"Firearms as a Melee Weapon" Topic

"The introduction of firearm change the way we bold apes manifesting our will upon each other; no more relying on weak human or animal muscles, the firearm driving projectile is faster, longer and deadlier than any bow, spear, or sling. While the firearm is doing good job in its intended duty, it has been and still is used as a melee weapon in certain conditions. Whether it a pointy bayonet attached at its front end or savagely butt-stroking by its rear side, there is still a great deal of options to do without aiming and squeezing the trigger of your firearm. In this article of the continuing FWS Armory serial, we'll be diving into the world of firearms being used as a melee weapon!

As a FWS contributor author, I'm more or less bound to neutrality representing topics and weapons, and not siding with one nationality or another. In this FWS Armory article you may notice the disproportion representation of Israeli-made weapons and concepts. I don't know whether my homeland is indeed leading in the field of guns' melee usage or simply my knowledge about Israeli arsenal is wider than that of the foreign goods… but anyway, it isn't my intent to steal some nation's thunder or toot one's own horn…"

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Amicalement
Armand

Well we were issued bayonets for a reason. Just in case you have to get down & dirty, up close & personal with your enemy.

Umm…?

Well we were issued bayonets for a reason.

Opening your rations?

Whether it a pointy bayonet attached at its front end or savagely butt-stroking by its rear side, there is still a great deal of options … without aiming and squeezing the trigger …

Many modern combat firearms are unsuitable for butt-stroking as a combat expedient. It may still be done (note the "expedient" bit) but a large portion of current service weapons have not been designed with this potential in mind. Most bullpups are not appropriate for butt-stroking, and many weapons with plastic or carbon "furniture" are likely to be rendered un-serviceable (ie: broken) by vigorous whackings of any sort.

Just in case you have to get … up close & personal with your enemy.

My observation is that retention of the bayonet on many, if not most, modern military firearms is largely a symbolic gesture. Not that the symbolism does not have practical value, but symbolic none-the-less.

The visible bayonet is a visible threat … a visible message that any close contact may lead to you losing some blood (a useful message when confronting angry crowds of non-combatants), and/or a visible message that we (the guys with the shiny blades) are dead-fncking serious about messing you up (a useful message when confronting enemy combatants with less-than-full resolve to stand and fight).

The likelyhood of actually using the things for more than their symbolic value is diminishingly small. At least that is my reading of combat accounts since about 1960.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

I wonder if that guy's name is Ishmael.

@Mark 1

I remember briefing Lt Gen Sir Jack Kiszely. I seem to recall his Tumbledown story went something like "When I bayoneted my third Argentinian I realised that as Company Commander I might be getting over-involved" or words to that effect.

Arme-blanche – commitment – maximal war-face.

Gun team trained onto enemy. Fix bayonets! Change mags and affix. Lay smoke. Assault calmly and measuredly.

Hopefully they'll have legged-it before you get onto their position.

"Many modern combat firearms are unsuitable for butt-stroking as a combat expedient. It may still be done (note the "expedient" bit) but a large portion of current service weapons have not been designed with this potential in mind."

The soldiers are lucky the design committees haven't built a shovel into the stock (although that might make for a good melee weapon… ;-)

Where do you get your info from? The bayonet is still considered an operatioal weapon by us Brits.

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This may not be upto date but we are not in too many wars at the moment.

'butt-stroking'

That is to say- quiet at the back, there!

Opening your rations?,

Actually they are not that good at that … But can be used if needed. Of course they could work on the MRE plastic, etc., containers/pouches. Just fine.

Many modern combat firearms are unsuitable for butt-stroking as a combat expedient. It may still be done (note the "expedient" bit) but a large portion of current service weapons have not been designed with this potential in mind. Most bullpups are not appropriate for butt-stroking, and many weapons with plastic or carbon "furniture" are likely to be rendered un-serviceable (ie: broken) by vigorous whackings of any sort.

Yes … Agree …

I remember briefing Lt Gen Sir Jack Kiszely. I seem to recall his Tumbledown story went something like "When I bayoneted my third Argentinian I realised that as Company Commander I might be getting over-involved" or words to that effect.

I had heard similar …

The bayonet is still considered an operatioal weapon by us Brits.

We were briefed that when I was in the 101 by a UK Officer who had served in the Falklands. He was "pleased" to announce that the bayonet was still useful, etc. Then related this in the AAR he gave us.

