Bayonets? Yes or No?

[AgentPickle]

I love bayonets and will die on this hill. Or maybe I won't, because I have a bayonet.
https://youtube.com/shorts/fGlmfY5NH...7M3YczCJqOhk6l

[bamaranger]

I suppose anybody that has a few milsurp or AR rifles about will have a bayonet or two as well. There was a time when AK/AKM bayonets were cheap, but never bought one. If you want to handle something imposing, try a Civil
War era rifled musket like the Springfield, with its bayonet.

On the down side, did you know that Ontario Knife Co is out of business? I will miss not only their military knives, but the Old Hickory kitchen knives as well.

Darn shame. About 50 people our of work. Some big outfit (a distributor) has bought the company and I suppose the tooling. I hope we see them again, US made.

[44 AMP]

There is a point to the bayonet (there should be, ) though our Army has not done significant bayonet training for a long time.

Marines, on the other hand,,, are Marines...

The bayonet is a terror weapon. People are afraid of it, even more than being shot, which is why it is still in use in modern era. The primary use of the bayonet in modern warfare is prisoner /crowd control.

The bravado of refusing to comply, and daring troops to shoot them, rapidly melts away when it is realized that you aren't going to shoot them, you're going to poke them with sharp pointy steel.

Because, it HURTS!!!

Every one of us has, at some point in our lives been punctured or cut by something. Even small stabs or cuts HURT!! Our bodies "know" this. Our subconscious minds KNOW THIS. The conscious mind knows that being shot hurts, but that is different. Few people have direct personal experience being shot. EVERYONE has direct personal experience with being cut, or stabbed, to some degree, often and throughout most of our lives.

The bayonet is so effective for "influencing good behavior" because not only does it hurt, it allows a graduated application. Bullets do not, you're shot, or you're not. The bayonet allows a full range of options, from being painfully irritating to fully lethal.

The blade bayonet is not a knife. It LOOKS like a knife and may be able to be used as a knife, but its not supposed to be a knife. When I was in, Army regulations specifically forbid bayonets to be sharpened. Sharply pointed, yes, but a sharpened edge was a gig, and actually rendered the bayonet officially unserviceable.

I never could understand why the bayonet lug was an "evil feature" and banned by assault weapon laws, other than the ignorant elitists who wrote the law decided to include it.

[PzGren]

My grandfather fought at Verdun and as a little boy I sat on his knee, listening to the stories how he impaled the Frenchies with it, getting the iron cross, before he got shot.

Top to the right

My dad among the very first elite soldiers entering Russia, he saw extensive fighting, never used a handgun or bayonet.


A tank he cracked

[JohnKSa]

I guess if you're going to be defending your house with a rifle that will accept a bayonet, it makes sense to learn to use a bayonet.

Just keep in mind that if you stick someone with your bayonet and kill them, someone's probably going to ask why you didn't shoot them if you felt lethal force was justified. You'd better have a reason for why you chose to stab them instead of shoot.

[Ricklin]

In my experience your SKS will be a little more accurate if you do not remove the bayonet. Rather than analyze the technical reasons why, I just figure it is because it was designed to have a bayonet.

[davidsog]

Army has not done significant bayonet training for a long time.

We did it the entire 26 1/2 years I was in the Army and still do. One General tried to do away with it in 2010. It scaled back but never went away. Once more, once he retired, training resumed at normal pace.

https://www.survivalschool.us/wp-con...tives-1992.pdf

https://www.army.mil/article/211472/..._dormant_range

Here is an article from 1981 that states the Army resumes bayonet training after a decade of not teaching it. That would be the end of Vietnam thru the early 1980's when our Army was at one its lowest points in our history.

Maybe that is it!

[davidsog]

I guess if you're going to be defending your house with a rifle that will accept a bayonet, it makes sense to learn to use a bayonet.

Absolutely. Learn to use what you have effectively.

It makes much more sense to learn bayonet drills than the tacticool magazine change drills I see guys doing on youtube. Basic bayonet drills work with and without a bayonet for using a rifle effectively as a club.

If you run out of ammo or have a malfunction defending you house and there are threats still standing in the room you are better off buttstroking, swinging that rifle, and punching them with the barrel than you are standing there trying to do some reload drill. Transition first and Reload only after seeking cover. If you are out of ammo in a gunfight, seek cover. If your still in the fight with an empty rifle and cannot seek cover, you better transition to only secondary you have available. The club your holding is now your secondary. That club is much more effective at closing the distance if it has a sharp end but it still works without it and it far better than your fist.

