Are bayonets obsolete in modern assault rifles?

R

Ruben Nasser

New member
The trend in assault rifles is to make them as small and light as possible, with ergonomic features to help offhand shooting and weapon control from all positions. The resulting carbine is very short and pretty much overloaded with pistol grips, knobs, handle, flash supressor, sling, elevated sights, and accessories like grenade launchers. Because of the weight limitations, it is also a rather flimsy rifle, with lots of plastic, aluminum, and light stamped parts, and full of heavy add-ons. I think trying to add a bayonet to this is pretty ridiculous, as the gun is not strong enough, and reach and handling are severely limited, making it almost useless. Much better is to drop your gun and reach for the pistol, knife, kukri, or machete on your side. What do you think?
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Ruben Nasser:
The trend in assault rifles is to make them as small and light as possible, with ergonomic features to help offhand shooting and weapon control from all positions. The resulting carbine is very short and pretty much overloaded with pistol grips, knobs, handle, flash supressor, sling, elevated sights, and accessories like grenade launchers. Because of the weight limitations, it is also a rather flimsy rifle, with lots of plastic, aluminum, and light stamped parts, and full of heavy add-ons. I think trying to add a bayonet to this is pretty ridiculous, as the gun is not strong enough, and reach and handling are severely limited, making it almost useless. Much better is to drop your gun and reach for the pistol, knife, kukri, or machete on your side. What do you think? [/quote]

Yep...if you've got the time I 'd use the pistol. The only advantage of the bayonet is reach. If I was dry and all I had was a knife, I wouldnt want to go against a bayonet. Bayonets are only used in extreme emergencys. If "they" are that close and you are still alive, it might be a good thing to have one stickin out the end of your gun.
 
The bayonet lost its real battlefield function in the American Civil War when faster loading, longer ranging rifles petty much ended the decisiveness of the bayonet charge.
Now it is mainly used for guard duty and crowd control, where it is is still an intimidating thing against unarmed people.
Bayonets today tend to be nifty short knives that the troops might find useful and can also stick on the end of their rifles if necessary.
 
Please remember I'm not talking about a strong, heavy long rifle like a military bolt action, Garand, M14, FAL, or G3; in those guns the bayonet really has a place (and you can se the rifle as a club if the need arises). But just imagine trying to defend yourself with a bullpup rifle or a scoped 14" M15 with grenade launcher!! These rifles are not strong enough to take the pounding that goes hand in hand with "bayonet fencing", and are very short and awkward to use in that role, not confidence inspiring at all!! Anybody that gets close enough with any sort of blade will beat your very short and awkward pike. Maybe you can scare some frightened civilians with it, but that's about it (although it's very easy to defeat somebody armed that way, since you can get so close).
 
Here's an anecdote. When I was in the Army, 1959-1961, Inf., we were doing some training in hand-to-hand combat and bayonet training... with our M1 Garands.

One evening, while we in the barracks cleaning weapons, polishing boots, etc., my Sgt. came in and sat down with several of us for a few minutes. He was original 82nd. Airborne, jumped at No. Africa, Sicily, Salnero, Normandy, and Remagen (sp?). As a career soldier, he had transfered from the 82nd., into the 187 Reg. Combat Team, Airborne, and made the last full regimental combat jump in Korea, the U.S. Army ever made.

I used to use a very sharp pointed pocket knife to at times, pick shrapnel from the backs of his legs when the tiny pieces worked their way to the top of his skin. He didn;t want to go to the infirmary for something as miniscule as that.

I asked him, "Sgt. Moore, do you really think that all this bayonet training is necessary??"

He said, "Well, the United States Army says you're gonna have bayonet training, you're gonna have bayonet training." He then got the very slightest of grins on his face and said, "As for me, when those mother phuckers got close enough for me to stick 'em, I shot 'em."

I never forgot that. FWIW. J.B.

[This message has been edited by Jay Baker (edited August 19, 2000).]
 
i have heard that Bayonets are still useful for insuring the dead are realy dead.

this is a great bayonet page: http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Quarters/2116/bayonets.htm

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>June 12, 1982, Falklands Islands war

3-Para mounts an assault on Mount Longdon. The battle on this heavily defended position, which was supposed to last until dawn, proves much tougher and longer than
expected. Mount Longdon and its surroundings are finally taken after hand-to- hand and bayonet fighting with the Argentine troops position by position. The British
casualties mount to 23 men, one of which, Sergeant Ian John McKay of 3-Para is later awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross, 47 more British are wounded. The Argentine
suffer over 50 dead and many more injured. 6 more British die shortly afterwards.

