Rocket-Powered Weapon

You're gonna get nailed!

Sometimes a weapon is too heavy to swing around quickly, if swung at all. What better way to address this problem than making the weapon jet powered? Not only that, the jet will make every powered swing stronger than if they aren't boosted.

How the weapon avoids flying out of the wielder's hands, throwing them off balance (let alone flooring them or taking them for a ride), or dislocating multiple joints with every swing is rarely addressed. Additionally, if one looks at it from the other direction —Not as attaching a rocket to a hammer, but as attaching a hammer (and wielder) to a rocket— the idea becomes even more impractical. You'd have much greater range, control, and reduced risk of dislocation if you just took the rocket off the weapon and fired it at the enemy. You know, like a rocket.

The weapon in question is usually a nightmarishly huge hammer, though axes and warpicks are also possible^note despite the fact that the extreme energies involved with such a weapon would over time blunt an axe or pick to the point of it basically becoming a hammer anyway; regardless of which one, they will almost always be of the two handed variety, which makes sense, as the above mentioned issues with control would be even worse with only half the hands to hold onto the thing (then again, you'd probably also only dislocate the joints in the one arm).

Sometimes, such a weapon will be used like a Jet Pack or Not Quite Flight. A downplayed variant of this is wielding a normal weapon, but you get the boost from your own Jet Pack or boots. They may justify Flying Weapon. Weaponized Exhaust is also an option.

An example of Rule of Cool. Also a case of playing with Bottomless Magazines, since the rockets pretty much never have to be refueled. Sub-Trope to Enhanced Archaic Weapon. Rocket Punch is a Sub-Trope. See also Recoil Boost.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• In Battle Angel Alita, the Badass Normal Ido uses a rocket-powered two-handed pick when fighting cyborgs.
• In Buso Renkin, one of the main uses of Sunlight Heart's energy powers is to propel itself forward, directly at the enemy. Kazuki calls the attack Sunlight Crasher.
• In Code Geass, Toudou's personal weapon is the Seidotou, a chain-katana with rocket thrusters lining the reverse edge.
• Kon from Ixion Saga DT wields a rocket hammer sword.
• The Digimon Cho-Hakkaimon, who debuted in Digimon Xros Wars: The Young Hunters Who Leapt Through Time, is a stand-in for Zhu bajie from Journey to the West. Like her inspiration she wields a rake, but hers is rocket-powered.
• Kotetsushin Jeeg has a spiked, rocket-powered slap.
• More powerful forms of Vita's Graf Eisen (size-changing warhammer) in Lyrical Nanoha use mini-jets for propulsion to increase strike force. Also, in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, Erio's Strada (spear) is upgraded with jets that he can use to fly for short distances.
• The Gusion Hammer from Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans has thrusters on each corner to maximize the impact onto any target.
• Franky from One Piece uses pressurized weapons, which are powered by Cola bottles in his chest. The Jet Dials from the same series also work on this principle.
• In the Gecko Ending of the Soul Eater anime, Lord Death's city turned Humongous Mecha's arms use this, as well as for support.
• In the Tennis arc of Spy X Family, superspies Twilight and Nightfall enter an underground anything-goes tennis tournament to acquire a painting that's supposed to contain information of international importance. Carrol Campbell, one of their opponents in the final match, uses a jet-powered tennis racquet to deliver inhumanly powerful shots.
• Fairly common in Symphogear, most notably on Hibiki's gauntlets and Tsubasa's largest swords. Thanks to the gears combining Adaptive Armor with Morph Weapon, just about any weapon (or combatant) can become one at will.

Comic Books

• In Iron Man, The Circle member Lancelot used her suit's repulsors to power martial arts style attacks instead of using them as weapons. She was skilled enough with this technique to actually defeat Iron Man in a duel over a sample of Extremis. Iron Man blows up the sample anyway after surrendering. This may be the inspiration for the Shotgun suit in Iron Man 3 (see Film).
• Transformers: Dark Cybertron: Windblade has a turbine set into her sword, though rather than pushing it, it functions to charge up the blade with energy when it's turned on.