[bamaranger]

OK, I gotta ask. Why was it a gig and verbotten to sharpen a bayonet, and why would doing so render it unserviceable? Is that a training thing?

I have spent some bit of time spiked out in fire camps, and a heavy knife is a useful thing and far more practical when living rough, than a point only bayonet would be. I have also read that when they reduced the size of the Garand bayonet to M5 and introduced the M6 for the M14, that the reduction was to specifically done to allow the blade to be used as a knife as well. Unsharpened, what good is a dull knife when living afield?

I have a 10" M1 bayonet and it is indeed unsharpened. It may be unissued, or at least redone. I also have a 6" bayonet with M1 attachment, metal. I have been told is S. Korean and made by cutting down the 10" version. It came to me in an M8a1 scabbard and is indeed very sharp.

[tangolima]

This is a common explanation. Life in armed forces is boring. If soldiers are allowed to sharpen bayonets, very soon there will be no bayonets left to be sharpened. The steel will be ground away.

-TL

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

[Ricklin]

If you have yet to try one. Get one of the knife sharpeners from China I think mine is a Ruxin....bunch of different names. Throw out the stones it comes with and replace with diamond stones.
It is a system of stone holders and blade vice that permits pre setting the stone at an exact repeatable angle, I use 17 degrees for kitchen knives for instance.
Just download a level program for your smartphone to set up your sharpening angle. It is a pleasure to use a truly sharp knife. Esp. one that stays sharp.

[tangolima]

Sharpening a bayonet lowers its collection value. There is no point doing it unless you are really going to use it as a cutting tool. I did that to a bayonet for m1 rifle, just to remove the unsightly chips and rolls. It had no collection value to begin with.

-TL

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

[44 AMP]

OK, I gotta ask. Why was it a gig and verbotten to sharpen a bayonet, and why would doing so render it unserviceable? Is that a training thing?

It was not a training thing, it was a regulations thing. Right or wrong, sensible or barking stupid, the regs are the regs, and until/unless the regs change, GIs are stuck with them. During the time I was in the Army (75-78) the regs said bayonets will be pointed and not sharpened. So finding a bayonet in the arms room that someone had put an edge on () was a gig.

And a sharpened bayonet didn't met the regulation spec for being unsharpened, and so therefore, was "unserviceable".

I did not say unusable, in the real world. Guys in the field, on the sharp end, (in combat or combat zones) get a lot of lee way, about many things. Any officer or NCO taking away a bayonet from a soldier on the perimeter because it was sharpened probably wouldn't be in that position very long.

After the troops are back in garrison, like back in the states, and their arms room got inspected, often a lot of the bayonets needed replacement, because they were "unserviceable".

One of the things we used to say (NOT OFFICIAL) was that there were three ways to do anything. The Right way, the Wrong way, and the ARMY way.

TO the Army, the only right way was the Army way. In reality, sometimes the Army way was the right way, sometimes the Army way was the wrong way, and often the Army way was the worst of both worlds.

[bamaranger]

Ok, understood. It was an "administrative/regulation" thing. Having worked for Uncle Sam for over 30 yrs, I get that. But I wonder what reason the Army had for creating the reg, other than "we say so".

TVA employees in my area were forbidden to carry knives onto their nuke work site. Injuries due use of personal knives was the given reason, but all suspected that admin was concerned somebody would take a hostage or go nuts in the control room.

We say so, .....but why?

Your point of unserviceable v. unusable is well taken.

[Jim Watson]

Timothy Mullin said his best use of a bayoneted rifle was to keep POWs in line.

[44 AMP]

Timothy Mullin said his best use of a bayoneted rifle was to keep POWs in line

.

This is, pardon the pun, the "point" of the bayonet in modern use.

Just keep in mind that if you stick someone with your bayonet and kill them, someone's probably going to ask why you didn't shoot them if you felt lethal force was justified. You'd better have a reason for why you chose to stab them instead of shoot.

I realize this is very likely, but I wonder if there is a legal point (just can't seem to get away from that word, ) involved. IS there a rule, or a law that justifies the use of deadly force but only when certain methods are used? Gun, vs. knife, vs. rock, vs. bare hands, etc???

