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Knife-configuration bayonet mount - does form follow function?
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While I have not finished anyone off recently with a bayonet mounted on a rifle, I have butchered many larger mammals. One fact has puzzled me for years. Thrusting a knife through a rib cage is very difficult to do - when the knife blade is vertical - that is, perpendicular to rib cage.

Excluding triangular- and rod-style blades, nearly every bayonet I've seen is mounted vertically on its rifle/musket. While this allows the bayonet to look like a conventional knife, the blade does camp chores as well with its rifle mount-guard set perpendicular (horizontal) to its knife blade (edge). It just "looks" strange.

Yes, I am aware that even in the heyday of bayonet charges and hand-to-hand warfare, use of bayonets to actually run through an enemy was extremely rare. Nevertheless, when a bayonet needs to be used, doesn't it seem reasonable to render it as useful for its task as possible?


It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it. Sam Levinson
 
Posts: 1496 | Location: Seeley Lake | Registered: 21 November 2007Reply With Quote
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I have never used a bayonet on anyone. At least not while it was stuck on the end of a rifle. (read M1) However, I've seen training files and documentaries while in the Marines. In the actual films I saw of the island offensives, it seemed that with the adrenaline and fear of the situation, as well as the weight of the rifle, the bayonet had no problems.


Aim for the exit hole
 
Posts: 4348 | Location: middle tenn | Registered: 09 December 2009Reply With Quote
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Never stuck anybody with a bayonet either, but I'd be aiming at the solar plexus, just below the ribs. Nothing in the way there.

Grizz


Indeed, no human being has yet lived under conditions which, considering the prevailing climates of the past, can be regarded as normal. John E Pfeiffer, The Emergence of Man

Those who can't skin, can hold a leg. Abraham Lincoln

Only one war at a time. Abe Again.
 
Posts: 4211 | Location: Alta. Canada | Registered: 06 November 2002Reply With Quote
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Posts: 8274 | Location: Mississippi | Registered: 12 April 2005Reply With Quote
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quote:
Originally posted by xgrunt:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=...61196389617675&rct=j

Why does this seems weird?
 
Posts: 8274 | Location: Mississippi | Registered: 12 April 2005Reply With Quote
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quote:
Originally posted by Naphtali:
While I have not finished anyone off recently with a bayonet mounted on a rifle, I have butchered many larger mammals. One fact has puzzled me for years. Thrusting a knife through a rib cage is very difficult to do - when the knife blade is vertical - that is, perpendicular to rib cage.

Excluding triangular- and rod-style blades, nearly every bayonet I've seen is mounted vertically on its rifle/musket. While this allows the bayonet to look like a conventional knife, the blade does camp chores as well with its rifle mount-guard set perpendicular (horizontal) to its knife blade (edge). It just "looks" strange.

Yes, I am aware that even in the heyday of bayonet charges and hand-to-hand warfare, use of bayonets to actually run through an enemy was extremely rare. Nevertheless, when a bayonet needs to be used, doesn't it seem reasonable to render it as useful for its task as possible?



Big difference between an elk ribcage and a human.


"If you’re innocent why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?”- Donald Trump
 
Posts: 9403 | Location: Tennessee | Registered: 09 December 2007Reply With Quote
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NOTE to all: humans are very fragile. 99+% get really queasy when confronted with the opportunity of being run through with one. Even armed.

An Uncle who was a Marine in WWII and island hopped packing a BAR taught several things.
If you ever get into a fist fight, make your first two or three punches to your opponents nose. The sight of their own blood will make most of them ready to puke.


Of all the designs I've seen, the Springfield/Enfield with the original 16" one would be the most intimidating.
 
Posts: 23062 | Location: SW Idaho | Registered: 19 December 2005Reply With Quote
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quote:
Originally posted by Idaho Sharpshooter:
NOTE to all: humans are very fragile. 99+% get really queasy when confronted with the opportunity of being run through with one. Even armed.

An Uncle who was a Marine in WWII and island hopped packing a BAR taught several things.
If you ever get into a fist fight, make your first two or three punches to your opponents nose. The sight of their own blood will make most of them ready to puke.


Of all the designs I've seen, the Springfield/Enfield with the original 16" one would be the most intimidating.


A gazillion years ago I was armorer for the HHC of a Mech Inf Battalion, and had 12 riot guns with bayonets that would qualify as short-swords most places. I designated them "M1 Self-Cleaning Bayonets", just stick and pull the trigger.


"If you’re innocent why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?”- Donald Trump
 
Posts: 9403 | Location: Tennessee | Registered: 09 December 2007Reply With Quote
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We Brits studied bayonet fighting a lot! Concluding that, within reason, the "handier" rifle/bayonet combo would prevail over that of a greater length.

Doctrine was to get inside your opponents "guard". That is to say to place yourself so that you were close to him such that he couldn't now use his bayonet.

So lots of left parry and right parry drills. Left parry then strike him with your butt. Right parry then follow with a point (bayonet thrust) to throat or thigh.

So the ribs weren't really a target. It was throat or thigh. The long SMLE bayonet wasn't adopted by the Indian Army...they preferred "handiness" over reach.

And the reason for the long SMLE bayonet was so that against "savages" it would have the same length if deployed alongside troops armed with the Long Lee Enfield rifle.
 
Posts: 6813 | Location: United Kingdom | Registered: 18 November 2007Reply With Quote
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The origin of the long bayonets on very long rifles was to serve as a lance against cavalry. Rifles took so long to load and shoot that one could not fire, reload, and fire once the enemy closed. The square formation with lances, or long rifles with bayonets, was the classic defense against cavalry.


Throughout the armies of Europe the square formation remained almost standardised with some small practical variations. The square could be quickly formed by wheeling companies while either in marching or battle order. The square’s sides would be three or four ranks deep with NCOs and company officers stationed directly behind their men. The battalion’s colours, commanding officer and staff would be positioned at the square’s centre. All men would fix bayonets and the front rank would kneel with the butts of their muskets dug into the ground angling to their front at 45 degrees presenting a theoretically impenetrable line of steel tipped spikes. The remaining ranks levelled their muskets at the en guard until ordered to fire. The companies, as when formed in line, could fire either by rank or by platoon producing a rolling volley the length of the company. The square formation proved extremely effective, even the best trained horse and rider will be unwilling to careen straight into a solid wall of steel tipped muskets. The effect would often be that the cavalry parted and rode around the flanks of the square - firing pistols and carbines into the square as they passed. In effect if a square did not flounder and break under the psychological effect of the oncoming cavalry then it was likely to survive the charge with minimal casualties.


There is a good photo here: http://67.media.tumblr.com/a07...GV1s57vgxo1_1280.jpg

As cavalry disappeared both rifles and bayonets became shorter.

The US military bayonet drills from WWI thru WWII taught basic positions with the bayonet pointed at the throat.





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Posts: 10900 | Location: North of the Columbia | Registered: 28 April 2008Reply With Quote
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I suspect that most bayonets were used against many more civilians throughout history than against other soldiers that needed to be neutralised quickly.


for every hour in front of the computer you should have 3 hours outside
 
Posts: 7757 | Location: Between 2 rivers, Middle USA | Registered: 19 August 2000Reply With Quote
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Perhaps true since WWI. But I bet hundreds more soldiers died from the bayonet for every civilian so killed in wars like the US Civil War, the Napoleonic Wars, Seven Years' War, etc.




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Posts: 10900 | Location: North of the Columbia | Registered: 28 April 2008Reply With Quote
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