As both a Rifle PL and later Mech Co. Cdr, bayonets were normally issued for certain operations. But generally as a Co Cdr. I kept them in the Arms Rooms until I thought we would need them. E.g. if we were to deploy to a combat zone, etc.

That being said, most of my troops carried some sort of combat or survival knife regardless. Even a few a combat tomahawk, they got on the open market.

I carried a USAF Survival Knife. But if need be I would have even carried both. You can't effectively mount any type of knife on your rifle unless it is a bayonet specifically made for that weapon.

E.g. we were issued Remington 870 Assault Shot Guns for certain special missions, etc.,. They had a bayonet lug but for the older version of the bayonet not the M9 IIRC we were issued.

Also a bayonet can be used without being mounted on your rifle. Just like any other knife. We were taught some close combat training including Sentry Removal from behind. You may has seen something like that in the movies.

Come up from behind …

Pull the sentry into you and place your hand over his/her mouth & nose … To silence any noise, scream, etc.

Rapidly push the blade into his/her kidney and twist.

Drag the body away and lay in the bushes, etc.

I taught my troops that as a Company Cdr and other techniques as I was trained as an ROTC Cadet. Where I also was selected to be the Primary Instructor for some Close Combat Training.

Yes close combat can be very messy I'd think. Glad I never had to do it for real. And as we were told that dead bodies could urinate, etc., when killed quickly like that. As I said … messy …

One of my NCOs told me in Vietnam. He took out a VC/NVA sentry with his helmet. By cracking his skull and beating him to death with it …

Bottom line for me … better to have a bayonet/close combat weapon than not …

Quite apart from the actual physical damage it can do, it serves two psychological purposes: nerving a man to keep moving forward, by believing it's his mission to stick it in someone else's ribs, and scaring the daylights out of the intended target. That's the so much bayonet training involves two lines of men simply running at and past one another with fixed bayonets. It's designed to prepare them psychologically for both of those contingencies.

And you're still never out of ammo if you got one of those.

There are a number of instances in afghanistan where British soldiers used the bayonet.
Mostly in fairly close terrain.
Come to think of it, I'm not sure why I've not seen more about US forces getting into close combat.

To my mind, it's rather like only having missiles on aircraft.
In theory you have those fancy long range missiles and there's no need for any gun.
Then theory meets reality and pilots are telling you they need a gun.

All very well hoping you'll be able to shoot the enemy with your fancy little gun.
Then reality hits.
You empty your mag and someone who wants to kill you pops up out those reeds. Uh oh.

"It was a split second decision.

I either wasted vital seconds changing the magazine on my rifle or went over the top and did it more quickly with the bayonet.

I took the second option. I jumped up over the bank of the river. He was just over the other side, almost touching distance.

We caught each other's eye as I went towards him but by then, for him, it was too late. There was no inner monologue going on in my head I was just reacting in the way that I was trained.

He was alive when it went in – he wasn't alive when it came out – it was that simple."

Lieutenant James Adamson
( Military Cross )

You're way better off being the one behind that little stabby thing than on the other end of one.
I'd imagine doing this is the sort of thing could seriously mess with your head. But at least you'd be alive.

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand

Sorry Armand, but I do not think this is a ‘smile' thread.

But at least you'd be alive.

Bottom line … You'd live another day and may get back home eventually.

British bayonet charge: link

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I recall reading about some Marine units early in the war that had used them in Iraq. My son said he never saw any Marines with bayonets, even in room clearing. He did use a .45 once and a knife could have come in handy when he got into unarmed HTH. There was a US Army Sergeant (Bellevia?) that was awarded the MOH and had used his helmet to dispatch a bad guy in HTH.

Did the Army stop bayonet training in 2010?

Wolfhag

He found a new use for his body armour plate.

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David Bellavia "House to house".
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Well worth a read.
But sobering stuff.

How far away would you have to be to fire a full clip off and miss several insurgents grouped together?
Not very far at all, it turns out.

Don't know when the Army stopped bayonet training. I know when I was on active duty, '79-'90. We had very little of it. But I was pretty confident if need be my troops would get the idea fairly quickly. Just like with our personal knives and even the few who bought tactical tomahawks.

Wolf +1

form me the beyonet is my last resort

The WWII E-tools we had would do the job a well as a bayonet or a knife and better range/standoff distance. Read the accounts of how the Germans used sharpened ones on the Eastern Front. I always carried a 6" Buck knife but never used it except to dress game as a civilian.

Although I think if I ever heard the command, "Fix bayonets" the hair on my neck would stand up and I'd get chills up and down my spine. It's a psycho weapon.

