Having just cut off the top part of the guard on my Camillus Navy Mark II (kabar USMC ....) I wonder why it was there in the first place. The newer version of the Ka Bar , the Next Generation military knife, does not have it for example nor do many of the modern general purpose /hunting knives
My understanding is that the design came from a general pupose knife with long history (aka Kill A BeAR story)and that the only design change for the military was to lengthen the blade somewhat (How much??).
So two questions
1. Why would a general purpose knife have a top guard like that- which seems to be in the way of using the knife for general purpose work (and does not protect the hand from the blade which the bottom guard does)?
2. How close is the Navy Mark II design to the original civilian knife?
My understanding is that the design came from a general pupose knife with long history (aka Kill A BeAR story)and that the only design change for the military was to lengthen the blade somewhat (How much??).
So two questions
1. Why would a general purpose knife have a top guard like that- which seems to be in the way of using the knife for general purpose work (and does not protect the hand from the blade which the bottom guard does)?
2. How close is the Navy Mark II design to the original civilian knife?