Film

• Dyson Ido's huge rocket hammer in Alita: Battle Angel. Being as Badass Normal, he needs extra punch when fighting cyborg criminals. One disadvantage is that while it has a powerful blow, recovering from the swing if you miss so you can strike again is still an issue.
• The Shotgun Powered Armor in Iron Man 3 has backhand-mounted repulsors designed for this purpose.
• Gipsy Danger from Pacific Rim has an "Elbow Rocket" move, giving its punch extra power.

Live-Action TV

• Kamen Rider:
  • A borderline example, Kamen Rider Fourze uses the rocket switch to perform a Rocket Rider Kick.
  • Using the Boost Buckle with the Armed Hammer Buckle in Kamen Rider Geats turns the said hammer into a rocket-powered sledgehammer.
• A variation in The Mandalorian when Koska Reeves uses her Jet Pack to reinforce her takedown while in a Bar Brawl with Boba Fett.

Tabletop Games

• Cyberspace supplement Solo of Fortune II. One of the new weapons introduced in the work is the Slamdance Inc. Hyper Hammer, which is a sledgehammer with a rocket built into the back of the hammer's head. When the hammer impacts a target and the rockets are set off, the hammer is swung into the target at supersonic speed, doing horrendous damage. It can be used twice before requiring refueling (with jet fuel).
• GURPS Ultra-Tech comes with many templates that can be applied to low-tech weaponry to make it far more effective against modern armor, including, you guessed it, an option to put a small solid rocket booster on the back end of an axe, mace, or spear for an extra-powerful swing (or, in the spear's case, a rocket-powered, ultra-long range throw).
• Warhammer 40,000: The Ork Tankhamma (with all Orkish subtlety, it is actually an anti-tank rocket strapped to a hammer handle) is a weapon option for a tankbusta boyz team leader. Since it's literally a rocket swung like a hammer, its use usually results in an explosion that takes out the Ork as well.

Video Games

• Anarchy Reigns: Big Bull uses a jet-powered hammer as his Killer Weapon.