I remember now when I was at Quantico in early 1973 with the riots in DC we practiced riot control with bayonets. Bummer, we were never called in. They never really issued them to us because they knew we'd be sticking each other with them.

Wolfhag

The infantry battalions in the 82nd were still doing it in the late ‘90s, albeit with sheathed bayonets (for reasons that will follow). I remember when one particularly hoo-ah Commandant at West Point realized the 3rd class was getting training with rubber ducks, and promptly decreed that they should go over the bayonet assault course with real bayonets on real M-16s. The result was, of course, that someone did a combat roll, and bayoneted the man next to him in the buttocks…….always a hazard when you start fooling around with bayonets.

Yes another reason I rarely issued bayonets as a Mech Company Cdr. … happens ! Never had any problem as a Rifle Plt Ldr or Co. Cdr with anybody getting hurt with their own privately purchased knifes or even the few tactical tomahawks. Never saw any of the "rubber ducks" save for in ROTC, IIRC. I guess we could have got them from Training Aids, etc., at Campbell, Benning, etc.

As noted here fixed bayonets certainly would have a psychological effect on the enemy. In many cases, along with the yelling and aggressiveness displayed in a bayonet attack. But like any tactic, it has to be used in the right "terrain & situation".

When I was an ROTC Cadet then on active duty, many carried Gerber, Buck, etc., knives made by a number of manufactures. In '75 when I started ROTC then went on active duty in '79. Many Vietnam Vets in our units carried their own knives and many of us ended up doing the same. If they thought it was a good idea, we saw that was as good reason as any.

Yep, ROTC training was the only bayonet practice that we got using pugil sticks.
We did do a lot of hand to hand practice in the First Cavalry. This was frequent if a Vietnam veteran NCO was having problems with a upstart private.
I do remember the rule number one in hand to hand. It was never use your hands. Grab anything t use before resorting to your hands.

That pic at the top looks more like a harpoon or spear gun… ;-)

Isn't melée a term from mediaeval warfare, used to described the fighting once two opposing formations have closed? meler- 'to mix'

Hand-to-hand fighting is relatively rare and minor, brief if intense, element in moddern warfare.

I actually thought, from the subject line, that the topic was going to be the use of firearms – pistol, carbine, shotgun, Uzi 9mm, phased plasma rifle in da 40-watt range – in melee. I hadn't really thought of the angle of turning your rifle into a melee weapon by putting a bayonet on it.

You could fit a bayonet to all sorts of odd things: Napoleonic cavalry carbines, the Bren gun, Japan's Nambu LMG, and so on. Did any WW2 anti-tank rifle ever come with a bayonet fitting? You'd definitely have an edge if you had one on the end of a PTRD41.

Hand-to-hand fighting is relatively rare and minor, brief if intense, element in moddern warfare.

AFAIK fortunately yes … but it still occurs at times. Especially in MOUT where some troops found themselves operating in recently, e.g. Iraq, etc.

One story I had heard when clearing a building somewhere in Iraq. When going up a stairs, a USMC or Army Point Man ran straight into a terrorist, jihadi, bad guy/whatever. It was so quick and close that the Point Man instead of using his M4. In that tight space. He took out the bad guy with is fighting knife. Repeatedly stabbing the bad guy until he was no longer a "threat" …

MOUT is one of those situations conducive to the cornering of people – and it tends to come to hand-to-hand much more readily when there's no path of easy retreat. It takes a hardy, well-trained soul to stand in place against an oncoming opponent with a bayonet, when there's a route of escape (although men standing fast to either side of you probably help). I suspect it's a weapon that gets used either against the unresisting, or in close quarters with one man in your field of vision, maybe in the middle of the swirling melee that follows the disorganization of one or both sides.

Trench warfare led to a greater use of the bayonet than before or after, for the simple reason that defenders could not retreat easily.

It seems to be a truism of military history in the modern era that opposing forces rarely crossed bayonets because, given the choice, defenders of a position in the open field would tend to fall back if an attacking force was not dissauded by defensive fire but pressed forward to contact 'at point of bayonet,' as the Victorians liked to say.

Trench warfare led to a greater use of the bayonet than before or after, for the simple reason that defenders could not retreat easily.

My reading of history is somewhat different.

I believe the bayonet arose as a means to counter cavalry, replacing the pikeman-and-arquebusier combination that made the Spanish Tercio so powerful, with a one-man musket-and-pike combined weapon.

