[X] Captain Maruyama, a Navy Officer from the Naval Small Arms Centre who has been made available in the same way.
The Navy Small Arms Centre, previously the old ropewalk in Tokei Naval Dockyard, still smells of wet paint. You inspect the tasteful display of a disassembled Type 11 machine gun, keeping your kimono clear of the walls, while you wait.
"Come in!" calls a voice from beyond the door, and you enter Captain Maruyama's office.
Your first impression of the man is of a coiled spring, lacking the relaxed poise of his father. He's short and slight, with an animated face and serious eyes.
"Ah, welcome, so good to meet another young person in the firearms design business. What can I do for you?"
This is probably the most effusive welcome you've had from any Akitsukuni person who knows you're an engineer. What does he want?
"We… uh… I'm here from Imperial Matchlocks," you blurt. "We'd like advice on the pistol requirement." This is all stuff he already knows, say something else! "The hand-to-hand requirement in particular."
"Oh, that Army crap?" he laughs. "They want a sword, not a pistol! Revolver, big heavy bullet, and top it all off by trying to hit people over the head with it. Bunch of grandpas and backsliders! All too busy reliving their glory days, when they could chop peasants' heads off to see whose sword was the sharpest."
He rearranges the papers on his desk a little and for a moment you see a pamphlet with some sort of red seal on the front before he produces a heavily annotated copy of the same requirements letter you had.
"The pistol the Navy needs is a quick-firing, easy to use automatic pistol that can fire a lot of bullets. The type of combat we train for here is close engagements, typically through corridors or compartments. Fourteen metres is the average engagement range in that environment, you barely need to aim. Don't listen to the Army when they say it's different for them, the pistol is a sidearm: nobody's going to use a pistol if the enemy is at rifle ranges. Any successful attack will involve closing the distance anyway. We train to enter rooms and trenches and fire as many shots as we can until the enemy is down. Eight rounds is really a
minimum requirement; stopping to reload is a death sentence. Don't worry about calibre, the important thing is hits. Bang-bang, next target." He mimes a left handed shooting stance.
"This," he opens a drawer and withdraws a handgun, a shiny silver Wilde 1907, "is exactly what we're looking for. Ten shots quick! Honestly, license one of these and you'll be set."
Well, that was simple. At least it would be, if you had no professional pride.
"May I have a look?" you ask, eager to get hands on with a pistol you've only read about.
"Of course,"
You slip on your gloves and he hands it to you. You take a few moments to feel the weight, then try an aiming stance. It feels very natural to point. Holding around the grip and pulling your thumb back, you can flip the safety lever between 'safe' and 'fire' without much issue.
Then you try it in your left hand, like Captain Maruyama. It's unfamiliar, but feels no different from holding it right-handed—but you can't reach the safety.
"There must be some room for improvement," you prompt. Captain Maruyama nods.
"There's only two problems with the Wilde. As you've discovered for yourself you can't operate the safety from a left-handed grip. We really need a pistol that works in either hand: ratings are taught to hold and fire with the right hand, while us officers are taught to fire with the left hand because we're supposed to hold a sword with our right. Until we can abolish the traditionalist officer class, we're stuck with an ambidextrous requirement."
You nod: "And the second thing… automatic fire mode, like a tiny machine gun?"
He looks at you with renewed interest: "Ah, interesting idea! You'd go through the magazine far too quickly but most people would never think to ask. No, it's the styling of the gun, much too blocky. They're weapons of war, of aggression, why does everyone insist on making them look like they're moving slowly? Modern weapons should reflect their modernity, they should look like fast cars or airplanes! The original grips were this dire brown colour too, change that."
This is certainly an angle you would never have considered before. The Type 37 had been designed so that the outside fitted over the inside, but maybe a little aesthetic flare is necessary for sales?
You're trying to think of another question to ask when Maruyama's secretary pokes their head in the door: "Five minutes until your meeting with Chief Obata."
You hand the pistol back and bow.
"I can't take any more of your time, Captain Maruyama. Thank you for your insights, you have been a great help."
"Oh, it's no trouble, I'm glad to have someone else who really gets it. Borrow a book!"
