII, a magnificent epic of love, teen angst, and terrible gameplay balance. The game's main character, Squall Leonhart, uses a weapon called the gunblade, which is the stock and chamber of a gun attached to the blade of a sword. The end result is kinda like a kukri with a comically oversized blade. AFAICT from digging through Otaku websites, the idea is that, at the moment of impact, the guy swinging it pulls the trigger to fire a bullet into the base of the blade, causing it to rumble and do more damage.

I assume this would not do anything useful. But what would it do? Poly gun nuts: would the thing explode in your hands, smash the blade to bits, or just make the whole thing shake annoyingly, not unlike a game controller with feedback? Or something else? Bonus points if you can dig up evidence of somebody being silly enough to build and test one.

Anything from the Final Fantasy series is an insult to aesthetics.

[regexcellent]

Why not just have an ordinary rifle with a bayonet on the end?

[DinoDoc]

Why not just have an ordinary rifle with a bayonet on the end?

Rule of Cool: The limit of the Willing Suspension of Disbelief for a given element is directly proportional to the element's awesomeness.

[loinburger]

Why not just have an ordinary rifle with a bayonet on the end?

In FF, regular guns do like 10hp worth of damage, compared to 10000hp of damage with a decent sword

[N35t0r]

Somehow, swords are able to do more damage than guns in the FF universe.

[MRT144]

Somehow, swords are able to do more damage than guns in the FF universe.

The FF universe is pants on head retarded.

[N35t0r]

Maybe momentum is proportional to mass squared in that universe?