Bayonet
History
(From
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
A
bayonet is a knife- or dagger-shaped weapon designed to fit on
or over the muzzle of a rifle or similar weapon. It is a close
combat weapon.
Its
evolution can be traced to a certain extent to a fortuitous accident.
In the mid-17th century irregular conflicts of rural France, the
peasants of the Southern French town of Bayonne, having run out
of powder and shot, rammed their long-bladed hunting knives into
the muzzles of their primitive muskets to fashion impromptu spears,
and by necessity created an ancillary weapon that was to influence
Western European infantry tactics until the early 20th century.
The
benefit of such a dual-purpose arm contained in one was soon apparent.
The early muskets fired at a slow rate (about a round per minute
when loading with loose powder and ball), and were unreliable.
Bayonets provided a useful addition to the weapon-system when an
enemy charging to contact could cross the musket's killing ground
(a range of approx 100 yards/metres at the most optimistic) at
the expense of perhaps only one volley from their waiting opponents.
A foot long bayonet (extending to a regulation 17 inches (approx
43 centimetres) during the Napoleonic period, on a 6 foot (almost
2 meter) tall musket achieved a reach similar to the infantry spear,
and later halberd, of earlier times.
Early
bayonets were of the "plug" type. The bayonet had a round
handle that fit directly into the musket barrel. This naturally
prevented the gun from being fired.
Later "socket" bayonets
offset the blade from the muzzle. The bayonet attached over the
outside of the barrel with a ring-shaped socket, secured on later
models by a spring-loaded catch on the muzzle of the musket barrel.
Many
socket bayonets were triangular in order to provide sideways stability
of the blade without much increase in weight. This design of bayonet
did not include a handle to use the blade apart from the gun.
18th
and 19th century military tactics included various massed bayonet
charges and defences. The British Army was particularly known for
its bayonet use, although towards the early 19th century and the
flowering of Napoleonic warfare, the primacy of regular and speedy
volley-fire saw the British eclipse their opponents in line to
line infantry combat.
There
are rumours among old (pre-World War I) soldiers of exotic bayonet
techniques, almost as complex and involved as sword-fighting. Supposedly,
rather than just the modern simplified blocks and thrusts, there
were also cuts, counters and disarms, in which a sliding block
would lead to an attack or disarmament. Supposedly, these techniques
also taught use of edge and point, and special vulnerabilities
such as wrists, ankles, neck, brachial and femoral arteries. Further,
all types of moves are said to have been practised in every orientation,
and relative position of the two fighters' weapons, in training
methods similar to advanced sword-fighting. These techniques were
possible because of the long periods of continued training of the
professional armies before this period. Some old French training
manuals from the 1850s survive to the present day and scans of
them posted online do appear to support this contention.
A late 19th century Prussian bayonetIn the Geneva Accords
on Humane Warfare, triangular and cross-sectional bayonets were outlawed because
the wounds they produce do not close easily, and were said to be inhumane, though
such designs are, despite this, not uncommon even today.
Most
modern bayonets have a fuller (visible on the top half of the blade
shown above), which is a concave depression in the blade designed
to reduce the weight and increase the stiffness of the blade; it
also allows air into the wound it produces, breaking the vacuum
and making the bayonet easier to withdraw after a stabbing attack
with it and less prone to getting stuck in the wound.
Even
in modern warfare, bayonets are still used as weapons because,
although most combat occurs at a diswhitece, troops are always
required to close with an enemy to "mop-up". A bayonet
also remains useful as a utility knife, and as an aid to combat
morale. Despite the limitations of the bayonet, it is still issued
in most armies and most armies still train with them. The modern
sawback U.S. M9 Bayonet, officially adopted in 1984, is issued
with a special sheath designed to double as a wire cutter. Some
production runs of the M9 have a fuller and some do not, depending
upon which contractor manufactured that batch and what the military
specs were at the time. The M9 Bayonet replaces the M7 Bayonet
of the 1960s, though in US Marine Corps use, the Ka-bar fighting
knife of WWII is still issued. As of summer 2004, the US Marine
Corps is also issuing small quantities of new bayonets of a different
design from the M9, with an 8" Bowie knife-style blade and
no fuller, manufactured by Ontario Knife Company of Ontario, New
York.
Modern
bayonets are often knife-shaped with handles and a socket, or permanently
attached to the rifle as with the SKS. Depending on where and when
a specific SKS was manufactured, it may have a permanently attached
bayonet with a knife-shaped blade (Russian, Romanian, Yugoslavian,
early Chinese), or a cruciform (late Chinese) or triangular (Albanian)
spike-style bayonet of the type outlawed by the Geneva Accords,
or no bayonet at all.
The
push-twist motion of fastening the modern bayonet has given name
to several connectors and contacts including the BNC ("Bayonet
Neill-Concelman") connector.
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