He gestures at a bookshelf overflowing with pamphlets and technical journals, almost all in some Europan language. Maybe Otrusian? You grab one written in proper, Akitsukuni characters and thank him again as you head out.
Well, that was
[ ] interesting!
[ ] ... interesting.
---
When you get back home after work you discover that Rumi found a deal on eggs and has borrowed a neighbour's egg pan to make omelettes. You drop your bag off and scootch up next to her to fry some fish.
"How was your day?" you ask.
"So-so," she answers, "Lots of people buying scarves today, for some reason. You?"
"We've started a new project. A candidate for the Army-Navy pistol trials."
"You sound excited, what are you making?"
"We don't know yet. Maybe a revolver, maybe an automatic pistol," you shrug and cut the head off a fish.
"What's the difference?" Rumi asks.
"The revolver has a revolvy bit to put the next bullet in place, the automatic does it automatically instead," you say, sticking your tongue out at her.
"Har-har, you know what I meant. Which one is better for what?"
You take a more serious tone: "Well, the traditional answer is that they're both good for different things, but in the last few years that's become less true. Revolvers are simple and cheap to manufacture, but they tend to be heavy because they have to have multiple chambers. Uh, the 'chamber' is the bit the explosion happens in to propel the bullet. You have to make it strong, otherwise it propels itself into your face."
Rumi's eyes widen a little.
"Anyway, automatic pistols have one chamber and feed the bullets in from a magazine, like a rifle. You have to use springs to make them work, which is a little more difficult and expensive, but you get a better gun out at the end as long as you do it right."
Rumi nods: "Easy decision then, right?"
"Not quite," you grimace, picking out the last pinbone "The other major factor is user opinion. We're producing a gun we want others to buy and a lot of people still think revolvers are the most reliable type of handgun. They're not entirely wrong, if the gun misfires then with a revolver you can just keep pulling the trigger until it goes bang, which is nice. I just think expecting your gun to not work is pessimistic."
Rumi slides her omelette onto a plate "Ah, so you're definitely going for the revolver then!"
"I'm not pessimistic, I just..."
"Think that things will always go badly?"
You shrug helplessly and turn a fillet in the pan.
"This fish is looking good, I don't know what you're talking about."
---
The next day your team filters into the office, chatting to one another animatedly. Kusunoki comes in carrying a huge briefcase, obviously far too heavy for them, and thumps it onto their desk. They open it up, and from its depths they pull out box after box. They open the lid of the first one and pull out a Wilkinson revolver with a beautiful finish.
"Wilkinson revolver, six shots of four-five-five Wilkinson, double action and single action, top break…" they demonstrate "with automatic ejection."
They put it down on top of its box and open another, pulling out a pistol with the lines of a Clark design. In Kusunoki's hands it looks ridiculous, the kind of pistol that gets called a 'hand cannon'.
"Carvale-production Palten Werke automatic pistol, model of 1911. Single action, and a revolver-style hammer at the back. It holds eight rounds in a magazine in the grip, and you reload it by pulling the top back and inserting a clip."
They demonstrate, pulling the top of the pistol back until you can see into the magazine in the grip, which they load with a stripper clip just like you'd load the Type 37.
"Then you just push this button here to close the pistol and chamber a round."
They push the button, and the pistol spits all eight rounds out the top, into Kusunoki's face.
"Fuck, okay, that was the premature ejection button," they say, a grin spreading across their embarrassed face. "
This closes the pistol."
The top of the Palten slams forward. They put the pistol down and open a nondescript brown cardboard box, pulling out something that you mistake at first for a Broomhandle Katzen.
"We couldn't find a Katzen ninety-six, but we found this at a pawnshop down by the docks. It's pretty much the same thing: a standard automatic pistol design, single action, revolver-style hammer at the back, and a magazine in front of the trigger that you can reload with stripper clips. It holds six rounds to the Katzen's ten, but what sets this apart is that you can replace the magazine."
Kusunoki takes hold of the square box in front of the trigger and pulls it down. They hold up a small metal box, not unlike the magazine on a Pocket Hammerless. Speaking of the Hammerless, Kusunoki puts the not-a-Katzen down and has Kashiwa pass them one. In Kashiwa's hands it looks tiny, but it's sized just right for Kusunoki.
