Cutlass for the Marines

[aramis]

A lot of people also don't realize that a knife fight is often as bad as a gun fight... it's exceptionally easy to wind up with double kills. (When I was sparring regularly, we often trained with rubber knives, and chalked the edges.... and usually, it was mutual probably lethal strikes.) A femoral or brachial hit is lethal in minutes. It's actually often safer to grab the opponent's weapon arm rather than draw a knife of one's own.

Or to use a longer melee weapon to disarm them.

From thousands of bouts, I can say that it's all too easy to lose sight of the opponent's blade in a knife fight, and far easier with a sword or staff.

 

[BlackBat242]

How long was it on the slushpile?

It's not unheard of for a novel to sit for a decade before being taken up after a later submission sees print (and fans).

Haldeman began writing in 1970, his first book was a 122-page novel, War Year, published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston in May 1972 - "about a soldier on combat duty in South Vietnam during 1968".

His second novel, The Forever War, was originally written as Haldeman's MFA thesis for the Iowa Writer's Workshop, where he was a student from 1973 to 1975.

It was first published as a serial in Analog Magazine before its first book publication in 1974.

 

[BlackBat242]

Every time the Army claims we've gotten past the knife on a stick, we wind up with troops thanking their spouses for unauthorized bladed weapons which saved their lives.

.....

And, I can say, from practical experience, that a bayonet makes a WONDERFUL home defense implement. The guys not scared of knives tend to be scared of rifles, and vice versa. (Plus, fixing the integral bayonet on an SKS is an intimidating clank. Louder than the bolt.)

The British Army (Scots Guards and The Parachute Regiment) mounted bayonet charges during the Falklands War (see Battle of Mount Tumbledown).

In 1995, during the Siege of Sarajevo, French Marine infantrymen from the 3rd RIMA carried out a bayonet charge against the Serbian forces to regain the Vrbanja bridge.

In 2004 in Iraq at the Battle of Danny Boy, the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders bayonet-charged mortar positions filled with over 100 Mahdi Army members. The ensuing hand-to-hand fighting resulted in an estimate of over 40 insurgents killed and 35 bodies collected (many floated down the river) and nine prisoners. Sergeant Brian Wood, of the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment, was awarded the Military Cross for his part in the battle.

In 2009, Lieutenant James Adamson, aged 24, of the Royal Regiment of Scotland was awarded the Military Cross for a bayonet charge whilst on a tour of duty in Afghanistan: after shooting one Taliban fighter dead Adamson had run out of ammunition when another enemy appeared. He immediately charged the second Taliban fighter and bayoneted him.

In September 2012, Lance Corporal Sean Jones of The Princess of Wales's Regiment was awarded the Military Cross for his role in a bayonet charge which took place in October 2011.


The last three are especially ironic, considering this article from 2002:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1407233/Last-charge-for-the-bayonet-a-victim-of-modern-warfare.html

 

[Carlobrand]

It's all very interesting, but in a Trav context a lot of these folk are wearing body armor of some sort. The vacc suit's as tough as cloth, and mesh is about as effective against melee weapons. The game - Book 1, at least - favors the bayonet, whatever the realities might say on the issue. On a more practical note, if you're part of a team working your way down a 5' wide 7' tall hall then a bayonet-equipped projectile or energy weapon has certain practical advantages over a swung melee weapon.

 

[BwapTED]

It's all very interesting, but in a Trav context a lot of these folk are wearing body armor of some sort. The vacc suit's as tough as cloth, and mesh is about as effective against melee weapons. The game - Book 1, at least - favors the bayonet, whatever the realities might say on the issue. On a more practical note, if you're part of a team working your way down a 5' wide 7' tall hall then a bayonet-equipped projectile or energy weapon has certain practical advantages over a swung melee weapon.

I'd rather have a rifle with a bayonet, sure.

Hmmmm, or a shotgun with a bayonet.

 

[Epee]

A bayonet on the end of a 4kg rifle is one heck of a penetrator assuming it is ridged and pointy enough. The weight; i.e. moving mass, is close to double what a spear would be.

 

[david.wendelken]

I thought this was interesting. Falling down to gain distance against the knife fighter plus the blocking effect on the shoes was clever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fjMpn7JCJ0

 

[david.wendelken]

I got to run down the keel of a Viking boat in an historical reenactment battle.

Great fun! I was able to take out every other person on each side of the boat with and then take the out the archer at the stern. The archer not only knew I was coming, he could (rightly!) tell I was personally coming for him. He panicked and couldn't nock his arrow.

Not all that different from using a cutlass in a starship corridor...

That said, if any one of those 18 people had known what to do I would have been bludgeoned like a baby seal.

Someone who knows what they are doing can move thru a group of close packed people faster than you would think possible and leave a real trail of carnage. Head shots would be hard to get because of the close distance and the intervening bodies.

 

[BwapTED]

That said, if any one of those 18 people had known what to do I would have been bludgeoned like a baby seal.

