Military personell: How do you use your fixed blade?

C

Claus

Joined
Jan 24, 2000
Messages
118
Hello, all soldiers, marines, airmen, grunts!

How do (did) you use your fixed blades out in the field? I´m collecting military daggers and bayonets and often wonder if there was more oil or blood or butter on.

During my time in the German Bundeswehr we were not allowed to take our "Kampfmesser" out in the "Pampa". "You only will loose it to take it home", our drill sergeant said. (I managed it later to "loose" it, however.)

For cutting, we helped ourselves with the table knife of our set of cutlery, and light woodwork we did with the field spade. But of course, I´ve never seen real operation.

How did you unsharpen your knifes in Nam, Kuwait, Somalia, Georgia, elsewere?

Thanks in advance!

Claus



------------------
A man without a knife you can´t really call a man.

My grandfather
 
Sorry Trent, this is unacceptable, even as a parody.


-Trent

--------------------------------------------------------
"A man who thinks his knife makes him a man has a small pee-pee"

[This message has been edited by davidb415 (edited 05-24-2001).]
 
Trent, while your post was no doubt intended to be humorous, I find it to be in extremely poor taste. I was raised to never hit, attack, or otherwise strike a woman. You obviously were not. In addition to not being a gentleman, you also apparently have no sense of what's appropriate humor and what isn't. These two attributes lead me to believe you are either a child, or an adult who simply chooses to behave as a child.

[This message has been edited by mgeoffriau (edited 05-24-2001).]
 
Trent,
If this is the kind of immature, stupid, and totally tasteless response you wish to give, then DO IT SOMEPLACE ELSE! It's morons like you that ruin it for the rest of us. If this was some kind of lame attempt at humor, then youare one sick SOB.

Paul
 
You know what, Trent? I was just gonna leave it at that, and let you go on your way, but your post pissed me off so much I'm back for some more. The fact that there are guys out there who get off from taking advantage of women makes me want to vomit. I don't know if you are one of them or just pretending, but that's not something to be joked about, so I'm going to assume that you are a sniveling wimp of a man. Sometimes I wish there was a way for "big, strong men" to understand the emotional wounds from being raped, beaten, or otherwise being taken advantage of by someone else. If your post really does display your feelings towards women, I can only trust in God that whether it's in this life or after, you'll get yours. It's not my place to take revenge for battered women, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna listen to you joke about it.

[This message has been edited by mgeoffriau (edited 05-24-2001).]

[This message has been edited by mgeoffriau (edited 05-24-2001).]
 
Hey Trent:

I don't know if you've been around here long, but this a forum from people around the world, many cultures, races, and genders. (Ok, not MANY genders, but at least 2 :-) ). Your post, whether it was supposed to be funny or not, is frankly offensive. Please refrain from these types of comments and make this a place that everyone can feel welcome. Also realize that what is posted on this (public) forum will influence people's perception of knife users and collectors, whether correctly or not.

thanks for reading,



------------------
William Callahan

"I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without
hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd
never expect it."
-Jack Handey

I'm one of those wierdos who likes Zytel.
 
Actually I intended this post as a critique of the glorification and collecting of "war knives." Since I've been a forumite I've seen several instances of this, most prominently by an apparently well-regarded maker who's website has a page showing off his collection of "death knives." It gets very ridiculous when we celebrate and glorify knives as weapons and feel good about it by pretending they're for good guys only, ie, "For self-defense only," or for "LE/military use only."

 
Trent,

It is not about collecting "death" knives. It is all about collecting military knives as artifacts for understanding and appreciating our common heretage and history. No one on this site does, or has ever, glorified death. If you stick around and you will eventually understand that knives in combat tend to be used almost exclusively for utilitarian purposes.

Listen and learn.

N2S


Edit note:
====================
Trent,
I apologies for my original tone on this post. The use of knives as weapons, is an appalling act of desparation, and certainly not something to be glorified. This post has been edited to remove unnecessary hostility.

N2S



[This message has been edited by not2sharp (edited 05-25-2001).]
 
Ah, well then, I guess that's that, huh? Your "critique" was still in extremely poor taste. Furthermore, more "military" knives are used for utilitarion purposes - opening crates, cans, digging holes, etc. I am not a veteran or active duty, but I would suspect that it's in fact extremely rare for military knives to be used as combat weapons, especially with modern combat. WWI certainly involved fairly widespread use of bayonets and the like, WWII much less so, of course jungle guerilla warfare differs, but still I would expect that very few soldiers made a habit of using their field knife as a weapon when they usually had a rifle and definately a pistol of some sort at their disposal.
 