"Just for comparison, the Pocket Hammerless we sell. Standard Clark design, single action, the hammer is concealed so you have to pull the slide every time, and the eight-round magazine is in the grip. It can be replaced like so:"
They remove the magazine briefly before putting it back in.
"Now, some of the really weird things we found," Kusunoki says and opens a box to reveal a revolver. "Wilkinson-Hall
self-loading revolver."
There's a murmur around the room.
"Double action only, but every time you fire it, the recoil cocks the hammer and rotates the cylinder."
They hold the revolver out and grip the barrel, pushing it back. The entire top half of the revolver slides backwards, then snaps forward when Kusunoki lets go. In the process, the cylinder has rotated one step and the hammer has locked back, cocked and ready to fire. Kusunoki pulls the trigger so the hammer drops, and repeats the demonstration a few times.
"Top break, automatic ejection, holds eight rounds of nine milimeter automatic pistol."
They put it down and you can barely resist lunging for the gun just to see how the hell they managed a self-loading revolver with eight shots. While you maintain an unearthly level of discipline, Kusunoki has opened another box and pulled out a pistol. It's huge and Kusunoki can barely get their hands around the grip. The top half looks like a Broomhandle Katzen, the bottom half like a Clark design.
"This is pretty weird, but I like it. It's a Blanc-Streep self-loading pistol. Single-action, revolver style hammer, and a ten-round magazine in the grip, removable like a Pocket Hammerless. This lever..."
They point to a lever under the trigger, shaped so they can wrap their middle and ring finger over it. They grip around it and pull, which pulls the top half of the pistol back.
"...pulls the sliding top half back, chambering a round from the magazine and cocking the hammer. This cocking mechanism works in the left hand too, so you can do it both ways. Well, maybe not you, boss."
"Low blow, Kusunoki." you say flatly.
It seems to take every bit of self-control left in Kusunoki's body not to say what's on their mind.
"The left side panel on the grip is a transparent polymer," Kusunoki continues after collecting themselves, "so you can see how many rounds are left. The cartridge is some sort of eleven point four millimetre thing, basically a rimless four-five-five Wilkinson."
They stand silent behind their selection of handguns. You glance at Shiragiku:
"Anything here that strikes you as difficult?"
"Tachibana, you wound me," he says, pouting shamelessly.
"Maybe I should strike you as difficult?" you grumble. "Is there anything here that we couldn't manufacture?"
"I'd have to take them apart to see how they're made, of course, but I can't imagine there's anything going on in these guns that couldn't be made by hand or on a lathe."
"Getting rounds to feed correctly from magazines is not unproblematic." Yadake observes. "I'm not saying to make a revolver but it's something to be aware of, especially with rimmed rounds, in fact, the taper on the…"
You ignore him for a moment: "Any other thoughts?"
"Well, if it's an Army
and Navy pistol, maybe some kind of feature to let it shoot open doors? For boarding actions?" Shiragiku says.
"With a pistol round? Even if we gave Yadake a hundred years, I don't think you could do it with anything smaller than a rifle round." says Kusunoki.
"Try me!" he says defiantly. "Three weeks and I'll take a door off its hinges and a shoulder out of its socket."
Kashiwa has been thinking while you banter: "Shotgun round in the centre of a revolver. Manassas had one, years back. Stupid idea, but maybe does the hand-to-hand requirement. And doors."
"And the eight shot requirement," puts in Kusunoki, "Seven around the cylinder and one in the middle is eight."
"Didn't that Wilkinson-whatsit automatic revolver have eight in the cylinder?" Shiragiku asks. "So it'd be nine."
"The one I was thinking of had nine and the shotgun." Kashiwa notes.
You tune them out. Thoughts about the pistol had been swirling around your head for the last few days, but now they're finally starting to coalesce.
What form do your ideas take?
[ ] Revolver
[ ] 9mm Type 33
[ ] Common Calibre - Write In:
[ ] Automatic
[ ] Common Calibre - Write In:
[ ] Write In: Your terrifying bullshit or obscure Forgotten Weapons video
