Massive, thick, heavy, and far too rough: The Arsenal of Guts.
Welcome back to The Armory, in this installment, we'll be taking a look not at a single weapon, but at an entire arsenal of them. Weapons designed to fight creatures no mortal man could ever hope to match. The weapons of The Black Swordsman, The Hundred Man Slayer: Guts, from the comic book "Berserk."
Now, We're going to start with the most normal of Gut's weapons, and move onward to the most exotic as we go down the line. Throwing knives will be omitted, as there's nothing unusual or weird about Gut's knives, he's simply very accurate at throwing them. Instead, we'll start with a small, but powerful tool that has saved his life many times:
The Miniature Bomb
This compact weapon was created by the blacksmith Rickert, a member of Guts' old Mercenary unit, and a close friend to the Black Swordsman. They are stated to have a 3 second fuse, and explode with force similar to a powerful firework, or a grenade from the golden age of piracy. Each bomb is a little bigger than a golf ball, and is covered in small, barbed spines, enabling them to stick into the target.
So, first of all: How realistic is this thing in terms of design?
Well, as it happens, I did some research which has PROBABLY put me on some sort of Government watch list, and I found THIS image:
Would you look at that, familiar, isn't it? I found several other images that displayed similar designs to figure B here, several of which have heavily barbed, arrow-shaped spikes, the intended purpose of which I can only speculate on, but the function of I can be rather certain about.
This brings us, incidentally, to the next point: How do these function?
Well, near as I can tell, one of two ways. Either the spines are Hollow, and serve merely to stick Guts' bomb to the target, insuring a contact-range blast, or the spines are solid, and act as integral shrapnel, detaching from the blast and inflicting penetrating damage onto the target and those around it. Given the minimal range of these bombs, and the fact that the explosive power seems very concentrated onto a single target. So concentrated, in fact, that the body a Troll, roughly the size of a large Chimpanzee, was sufficient to prevent all harm to those behind it. This tells me that shrapnel isn't a factor.
That means these mini-bombs function completely on the explosive charge within them to do damage. They are shown to be rather destructive, capable of dismemberment, and inflicting tremendous harm even on armored knights. This gives them roughly the average powder charge of a standard musket load, so somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 grains of black gunpowder. What does this mean, exactly?
Realism of Damage:
Well, an m80 holds roughly 5 grams of black powder or flash powder. 100 Grains is SIX AND A HALF GRAMS OF POWDER. Keep in mind, an M80 is roughly a quarter stick of dynamite, and easily capable of hurting people very severely, as we've all heard every year on the 4th of July. And this is assuming the MINIMAL load is used. At maximum, these little party favors may be packing upwards of TEN GRAMS of gunpowder. That generates an energy of nearly 200 foot pounds, and a pressure of just under twenty thousand PSI. More than enough to do what the comic displays of these small, but deadly weapons.
Could we make them: People have, so yes, it's very possible. That said, I caution ANYBODY against attempting it. For one, making bombs is illegal, for good reason. Additionally, blackpowder and it's substitutes are notoriously volatile, exploding at minimal provocation with tremendous force. Attempting to make these in one's garage would likely result in severe injury, or even death. Don't play with gunpowder, kids.
To be continued in the next post.
Now, We're going to start with the most normal of Gut's weapons, and move onward to the most exotic as we go down the line. Throwing knives will be omitted, as there's nothing unusual or weird about Gut's knives, he's simply very accurate at throwing them. Instead, we'll start with a small, but powerful tool that has saved his life many times:
The Miniature Bomb
This compact weapon was created by the blacksmith Rickert, a member of Guts' old Mercenary unit, and a close friend to the Black Swordsman. They are stated to have a 3 second fuse, and explode with force similar to a powerful firework, or a grenade from the golden age of piracy. Each bomb is a little bigger than a golf ball, and is covered in small, barbed spines, enabling them to stick into the target.
So, first of all: How realistic is this thing in terms of design?
Well, as it happens, I did some research which has PROBABLY put me on some sort of Government watch list, and I found THIS image:
Would you look at that, familiar, isn't it? I found several other images that displayed similar designs to figure B here, several of which have heavily barbed, arrow-shaped spikes, the intended purpose of which I can only speculate on, but the function of I can be rather certain about.
This brings us, incidentally, to the next point: How do these function?
Well, near as I can tell, one of two ways. Either the spines are Hollow, and serve merely to stick Guts' bomb to the target, insuring a contact-range blast, or the spines are solid, and act as integral shrapnel, detaching from the blast and inflicting penetrating damage onto the target and those around it. Given the minimal range of these bombs, and the fact that the explosive power seems very concentrated onto a single target. So concentrated, in fact, that the body a Troll, roughly the size of a large Chimpanzee, was sufficient to prevent all harm to those behind it. This tells me that shrapnel isn't a factor.
That means these mini-bombs function completely on the explosive charge within them to do damage. They are shown to be rather destructive, capable of dismemberment, and inflicting tremendous harm even on armored knights. This gives them roughly the average powder charge of a standard musket load, so somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 grains of black gunpowder. What does this mean, exactly?
Realism of Damage:
Well, an m80 holds roughly 5 grams of black powder or flash powder. 100 Grains is SIX AND A HALF GRAMS OF POWDER. Keep in mind, an M80 is roughly a quarter stick of dynamite, and easily capable of hurting people very severely, as we've all heard every year on the 4th of July. And this is assuming the MINIMAL load is used. At maximum, these little party favors may be packing upwards of TEN GRAMS of gunpowder. That generates an energy of nearly 200 foot pounds, and a pressure of just under twenty thousand PSI. More than enough to do what the comic displays of these small, but deadly weapons.
Could we make them: People have, so yes, it's very possible. That said, I caution ANYBODY against attempting it. For one, making bombs is illegal, for good reason. Additionally, blackpowder and it's substitutes are notoriously volatile, exploding at minimal provocation with tremendous force. Attempting to make these in one's garage would likely result in severe injury, or even death. Don't play with gunpowder, kids.
To be continued in the next post.
I suppose the spines could be used for the bomb to stick to a target but they may also serve as shrapnel. I mean, yeah. not gonna do a LOT of damage, but could serve as a nuisance anyway. If one exploded close enough to a person could cause some injury.
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