There have been a lot of good and well considered points brought up in this thread — really well considered points. I’m going to toss in a few thought of my own, most of which are in agreement with things that have already been said.
When I was in the Marine Corps, my job was to sneak and peek. Consequently, I went to several survival/SERE schools. Back then (in the sixties) they were called EE&S schools, and I’m sure some things have changed since then, but I imagine that most of the principles are still the same. One thing the instructors were very positive about was knives. Positive, but not in agreement: every single one of them had a different idea of what was the best type of knife to use (not that we had a lot of choices back then), and how best to use it. One thing they seemed to agree on though, was don’t use it if you don’t have to in an evasion situation, because it leaves tell-tale marks. In a survival situation though, it’s a different story. In a survival situation you’re depending on your knife for almost everything we talk about on this board, such as shelter making, traps, fires, food, etc.. Oh, and digging. They pointed out that you’d be using it for everything from digging holes to digging grubs out of wood. Thicker, stronger blades are recommended here.
Some instructors advocated shorter blades, like the pilot’s survival knife, some were sold on longer blades like the Ka-Bar, and one preached machete’s, even for snowy terrain. Reliable was something they all preached. Forget fancy: strong, simple and reliable is what you want; that knife can be your life.
I carried, at various times, all kinds of knives. Had one of the pilot’s survival knives for awhile. I liked it well enough, but it wasn’t perfect (for me). Carried a Ka-Bar for almost nine years and, while I thought it was a very good knife, it wasn’t perfect, either. Then I traded one of the guys for an East German (if I remember correctly — definitely Soviet Block though) knife that I really liked. It was about six inches long, probably about 3/16th of an inch thick, and uglier than sin. There was no pretense of fit and finish on that thing: it looked like it had been punched out of a plate of steel, really roughly ground, and had some kind of plastic/hard rubber slab scales pinned on. The guards were just punched out of thinner metal (al la Ka-Bar). I’ve never seen another quite like it since, but it was my favorite. That sucker was strong, and just made for really tough use. It would have been perfect for SERE situations. I don’t know who “appropriated” it, but I hope it served them as well as it did me.
All this has given me some pretty definite ideas of what I think a SERE/survival knife should be. Remember, all of us will have different opinions on what constitutes a knife of this type: here are mine. I want a knife with a blade of about six inches, around 3/16th thick, with a blade width of 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 inches, no fuller, drop point, solid angled guards top and bottom (we used to bend the guards on out Ka-Bars, and it made a world of difference in handling), micarta handle slabs, a protruding pommel, and I’d want this beast made out of 1095. This thing would be kind of a cross between a BK-2, a Ka-Bar, the pilot’s survival knife and some of the things I’ve seen from some of our makers here. Actually, I rather like the Warthorn that Mistwalker designed, but it’s not quite there.
Sorry if this was long and rambling. I was watching a football game while I wrote it.
By the way, if anyone knows what the East German knife might have been (there were a number of them floating around back then), please let me know.
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