Comments on USN dive knife

[Texian Pistolero]

About twenty years ago,

I bought a knife that appears to be stainless,

yet the blade is painted by black paint,

The blade is about five inches long,

and the point rather fragile.

The plastic sheath reads,

"
MK 3 MOD 0
USN
"

The blade reads,

"

MK 3

MOD 0

"


I doubt that this is a valuable collector item,

but it was neither cheap,

nor expensive.

My best guess is that it was,

at the time,

the standard issue US Navy dive knife.

Any enlightened comments would be appreciated.

 

[tlhelmer]

I have seen a few of them. They are shorter than a Ka-Bar and the ones I have seen have a serated portion on the top of the blade.

Pretty good knives, but not very easy to sharpen.

 

[PBIR]

Standard issue dive knife. They are handy blades, but not collectors items for the most part. You have in a nice working knife. Could use it as a basis for a military issue collection. Ontario has the contract now (last I heard).

 

[dfariswheel]

The Mark 3, Mod 0, wasn't really a Navy dive knife, it was the Navy's new combat knife.

It was the replacement for the US Navy Mark Two "Ka-Bar" type combat knife that had been used since WWII.

Strangely, for reasons I never learned, the Mark 3, Mod 0's blade was directly copied from the AK-47 bayonet.

The blade and most metal was stainless as I recall, and the plastic handle was "electrically insulated from the blade".

The Mark 3 was briefly used as a dive knife by both UDT/SEAL, and hard hat Navy divers.

Nobody liked the design, finding the blade point too weak, the saw teeth to fine to be of any use, and the scabbard's very narrow belt loop allowed the knife to flop around too much.

It wasn't liked as a combat knife either.

The knife was not a success and was discontinued fairly soon.