Deadly force is justified to stop an attack, if it is ruled so, how can it make a difference, legally, what method was used, or the degree of injury inflicted in order to effect the stop??

[JohnKSa]

One of the usual prerequisites for the legal use of deadly force is the reasonable belief by the defender that the deadly force was immediately necessary and that there were no other reasonable alternatives.

Therefore, it's problematic if the defender does or says anything that suggests that they did not intend to use deadly force. That would suggest that they did not believe that deadly force was immediately necessary or that they felt there was another alternative and that would generally eliminate the legal justification for using it.

If a defender is holding a loaded gun but chooses to use some other method for self-defense, that implies that they didn't feel like shooting the attacker was necessary. If the attacker dies as a result of whatever means are used, then clearly deadly force was used, but it might seem that deadly force was not intended. If the question is asked: "Why didn't you just shoot him?", it would be good to have an answer ready.

[44 AMP]

"Why didn't you just shoot him?", it would be good to have an answer ready.

I have tons of answers to that that question, but not any really "socially acceptable" ones.

Why didn't you just shoot him??

I didn't want to wake up the children!

Bullets cost money!!

The gun is like super loud inside the house...!

He fell on it!!!

[rc]

But officer, I told him not to come any closer. He walked right into it!

[JohnKSa]

The main thing is being aware of the issue so you don't say something that might complicate things from a legal standpoint if the question is asked.

[44 AMP]

A few more points for discussion...

First off, we're talking about using the bayonet for personal defense "fixed" (mounted) on the rifle. Right??? (and, in your home)

IF the bayonet is not mounted on a long arm (rifle or shotgun) and you use it for self defense, then its the same as any "knife" /edged weapon, legally, isn't it??

I cannot imagine a plausible situation where I would be defending myself with a rifle with a bayonet fixed, other than I already had it in my hands in that condition when I was attacked. I seriously doubt that I (or anyone) would take the time to fix the bayonet as they were being attacked.

I suppose that, if the rifle were on display with the bayonet fixed, and it was the closest thing I could grab when an attack started, I might grab and use it, but IF that were the case, (and that's bloody unlikely, mate! ) I wouldn't have to face the dreaded question of "why didn't you just shoot him?", Because A) the rifle on display wouldn't be loaded, and B) it is no longer legal where I live to display a functional firearm, if it is functional, it has to be in secure (locked) "safe storage".

SO, if I were ever in the truly bizarre situation of having to use the bayonet fixed on the rifle, it would be because I couldn't shoot my attacker, and had no other option.

[georgehwbush]

yeah; but alas it's not about the odds, it's about the stakes.

[davidsog]

It makes much more sense to learn bayonet drills than the tacticool magazine change drills I see guys doing on youtube. Basic bayonet drills work with and without a bayonet for using a rifle effectively as a club.

If you run out of ammo or have a malfunction......

[44 AMP]

It makes much more sense to learn bayonet drills than the tacticool magazine change drills I see guys doing on youtube.

For a combat infantryman, perhaps, for the rest of the world, not so much.

And modern combat infantrymen are somewhat handicapped because of the design of modern combat rifles.

The long rifles and bayonets of the past give a degree of "stand off" distance the common short modern rifles don't.

When you take shooting out of the picture, reach gives you a definite advantage outdoors, most places. Spears, from shorter thrusting spears up through polearms all the way to pikes have a military advantage, and allow for tactics from the phalanx to pike squares which were very effective in their day.

Move up to the 19th century and through the world wars of the 20th, and the bayoneted rifle was the primary infantry arm of most nations.

Look at the infantry rifles before WWII and they are often long, heavily built, and capable of mounting long bayonets. And, not badly balanced for hand to hand combat, either. Long rifles and long bayonets were not much of a drawback when the majority of infantry traveled by foot. When you don't climb in and out of vehicles often (or at all) a long rifle is not a drawback, and its reach is an asset, generally speaking.

A good percent of the time, the guy with 5 feet of reach on his pigsticker is better armed than the guy with 3 feet of reach on his.

[4V50 Gary]

Decades ago the South African when there was still Apartheid the SA police fixed bayonets on their FNs and charged the mob. The mob fled and no one got jabbed.

Still, I don't see any practical application but I don't want to be told you can't have that.