What does the military allow?

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Oh, OK, demo as in go boom, I was thinking demo as in show and tell.

I have several TL29s, (similar to the demo, but with black handles, one blade, and one semi sharp blade with screw driver end to strip wire and a bale) and also several stainless demo knives. After learning to blow up things, we were given the crimpers in a leather pouch. Remember to always crimp the cap behind your butt, if it goes off, a half assed demo man is better than a dead demo man. I still have my GTA 5-14, and GTA 5-10-9 demo cards.
 
I think the entire time I was in the military I only ever saw two people that carried fixed blade knives and they were both Whole Asses. One guy carried a K-bar on his LBE I guess because it made him feel like Rambo. The other guy was a doctor who carried an Air Force survival knife on his flight gear.

When I was in the big thing was Multi-tools. Almost everybody had some kind of multi-tool and a couple of guys walked around with that great big Gerber multi-tool that looked like a damn tool box on your belt.

Other than that I think most people just carried a Buck knife.

FWIW I still have my Gerber Multitool and my Buck 110 and I'm actually carrying both of them on my belt at work right now
 
Basically it is a stainless steel version of the classic Boy Scout Pocket knife with a blade, a flathead screwdriver/bottle opener/ take down punch, a can opener ( that some like and others dispise) and an awl that will close on your fingers if you use it wrong. It even has a little bail on one end.
Yes, the official nomenclature is the MIL-K-818 knife. These are commonly found with "U.S." and "U.S.M.C." markings. They used to be a mainstay at surplus stores.

The Canadian Pattern 82 web gear includes a KFS (knife, fork, spoon) carrier. This has a pocket for this same knife, known in Canada as the C5. It's the same knife as the Camillus MIL-K-818, except that it lacks the "U.S." marking. These unmarked Canadian examples are hard to find, because they were were withdrawn from service in the mid-1990's and replaced with Gerber multitools.

(One of my hobbies is collecting modern web gear sets from various countries. The Canadian gear is interesting because it has certain similarities with the German gear from the same era. I'm not sure which copied which. Surprisingly, the Canadian gear doesn't have much in common with the British gear or the American gear.)
http://mpmuseum.org/securequip2.html
 
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Many of us call them Demo Kit Knives because they were a part of an Infantry platoons Demo Kit.... a part that disappeared with great regularity. Some of us that went to demo school had them given to us as sort of a graduation present by the instructors.

Sad part about this is, we didn't have any demo kits on our deployment. EOD wait times were measured in days, if not weeks. But we had claymore mines. Bit of ingenuity and personal multi tools, lead to using salavaged C-4 from Claymores as our own demo kit.
 
Darned Herr Walther,

Sorry to hear they did not let you guys have your special foot locker. When it comes to interesting things in the way the little 1/4 training block of TNT, a non electric and some time fuse can suddenly seem not useless, I would bet.

-kBob
 
Sorry to hear they did not let you guys have your special foot locker. When it comes to interesting things in the way the little 1/4 training block of TNT, a non electric and some time fuse can suddenly seem not useless, I would bet.

Something about necessity being the mother of invention. Our base was one of the most remote places in the entire country. If we needed reinforcements, they were a minimum 1 hour away by chopper. 75 Americans and 200 locals on 3 acres. To say our position was precarious on a daily basis is an understatement. Many of us were issued thermite and suicide grenades.
 
Sad part about this is, we didn't have any demo kits on our deployment. EOD wait times were measured in days, if not weeks. But we had claymore mines. Bit of ingenuity and personal multi tools, lead to using salavaged C-4 from Claymores as our own demo kit.
It sounds to me like you were lacking demolitions, not a demo kit. IIRC, a standard nonelectric demo kit contains: 2 tape measures, 1 demo knife, 2 cap boxes, tape, and a set of M2 aluminum crimpers, in a carry bag.
 
The level of ridiculous in the military has reached a new level, it seems. Justifying the "importation into the US " of a particular knife from a combat zone based on its placement (or lack thereof) into the convoluted and understood inventory of military equipment and a permission slip from a LTC shows where priorities have gone, as well as the absence of common sense.

At least they did not ban the trooper from taking it overseas. I mean, going over to a place where the locals are actively trying to kill you, and preventing American's from carrying a pocket knife with a spring loaded blade because they might hurt someone with it.
 
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5th Infantry Division cared, and no blade longer than 3" was allowed in the barracks. You could store a knife (and a personal firearm) in the armory at the discretion of the company commander.
 
FWIW the entire time I was in the Army I was never issued a bayonet. I never even saw one after BCT.

Same. Did bayonet training at Ft Benning. Only other time I saw bayonets was when I was voluntold to do inventory. Most infantry companies I was assigned to had a little over 100 M9 bayonets in storage, but largely never issued. Somehow when we built soldier's KIA crosses overseas, someone always managed to find a few.
 
Bayonets. Believe it or not, we even had bayonets in SF. Like every other piece of kit, each team had 12 assigned, which of course had to be accounted for. I tried to get rid of them, but they were listed on the oh-so-holy "property book"/ MTOE, which could never be challenged. Most if not all of the ones assigned to my team still had grease on the blades. I knew if they were broken, that they would not be replaced due to the inefficiency of the supply system. I also knew that no one would fall for whatever story I could tell explaining why the whole team was using the bayonets, let alone how we could have managed to break all 12. As a result, the 12 bayonets in scabbards remained tied together by a piece of 550 for easier inventory cord hanging inside (and taking up needed space) in my equipment locker. The regiment was stuck with those things until they finally got the new Improved Upper Receiver Group (which, like the MK18 CQBR) is incapable of accepting a bayonet. At that point, the bayonets were finally considered obsolete. and disappeared,
 
I don't think our bayonets ever even got uncrated. Of course, if an artillery unit has to fix bayonets things are really not going well for the Army.
 
I did get puked on by REMF officers for my 8" Randall (and mustache and tiger stripe fatiques) but carefully stored my MACV "get of of jail free" card in a little water proof container on my dog tag loop. Being it was signed by a three star general I was gruffly let go my way about three or four times in VN 68-70 .
 
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