Triple ironic that he says that because a tank shell does hurt him… a bit. As he has to iron out the little dent afterwards and it’s a bitch to polish the spot over so it doesn’t leave a permanent mark.

Doubly ironic if panzer said “oh scheiße” when he realiess it.

YEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAH!

That is quite true! Though the wobble is an issue even in ranged combat, since it adds more motion that needs to compensated for when trying to shoot on the move, assuming you don’t have your other hand on the barrel to steady it. It also might throw his center of balance off a bit, which could be an issue on bad footing.

Over all, you are right – dropping it, if he got into serious melee combat, would be a good idea in it’s current iteration. And it very well could be that that’s why it’s only a single strap – they couldn’t find a reasonable way to make it work in melee, so the single hold lets him easily drop it in that unlikely event. That’s a much more satisfying answer.

The vast majority of that is irrelevant – the weapon is built as a ranged weapon. The advantage to carrying it as he does is that he can fire it quickly – in melee, he has yet to meet an opponent who requires more than one punch to deal with.

If he is pressed in melee (say, Golem?), using that as a melee weapon, even if it was better designed as you suggest, would quickly (possibly instantly) make it unusable as a ranged weapon (what would you make it out of to keep that from being true? Unobtainium?), so it would be better to simply drop/stow the weapon, anyway.

Though it would be kind of ironic if he finds an actual tank in there and could use it against Panzer.

Pfffft–not a chance. You guys have way too much story left in you for that. It could be kinda tough for Luke, though. 🙂

sure, but…gah, this is going to take a while. bear with me please. sorry to be long winded. Also, it’s a fair amount of physics. Which is often something ignored in comics, because it leads to better storytelling. If that is the case, I’ll bugger off, no objection. Now then.

Al, Mary, for firing or carrying, I have no issue with your statements. heck, mostly the second hand is going to be there to keep it steady, as far as I can see – Panzer is a steel house (mighty mighty, just letting it all hang out). No question he has the main strength to do either one-handed if he wants.

My issue is what physics does to the gun under certain arm motions, and in certain combat situations, which is only tangentially affected by arm strength (squared or molded handles allow for wrist and finger strength to matter more..but those are also comparatively light-weight muscle groups, vis a vis a bicep or thigh, and often are less trained to boot. Further, live fire training uses wrist muscles in a different way than melee/strapped does. And a second handle beats either for control and survivability in the conditions I’m thinking of, and is cheaper than a molded handle, to boot).

Firstly, if you’ve ever tried using a 2 strap shield by only one strap, regardless of type, you know the thing will buck a lot – the 1 handle will act like a fulcrum, and the long arm of the lever is at the far end of the shield, causing it to lift away (at either the start or end of any arm motion). Having a stronger arm doesn’t help, because the lever is using as much strength as it’s wielder did initially to continue moving, since momentum is conserved (on a round, frictionless handle anyways. physical modeling, yay XD). While the air resistance profile is different, Herr Panzer is going to have the same issue.

Second issue comes from what happens when someone punches the barrel. Normally, not an issue, but this sure isn’t normal XD . Okay, so, Golem charges in, punches at Panzer’s face (lets ignore that Panzer would probably dodge). Panzer blocks with the cannon, and gets the barrel up to intercept, ala standard shield pose. And Panzer gets smacked across the nose. In most scenarios, he actually gets smacked harder than if he’d just taken the punch, due to lever arm advantage again.

Max is feeling pretty good about all this, and tries for another! Panzer learns, and interposes with the handle parallel to the force, instead of perpendicular, and thus avoids radial activity. And the handle either breaks, or is twisted due to the torsion exerted. GD lever arm again. ;D

This is, explicitly, why forearm blades are buckled on in at least two locations instead of just one, if not held in place by a bracer that takes up half the forearm, minimum. A single strap allows too little control, and can’t absorb the abuse of a fight the way a hilt in hand can. Panzer is a bit better off since the butt of his gun can be pressed on his forearm, but that only helps if he smacks someone with the hand side of the cannon, and still risks snapping the gun off the handle against sturdier opponents (point in fact, I’d bet that 99% of the time, he can hit harder and not lose his gun by smacking someone with his fist instead of the barrel, making it almost entirely useless as a melee weapon. The exception being when losing the weapon isn’t an issue). Now, some might point out that he can use his other arm to make a weapon block effective, which is true…but it means he’s using 2 arms to block one punch, or he’s losing 90% of the leverage advantage in his long melee arm to keep the handle intact…and Golem has 2 fists. 2 arms blocking high is a recipe for a fist in the gut.

Those points are why I thought there ought to be a second handle above the elbow, unless there was a reason he needed to flip the butt away from his arm, like to get at the reload mechanism.

Exactly. That building could have had ACME POINTY OBJECTS STORAGE labeled across that door. Guess we’ll never know.