Practical Weaponry

Reversing the trend of my previous gun-post, this list is a bunch of trusted armaments that could serve as a mainstay for most campaigns. Well, I say “most campaigns” but this selection is somewhat Euro-centric; I figure that the rulebooks for Call of Cthulhu cover the American selections pretty well, so maybe I’ll do another trans-Atlantic list later on.

The other thing about this list is that I acknowledge geekiness in the selection. There are a few sidearms here that I’ve encountered whilst Keeping my own campaigns and at the time I questioned their applicability, because I suspected that the selection was based on some kind of ‘cool factor’ rather than historical accuracy. ‘Turns out my players were right, so here’s the fruit of our research for your edification.

*****

Browning 1903 .32 Automatic Pistol

Fans of hard-boiled detective fiction will be itching to get their hands on one of these. Designed by Browning and built in Belgium, this was essentially the first reliable automatic handgun. And it’s stood the test of time: these are still out there in the world today. Think of them as being like the crocodile, or the shark, of the gun world: they do what they do very efficiently, so evolution just ticked them off and passed them by.

As a character statement, these are big, brassy and loud, more of a gangster weapon than a force for good (the cops of the era traditionally use the reliable snub-nosed .38 revolver). So if your character is hard-bitten, dour and plays fast-and-loose with the rules, this is the weapon for you!

Base%: 20

Damage: 1D8

Range: 15m / 45ft

Shots/round: 3

Capacity: 8

HP: 8

Malfunction: 99%

Derringer

The quintessential ‘holdout pistol’ these guns were originally designed to give riverboat gamblers an ‘ace in the hole’ (the one depicted here is a Remington 1866 model). There were many different manufacturers of these guns so they come in a range of configurations: the thing to be aware of is the capacity. Some carry only one bullet; others have two rounds; still others have four. There is no cylinder, or magazine: the rounds wait at the base of the barrel they’re about to be ejected through. This cuts out any malfunction issues but tends to make re-loading a pain. Still, it’s always good to know that you have a little something extra up your sleeve before the fit hits the Shan!

Base%: 20

Damage: 1D10

Range: 3m / 9ft

Shots/round: 1

Capacity: 1/2/4

HP: 5

Malfunction:00%

Lee-Enfield Rifle, Short, Magazine, MkIII, UK, 1907-1943

The short-magazine Lee-Enfield, or SMLE, comes in one or two sub-varieties with minor differences, but the Mark III is the one that matters; over three million were made in Britain, India and Australia and it served in both world wars. Indeed, many British soldiers in 1939-45 went to great lengths to acquire one instead of the wartime replacement - the Lee-Enfield Rifle No. 4. There was nothing wrong with the No. 4 but the SMLE was a legend in its own time. Utterly reliable and with the smoothest bolt-action ever made, the SMLE was sneered at by the purists for not being a Mauser, but it silenced all its critics in 1914: German units on the receiving end thought they were under machine-gun fire.

Base%: 25

Damage: 2D6+4

Range: 110m / 330ft

Shots/round: ½

Capacity: 10

HP:12

Malfunction: 00%

Lewis Guns: Mk I (Ground); Mk II (Air), Belgium/UK, 1912-1925; 1915-1930

The Lewis gun derives from a design by a British man named MacLean; it was refined and perfected by an American - Col. Lewis - who then found that the US Army didn’t want to know about it. So, like Browning, he took his idea to Belgium where the gun was accepted by the Belgian Army and Lewis set up a manufacturing company. The British expressed an interest and the BSA company obtained a licence, so that the British were receiving them soon after the outbreak of war in 1914. Gas operated, the gun has a rotating bolt driven by the gas piston and a curious, clock-type return spring. The thick casing around the barrel conceals a series of longitudinal fins; the muzzle blast sets up a current, which draws in air at the rear of the jacket and so cools the barrel. After World War One, many countries bought the Lewis gun because it had demonstrated its reliability in combat; however, the US Army were slow to accept it, took relatively few and rapidly discarded it for the Browning rifle after 1920.

