Yoko's Rifle
16 August 2007
This is from my old blog, dated July 1st, 2007, thought I’d move it over because it was amusing.
Yoko Get Your Gun
We all know the red haired heroine of what is turning out to be my favorite show running right now touts a large sniper rifle everywhere and is a damn fine marksmen (or should I say markswoman) with it. If you ever look at the pictures, that rifle is huge. It’s almost as tall as she is! For a person who’s pretty obsessed with mecha, guns and most military (predominantly military history) related things, I started to wonder just exactly what kind of rifle it could possibly be. And so this post was born.
To begin with, we’re not going to dwell on technicalities, like whether it’s gas operated or blow back or recoil or whether it’s a semi automatic or full or both, I’m just judging by aesthetics to locate a possible inspiration. I’m obviously not going to find an exact copy of Yoko’s rifle, but I’m gonna try.
Yoko’s Rifle
Yoko’s rifle packs a lot of power, judging from the damage (namely blowing a gaping hole through Adine’s ganmen and destroying Nia’s hair,) I’m guessing it fires a pretty big caliber bullet. Think along the lines of a .50 cal or more. Anyways, it looks like the magazine is detachable and it can’t carry that many rounds even though she shoots and never seems to reload.
There are no good pictures (discounting screen shots because I’m too lazy) of Yoko and her actual rifle. I managed to find a picture of an action figure that will suffice for now.
Figure 1. Yoko and Rifle
The Light Fifty
Okay, so ignoring the stock design, the abnormally long barrel and other minor details the closest thing I could find that fired a .50 caliber bullet and looked remotely like her rifle was a Barrett M82.
To quote Wikipedia
The M82 rifle is a high-powered heavy sniper rifle developed by the American Barrett Firearms Company. It is currently used by many units and armies around the world, including the American Special Forces. It is also called the “Light Fifty” for its .50 caliber BMG (12.7 mm) load. The weapon is found in two variants — the original M82A1 (and A3) and the bullpup M82A2. The M82A2 is no longer manufactured, though XM500 can be seen as its spiritual successor, in that it also employs a bullpup configuration.
Anyways, it looks something like this
Figure 2. M82 ‘Light Fifty’
The M82 is about 31 pounds and depending on the variants 48 or 57 inches (almost five feet.) Assuming that Yoko is a bit over five feet, it’d come up to her chin or maybe shoulder, my math is shaky. Disregarding the detachable rear grip, it comes pretty close to Yoko’s rifle.
Figure 3. The .50 cal (12.7mm)
For a size reference, the .50 cal is about five inches. I’m not sure if fives will do that much damage to a pretty big ganmen and destroy a Nia’s pretty blue and yellow hair, but it can do some pretty serious damage. There are other rifles that can fire higher caliber bullets, like the XM109 which fires a 25mm round, and also manufactured by Barrett. It’s about 46 inches, 33 pounds and has a range of about 2000 meters. A .50 cal is about 12.7mm. The XM109 fires a round that’s about twice the caliber of a .50, and a .50 is pretty big.
The Taste Test
Figure 4. M82 vs. Yoko’s Rifle
Alright, so it’s a very crudely cropped picture of Yoko’s rifle against an M82 with the bipod folded. The stock and butt of the rifles are pretty different and for our intended purposes it’s a pretty good match. The muzzle brake on Yoko’s a bit bigger, pretty sure it’s just for decoration.
Bottom line
This whole post was decidedly pointless. I’m pretty sure half the things I said here aren’t technically correct and no one will read, but, hell, I was bored, I like guns, I love Gurren Lagann, can’t blame me for wasting my own time. But if anyone ever wants to cosplay Yoko and has a thing for large caliber rifles that cost about $8000 a pop, buy a M82 or any of it’s variants.
The subs made her rifle out to be a design not yet developed. It fires depleted uranium slugs (high density, used for anti-tank kinetic penetrators). The propulsion method is either electrically ignited propellant, or more likely a Gauss rifle (coil gun). The latter would explain the whine (from the charging of capacitors) prior to her taking a shot.