Board Thread:Off Topic/@comment-27144409-20190627122349/@comment-25396609-20190818053758

Listen. the 'middle part' is half of the damned bow. The grip on a FUNCTIONAL bow is only slightly wider than the palm of the hand; an inch or two tops.

Your average single-edged sword has a 3-ish foot long plus somewhere between six inches and a foot worth of hilt.

Let's go with the lowball, that gives you a 1' wide handle as your base.

Now we need to factor in the length of the gun barrels. Assuming those are also 1', that gives you a total of 3' (as Spirit said before) which physically cannot bend; leaving you a foot and a half of functional arm on each side.

I don't know the exact math, because I hate math; but basic logic can explain the issue here.

An arrow fired from a bow can carry only as much kinetic energy as the bow can store: that energy is stored as elastic potential energy from the stretching and compression in the arms of the bow when it is drawn.

Shorter arms, less energy, shittier bow. What you tout as an ultimate weapon is no more powerful than a childen's toy. As for making the barrels retract: solves some of the bow problems, creates new gun problems.