A History of Weapons: Crossbows and Lots of Other Things That Can Seriously Mess You Up by John O'Bryan & Barry Orkin

Author:John O'Bryan & Barry Orkin [O'Bryan, John & Orkin, Barry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Military, Weapons & Warfare, Conventional, Humor & Entertainment, Humor, Satire, Literature & Fiction, United States
ISBN: 1452110549
Amazon: B00BMAR5H8
Publisher: Chronicle Books LLC
Published: 2013-04-23T04:00:00+00:00

FIRE LANCES Sooner or later, somebody was bound to build something that combined the thrusting power of a spear with the hilarity of an ignited fart. That somebody was the Chinese, and the something was the fire lance—the world’s very first gun. It was little more than a bamboo tube filled with gunpowder and strapped to a spear. It had only one shot, and its range was poor, but anyone standing in front of an exploding fire lance would definitely know they’d been hit. Not only could the tube spew flames for a brief moment, it could be loaded with iron shrapnel or poison gas, giving the target even more to worry about. It’s unclear how effective this great-great-grandpa of the firearm was, though it was probably somewhere between a sparkler and a curling iron on the firepower scale, with most of the actual killing being done with the spearhead. On the other hand, the explosions of the fire lance certainly would have scared the enemy, who must have thought the Chinese had summoned the power of ancient fire demons to their bidding.

DATE OF ORIGIN: Possibly as early as 900 CE

IN WIDE USE BY: Twelfth century

OTHER NAMES: Huo qiang (pear-flower spear)

PRECURSOR TO: Fire tube (a more powerful version with a metal tube); cannon; handgun

ADVANTAGES: Some physical damage; huge psychological effect

DISADVANTAGES: Relatively weak firepower due to the bamboo tube; only fires one shot

USER REVIEWS: “Why did someone ruin this perfectly good spear by strapping it to a sparkler?”

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