Rifle, anything longer than a pistol, needs two hands to hold – súng trương
Pistol, revolver - súng lục, súng sáw
Cannon, such as is mounted on a fortification - súng thấn công
My informant (ex-SV military, reasonably good English skills) reports the first two, rifle and pistol, are the same in Vietnamese for ancient and modern weapons; and that the photo looks like the third, cannon although that is supposed to be mounted and not held – he wasn’t really getting the scale of the artifact. He said the ‘ma’ was wrong. It looks to me like ‘chuong’ is the Chinese version of the Vietnamese ‘công’.