• Back to the Future: The Game: Young Doc invents a rocket-powered drill.
• Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night has the greatsword Carnot's Rebuke. Carnot's Rebuke has a powerful steam engine integrated into its spine. If you charge the sword, the engine kicks in and fires up a jet of steam to propel the sword deeper into an enemy.
• Brawlhalla has the Rocket Lance, a heavy weapon that is slow and doesn't have much combo potential, but hits like a truck when it connects.
• Devil May Cry 4 has the Red Queen, a sword with a jet engine built-in. By timing the trigger pull with a swing, Nero can power up his attacks dramatically. There are also Bianco Angelos, Elite Mooks with jet-powered lances that (unlike Nero's, which merely powers his sword up by flames) are used for high-speed joustings.
• In Dynasty Warriors 7 Empires, Xiahou Ba wields a Siege spear which is essentially a rocket spear.
• The super sledge appearing in Fallout 4 appears to be a regular sledgehammer with a rocket motor on one face and part of the handle replaced with a fuel tank. The Nuka-World DLC adds rocket mods onto normal sledgehammers and baseball bats.
• In Granblue Fantasy, Almeida's weapon acts similar to King Dedede's hammer (as pictured above the page), but the direction is reversed. The Vaserav Hammer's blunt face is a rocket, allowing Almeida to swing the sharp pick on other side with incredible force.
• League of Legends has Vi and her giant, rocket-powered Hextech gauntlets.
• Khamsin in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance uses a rocket to assist his Mini-Mecha/Cyborg body's arms in swinging a massive hammer, and uses it as a speed boost. Jetstream Sam's vibro katana is a variant on the rocket concept; the sword's scabbard is based on a modified AR-15 receiver loaded with blanks. By pressing the trigger, he can send the sword shooting out of the scabbard at lethal velocity; it's the only way he managed to sever Senator Armstrong's nanotech-reinforced arm.
• A few weapons in Monster Hunter fit the bill, providing yet another example to the series' long history of Schizo Tech aesthetic.
  • One particularly ludicrous example is the Seltas hammer, a rocket-propelled drill hammer in Monster Hunter 4.
  • The trope was invoked in the first fan weapon design contest for Monster Hunter: World, with the winning design, the Wyvern Ignition◊, being a rocket powered greatsword.
• Overwatch: Reinhardt and Balderich von Adler use a rocket powered hammer and mace respectively. Brigitte uses a rocket powered flail, complete with a retractable chain.
• Several of the high-end club sets in Pangya have oversized club heads with afterburners.
• Persona 4: Arena: Labrys' axe, which doubles as her Jet Pack.
• In Spiral Knights, completing the downloadable "Operation: Crimson Hammer" mission will reward you with one of three increasingly powerful rocket hammers depending on what difficulty you beat it on.
• The Bounty Hunter class in Star Wars: The Old Republic has an ability (called "Rocket Punch" but not actually a Rocket Punch) where they use their Jet Pack to propel themselves into a Shoryuken strike. A Powertech specializing in the Pyrotech discipline can learn a version of the attack that lights enemies on fire, too.
• In the last game of the Super Robot Wars Alpha saga, Baran Doban's Bemidoban uses a rocket-powered Epic Flail.
• The Grungust Type-0 in the Super Robot Wars: Original Generation series: because The Federation had yet to incorporate physics-defying technology into Humongous Mecha, this first-generation Super Robot and its Reishiki Zankantou (Type-0 Colossal Blade) with mounted thrusters on the reverse edge, when used properly, hits incredibly hard, even when compared against its modern peers. However, the amount of skill required to use the Type-0 means only two men are capable of piloting the machine properly and effectively.
• In the Super Smash Bros. series, King Dedede uses a jet hammer as his down-special. It also becomes his Final Smash in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
• Glaive in VainGlory Wields a jet powered axe with a chain attached to the end, in a quote, he stated that when he first used the axe, it ended up in a lake
• Warframe:
  • The Jat Kittag is a Grineer-built hammer, with a pair of jet engines mounted behind the hammer head, allowing it to swing almost as fast as a regular weapon. With the Crushing Ruin stance equipped, one of the combos activates the jet engine to launch the user into a spinning attack, killing everything in the way. The jets also give it a massive area-of-effect ground slam capable of sending any enemy within ten meters flying across the room.
  • A later update brings its cousin the Jat Kusar, a flaming kusarigama that uses jets both for propulsion and creating the weapon's "blade".
  • The smaller Halikar is a rocket-powered throwing mace, using the rockets for propulsion to fly at enemies and disarm them.
  • The larger Wolf Sledge is a rocket-powered throwing great hammer, with all the pain and devastation that implies; hitting an enemy directly with the hammer throw will usually send their broken corpses flying into the distance.
• In the Enemy Within expansion to XCOM: Enemy Unknown, one of the secondary weapons available to a MEC Trooper is a Kinetic Strike Module, which is a rocket-assisted fist that can One-Hit Kill many adjacent enemies. Can be upgraded to deal even more damage and even allow you to use it twice in a single turn, meaning those pesky Chryssalids can be squashed more easily.

Web Comics

• Homestuck's Pogo Hammer is actually spring-powered, but acts like a standard rocket-powered weapon, right down to using it to gain altitude (along with just flying around like crazy bouncing off of enemies).

Western Animation

• Amphibia: Barrel's Warhammer is an extremely heavy warhammer that has magic-fueled rockets on the back end.
• He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (2021): Ram Ma'am's helmet has thrusters along the back, giving her an extra boost of speed to ram into things.
• Transformers: Animated: Optimus's axe (which, for added awesome, is also a Laser Blade) and Lugnut's "Punch of Kill Everything."

Real Life

• The Youtube channel The Hacksmith once built one of these, replicating Reinhardt's hammer from Overwatch. As you would probably expect, though destructive, the rockets were extremely hard to time and had a tendency to throw off the aim, not to mention requiring replacement every time they were used. They did manage to use it to destroy a car, but mostly without using the rockets.

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