I make my living off the skins of baby seals.

 

[Carlobrand]

I thought this was interesting. Falling down to gain distance against the knife fighter plus the blocking effect on the shoes was clever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fjMpn7JCJ0

Assuming you don't shoot yourself in the foot.

 

[Ulsyus]

It's all very interesting, but in a Trav context a lot of these folk are wearing body armor of some sort. The vacc suit's as tough as cloth, and mesh is about as effective against melee weapons. The game - Book 1, at least - favors the bayonet, whatever the realities might say on the issue. On a more practical note, if you're part of a team working your way down a 5' wide 7' tall hall then a bayonet-equipped projectile or energy weapon has certain practical advantages over a swung melee weapon.

Up until recently most ballistic vests (cloth) was not a lot of protection against a good knife, as they'd penetrate the weave much as a high velocity our AP round would. Only relatively recently have makers been putting an anti-knife mesh into the mix, making some ballistic vests proof against low velocity rounds and knives (and shrapnel). Police are particularly interested in the mesh addition.

A lot of people also don't realize that a knife fight is often as bad as a gun fight... it's exceptionally easy to wind up with double kills. (When I was sparring regularly, we often trained with rubber knives, and chalked the edges.... and usually, it was mutual probably lethal strikes.)

I remember one course having to use marker pens and white t-shirts to bring the lesson home to the trainees. No-one escaped having several nasty black spots on their shirts at pretty crucial points on the torso, even the guys who'd previously done knife-specific training.

Just made everyone determined to be on the firepower end of the saying "don't bring a knife to a gunfight"

 

[Xerxeskingofking]

I've heard that several stab proof vests are in fact made of high quality chain mail that would not look out of place on a Viking, but packaged in a modern fabric vest.

sometimes, the old methods are old because they work.

 

[HG_B]

I've heard that several stab proof vests are in fact made of high quality chain mail that would not look out of place on a Viking, but packaged in a modern fabric vest.

sometimes, the old methods are old because they work.

They make suits for divers working with sharks too.

 

[mike wightman]

The steel is much higher quality - therefore stronger and lighter with no weak links.

 

[Ulsyus]

I haven't seen any, but have seen footage of it on divers. I imagine the metal is not just tougher and lighter, but that the links are tougher in that they're welded closed or such

 

[HG_B]

For vests:

How does a stab proof vest differ from a bullet proof vest?

Firstly most of our stab proof vests also offer ballistic protection. The difference between a ballistic only vest and a multi-threat vest (ballistic and stab), is usually a few extra layers of treated Kevlar®. There are a few popular methods of treating a vest to add stab protection. The two main ways are to treat Kevlar® directly with a high strength plastic or glue (similar to laminating paper, but with industrial high strength products). The second most popular way is to attach chain mail to the Kevlar® stopping edge weapons from penetrating. Both ways are equally effective methods for creating a stab proof vest, and provide similar results.

http://www.safeguardclothing.com/13-stab-proof-vest/

 

[david.wendelken]

I haven't seen any, but have seen footage of it on divers. I imagine the metal is not just tougher and lighter, but that the links are tougher in that they're welded closed or such

Medieval mail was welded or riveted closed. Modern renn-faire mail only has the ends of the rings butted together.

 

[HG_B]

Medieval mail was welded or riveted closed. Modern renn-faire mail only has the ends of the rings butted together.

"renn-faire mail" isn't what we're talking about. That is a costume. Not a real modern suit of chain.

 

[david.wendelken]

My father, an Army officer, did a tour of duty teaching ROTC at a small college back in the 60s.

He had to teach over-privileged and over-aged children what an infantry soldier actually did.

He told his first class of the day, "An infantryman's job is to occupy the same square foot of ground that the enemy does and kill them."

Just as he finished saying that, his sergeant, in full battle gear, burst thru the door into the classroom with a full battle cry! The sergeant was armed with a rifle with a bayonet fixed and lunged at one of the students sitting in the first row.

When everyone stopped moving, the student was leaning as far back in that chair as it was humanly possible to go and the bayonet tip was a 1/2" from the student's throat.

My father wiped his brow and exclaimed, "I've been drilling him for months. I wasn't sure he could stop!"

It was such an effective lesson that every student in the college had learned it by the end of the day. All of the students in his following classes had learned the lesson before they got into class. No one would sit in the first 4 rows!

Sad to say he would probably be court-martialed today.

 

[Ulsyus]

Sad to say he would probably be court-martialed today.

OH&S/WHS laws are a bitch these days, they take the fun out of everything.

Some lessons get drilled in, rammed home, until eveyone in the platoon is able to recite them without hesitation:

"The role of the Infantry is to seek out and close with the enemy, to kill or capture him, to seize and hold ground and repel attack, by day or by night, regardless of season weather or terrain."

Did too many push-ups not getting that perfectly correct the first few times many years ago...