Firearms

Gunpowder propels a projectile at high velocity, which makes firearms excellent tools for killing people and poor ones for killing Titans. A bullet cannot drive deep enough into the nape to destroy a Titan's weak point, and the creature's regeneration outpaces any damage a slow-loading gun can inflict. Within the Walls, vertical maneuvering equipment eclipses the gun almost entirely, leaving firearms to the Military Police for human policing, while the Garrison relies on cannons for wall defense and both it and the Survey Corps carry flare pistols for signaling. Once human enemies enter the picture, rifle training becomes a genuine priority for Paradis soldiers.

Technology inside the Walls stalls at the flintlock stage, where sparked flint ignites loose powder and every shot demands a fresh reload. Hand cannons, muskets, buckshot rifles, flintlock sniper rifles, and pistols make up the entire arsenal before Historia Reiss takes the throne. This stagnation is no accident: under torture, Djel Sannes admits the Military Police First Interior Squad quietly strangled innovations such as revolvers and metallic cartridges to keep the population controllable.

Beyond the ocean the picture is completely different. Marley, along with the Mid-East Allied Forces, fields revolvers, bolt action rifles, submachine guns, and water-cooled machine guns, and during the raid on Shiganshina, Marley deploys anti-Titan rifles that pack artillery-grade stopping power into a man-portable weapon. Many Marleyan designs mirror real firearms of the early twentieth century, including the Mauser C96 pistol and Carcano rifle.

A flintlock takes fifteen to thirty seconds to reload, since powder must be poured down the barrel and the ball rammed home. Against a regenerating giant this renders the weapon nearly useless, though shots to the eyes can blind a Titan until the tissue regrows, a tactic Armin Arlert exploits at Trost when riflemen blind the Titans inside the supply depot so blade-wielding soldiers can strike the napes.

The first true fusion of gun and maneuvering gear belongs to the Anti-Personnel Control Squad. Their equipment mounts paired short shotguns, each firing a single shell violent enough to remove a face, with spent barrels tossed aside and replaced from thigh bandoliers much like flare rounds. The grapple hook doubles as an improvised ranged weapon since it launches from the hands. These guns have limits: ultrahard steel blades deflect their shots, and Levi Ackerman once absorbs an entire volley behind the corpse of a squad member. When the Survey Corps later infiltrates Marley, its own anti-personnel gear has evolved to bolt action rifles and semi-automatic pistols.

Every military branch touches firearms in some form. During the coup against the royal government, the First Interior Squad ambushes Levi's unit with its gun-equipped maneuvering gear, Levi turns a borrowed saloon shotgun against Kenny Ackerman, and Armin saves Jean Kirstein by shooting a Control Squad member with a pistol.

In Marley's war with the Mid-East alliance, machine gun nests ring Fort Slava while the Cart Titan's Panzer Unit sprays the trenches. A haunted Reiner Braun nearly takes his own life with a bolt action rifle before Falco Grice's voice pulls him back. At the Raid on Liberio, Sasha Blouse racks up kills with a rifle, and Gabi Braun answers by gunning down Lobov, boarding the escaping airship, and fatally shooting Sasha.

Gabi becomes the gun's most consequential wielder. During Marley's assault on Shiganshina she decapitates Eren Yeager with a round from an anti-Titan rifle, and later saves Kaya from a freshly turned Titan by shooting it through the mouth and detonating its nape.