Base%: 15

Damage: 2D6+2

Range: 90m / 270ft

Shots/round: ½ or burst

Capacity: 50 (100)

HP: 11

Malfunction: 00%

The Lewis aircraft gun is precisely the same mechanism as the Lewis ground gun, but does away with the jacket-and-fins cooling system; the theory was that the airflow around an aircraft gun would cool it quite well, and this was proved to be so, resulting in the Lewis being one of the most-used aircraft machine guns in World War One and for many years afterwards. In 1940, the British bought a large quantity of this type of gun from the USA, calling them the Savage-Lewis after the manufacturers. Intended for naval use, principally for the Merchant Navy as protection against dive-bombers, many were issued to the Home Guard as ground weapons, fitted with a bipod and butt, and it was discovered that they didn’t overheat even without any cooling airstream. There were a number of minor variants in this group of aircraft weapons, but all look more or less the same and all function in the same way.

Base%: 15

Damage: 2D6+2

Range: 90m / 270ft

Shots/round: ½ or burst

Capacity: 100

HP: 11

Malfunction: 00%

Mosin-Nagant, Russia, 1892-1950

This design originated in 1891 with a long rifle, which remained in service until World War Two: it was generally superseded by the short 1938 carbine and the 1944 carbine, which had an attached bayonet. Copies of the 1944 model were also made in China, Hungary and Poland, and Mosin-Nagant rifles were converted to 8mm in Austria and 7.92mm in Germany and Poland during and after World War One. Large numbers of 1891 rifles were made in France and the USA on contract.

Base%: 25

Damage: 2D6+4

Range: 100m / 300ft

Shots/round: ½

Capacity: 5

HP: 15

Malfunction: 00%

Paraviccini-Carcano M1891 TS Carbine

This is a mountain troopers’ weapon designed for use in the snowfields surrounding the Alps in northern Italy. It’s a carbine so it slings quickly onto the user’s back and doesn’t get tangled up with stocks and skis. It’s fast to use, with a smooth action and it’s deadly accurate in the right hands. It has a tendency to jam especially after taking a knock, but if you’re heading up the Plateau of Leng, you couldn’t ask for a better firearm.

Base%: 25

Damage: 2D6+1

Range: 90m / 270ft

Shots/round: 2

Capacity: 6

HP: 10

Malfunction: 97%

Walther PPK, Germany 1930-

*Sigh* - there’s one in every party...

This is simply the Walther PP scaled-down for use by plain-clothes police; there are some fundamental design differences in the frame, but mechanically the two work the same way. As with the PP, the post-war models are slightly larger. It is easily recognised by the finger-extension on the bottom of the magazine, designed to give a better grip for the hand. A hybrid model, the PPK/S used the slide and barrel of the PPK and the frame of the PP in order to circumvent the US Gun Control Act of 1968 - by increasing its depth dimension - and was restricted to sales in the USA.

Base%: 20

Damage: 1D8

Range: 15m / 45ft

Shots/round: 3

Capacity: 7

HP: 8

Malfunction: 00%

Webley MkVI Service Revolver, UK, 1915-1945

The last of the Webley service designs, it generally resembles earlier models but brought together various refinements. The main visual change is the square butt instead of the bird’s head pattern of the Mark V pistol. Note that it is possible to find peculiar variants: in .450 or .45ACP calibre; Mark VI frames with Mark IV or V barrels; Mark V frames with Mark VI barrels, and so forth. These were made by Webley to meet particular orders or, in the case of the Mark V frame/Mark VI barrel combination, represented early production models. Although officially obsolete after the introduction of the .38 Enfield revolver, many remained in use until well after World War Two. No former officer of the BEF or British Army could expect to hold his head up without one of these.

Base%: 20

Damage: 1D10+2

Range: 15m / 45ft

Shots/round: 1

Capacity: 6

HP: 10

Malfunction: 00%