A VETERANS DAY QUESTION ABOUT KNIVES

GatorFlash1

GatorFlash1

Joined
May 28, 2012
Messages
3,189
I have a question for knife nuts and military historians.

What was the most widely used knife during the various US wars starting with the revolutionary war?

What kind of steels were used?

What was the most common blade shape during these wars?
 
You would need several sets of encyclopedias to answer that question correctly, taking a few hours to do it right.

Or you could go here. With about 69 million entries showing up for US military knives alone, no doubt you could find everything you want to know about specific dates of issue of knives, dates of use, variants or dedicated specimens to certain branches, types of steel used, handle materials, manufacturer/supplier lists, variants within a model, Rockwell hardness of blades by model, specialty knives issued, issued sheaths and their variants, blade finishes, life expectancy of a blade, and on a on.

https://tinyurl.com/yy8vk9mt

Rather than wait for a reply, you can cover thousands of pages in a couple of hours culling the info to find what you are looking for.

Robert
 
GatorFlash1 said:
I have a question for knife nuts and military historians.

What was the most widely used knife during the various US wars starting with the revolutionary war?

What kind of steels were used?

What was the most common blade shape during these wars?
Click to expand...

That is quite a question. Especially since prior to the late 19th century procurement was often a local matter, and knives were rarely an issued item and mostly made or purchased by individual soldiers. Even today, most of the knives in the military are privately acquired. So you are basically asking for the complete history of the world's knife industry spanning the last 250 years.

n2s
 
Most widely used? I'll bet it was this one.

Ec0qqmE.jpg
 
I can say that in my time in the Marine Corps in the mid-late 2000's most guys carried whatever cheap folded were sold at the PX. A lot were no name Chinese knives. As far as issued knives, if you carried a rifle with a bayonet stud accessible you were issued an Ontario Marine bayonet. If you carried any other weapon you were issues the Ontario Knives version of the Kabar fighting knife. This was the standard Marine Corps infantry, MARSOC or other high speed units may have been issued different knives
 
Thanks for the good info. I wonder what the most popular knife steel was for the various wars.
 
GatorFlash1 said:
Thanks for the good info. I wonder what the most popular knife steel was for the various wars.
Click to expand...

No doubt something from perhaps 1075 to 1095 in the recent past. Simple carbon (spring) steel. It was used in agricultural tools for years.
 
My Father used to work for the Smithsonian Institute in the 1980's and 90's. This was after being in the Coast Guard, the Army Infantry in WWII and 30 years of work for the Department of the Navy. He cataloged military hardware and uniforms from the Revolutionary War to present. I have seen the storage area for a small amount of the things that they had in the collection and it was an amazing quantity and variety. I think the answer to your question is huge but Coles books of military knives volumes 1 through 4 is a good place to start. It is $400 on Amazon.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top