- Joined
- Oct 25, 2004
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- 3,178
Disclaimer: I am not, nor claim to be, an expert (or even someone who is particularly skilled) in knife fighting, sword fighting, feces flinging, or any other combatative skillset. I'm just a guy who finds weapons and their uses interesting and is branching out from what I'm used to. (When my mother asked me why I was interested in traditional European martial arts, I told her that I was "diversifying.")
A while back I had the opportunity to read, "Get Tough," by Major W.E. Fairbairn, who taught various methods of hand-to-hand combat and more back in the day. While reading through the section on using the "smatchet," I was struck by how similar such a weapon would be to the AK Bowie or similarly-shaped knife. Granted, the AK Bowie is only single edged, and the smatchet has two edges, but honestly, a second edge on a blade of that size and weight wouldn't see much use; both weapons are too heavy to make fast inside backcuts in my opinion and none of the depicted smatchet techniques actually use the reverse edge.
The good news: I found that section in its entirety online if you're curious. Love the smatchet. There are some other interesting articles on that site as well. Please keep in mind that most of this was written during WWII or before; there is some terminology and racial epithets used that were considered appropriate during that time period. Take that part with a grain of salt.
The bad news: There isn't a whole lot there on the smatchet. Fairbairn was considered by many (not to mention several Allied governments) to be a master of the combat knife, and his message seemed to be: "A big and heavy knife is good. Hit them first." He didn't have a whole lot to say about it. I'm seeing patterns here - from what I can gather (accurately or not) the Ghurkas don't go through a whole lot of training with their khuks. That might be comparing apples or oranges though, as smatchets weren't used as household tools in most areas of the world.
What I'm gathering here is that with these larger knives - especially the ones lacking guards, but in no way limited to those - the best defense is a good offense. Were a person with a large, heavy knife to go on the defensive, an opponent with a lighter weapon - even if it were considerably shorter - could "snipe" the weapon hand and wrist with ease, and that's exactly what they'd probably be aiming for if they'd received any instruction in the subject. Were the person with the large, heavy knife to simply advance, attack, and land a hit, the fight would probably be over before it had really begun. I'll have to spar this one out more for sure but, again, I'm seeing patterns. I'm sure that the FMA folks (not to mention ninjas-in-training
) would hand my butt to me on a silver platter, and now that I think about it, I'd like to see the way in which they'd do it. Again, more sparring is required.
That's probably the first time in my life in which I asked people to give me a buttwhooping. AK Bowies bring out the worst in me.
Another intriguing aspect of this is that the illustrations only show unarmed enemies. I have seen mention that Fairbairn didn't have any good answers for how to take on a knife-wielding opponent barehanded (and with good reason: this is a tough thing to do successfully) and it may be that the idea here is to use a knife - instead of a gun - against an unarmed opponent to keep the noise down and intimidate them. I'd love to see his ideas on how to deal with a smaller, lighter blade - or a larger, heavier blade (a sword at that point) - with a blade of this size and weight. I've seen a couple of early manuscripts on dagger vs. sword European martial arts and while I'm sure that they were valid, the drawings can be hard to understand because there is no living history involved...everything we know now has been arrived at by studying drawings and sparring it out. For the sake of completeness, I'll post a link to one of those too, as it is truly fascinating reading and may help dispel the myth of Europeans bashing away mindlessly at one another for most of the last millenium:
I'll hit your groins so hard that you'll lose all your strength. (Check the "wrestling" section for details. The captions to the pictures are classics.
)
Before we come down too hard on Fairbairn and his contemporaries, bear in mind that the "modern" systems of fighting tend to base themselves on, if not downright copy, these earlier methods of down-and-dirty fighting. They were simple and easy to learn. They were effective. That's why they were taught as such. Fairbairn, Sykes, and others based their systems primarily on the dirty tricks of a multitude of other systems, most of them (but not all of them) eastern in origins. Also bear in mind that the saber was used in some way or another for hundreds of years in Europe, yet by the end, actual techniques were rendered down to seven slashes (eight by Italian thinking), three thrusts, and a couple of guards; a man could be made a competent saber fighter with comparatively little training.