Trent:

I agree that this is an issue. There was a recent thread on advertising, that talked about boker's latest add campain, and how it seemed to encourage violent activity. I still think your post was inapropriate, and I think you should edit it and apologize. It obviously offended several people. Course, I can't tell you what to do, that's ultimately your decision. I do look forward to a rational dicussion of the issue you brought up.



------------------
William Callahan

"I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without
hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd
never expect it."
-Jack Handey

I'm one of those wierdos who likes Zytel.
 
Sorry to offend everyone it's just that after seeing a friend of mine's father (former Green Beret and POW ) almost in tears while candidly telling me about his experiences using a knife in Vietnam I think the "how did you unsharpen your knife" and "more blood, oil, or butter?" questions are incredibly offensive! I don't think war is a fun topic sorry, so let's not pretend it is! I was trying to highlight that, sorry y'all didn't get it!
 
Claus, I must apologize for what Trent thought was some type of humor.
Trent, what Claus wanted was answers from professional military personnel, this of course leaves you on the sidelines.
Claus,yea I know I spelled Fallschirmjager wrong but hey I was working from memory at the time.
I currently am using a Strider WB and a Super Leatherman and what ever folder is in my pocket. I would add a cut down US machette if going someplace that I thought I would need it. This I have found to be just about all I need for my blade needs. Take care.

[This message has been edited by Fallschrimjager (edited 05-24-2001).]
 
Claus,

Good topic! We often get questions asking about what such and such a unit carried in the field, but we seldom discuss how the knives were actually used.

N2S

 
I don't know about PRE-WW2 but I have talked to WW2 Marines especially who killed with thier knives.They weren't over supplied with ammo.
The gulf war was different.MANY it turns out, that gave up,1000 men would be guarded by 6-10 men,some one in the bunch would get stupid and grab the guys M-16.his buddy couldn't fire,so they kept one hand on the gun while drawing thier knife to -- change his mind.
 
I entered this a little late to see what Trent wrote, but that's not why I'm posting anyways. I'm too young to have seen combat in any of the major fields of war, having only entered military service at the start of the Gulf War.

Out in the field, I usually had 2 knives on me. A SAK and the standard issue bayonet. As I mentioned before in some other thread, the bayonet was too blunt to cut anything and too filthy to spread butter. But sometimes we would use it to help dig our shell scrapes and foxholes (most especially when hacking out small enclaves for the candles or the grenade hole). The SAK was slightly more useful. Opening up meals (canned rations, not MREs like you lucky blokes in US), cutting nylon cord, hemp, sandbags, hessian mesh, rope, etc.

Later on during jungle navigation exercises, we were issued one machete per recon group to help us to hack our way through dense secondary undergrowth. The machete was a little better than the bayonets and could be sharpened a little, though I still preferred the Malaysian parang that my friend gave me. During that time I also carried the SOG SEAL 2000 as my primary fixed blade (though the ubiquitous bayonet was still hanging from my belt). It wasn't as useful as the machete when it came to clearing a path and actually saw very little use in favour of the machete.

Well, that is so far my experience with blades during my short stint in the military. Hope that answers your question Claus.
 
my post here was pointless, so I've deleted it...

The thread seems to be picking back up in the original direction very well though!


[This message has been edited by Elvislives (edited 05-25-2001).]
 
Dear fellows,

first I have to apologise. I didn´t intend to hurt anyones feelings or to devalue ones memories. I feel very sorry having caused irritation among us forumties.

I know very well how ugly war is - I´ve seen the graveyards of Verdun and Utha Beach and have spoken with veterans of WWI and WWII. My hometown Schweinfurt lives still in the memory of the air raids of´44 and ´45. And we are proud of our war memorial remembering the German AND American victims.

I just seached infos about the practical value of knives in the field, knowing that there would be more wood- and soil- and foodwork (that was why I wrote "unsharpen") rather than killing.

By coincidence, I carry today the knife, my grandfather gave to me with his words "a man without a knife you can´t really call a man". It´s a 3 1/3" pocket knife with a clip blade and a pen blade - the most common pattern in Germany. For grandpa, being a man meant to be prepared to work, to help and to supply and part food. And the type of his (and my) knife proves, that he didn´t try to impress nor to threaten someone with the knife.

Fallschirmjager, you spelled your name quite well; correct is Fallschirmjäger, but the ä (meaning ae) is a special German letter, you won´t have on your keyboard.

Thank you to all forumties, sharing their experiences with me.

Claus

 
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