How far back in time can we go?

[commando552]

Originally Posted by Mazryonh

Well, the Tanegashima was pretty standardized for its time. The Japanese did not export the weapon either (it was a major military asset of theirs, first in intra-national conflict, and then again when it came time to invade Korea during the Imjin War), so it behooved the Japanese to keep it to themselves. From what I can tell, unlike their European and American counterparts, they stuck with the Tanegashima for a long time instead of fiddling with and improving the design or adopting new firearm technologies (such as wheellock and flintlock guns) until their 19th Century intra-national Boshin war, where they imported foreign firearms en masse, and then afterwards started copying foreign designs for their upcoming Imperialist endeavours.

From what I have seen there was a lot of variation with the Tanegashima over time. Both this and this are Tanegashimas but as you can see there is a big difference between the two. I may be wrong, but I was under the impression that Tanegashima was simply the name applied to Japanese matchlocks (which tended to look vaguely similar due to the style, just how European ones would look similar), hell, you even find stuff described as a "Tanegashima Pistol" which is very different in form and appearance.

And we already have pages for Wheellock and Matchlock guns right now, those being rather un-standardized.

I'll refer you to my earlier post (post #4) as I have already given my opinion on this before, but the difference between a wheellock musket and a handgonne/hand cannon/hand bombard/whatever you want to call it is pretty big. The general observer will look at a matchlock or wheellock and think it is a gun, so it is worth categorising them on actor pages and media pages where they appear, if for no other reason than to educate people and to prevent misidentification. Nobody is going to look at a hand bombard and think "That's a Brown Bess right?".

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.

If more pages for works with Handgonnes come in, then what's one more firearm page compiling the appearances of "western" and "eastern" ones?

It isn't so much the prospect of having a page for handgonnes that I have a problem with, it is the fact that I do not think we want pages on the wiki where the only handheld firearm that is listed is a handgonne, which is questionable at best and in my opinion inelligible. If there are otherwise eligible peices of media that feature handgonnes then they can be listed on that page, but I am dubious of the need for them to have a page of their own at this point.

[Mazryonh]

Originally Posted by commando552

From what I have seen there was a lot of variation with the Tanegashima over time. Both this and this are Tanegashimas but as you can see there is a big difference between the two.

Thanks for the info. The Japanese, being a largely insular culture during that time, clearly didn't progress to Wheellocks and Flintlocks on their own, but it's interesting what they accomplished within the "wiggle room" of the matchlock.

Originally Posted by commando552

Nobody is going to look at a hand bombard and think "That's a Brown Bess right?".

No, but I'm sure we can categorize handgonnes by "Eastern" and "Western" designs.

Originally Posted by commando552

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.

The funny thing is, matchlocks aren't that far removed from handgonnes. You're still using a match, just held by an external device, to ignite gunpowder in a flash pan leading to a tube with a touchhole.

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).

Originally Posted by commando552

It isn't so much the prospect of having a page for handgonnes that I have a problem with, it is the fact that I do not think we want pages on the wiki where the only handheld firearm that is listed is a handgonne, which is questionable at best and in my opinion ineligible. If there are otherwise eligible peices of media that feature handgonnes then they can be listed on that page, but I am dubious of the need for them to have a page of their own at this point.

Yeah, I still remember back when there was some resistance to allowing movies/games/TV shows that only had a single gun in them (there used to be a discussion about this on the page for The Family Man).

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.

[funkychinaman]

Pyramid Silent went on a samurai movie spree before he was told to stop. If you look at the pages, they're barely eligible.