Bayonets - Do They Still Have a Use?

[Nickel Plated]

The other question is really WHY phase them out? What's it take to mount a bayonet on a rifle? A little lug under the barrel. Might as well keep that functionality. Not like it burdens the troops and may even save your life once in a blue moon. Like the Brits proved in 2004.

 

[musicman10_1]

I buy bayonets for all of my guns that are able to attach one. It is just something that I do as part of my hobby and whenever I show any of my collection to someone they are always amazed by the bayonet. I do think that they look cool too.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

A plus is that bayonets give Saran Brady the Leaping Fantods.

 

[TaylorBrassjole73]

I spoke to a former Marine Corps Drill Instructor once and asked a similiar question. He told me that hand to hand and bayonet fighting are a recruits first taste of combat training, that it gets alot of recruits pumped up because they know more is coming. He explained that it has alot to do with installing a warriors attitude and confidence, plus its tradition. Even if they don't use it, troops gain confidnce that the CAN use it. That's just what he explained to me.

 

[7thGenAustinite]

this!

 

[CZguy]

My unit did not have any bayonets. "Sharp and pointy things? Eewww! Are you really sure we should be giving these people bullets?"

Some is horribly wrong here. I was in the Air Force and they gave me a bayonet.

A plus is that bayonets give Saran Brady the Leaping Fantods.

I'll admit......that is a important consideration.

 

[rookorami]

While it looks cool on the Glock, I do not see much of a benefit for a pistol. I can control a knife in my hand better than on the end of a pistol. On a rifle I can see it being useful as a last resort. The simple systems sometimes work the best.

 

[Float Pilot]

Riot control is one other consideration I have not seen listed here.
50 guys with body armor, gas masks, helmets and fixed bayonets makes a very effective barrier.
In some cultures, like the mid-east, knives and swords are a big part of their items which they either fear or respect.... I guess somebody is always firing an Ak in the air, but when uncle Habib goes nuts with a big knife, it is time to run...

 

[rookorami]

LOL! I almost spit my drink on the screen.

 

[jim in Anchorage]

What the point of a "spike" bayonet anyway? Some thing you can only stab with. Why not a blade you also can slash with?

 

[rookorami]

From what I can find most of the early bayonets were the spiked ones and the developments led them away from the spike to a blade.

 

[7mmstalker]

My pops wouldn't allow me firearms as a youth, but knives and bayonets were OK.
One of the old timers I did some trading with claimed the Geneva Convention did away with the spike style because the wound from a blade was more easily repaired.
Like non expanding bullets that take a soldier out of the fight but , in theory, don't destroy as much tissue as soft points.

 

[jim in Anchorage]

From what I can find most of the early bayonets were the spiked ones and the developments led them away from the spike to a blade.

I was thinking of the SKS a pretty recent gun. Mine has a spike.

 

[kingcheese]

Yes they should, i do believe even recently bayonet kills have been made, but the bayonet can also be used as a last ditch knife by its self, and that seems to be its more common use, no need to ditch thebayo life, that 1/4 once it adds makes it a lot more modular

 

[1911Tuner]

I don't know if there would be a real need for bayonet fighting in modern theaters...except occasionally...but I were to go to war, I'd want one. First and foremost, it's a knife. A knife has utility almost anywhere. In a desperate survival situation, you'll have far more need of a strong knife than a gun.

On the riot control question...Oh, yeah. While a crowd of malcontents may at some point work up the nerve to charge a line of riot control personnel with shields and batons, they'll be a bit less prickly when a line of cold steel is leveled at their midsections. Like the sawed-off shotgun in 1880 Dodge City, it tends to make the hotheads real peaceable and calm.

 

[HoosierQ]

It is probably a fantastic training tool. I have not had the priviledge to serve. Came of age at an awkward time and my father was dead set against it having served in WWII along with his brother and all of his classmates, my cousin in Vietnam, worried his sister to death etc. "Our family has served enough!".

But...in football we boxed during spring training. Taught aggression, help us overcome any fear of a blow, that sort of thing. Ramped up to a military setting where we're talking life and death, I would presume that bayonet training, and subsequent issue of same, would serve as a motivator to troops.

Spoken by a life-long civilian so take my thought for what they're worth.

 

[sixgunner455]

I believe you're right on the mark, Hoosier. Bayonet training teaches aggressiveness, and instills the attitude of taking violent action when called for.

 

[Trent]

These modern rifles and their little pointing things.

You all need a REAL rifle to mount a true pigsticker on.

I'm 6'2" - that's a bayonet mounted to a 1933 Spanish Mauser, butt of the rifle is resting on the floor next to my foot.

Used to be a whole different kind of war back then.

 

[paintballdude902]

One of the old timers I did some trading with claimed the Geneva Convention did away with the spike style because the wound from a blade was more easily repaired.

not the spike, that refers to the v shaped bayonets. the issue was that they created a wound too hard to sew up and led to lots of agony and lingering. now they have to have a single cutting edge IIRC from my loac and war crimes class in basic

 

[Vern Humphrey]

The Geneva Convention covers prisoners, sick and wounded. The Hague Convention addresses weaponry.

Triangular ("V-shaped") bayonets are not outlawed -- the Soviets used them right up through WWII and beyond on the Moisin-Nagant rifles.

 

[Trent]

Yeah, that Spanish Mauser/Bayonet combo, that two foot blade even has a blood gutter.

Not there to let blood out, though - it's there to allow extraction of your blade against the suction of the body cavity it's stuck in to, so you can move on to pig-stick the next unfortunate enemy slob you run across.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Actually the fuller ("blood gutter") is there to make the blade stiffer and lighter.

 

[Trent]

(You know, that says a lot about how war has changed.. old bayonets had features to aid extraction from a human body. New bayonets have "wire cutters" and other odd features.)

Stiffer blade? Sure. You say, stiffer blade.

I say blood gutter!

 

[Slamfire]

The MKII never held a candle to the P07

 

[Trent]

HAHAHAHAHA oh great photos!!!!