So there you are at home when you receive an email from your friend Dave, although it takes some doing he finally convinces you that he needs your help with a rather unusual request.
It turns out that in his spare time Dave is something of a mad scientist and has perfected a functioning time-machine (with email), however on his latest jaunt he’s gotten himself into a bit of a pickle. Having made contact with a medieval king and his court he’s imbided a little too much of the local mead and ended up boasting how in his time even the common soldier would be able to defeat the finest and most experienced knight, mostly due to the weapons now available.
Well not a people to take a challenge lying down the King has demanded to see a demonstration of these weapons in action and a particularly large and scary knight has challenged Dave to single combat.
So Dave has asked you to pop over to his house grab a weapon of your choice (he’s also a well-stocked international arms dealer on the side) and jump in the time machine to his current location.
The challenge is in two parts, first you have to choose a wo/man-portable weapon that you yourself are capable of using* as you’re going to have to demonstrate it (how you do so is up to you). If the demonstration is suitably impressive the King might cancel the single-combat, if not you’re then going to have to give said weapon to Dave, who is pretty well trained but you aren’t sure in what disciplines.
*no point taking a Barret Light-50 sniper rifle if you can’t hit anything with it!
The King has given you his word that you personally won’t be harmed and you accept it as good, so you aren’t in any danger but Dave is and he’s relying on you to pull him out of this one!
So what do you choose to impressive the primitive screw-heads?
Are there weight limitations? A number of rounds available?
My go to is a 12 gauge coach gun, simple to use and operate double barrel with a variety of rounds available. However the shorter barrel suffers from range issues. Why use this boomstick when my longbow is better?
A Ruger 10/22 is a decent all round weapon; fast, accurate, long range but is not the hardest hitting.
30.06 would be the weapon I’d bring; fast, accurate and makes a lot of noise to impress people.
My first thought is to take an AR-15 or similar rifle. Not a huge amount of recoil, enough power to ventilate the knight but good, and pretty easy to handle.
For a demonstration, just pump ten rounds into a suit of armor at 100 yards in a few seconds. Or two rounds into 5 suits of armor in a similar time. Easy to do, and the king’s mind would be blown.
Depending on the time period they may be familiar with rudimentary cannons, and if not, they’ll definitely understand the concept of a longbow or a crossbow putting a big hole in plate armor. Bringing back a big gun and putting a hole in something will undoubtedly impress, but not enough. What’s remarkable about a modern firearm is how many holes they can put in armor very quickly. I’d grab an AK-47 with a couple 100 round drums and maybe a dozen 30 round magazines in case the drums jam. Line up 50 suits of old armor, put the AK on single fire, and just start making holes in them. Say, “look, I just killed 50 knights in about a minute without breaking a sweat,” and for all they know you could do that all damn day because they don’t know how many projectiles are in your boom stick. I’d be surprised if the knight still wanted to go after that.
Any reasonably powerful handgun (pistol or revolver), 9mm or higher, like 38 Special, or .357; .40 S&W, 45ACP, 45 Colt, 44 Special, or Magnum. Any would suffice.
I think a decent hi-cap 9mm would be impressive just for the number of rounds it can fire (15+) before needing to be reloaded.
I’m much more handgun oriented than I am rifle; so I, personally, would choose either a Ruger GP100 in .357 w/6" barrel, a Walther P99 in 9mm, or a 1911 in .45ACP.
Others, above, have mentioned rifles. One of the good things about choosing a rifle is its similarity in shape to a crossbow; H.M. The King might have some sort of referential “context” upon seeing a rifle.
With a rifle, it might be impressive to put Good Sir Knight on his horse, with lance, on the other side of a meadow, and put Modern Man on the other with a decent rifle, and as soon as Good Sir Knight spurs his horse to begin his charge, pick him off right out of the saddle from 100+ yards away.
Just about any half-way decent modern rifle would suffice for that. And by “modern” I’m including just about any cartridge-firing rife made since the mid/late-19th century (if a Henry Rifle or Sharps Carbine can drop a buffalo, it’ll drop a man).
What would be more impressive is for a decent Rifle Marksman to start potting Knights from 400+ yards away, without having to reload. M-1 Garand would do the job nicely. The magazine capacity “impressiveness factor” only goes up from there (AK-family, M16-family, G-series, FALs, etc) all have 20+ magazines, and some have full-auto capability (even if it is largely a waste of good ammo for anything other than human wave attacks/suppressing fire).
How about an M16 with an under barrel grenade launcher (he is an arms dealer). Two different booms in one - pick the knight off the horse with the 5.56 then demonstrate the grenade launcher on a carriage or other suitable large item. If you’re being cruel (you already took out the knight after all), turn the horse into bite sized chunks.
Nothing fancy. Since I’m doing the initial demo I’ll take Dave’s Match Grade M1 Garand and a few bandoliers of clipped ammo. Maybe a mix of that - tracer, ball, a few special loads. Personally, I can blow the balls off a horsefly at 100+ yards with iron sights using the Garand, and it’s simple enough that Dave ought to be able to at least pot Sir Smellsalot before he gets shishkabobbed.
Probably an assault pump 12-bore and an assortment of rounds. Maybe with something like a winchoke system, maybe not.
Second choice would be a Luger in 9mm or maybe even more .30 with a few good snail drums in addition to the usual clips - and a shoulder-stock holster of course. I’ve had many years and many rounds through two of mine with few jams or issues and the damn things to rip down and clean slicker than snakeshit. As long as you don’t lose one of those crosspins.
Yes. I just figured that more readers here would recognize the M16 as a military fully automatic weapon than the M203 as the 40mm grenade launcher attachment.