It grew into an infantry-vs-infantry weapon based on the open field formations that we often associate with the Napoleonic era, although it was well established many years prior to Napoleon. In the AWI it was quite common for American rebel militia formations to "melt away" when the British advanced with their bayonets leveled. The colonist may have had confidence in his shooting skills with his rifle, but he had no answer to a wall of redcoats with bayonets.

In the trenches of WW1 the bayonet was not the favored melee weapon, at least not in my readings. In particular, the bayonet was built on the "long reach" idea. Long rifles with long bayonets meant you could poke the other guy before he could hit you with any hand-weapons. That was all find and good when you were at the lip of the trench, but became a real problem once you were in the trench (and in MOUT, as the Red Army discovered at Stalingrad). A long WW1 era rifle with a bayonet on the end was not a handy weapon in confined spaces. Once inside the 3-4 foot reach of the long rifle, the hand-weapon reigned supreme. And a 5 foot long toad-sticker was hard to parry with in a 4-foot wide trench.

As a result hand weapons became common among trench fighters in WW1, ranging from the sharpened entrenching tool to the trench-knife (with brass knuckles built-in to the handle). In the longer term the solution was not so much abandoning the bayonet as shortening the infantry-man's rifle, but until the rifles were shortened (a post WW1 process) the bayonet was not a particularly good choice for fighting in confined spaces.

At least that's my reading.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

I agree with Mark. I like E-tools.

Spetsnaz receives special training in using an E-tool as a close-quarters weapon.
YouTube link

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Pentagon's top enlisted is avid about hand-to-hand combat, including fighting ISIS with shovels:
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I think a bayonet is best in an assault but an E-tool is better at close combat so you could be at a disadvantage if the enemy does not flee. The advantage of the E-tool is that it takes one had so you have the other free. A rifle takes two hands. The straight edge makes it easy to parry a bayonet thrust and you can throw it too.

My Dad worked with the Marines on Guam during the Korean War as a Close Combat instructor. With just a Ka-Bar he'd let a Marine attack him with a bayonet. Using a two-hand parry with the knife he'd step inside the bayonet and smack the Marine on the helmet with the butt of the knife. Of course, the Marines were junior enlisted and were not well trained at the time and he was older and wiser.

Probably the better-trained and aggressive person is the one that will come out on top despite the weapon. My only training was the bayonet course and pugil sticks one time each in boot camp. My son said when going through Recon training they'd do a two-hour forced march to the top of a mountain at Pendleton, drop gear, and then have a series of 1-1, 2-1 and 6-6 full contact fights until the guy tapped out. He said it's not as easy to break someone's neck like it is in the movies.

Wolfhag

@Mark1

I wasn't referring to 'trench fighters,' by which I guees you may mean raiding parties, or to the 'favoured melee weapon,' by which I guess you mean in 'close quarters' or 'hand to hand' fighting.

What I suggested was that "Trench warfare led to a greater use of the bayonet than before."

During WW1, most troops advancing as part of an organised infanry attack, by platoon, company and battalion, were armed with the standard issue weapon, that is to say a magazine rifle and bayonet. Let's leave specialist troops and fire support teams to one side.

When, if, they successfully reached the objective and it was necessary to close with enemy defenders who remained in the position, determined to resist the attack, the assaulting infantry had three options: to fire their weapon, use the bayonet or butt, or throw bombs/hand grenades if they were so equipped. In that context, when surviving enemy defenders did not 'fade away,' the rifle and bayonet, awkward though it might be, came into play, although for most men it is as unappealng to transfix another man with a bayonet as it is to contemplate being on the receiving end.

In close combat in an structure, trench, etc. sometimes requires the use of other than ranged weapons. The list is long besides bayonets, combat knives, etc., but a club from debris found nearby, a big rock[known as a "BFR"], e-tools, etc. At that range it becomes very brutal AFAIK, based on all my training, study, etc. You can see his/her face, watch their pain and death. Much rather shot at a longer range, but as we know that always does not happen.

If you have extreme hatred for whatever reasons, for your enemy, e.g. AQ, ISIS, fanatical jihadi, terrorists, etc., etc. It may be easier to kill them at any range. You may even relish the idea.

Bottom line it seems to come down to survival, yours' and just as importantly your friends and comrades.

But as we keep saying war/battle can be a very messy business.

Legion,
Sometimes guys are so hopped up on drugs they don't know they are dead and it takes a lot of extra effort for them to get the memo.

Wolfhag

Works for me !