Weapons

The history of weapons is practically as old as history itself. Civilization has always been marked by conflict, and the arts of warfare practiced among all peoples. Ancient times witnessed the dominance of primitive weapons and large armies; medieval times introduced missile weapons, armor, and refined battle tactics; and world powers waged a Great War using firearms, heavy weapons, and aerial bombardment.

The purpose of this section is to explore weapons types and technologies; yet such a discussion cannot begin without acknowledging the spread of dangerous weaponry and illegal arms among Air Pirates, criminals, and radical elements. The dangers yet present in this "civilized" age stress the need, indeed the right, to lawfully protect one's self, property, and loved ones.

Melee Weapons

Melee weapons are used in hand-to-hand combat. Many cultures still hold high esteem for hand weapons and the skills required to master them. When firearms were introduced, melee weapons rapidly went into decline everywhere except among collectors, enthusiasts, and the few remaining societies who continue using them. Some weapon specialists and martial artists from remote cultures wield these weapons very effectively, but their success reflects their great skill, not necessarily the weapon's value.

Primitive Weapons

Early cultures and tribes depended for their very survival on skilled hunters and warriors, who used all sorts of simple weapons to hunt animals for food and pelts and defend against predatory creatures. As history progressed, these tools gained a role in intertribal battles and ancient wars for centuries, until supplanted by swords and later guns. Primitive weapons such as clubs, staves, maces, and spears are still used by natives and isolated tribes situated in the unexplored reaches of the earth.

Knives

In spite of the prevalence of firearms in close-quarters combat, knives and daggers see widespead use as personal weapons. Small, easily concealable, and not regulated in most areas, a knife can be carried and used just about anywhere. The average knife's main drawback is its short range, naturally, which is arm's length. Specially-balanced throwing daggers and pocket knives can, with training, be thrown accurately to a distance of 30 feet or greater.

Axes

Air Pirates and barbaric warriors seem to share an affinity for sharp, oversized fighting implements. Battle-axes, hatchets, and poleaxes come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Some of these nasty devices feature sawtooth blades; others sport twin cutting edges (also known as "twibills"). Campers and outdoorsmen may carry small hand axes and hatchets as tools.

Whips

As melee weapons go, a whip is not a conventional choice. These long, tapering strips of rawhide are usually found coiled against the hip of explorers and trappers, who use them as tools to scale treacherous obstacles and drive back wild beasts. Only talent and practice can transform a whip into an effective defense. An expert whipmaster may flick a coin out of someone's fingertips or snatch a weapon from an opponent's grasp.

Bayonets

Bayonets are small blades adapted to fit onto the muzzle end of rifles. They serve as weapons in close combat, and as such, are used mainly by soldiers running low on ammunition or anticipating a charge by the enemy. Modern firepower has long rendered obsolete the tactic of the bayonet rush; a commander will order his company to "Fix bayonets!" usually as a last-ditch show of bravery in the face of dire odds. Guards find that bayonets can help them prod some action out of unresponsive types.

Swords

The sword is by far the most respected and versatile instrument of hand-to-hand combat. Centuries have not diminished the rich historic and symbolic traditions of swordplay, though late history involving Air Pirates has tarnished this weapon's reputation. Today, sword possession is restricted and public display of a sword (apart from ceremonial purposes) is an invitation for arrest in contemporary society. Many varieties of this weapon exist, from the dueling rapier and elegant saber to the heavy-bladed cutlass carried by buccaneer captains such as the infamous Don Karnage.

Ranged Weapons

Weapons that are used over a distance classify as ranged weapons. Until the last few centuries, ranged weapons were simple projectiles such as stones, spears, and arrows. The introduction of gunpowder revolutionized the way battles were fought, while the Great War spurred the development of repeating guns and automatic weapons — technology which has surged ahead with frightening speed in the post-War era.

Law-abiding citizens may purchase a sidearm legally after obtaining the necessary training and registration, but back-alley sales of illegal guns are all too easy for those who have the proper connections. Regardless of creditable efforts by the gun industry to regulate distribution of its products, firearms have spread like a plague amid the unsavory elements of society. Authorities estimate that criminals rank second only to the police and military in gun possession; hunters, security guards, and licensed civilians constitute the leftover small percentage of owners.

The majority of ranged weapons are firearms, though this section also covers a few early types of ranged weapons for good measure. A distinction must be made, however, between ranged weapons for characters and ranged weapons for vehicles and aircraft. Because of fundamental differences in scale and design, aircraft weapons are listed separately from personal weapons.

Slingshots

Now considered a child's toy, the sling or slingshot has a dateless origin among early fighters and hunters. Its construction is simple — a Y-shaped stick with an elastic strap attached to the prongs — and its purpose equally simple: to shoot small stones. Some tribal groups use sling weapons to attack small game, but they can do little more than anger predators with a pelting of pebbles. Against planes and vehicles a slingshot is totally worthless, unless it delivers an explosive projectile.

