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Old April 19, 2024, 03:07 AM   #24
44 AMP
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Join Date: March 11, 2006
Location: Upper US
Posts: 28,971
Quote:
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.
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