Japanese Matchlock -Sword combo

[jakeinthelake]

Hey Everybody,

Saw a fake replica Japanese matchlock with a sword blade in it on the web. Did some searching but couldn't find an real one like it. Is this made up or did they exist?

I'm new so don't know how to post a pic of the replica.

Jake in the Lake

 

[ChrisPer]

Well, as someone with an interst in Japanese swords I think it would be regarded as an abomination.

Guns were for peasants, and were dishonourable innovations. Swords represent the soul of the warrior and a thousand years of spiritual tradition.

You would be nuts to hamper your sword skills with the kludged-together thing, and destroy your honour if you pulled the trigger. Also, everyone would try to kill you even harder, and together, which could reduce your enjoyment of the battle.

But of course, a westerner's ideas of how a Japanese might or might not think about an idea are often wrong.

 

[Alden]

Hey Everybody,

Saw a fake replica Japanese matchlock with a sword blade in it on the web. Did some searching but couldn't find an real one like it. Is this made up or did they exist?

I'm new so don't know how to post a pic of the replica.

Jake in the Lake

Absolutely they existed Jake. That's how and why you saw a fake replica. They made it by perfectly copying a fake original. These are very rare because a blade in a matchlock made either less useful, and they were made only for a small but special klan of Ninjas in the Mall dynasty.

As everyone here will attest, you just can't make this stuff up!

 

[widget350]

Some samurai embraced the firearm. Takashima Shūhan imported flintlocks from the Netherlands. There were others before him that embraced the matchlock and cannon.

Combining a pole arm with a gonne was probably the most useful pairing. A sword with a matchlock wouldn't be very functional.

Alden, the only tanegashima-katana combination I know of is certainly not a copy of an original. It uses the "barrel"/stock as the saya (scabbard). If you have any pictures/drawings of the Mall dynasty ones you mention, I'd love to see them, as this is the first I've heard of them (not that I'm an expert by any means, but I've done a bit of research on both tanegashima and katana, and I've never seen anything suggesting they were ever combined).

 

[Alden]

Well, grasshopper, the Ninjas of the Mall were very innovative when it came to warcraft in the world but were a secretive and loosely bound tribe who individually lived mainly in subteranean apartments below their ancestors dwellings.

There they could contemplate and practice in isolation and safety as was their wont. This was their lonely lot -- bridled, unspeakably terrible, imagination. Their foo was strong and when they deigned to venture forth they were dangerous and feared, very feared, and best avoided.

 

[RR_Raptor65]

Traditions die hard in Japan and when it came to the construction of arms and armour, to combine a sword with a matchlock like the one you're talking about (I've seen it and it's just a shopping mall curiosity), that was just not something that was done.

Very little changed in the way things were made in Japan for several hundred years, so much so that Percussion rifles were made and even converted to the same style as the Tanegashima. I've even seen some bolt action (Needle gun) rifle stocks that were made or converted to the traditional style.

If a Japanese matchlock gunner needed to stab or cut someone in battle he'd be wearing a separate knife or sword of some measure granted he wasn't some poor Ashigaru, though as a matchlock gunner it wouldn't have been his job to get up close and personal.

 

[chazz1975]

:rotf: Ninjas of the Mall dynasty :rotf:
laughed so hard I shot my morning coffee out my nose. Good one! And painful from the coffee! :rotf: