Editing Combi-weapon (section)

==Real Life==
Yes, these actually exist. Yes, it is [[Awesome]].

The earliest combination weapons sought to combine the ranged firepower of pistols with the close combat of a melee weapon, usually pistol-swords or pistol-axes. Because the components on a pistol didn’t hold up well to physical abuse and the added weight made the melee weapon part awkward to wield on top of making the pistol part difficult to aim, these were not widespread. The only version that became successful was the bayonet mounted on a rifle. Others combined the mechanical reliability of a crossbow with an undermount wheel-lock pistol.

Compared to twin-linked weapons in 40k, in real life this was never done with military small arms. The vast majority of twin-linked weapons are gun turrets specifically intended to destroy aircraft. Against a ground target, a single barrel weapon is sufficient. But against a fast-moving aircraft, the best way to increase your hit probability is to [[Dakka|spam as many bullets as possible]]. We do have one example of a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P57iXMmlUZo twin-linked M1911 pistol] that was made for the lolz, and an [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villar_Perosa_aircraft_submachine_gun Italian SMG from WWI] that started as turret gun for biplanes before being handed to ground troops out of sheer desperation, but users quickly realized that any potential benefit to doubling firepower is lost on the added weight, awkward handling, and the fact that neither bullet will hit exactly where you aim.

But, we added the qualifier up there of 'military' small arms for a reason, and double barreled weapons are fairly common as hunting weapons such as the double barreled shotgun. In these cases the ability to take a second shot quickly on game that might be running away, or running toward you if your going after big game like bear, elephant or even boar, is more important then weight, and if you do have a bear running down on you the ability to take a second shot before you get torn apart is of the upmost importance.

Below are some specific examples of combinations weapons.

===[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LeMat_Revolver LeMat Revolver]===
Are you depressed about your [[Dakka|nine-shot revolver]] not having more firepower? Well worry not, as the axle used by this gun's cylinder also doubles as a smoothbore barrel, allowing you to fire a shotgun blast with just a flick of the small lever atop the hammer! Amazing!
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===Grenade Launcher===
The only major combi-weapon the military uses. Examples include the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M203_grenade_launcher M203], which clips under the barrel like a bayonet. It can also be reloaded, unlike pre-8th Edition 40k variants, and has mostly replaced the non-automatic Grenade Launcher (which still has its uses, as a longer barrel means you can launch grenades much farther away).
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===Shotgun===
Not as common as an underbarrel grenade launcher, the military also has a few different shotgun attachements, such as the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight%27s_Armament_Company_Masterkey KAC Masterkey] or [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M26_Modular_Accessory_Shotgun_System M26 MASS]. Used for door breaching more than anything else, troops can also load up specialized rounds for everything from bean-bags to taser shells to even [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FRAG-12 small grenades].

===Combination Gun===
The major combi-weapon outside the military, meanwhile, is the combination gun. Essentially, this is a way to give a hunter the ability to almost instantly line up and fire another shot if he misses by simply adding a second barrel to the gun, while additionally it is often used to create a gun that can fire multiple forms of ammunition by making one barrel rifled and the other smoothbore. In Yurop these are called "drillings" (or vierlings for four barrels and so on) or "cape guns" and if you're a disgustingly rich Nob looking to spend a lot of money on the gun equivalent of a BMW then these cater specifically to you. Sometimes three barrels are used so the gun can simultaneously be loaded with a rifle round, a shotgun slug, and bird or buckshot.

Either way, these later two cases give it a niche military use as a survival weapon for aircrew, which can range to the logical style of a light and simple rifle with a shotgun barrel, to [[What|a high-end and expensive 'survival' weapon that's a 1-to-1 copy of a civilian big game rifle]] [[Fail|and weighs so much you can't parachute out with it (so have to hope you can recover it from the wreck once you land)]]. Yes, the last one actually happened, [[Nazi|Herman Göring]] used them as standard issue for the Luftwaffe, because of course the [[Slaanesh|obese, ostentatious manchild]] decided it was a good idea. Less flashy and more economical versions of the same concept include the USAF's M6 survival rifle, or the Soviet Union's TP-82 Cosmonaut survival pistol.

Another example was the Swedish NIVA XM1970 in the 1970’s. Not content to merely have Carl Gustav recoilless rifles and regular guns distributed within a platoon and wanting something with more firepower than rifle grenades, the Carl Gustav tried to mate a bullpup rifle with a recoilless rifle to give a soldier more dakka. Unfortunately they never figured out how to trim weight and size down. And nobody in the military was even interested in buying the thing.

But nobody out-riches the US Army, who tried to make their own combi-gun called the [[meme|OICW]]YDT, combining a crummier version of an M4 carbine bolted to a computerized laser-ranged airbursting grenade launcher. The smart grenades for this thing cost more EACH than the gun it was combo-ed with. The whole thing weighed about 30 pounds and was as easy to carry as a similarly heavy sack of dog food. Eventually the combi-gun idea part of the whole deal was scrapped and the smart grenades were tested alone as the XM25 before being dropped for being too expensive and not reliable enough. The South Koreans built a similar weapon, the K11, which was likewise cancelled. The Chinese, meanwhile, came up with the QTS-11, which tries to solve these issues by making the grenade launcher portion a single-shot bolt-action weapon with less electronics in the warheard. It remains to be seen if this approach is at all more practical, because its still expensive hardware of questionable efficacy.