Bows

The bow, a device to launch arrows, has been around for untold ages and inspired many a myth and legend about famous archers. Modern-day archery occupies the arena of outdoor sport, although some tribal bowmen take up the weapon for its original purposes: hunting and fighting. Alterations in the shape and size of the bow have produced variants with names befitting their design — longbow, shortbow, crossbow.

Pistols

New strides in gun manufacturing have brought handguns to a practical, affordable level (territorial laws and registration fees notwithstanding). Business owners, private collectors, security personnel, and law enforcement officers — these make up the body of legitimate firearms users. Pistols and revolvers of assorted makes and models appear regularly on the black market, and show up thereafter in the hands of criminals, gangsters, and Air Pirates.

Muskets

In the current day and age, the use of antiquated firearms in certain quarters is surprising indeed. Blunderbusses, matchlock rifles, and muskets represent archaic technology carried across the past two to three hundred years, crude and deadly in its simplicity. These weapons are clumsy, difficult to operate, and effective only at short range. Most hold only one shot. However, their low cost and relative abundance in the storehouses of gun peddlers makes them the top pick for Air Pirates and fringe paramilitary groups.

Rifles

Rifled-bore firearms have a power and range superior to that of a standard pistol. Restrictions on these weapons are also much tighter. Almost all legal rifles are sold to the military; big game hunters and sporting enhusiasts may select the less powerful hunting model for a lower price and considerably looser permit. Rifles can be loaded with a magazine holding up to six shells and all models may be equipped with a long-range scope for improved accuracy.

Military Firearms

The soldiers of the Usland military use weapons of a much higher grade than the best produced by private manufacturers. Usland National Arms, official supplier of the Usland armed forces, builds and distributes guns of exceptional quality to troops and officers. This level of firepower is limited strictly to military personnel and members of the Cape Suzette National Guard. Unauthorized sale, possession, or use of military-grade firearms is a severe offense punishable by imprisonment. So well enforced are these particular gun laws that a military pistol or rifle in the underground market is a rare find.

Machine Guns

Ostensibly designated as military weapons, machine guns are better known to the public as the tools of organized crime. Racketeers and mobsters wage war on the police and each other with the assistance of powerful automatic weapons. Many models, including the "tommy guns" famous throughout the crime world, pack enough force to penetrate a car door or an airplane fuselage. Military machine guns feed from ammunition belts for sustained firing. Almost all personal machine guns are prone to jamming when overheated.

Grappling Guns

Grappling hook guns are somewhat of an oddity in the field of firearms. They are actually light cannons designed to shoot a grapnel and accompanying cable at a distant target. Intended to aid climbing, a grappling rifle holds up to 100 yards of cable on an internal or external spool. The gun carries a single propulsive charge that is fully expended after one shot; reloading takes anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes. Commonly used by Air Pirates to capture aircraft, grappling hook guns do not cause major damage — unless, of course, the gun goes off at point-blank range.

Vehicle/Aircraft Weapons

Ranged weapons mounted on vehicles and aircraft classify as vehicle and aircraft weapons, respectively; they work on the same principles as personal firearms, but being larger and more potent, vehicle weapons are listed apart from small arms.

Unlike pistols and rifles, which can be used in sport and hunting, vehicle-mounted weapons have virtually no application other than combat. Therefore, most vehicle weapons are highly restricted or illegal items, intended for military usage only. This fact alone, however, has not prevented these high-grade guns from finding their way onto the gun mounts of Air Pirate planes.

In the face of rampant air piracy, the only safeguard most aircraft owners can take is to arm their planes. Turning cargo fleets into small air forces proves no trouble for major corporations like Khan Industries, but outfitting a civilian plane with even one gun involves a great deal of trouble and expense. Nowadays, fear of piracy is just cause to allow a registered weapon aboard an aircraft — even so, nearly all privately-owned planes and cargo transports fly unarmed, relying upon speed and fighter patrols to keep them safe. The fact is, authorities do not want heavy weapons aboard civilian planes because it is incredibly difficult to keep track of them; there's always the risk that these weapons could be used for the very things they are supposed to prevent.

Machine Guns

Machine guns are the most common weapons found aboard vehicles and aircraft. Light machine guns are mounted on many coast guard boats and army vehicles, atop swiveling mounts that allow them a wide range of fire. Aboard aircraft, most machine guns are set forward so the pilot can aim them. Some planes have machine guns aimed to the rear or the sides, operated by separate gunners. Any legally-armed civilian plane will carry only one light gun to deter pirates; multiple guns are restricted, and heavy machine guns are forbidden.

Cannons

Cannons are similar to machine guns, but they fire heavy shells and cause more damage. Guns designated as cannons are off-limits to cargo aircraft — only combat planes pack this much armament. Fighter planes belonging to defense squadrons or Khan Industries' air force deliver superior firepower using cannons and machine guns together.

The air forces of Usland and Thembria use this grade of weaponry, as do the more dangerous bands of Air Pirates.

