#1
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How far back in time can we go?
Firearms underwent a loooonngg phase of being big, unwieldy, and unreliable as man-portable weapons before they became more user-friendly. I noticed we have pages for the Jezail musket and wheellock/matchlock guns. Would even earlier "man-portable cannons" (AKA "handgonnes") be permissible for this wiki or not?
One such piece of media featuring these primitive firearms (aside from the infamous "bamboo and blackpowder cannon" from the original Star Trek series episode titled "Arena") is the video game War of the Roses, a third-person medieval combat game focussing on the titular conflict. You can watch a video of them in action. The question is, if I were to make a page about this game, would the handgonnes (and similar "hand cannons") count? I'm sure there are plenty of historical dramas (most likely China-focussed) that might be included if the gates were opened on that. |
#2
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I think the earliest weapon we have is the matchlock musket, and I'm okay with that. As with flintlocks and wheellocks, since all we're doing is IDing the type, it's a bit pointless.
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#3
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But we still have those pages for these "old-school" firearms. If some of us could make "enough" (your call) pages featuring these old "Hand Cannons," would that merit inclusion on the wiki? |
#4
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TBH I'm not crazy about the generic wheellock and matchlock pages as these weapons tend to pre-date standardisation and arsenal production so they cannot be classified into specific types (even the terms like "musket" "carbine" and "arquebus" are non standard and change depending on time, place and random whim), and it would be even worse with handgonnes. Flintlock weapons were the first weapons that were mass produced and can be classified (and therefore stand and chance of being identified by us) as a specific model. Another thing to bear in mind, is that if the media includes a realistic depiction of a handgonne, then it likely predates modern shoulder arms so would have no other eligible weapons, making inclusion of it questionable in the first place. Last edited by commando552; 03-05-2014 at 12:46 AM. |
#5
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We have a page for Akira Kurosawa's Ran, which only had the pre-modern Tanegashima matchlock. Anyway, the War of the Roses game I mentioned earlier has some fortification-mounted cannons that aren't usable by players that could also be included in a potential page for that game. |
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"Me fail English? That's unpossible!" |
#7
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I think starting a page with a single generic entry like "Matchlock Musket" or "Tanegashima" would be against the rules. They state that:
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#8
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And we already have pages for Wheellock and Matchlock guns right now, those being rather un-standardized. If more pages for works with Handgonnes come in, then what's one more firearm page compiling the appearances of "western" and "eastern" ones? Last edited by Mazryonh; 03-04-2014 at 11:48 PM. |
#9
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Also, there is never going to be a real handgonne in a film or TV series, it is always going to be a mock up so essentially a tube that someone is holding a match to. Quote:
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#10
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Besides, with modern pyrotechnics technology and CGI, we can make cannons mockups (handheld or otherwise) give off a lot of flash and smoke on film without an actual projectile, making it look realistic in most circumstances. An exception is the 1993 film Gettysburg where the large wheel-mounted cannons are clearly seen to not recoil as much as they would have if they were firing real projectiles (this could have been fixed by pulling the cannon carriages back with wires each time they fired to simulate the "appropriate" level of recoil, or installing a hidden motor on the carriages to do the same). Quote:
I've always tried to be a "straight shooter" on this site. If and when I start getting screenshots of media with handgonnes on them I'll make "prototype" pages for them and run them by the mods here. It's too bad there don't seem to be many users with access to "for distribution in East Asia only" TV shows that aren't anime on this website right now. East Asians have had a soft spot for historical TV dramas for a long time, and I'm sure many of those productions (being focussed on the feudal eras of Japan, or Korea, or China) would have featured handgonnes and primitive matchlocks for the "higher-class" productions. |
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