Are bayonets supposed to be sharp?

I always saw the bayonet coming from an era long gone, when your battle rifle only afforded you one shot and a minutes worth of reloading. To me, having a 2' long pointy piece of steel covering my butt should the need arise to defend or attack whilst in a reload or just fired, would be a gawd send.

Modern warfare has made the bayonet all but useless, but from what one USMC DI told me, "It's stilled used to train soldiers, as its good cardio to work a bayonet dummy all day and it instills a killer instinct".

Not sure about a that but it makes sense. Watching someone perish at the end of you bayonet instead of through you holosight would be rather gritty, I think.

Butt stroke, parry, thrust.

Oh my...........

Moose
 
KILL, KILL, KILL WITH THE COLD BLUE STEEL! Marines and Soldiers without bayonets are like fighter aircraft without a gun. It was a hard lesson in Vietnam that our fly boys learned. Hopefully our boots on the ground will never have to get that education.
 
Rhinoknives1 said:
Its been years since i read it , The book about WWI, "All quiet on the western front" talks about the german Engineers bayo that had the root saw on the top for digging in a machine gun nest. The narrator in the book says that any kraut found with one of those Bayos was never taken prisoner and shot on the spot because the wound it would inflict would never heal.
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You'll also find from the book that the entrenching tool/hand shovel was a better trench weapon than the bayonet. Hackin' your way through the enemy.
 
upnorth said:
It has 92 molded into the back.
Too lazy to set up another pic. It says ''Wechner AG CH-6415 Arth 92'' on the lower back of the frog. Yeesh, it looked like something from the 60's to me, I've never really examined anything but the actual bayonet itself. And it sits in a box as years go by. Kind of neat to look at now and then though.
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I have one too, and it certainly is a beautiful piece. I don't know what kind of edge the stainless blade would take, but mine looks like it was sharpened at one time. (It won't cut hot butter now.) I'll post pics up later tonight.

~Chris
 
GIRLYmann said:
The M1873 Trowel Bayonet
333.full.jpg

http://www.nps.gov/spar/historyculture/production-trapdoors.htm
is an excellent example of sharp military minds...
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Now that is a gut shovel.....
 
I love the trowel bayonet. They ran into a lot of trouble with idiots trying to dig with it while it was still on the gun, though.
 
TwinStick said:
No, they are NOT supposed to be sharpened. (SP5-US ARMY) He said that he also sharpened his, bad idea, when he used it, it actually cut into the ribs of the man he used it on & he could not get it out & he himself almost got killed because of it.
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That is what "they" told me in Basic at Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri, in 1956.
 
leghog said:
You'll also find from the book that the entrenching tool/hand shovel was a better trench weapon than the bayonet. Hackin' your way through the enemy.
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I have a few old Russian & Soviet shovels WWI & WWII with the edges sharpened. I talked with a older russian man that came in to my store and saw the shovels sitting in the corner. His eyes lit up and he told me that was at Stalingrad.

He said those shovels are all that some of us had to fight with, when the german partol would come around, we would spring out of our hiding places in the snow and hack them up with our shovels. Then we took their rifles, boots, food and everything else the had. Then some of us had rifles.
 
orca8589 said:
I have one too, and it certainly is a beautiful piece. I don't know what kind of edge the stainless blade would take, but mine looks like it was sharpened at one time. (It won't cut hot butter now.) I'll post pics up later tonight.

~Chris
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I think that the main reasons that I kept this one is because it has a certain elegance, if that makes any sense. It is zero maintenance, looks good, feels good, and I have always been a big blade junkie, more or less.
 
dakotared said:
Now that is a gut shovel.....
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The British used something similar back in the Fur Trade era up here. I believe that they were listed as Dags, short for dagger maybe. Anyway, they were spooky blades believe me. I would dearly love to find one while swinging the detector. They may have been listed or called Beaver Tail dags also. I'll see if I can find a picture. This is what they looked like up here. I know a guy that found one in Alberta. If the French goods were attracting native trade, the British would buy from the same supplier or make the item themselves. They did this with the trade axe.

http://frenchinwisconsin.com/2012/09/hand-dags-or-dagues-this-is-a-knife/
 
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upnorth said:
The British used something similar back in the Fur Trade era up here. I believe that they were listed as Dags, short for dagger maybe. Anyway, they were spooky blades believe me. I would dearly love to find one while swinging the detector. They may have been listed or called Beaver Tail dags also. I'll see if I can find a picture. This is what they looked like up here. I know a guy that found one in Alberta. If the French goods were attracting native trade, the British would buy from the same supplier or make the item themselves. They did this with the trade axe.

http://frenchinwisconsin.com/2012/09/hand-dags-or-dagues-this-is-a-knife/
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The British only used dags as trade items to the best of my knowledge. What they really used themselves were spontoons. Enlisted men would use bayonets when advancing to melee but the bayonet's purpose was just to turn a musket into a spear. Since officers directed the shooting, they didn't need to carry a musket, and thus could afford to carry a dedicated polearm.

VAFO566_602_627spontoonshalberf_exb.jpg
 
asked a vet of Bosnia (twice) and Afghanistan with Canadian Army. He was told to dull his sharpened M7 as it "violated Geneva Convention" for Bosnia - He said nobody cared in Afghanistan! A very few bayonets do always seem to be sharp and pics from WWI show Brits sharpening their bayonets in what look like propaganda pics - WWI Canadian Ross bayonets were deliberately sharpened by official order to improve penetration through great coats etc. on Western Front. So if it's been sharpened OK but if it's old, or stock dull leave it be. Also contemplate the comments on metallurgy and function of bayonet. Most steel in them will not hold and edge as too soft, a RC60 ish bayonet would snap I think pretty easily
 
Very interesting and valid info
I have an 1891 Argentine Mauser Bayonet/short sword - also unsharpened. I also have a 1796 Prussian Calvary saber ( the French protested it was too vicious a weapon for warfare lol). Reading a book on how to use a saber from an English master of the period - he says if someone knows how to use a bayonet it can beat the saber. I also have a boar spear which is very sharp. There is an art to spear fighting too. I am going to sharpen the bayonet to enable slashing and using the rifle as a spear - one lucky cut can save your life against a saber. As far as getting stuck- should have a backup for all main weapons - if using your foot does not free the blade from the ribs..... Not likely to be in this situation even when the apocalypse comes, but solingen knife steel is the best in the world and 2ft of it with a razor edge can save a lot of problems - start the arterial bleeding and deal with the next opponent while the first one is trying to stop the bleeding - then run them all through to make sure at the end. Individual choice I suppose. And yes. A quality edge is a labor of love and a lot of careful work
 
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