Gun Turrets

Gun turrets are cannons or machine guns housed in a rotating mount, placed aboard a land or sea vehicle or embedded in the fuselage of an aircraft. Turrets may take on a wide number of configurations; the most common aircraft turret is a domelike enclosure containing gunnery controls and the weapon itself. Installing a turret in a plane not meant to house one necessitates some alteration of the plane's structure, along with reinforcement of the hull surrounding the gun emplacement. Most aircraft equipped with gun turrets carry them above (dorsally) and sometimes below (ventrally), though a turret can be stuck just about anywhere on a plane: front, back, or sides.

Harpoon Guns

Harpoon guns are the vehicle-scale counterpart to the grappling hook guns mentioned earlier. A harpoon gun is a compact cannon which launches a spearlike weapon with a rope or net attached. Some models, such as the Smith & Wesson Oil double-barreled harpoon (see illustration), carry multiple harpoons which may be fired separately or simultaneously. Harpoon guns are the tools of the whaling industry, a trade condemned by animal protection groups such as A.C.H.O.O. (the Agency Concerned with the Happiness of Oceanic Oddities). These agencies have seen to it that harpoon guns are universally outlawed, which does not impress the poachers who scour protected waters, capturing porpoises and young whales to sell to zoos and aquatic shows.

Bombs

Bombs, simply defined, are explosives dropped from an airplane. Bombing runs were a hallmark of air strikes during the Great War, but among today's air forces, bombing is not a prime strategic option. The imprecision of free-fall ordnance proves troublesome against ground targets in the middle of city centers or civilian areas; even a direct hit would cause tremendous collateral damage. Against isolated targets or naval ships, tactics such as dive-bombing can come into play, improving the accuracy of a bomb strike. Unless it is part of their mission, fighter planes do not carry bomb payloads because the weight affects their performance.

Rockets

Rocket-propelled munitions made their debut during the Great War, but since the armistice, few meaningful advances have occurred in military rocketry. Rockets, at best, are terribly inaccurate weapons. Unguided, their aim is totally subject to air currents, gravity, and propulsive misfires. It is next to impossible to hit any fast-moving aircraft with a rocket, although against slower and larger planes a lucky shot might yield spectacular results. Scientists believe they are nearing a breakthrough in rocket guidance, based on a system that seeks heat.

Explosives

There are two primary categories of explosives. Propellant explosives, such as gunpowder, are ignitable substances used in measured quantities as a controllable source of thrust in firearms, cannons, and rockets. Detonating explosives release energy in a highly chaotic, destructive manner; they are subdivided into initiating explosives and high explosives. Initiating explosives come in the form of fuses and detonator caps, which trigger the detonation of high explosives such as dynamite and TNT.

From a practical standpoint, explosives play vital roles in civilian and military projects. Construction crews and demolition companies utilize blasting compounds for tunneling, terrain clearing, wrecking, and mining. Pyrotechnicians work with various arrangements of explosives and combustibles in the preparation of fireworks. Chemists and engineers find ingenious uses for controlled explosions in the laboratory. Above all, the vast distribution of gunpowder and explosive weapons among the armed forces is of inestimable value, while the obtaining of said materials illegally can lead to unimaginable consequences.

Dynamite

The conventional explosive used in mining and demolition is dynamite, which comes packaged in a wrapped stick (usually red in color) containing a combustible medium. Dynamite can be rigged with simple match-lit fuses, or wired via detonating cord to a hand detonator or timer. Where a single stick of dynamite won't do the job, multiple sticks may be bundled together. Typically treated as an industrial tool, dynamite may serve as a weapon in a pinch.

Grenades

Small canisters containing explosive charges, hand grenades are either thrown or launched by a specially-made launcher. Grenades are timed explosives: the removal of a small pin sets off an internal fuse which detonates the main charge after five seconds. Some grenades are designed to explode on impact, though just about all types will detonate if carelessly handled. Improvised "cocktail" grenades and homemade bombs will produce effects similar to a standard hand grenade.

Mines

Mine warfare is a relatively new development in ground combat strategy, but one important enough to deserve special mention. The standard land mine is a concealed explosive used to destroy enemy vehicles and equipment. Buried a few feet below the ground surface, a land mine detonates by contact, trip wire, or a time fuse depending on the mission requirements and model used. Oceanic mines operate on contact only, triggered upon collision with a passing vessel.

Urgonium

Extracted from an underground vein found in a remote mining community, urgonium is a silvery mineral with violent explosive properties. Experts who have analyzed urgonium samples agree that the substance could best be likened to nitroglycerin in a solid form. Urgonium detonates on impact, releasing tremendous destructive force — a chunk three inches in diameter can level a two-story building! Detonation of urgonium has proven very difficult to accomplish by conventional means. So far the best way to blow something up with this mineral is to hurl it directly at the target. An exclusive property of Khan Enterprises, urgonium is not available through any other supplier.