Hawks still a viable weapon of war

EngrSorenson said:
I don’t doubt he has an opinion, but we don’t have much in the way of a first hand account. I sincerely doubt the US military would share the sentiment that a tomahawk is a viable weapon. Tool? Sure, they are versatile tools. I’m just guessing here, but I don’t think the military trains its soldiers in tomahawk combat. Tomahawk for door breaching? Maybe.

The whole thing is silly anyway. If I killed a modern combatant with a flintlock, does that make a flintlock viable? Of course not.

the tomahawk as a viable weapon on a battlefield is history.
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We thought tanks were obsolete. We thought trench war was history. too. 2022 Russian invasion and use of drones changed a lot. Getting ammo to the front line sometimes could be impossible due to enemy drones.
Hand-to-hand combat is part of that war.
Gruesome war footage. https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/1hrs6oz/close_knife_fight_between_a_russian_and_a/?rdt=62638
 
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crbnSteeladdict said:
We thought tanks were obsolete. We thought trench war was history. too. 2022 Russian invasion and use of drones changed a lot. Getting ammo to the front line sometimes could be impossible due to enemy drones.
Hand-to-hand combat is part of that war.
Gruesome war footage. https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/1hrs6oz/close_knife_fight_between_a_russian_and_a/?rdt=62638
Click to expand...
Remember what happened to the 60-mile long column of Russian tanks and trucks invading Ukraine from Belarus? One U.S. general called it "a target rich environment." It was intended to scare Ukraine into surrendering. It never reached Kyiv.

8SR
 
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Square_peg1 said:
Remember what happened to the 60-mile long column of Russian tanks and trucks invading Ukraine from Belarus? One U.S. general called it "a target rich environment." It was intended to scare Ukraine into surrendering. It never reached Kyiv.
8SR
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Russian tactics evolve every day. Worst officers got killed and battle hardened soldiers got promoted. Tanks are used daily by both sides.
 
crbnSteeladdict said:
We thought tanks were obsolete. We thought trench war was history. too. 2022 Russian invasion and use of drones changed a lot. Getting ammo to the front line sometimes could be impossible due to enemy drones. https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/1hrs6oz/close_knife_fight_between_a_russian_and_a/?rdt=62638
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Surely desperate times call for desperate measures and you use what you have on you. If “viable” means “it could be used in a last ditch effort”, then sure- your breaching tool is a viable last ditch weapon. So is a rock or a shovel.

OP started off this whole thing with some army tomahawk throwing competition, as if it was anything more than a sporting event.

There’s a lot of high hopes and big dreams on tomahawks still being a legitimate weapon of war, but it’s not. We know this because if it was, every infantry soldier would carry one.
 
EngrSorenson said:
Surely desperate times call for desperate measures and you use what you have on you. If “viable” means “it could be used in a last ditch effort”, then sure- your breaching tool is a viable last ditch weapon. So is a rock or a shovel.

OP started off this whole thing with some army tomahawk throwing competition, as if it was anything more than a sporting event.

There’s a lot of high hopes and big dreams on tomahawks still being a legitimate weapon of war, but it’s not. We know this because if it was, every infantry soldier would carry one.
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This is just fun competition cause they carry them. In real war close quarter combat, I seriously doubt any of them would throw a tomahawk. If you examine Lagana Tomahawk it much more than Francisca thrower. Study Battle of Bakhmut. Teams doing house to house, apartment building to apartment building, floor to floor combat. Getting stuck in one place for many hours without chance to get more ammo. Sometimes getting stuck and hiding from overwhelming force
 
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The francisca was designed to be thrown. There are numerous other examples through history of thrown weapons.
 
Been absent for a good while here on BF, this one caught my attention. Tomahawks are *cool* and I think most of us would agree on that. I've been spending time outside comparing tomahawks to other weapons and tools. I haven't really gotten into a tomahawk fight, if I do I'll letcha know how it turned out, but as far as tool usage I do have something to write on.

Most tomahawks have a thinner bit profile and will bite wood deeper than a hatchet, but the tradeoff is that they are less capable for splitting and they don't chip out the wood so easily. This is not too much of an issue with good technique and realistically sized sticks. Hatchets are shorter but heavier, and are a bit better at wood work. I have an easier time with accuracy using a hatchet, but wouldn't have much of an issue with taking a tomahawk for some light work either since you can always choke up on the handle. I would 100% choose something with a flat back or a hammer poll on the back side, having the ability to do some light hammering is very useful for setting stakes.

One of the big things about traditional tomahawk has always been preached is "If you break the handle in the field, you can always craft another one." That's malarkey, yeah you probably could, I'm sure the most elite here among us have, but crafting a Slip Fit handle to go all the way through the eye is going to take a ton of time and work and you'd be better off wedging a temporary handle in, just like you'd do with a hatchet. I have never needed to separate the head from the handle and use the head of the axe in my hand, I carry two knives for smaller work. I'm never concerned about the little extra weight of a hatchet, if it's going to make my trip easier I'll bear an extra pound. Lord knows I could lose a couple myself and be fine.

We live in a world today where even firearms are getting to be less relevant, fighting is being done with aircraft, vehicles, drones and bombs. I never joined up and went overseas, I'm more of an outdoorsman than warrior. All of my experience is vicarious through friends and through what personal training I have. I've done some hanging log drills with tomahawk, machete, hatchet, knife, and club. Axes of any sort are positively devastating when they connect, but they are much more difficult to score a good hit with when the target is moving. I found hatchet slightly easier to land a hit with than tomahawk due to the shorter handle, but much harder to recover if I fell short or missed. Tomahawks are really fast, have better reach, and can change direction quick, so you can get out of the danger zone and line up for another hit more easily. Safe to say the tomahawk was designed as a secondary weapon with utility functions and the hatchet as a tool. I have a better time with machetes than either when it comes to defensive use due to the larger sharp area. Overall, with the realistically miniscule chance I'll need to actually fight with a tomahawk, I'd choose a hatchet for the utility of it.

It's OK just to enjoy something. For me, a tomahawk is really fun to chop stuff with and throw, but not something I'd carry into war these days. I guess you never know what the battlefield of tomorrow brings, though.
 
The punch line is the best part- the only one who died was the guy with the hatchet.
 
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