Opinions are encouraged and welcomed. I deliberately placed this in this forum because there are more than a few folks interested in the weapon aspects of khuks or other HI products here and just about everyone here likes large knives, but if it needs to be moved elsewhere, I won't complain.
A while back I had the opportunity to read, "Get Tough," by Major W.E. Fairbairn, who taught various methods of hand-to-hand combat and more back in the day. While reading through the section on using the "smatchet," I was struck by how similar such a weapon would be to the AK Bowie or similarly-shaped knife. Granted, the AK Bowie is only single edged, and the smatchet has two edges, but honestly, a second edge on a blade of that size and weight wouldn't see much use; both weapons are too heavy to make fast inside backcuts in my opinion and none of the depicted smatchet techniques actually use the reverse edge.
The good news: I found that section in its entirety online if you're curious. Love the smatchet. There are some other interesting articles on that site as well. Please keep in mind that most of this was written during WWII or before; there is some terminology and racial epithets used that were considered appropriate during that time period. Take that part with a grain of salt.
The bad news: There isn't a whole lot there on the smatchet. Fairbairn was considered by many (not to mention several Allied governments) to be a master of the combat knife, and his message seemed to be: "A big and heavy knife is good. Hit them first." He didn't have a whole lot to say about it. I'm seeing patterns here - from what I can gather (accurately or not) the Ghurkas don't go through a whole lot of training with their khuks. That might be comparing apples or oranges though, as smatchets weren't used as household tools in most areas of the world.
What I'm gathering here is that with these larger knives - especially the ones lacking guards, but in no way limited to those - the best defense is a good offense. Were a person with a large, heavy knife to go on the defensive, an opponent with a lighter weapon - even if it were considerably shorter - could "snipe" the weapon hand and wrist with ease, and that's exactly what they'd probably be aiming for if they'd received any instruction in the subject. Were the person with the large, heavy knife to simply advance, attack, and land a hit, the fight would probably be over before it had really begun. I'll have to spar this one out more for sure but, again, I'm seeing patterns. I'm sure that the FMA folks (not to mention ninjas-in-training
) would hand my butt to me on a silver platter, and now that I think about it, I'd like to see the way in which they'd do it. Again, more sparring is required.That's probably the first time in my life in which I asked people to give me a buttwhooping. AK Bowies bring out the worst in me.
Another intriguing aspect of this is that the illustrations only show unarmed enemies. I have seen mention that Fairbairn didn't have any good answers for how to take on a knife-wielding opponent barehanded (and with good reason: this is a tough thing to do successfully) and it may be that the idea here is to use a knife - instead of a gun - against an unarmed opponent to keep the noise down and intimidate them. I'd love to see his ideas on how to deal with a smaller, lighter blade - or a larger, heavier blade (a sword at that point) - with a blade of this size and weight. I've seen a couple of early manuscripts on dagger vs. sword European martial arts and while I'm sure that they were valid, the drawings can be hard to understand because there is no living history involved...everything we know now has been arrived at by studying drawings and sparring it out. For the sake of completeness, I'll post a link to one of those too, as it is truly fascinating reading and may help dispel the myth of Europeans bashing away mindlessly at one another for most of the last millenium:
I'll hit your groins so hard that you'll lose all your strength. (Check the "wrestling" section for details. The captions to the pictures are classics.
)Before we come down too hard on Fairbairn and his contemporaries, bear in mind that the "modern" systems of fighting tend to base themselves on, if not downright copy, these earlier methods of down-and-dirty fighting. They were simple and easy to learn. They were effective. That's why they were taught as such. Fairbairn, Sykes, and others based their systems primarily on the dirty tricks of a multitude of other systems, most of them (but not all of them) eastern in origins. Also bear in mind that the saber was used in some way or another for hundreds of years in Europe, yet by the end, actual techniques were rendered down to seven slashes (eight by Italian thinking), three thrusts, and a couple of guards; a man could be made a competent saber fighter with comparatively little training.
Opinions are encouraged and welcomed. I deliberately placed this in this forum because there are more than a few folks interested in the weapon aspects of khuks or other HI products here and just about everyone here likes large knives, but if it needs to be moved elsewhere, I won't complain.