One of the common misconceptions about infantry combat is that the "bayonet charge is obsolete".

This comes from the mistaken notion that since we do not employ bayonets as high-visibility organized aspects of an attack that they are not needed as individual
capabilities. The bayonet was necessary during the early years of firearms because it was slow to reload muzzle loading weapons. The time could come when you were too
close to the enemy to stop and ram down a charge and patch then ball, since he could just stab you with a knife at this point. So we fixed knives to the end of our shoulder
weapons so when we got close we could engage in hand-to-hand combat until such time we were seperated far enough to reload safely. In fact, our nation owes its very
existence as a unified whole thanks to Col Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain's desperate bayonet charge (Fix Bayonets, Charge!...Fix Bayonets, Charge!)on Little Round Top
Hill when his men ran out of ammunition, but saved the Union army's left flank with their audacity. Watching the film "Gettysburg" would be a good "training event" to
drive home the technical reasons for the early rifle-bayonet interface, a close range weapon when reloading or in close. A bayonet charge by LTC Harold G. Cole's 101st
Airborne Division "Screaming Eagles" took the town of Carentan joining the two D-Day beach forces together and earned him a Congressional Medal of Honor. Or then
Captain Lewis Millett's bayonet charge in the Korean war, which earned him a CMH...[/quote]
 
If I'm not mistaken, in the Falklands example above, the paras were still carrying a real battle rifle - the FAL.

Now they're carrying that recalled bullpup thing in 5.56 that has a receiver so thin the gun malfunctions from the sides getting pressed in (do I have my story straight on that?). In any case, nothing you could reasonably attach a bayonet to.
 
The trick with the current-issue British rifle is, you leave one with a full mag behind and retreat 50 yards or so. Then when your enemy picks it up, you charge and kill him with your e-tool while he's trying to clear a jam. ;)

Seriously, the bayonet was obsolete in 1939 but there were still several times both sides went to the blade. It was obsolete again in 1950 yet there were some fights that went to the blade in Korea. Again, 1965 in Vietnam. The breechloader still needed it on occasion, the cartridge rifle still needed it, the bolt-action repeater still needed it, the self-loader still needed it, and the automatic rifle still needs it, though rarely.

radom's quite right; the rifle is often used for prying stuff open, knocking down barbed wire, etc. There's a good reason why modern rifles are a lot like 18th century muskets, in terms of length, weight, grips and stock, etc.
 
The big thing is this:

You may rarely need the bayonet in it's primary role, but the soldier will need a knife anyway, so why not make it attachable to his rifle? The modifications needed to a gun design to facilitate a bayonet are extremely minor and cheap.

The whole point is, why not?

It is obsolete for charging, but it's hardly pointless.

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I twist the facts until they tell the truth. -Some intellectual sadist

The Bill of Rights is a document of brilliance, a document of wisdom, and it is the ultimate law, spoken or not, for the very concept of a society that holds liberty above the desire for ever greater power. -Me
 
Never been in the military, so take this opinion with a grain of salt.
A good knife will never be obsolete on the battlefield. With the move to the moder version of the small, light, aluminum/plastic assault rifle, however, I think the bayonet is a thing of the past.
If I were arming our troops and had to stick with the M-4, I'd have no bayonets, but every troop would be issued one good fixed-blade knife and one good clip-on one-handed folder.

Hell, if I could do it, I'd have 'em all carrying M1A's and M21 Glocks. Everyone in every branch who had finished basic training, from the lowliest enlisted to the highest ranking general officers, would be required to carry the Glock in Condition One and two spare mags AT ALL TIMES WHEN IN UNIFORM. (I would also change the standard .45ACP milspec load to a flat point {truncated cone} 200 gr. FMJ bullet loaded to 950fps.)
Tankers and the like would be issued sub-gun versions of the M-16. This version would not include burst fire, just semi and full. Optionally, an MP-5 in 10mm might not be too shabby either.
Just my $.02 worth.

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Shoot straight & make big holes, regards, Richard at The Shottist's Center

[This message has been edited by 45King (edited August 20, 2000).]
 
