the US Navy in the early days issued the Elgin cutlass pistol for use by boarding parties...a knife on a handgun isnt new at all, and seen a fair bit of use when everything fired a single shot and had a slow reload. The pritchard bayo was made for trench warfare, and the melees in close confines that ensued in raiding the hun trenches in the middle of the night. They were practical solutions at the time and gave the owner other options than using
the handgun as a blunt impact weapon...which can damage it.