The "FIX BAYONETS!!" Thread

Blaster229 said:

"What's the spirit of the bayonet?!!"....

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"To kill!"

My opinions on bayonets have been long documented on this forum.

[quote name="Rattlesnake46319" post=587859]Everything needs a bayonet lug. Everything. [/QUOTE]

I HATED the bayonet course at Ft. Benning with those stupid, heavy, fake ass, rubber M-16's.

This is a big much, no?

This video is very informative.

At 6:00 for about one minute, you'll see the big guy coaxing the other guy to speak, it's hilarious.

How about this.

Black powder assaulter

Bluemax said:

Black powder assaulter

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I like it

Blaster229 said:

"What's the spirit of the bayonet?!!"....

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"To kill!", according to my Drill Instructor at Fort Knox, KY in 1961.

Doctor_M said:

COL Lewis Millett approves of this thread! If you don't know him, look him up, it is worth the read. A warrior leader with stones of steel.

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Great timing. I was going to ask when the last bayonet charge was. Looks like he led the last American one. Thanks for the tip.

Rifle shmifle indeed! 590a1 and M9

Might have to dig the M1 Garand out of the safe, and put my Dad's old M1905 (I think that's right) bayonet on it.
ETA: Yup. M1905. Wooden handles. Leather scabbard. 16" long.

Lonnnnnnnnnnnnng bayonet that he was issued in the Navy.

Still has cosmoline all over the blade.

byf43 said:

Might have to dig the M1 Garand out of the safe, and put my Dad's old M1905 (I think that's right) bayonet on it.
ETA: Yup. M1905. Wooden handles. Leather scabbard. 16" long.

Lonnnnnnnnnnnnng bayonet that he was issued in the Navy.

Still has cosmoline all over the blade.

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Many, if not most of those 16" bayonets were cut down to 10" early in WWII, so an uncut original is a real prize.

The ones which were cut down can be identified by the blood groove running all the way to the re-ground point. Shape of the points on the cut-downs varies, also.

WWII production 10" bayonets have a blood groove which stops short of the point, as seen here.

2nd=Good+Substantial said:

I always wondered about the reason for such long bayonets on already long rifles. They seemed totally impractical for man to man combat. Thanks for the education.

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I think the length was very practical for bayonet fighting. One argument against shorter muskets was the reduced REACH of the bayonet. Because of that, the Two Band Enfield rifle (33" barrel) was fitted with an extra-long sword bayonet to give it the same over all length as the Threeband musket (39" barrel).

I just measured my Parker Hale Threeband. Overall length of the musket is 55 1/4". The 17" socket bayonet brings it to 72 1/4". For comparison, the overall length of my M91/30 Updated Dragoon Mosin with fixed bayonet is a mere 65 3/8". Which would you rather have to fend off a troop of French cuirassiers?


It was axiomatic that cavalry could not ride down well disciplined infantry. That is, if the infantry stood firm and maintained their position (ideally a square) presenting an unwavering abatis of bayonets, then no horse could ever be persuaded to force the line. Everything depended on the discipline of the defending infantry, and instilling that vital discipline was one of the purposes of the never-ending infantry drill.

The most famous example of this is from the Battle of Waterloo, depicted in the picture I posted. There the British Squares stood unwavering through the long afternoon, withstanding repeated attacks by veteran French cuirassiers.


I said, "This is the true purpose of the bayonet: to repel cavalry," but that's not entirely right. The bayonet was invented in the second half of the 17th Century to replace the long pike. The pikes carried by Infantry of the 1600s, in the 30 Years War and the English Civil War were absurdly long things, up to 20 feet long, or even longer.

They were long because long was good. The side with the longer pikes could inflict casualties while remaining beyond the reach of shorter pikes. If the enemy got inside the wall of pikes, then the long weapons were dropped and swords and other melee weapons came into play.

By the 1600s, the role of the pike men was more and more to defend the arquebussiers and musketeers while they reloaded. Obviously formations of pikemen were vulnerable to the new gunpowder weapons, but the musketeers were vulnerable during the arduous reloading process, so mixed formations of "Pike and Shot" became the norm.




I think it was sometime around the 1660s that a musketeer found he could plug the handle of his sheath knife into the muzzle of his musket and the bayonet was born. The idea caught on and spread like wildfire, and plug bayonets were purpose made with tapered hilts to fit into musket barrels.

The era of the plug bayonet was very brief, however, because obviously a musket can be neither loaded nor fired with a plug bayonet fixed. Thus the socket bayonet, with its offset blade was quickly developed and replaced the plug bayonet by about 1700.

The bayonet allowed the musketeers to double as pikemen, and so the hedge-like pike formations vanished from the European battlefields.

Meanwhile, you see that my 72" musket and bayonet are not really long at all compared with the 15 or 20 foot long pike which they replaced.

I think the term is affix or affixed

This kind of stuff is why I love this group. It always makes me chuckle when people think that the average firearms enthusiast is an Ozark Mt. simpleton with 85 IQ points and 8 teeth.

Clearly our group averages over 12 teeth each

Not a US attack, but proof positive that the bayonet remains a viable weapon even on today's battlefield. Psychologically, people fear being cut with a bladed weapon more than being shot.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...net-charge-into-hail-of-bullets-honoured.html

Threeband said:

Many, if not most of those 16" bayonets were cut down to 10" early in WWII, so an uncut original is a real prize.

The ones which were cut down can be identified by the blood groove running all the way to the re-ground point. Shape of the points on the cut-downs varies, also.

WWII production 10" bayonets have a blood groove which stops short of the point, as seen here.

Click to expand...

Dad's old bayonet is the original 16" bladed version, with wooden handles, and a leather scabbard.
The grease/cosmoline on the blade has made the scabbard paper-thin.

Dad 'stamped' his initials in one side (left, IF memory serves me) handle.

I've got a Japanese bayonet, that Dad "liberated", also. (Along with a 7.7mm Arisaka.)

There were two Japanese swords at the house, at one point in time, with the bayonets and Dad's KABAR (which I got!).

After Mom died, while cleaning the house out, these swords were NOWHERE to be found!!!!!!!!!

I hope Dad didn't slide them under the insulation in the attic.
House has been sold, and the new owners are renovating it.

smokey0118 said:

Rifle schmifle

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That little blade would have worked, until you over "compensated"

Doctor_M said:

This kind of stuff is why I love this group. It always makes me chuckle when people think that the average firearms enthusiast is an Ozark Mt. simpleton with 85 IQ points and 8 teeth.

Clearly our group averages over 12 teeth each

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I have all my teeth thank you.