"i have heard that Bayonets are still useful for insuring the dead are realy dead."

Yeah...hard for them to play 'dead' when they got 12inches of steel sliding into their ribcage or thigh. Plus the extra length of the rifle...be it an 16" M-16 or a 54" Garand gives you some stand-off distance. Why waste a bullet?

I like the bayonets personally..a good legth blade of carbon steel for $14 beats a good length blade of stainless anyday. MHOP.

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Satanta, the Whitebear
Sat's Realm: http://SatantasRealm.tripod.com/Entrypage/entrypage.html

My Disability petition: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/DisbHelp/petition.html
 
The bayonet is useful. Imagine you are in Mog and you are surrounded by many hostiles and your ammo supply is running low. What other choices do you have without one?
 
Dangus is right. The soldier needs a knife and it might as well be made to fit the rifle so it can be used as a bayonet in an emergency. But the knife will not be used for knife fighting, it will be used for digging, cutting branches, cutting rope and commo wire, opening ration boxes, etc., etc. It will be one of the most useful tools the soldier can carry.

As to the idea of knife fighting, no one in his right mind is going to jump up on a battlefield and challenge the enemy to a knife fight. And the idea of using a knife when out of ammo is equally silly. Just because you are out of ammo doesn't mean the enemy is. They will laugh like heck at you and your silly knife as they blow you into little pieces.

Jim
 
Dangus is right. The soldier needs a knife and it might as well be made to fit the rifle so it can be used as a bayonet in an emergency. But the knife will not be used for knife fighting; it will be used for digging, cutting branches, cutting rope and commo wire, opening ration boxes, cutting up a stray chicken when tired of MREs, etc., etc. It will be one of the most useful tools the soldier can carry.

As to the idea of knife fighting, no one in his right mind is going to jump up on a battlefield and challenge the enemy to a knife fight. And the idea of using a knife when out of ammo is equally silly. Just because you are out of ammo doesn't mean the enemy is. They will laugh like heck at you and your silly knife as they blow you into little pieces.

Jim
 
I got to Korea a year after the fighting ended. A month or so later, I had occasion to go up to the Army hospital at Yong Dong Po. While there, I noticed a rather small, dark-complected guy in a hospital robe. I asked an orderly who he was.

He told me that the guy was almost ready to be released to go back to Turkey. He had had numerous operations and physical therapy, from wounds suffered over a year before.

He had been found after a melee at the front, the only survivor of his unit. (Squad?) He was found beneath a pile of some 23 dead North Korean soldiers in a trench. While he may well not have killed them all, he had killed several of those on top of him with his knife after he ran out of ammo.

Whether his knife was a bayonet or not, I don't know. If a bayonet, whether or not it was affixed to his rifle, I don't know. I'm just glad it wasn't me in that trench.

Art
 
Although shooting the enemy is obviously Plan A when you're armed with a rifle, having the bayonet affixed gives you an instantly executable Plan B when the rifle goes "click" in close combat. Using the weapon that's already in your hands is a lot faster than trying to do a speed reload or a tap-rack-bang drill.

It is true, though, that as military rifles get stubbier and grow more attachments that they become less and less useful as improvised spears. I'd hate to have to do any bayonet fighting with that 14+ pound abortion the US military is trying to make its new infantry weapon.
 
Some of you are missing the point (pun intended). Most of the bayonet charges have broken the defensive stand through psychological threats. To have a bunch of the enemy (at close range mind you, don't want any Light Brigade charges) stand up and run at you screaming with a 12" knife on the end of a rifle scares the crap out of most folks and the stand breaks. If cool and calm ruled a battlefield, war would be very different. It doesn't. It is ruled by fear and rage. Big knives still scare folks. Think about it. I for one would rather be shot than ran through with a big knife.

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"Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag and begin slitting throats." H.L. Mencken
 
Post from BillX,

"Big knives still scare folks. Think about it"

I have thought about it you keep the knife and or bayonet and I'll keep a 16.

You lose.

Also think about this. You take a company of infantry with long bayonets on the rifles and I'll take a Platoon of Infantry dug in with 16's, 203's SAW and M-60's you come screaming. Again you lose.

Almost forgot when you're 30 yards out the claymores will be blown for anyone that's left.

Have a good day.

Turk

[This message has been edited by Turk (edited August 22, 2000).]
 
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