I was at our local American Legion Post on Memorial Day for the annual wreath laying ceremony. While there I listened to a WWII re-enactor describe his weapon and bayonet. He said that “according to my grandfather who is a WWII vet” soldiers were trained to use their bayonet by stabbing an enemy, twisting the rifle, and then shooting the rifle to dislodge the bayonet so it would not get stuck. I then raised my hand and asked “If you have bullets, why would you get close enough to use your bayonet?” He just kind of shrugged and said “That’s what grandpa said”. I suspect this might be some military folklore. I remember hearing this when I was a child, but always from other kids who might not have been the best source of information.
So I ask any of you military types, were soldiers ever trained as grandpa describes? If so then what is the answer to my question? Why not just shoot them and be done with it?
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The technology of firearms was not what it is today. You were probably more likely to be able to stab someone than hit them with your bullet.
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Nope. We were always trained in your rationale, bayonettes as a last resort. Then again, I have never actually seen anyone issued a bayonette with their M-16, so I think they have it in basic training just out of tradition (and fun?) anymore.
Also, the philosophy then was based on a lot of close quartered trench-fighting, so bayonette use may have been more widespread. Nonetheless, shooting someone point blank with an M1 Carbine(is that right gun types?) is sure to have a not so fun effect on the shooter (much less the shootee!)
Bayonette training - Even in Washington’s time as well as in the Civil War the goal of all the marching and line formation and whatever training those poor souls got was hand to hand combat and the bayonette was a reasonable weapon. Probably used more in the movies than in warfare this past 50 years.
That may very well have been what your grandfather was taught, but I’d still categorize it as an urban legend. Let me put it this way–the drill sergeant could have told his trainees to tap the enemy on both shoulders while saying “I dub thee knight” and had little effect on the outcome of the war.
I couldn’t run down where I’d seen the figures, but bayonet casualties in modern war run WAY south of 1% of all casualties. It does still happen–apparently there were bayonet casualties in the Falklands. Still, I’ve seen the bayonet referred to as a “tactical relic” in discussions of the 1870-71 Franco-Prussian War.
There’s a nice discussion on pp. 376-78 of Richard Holmes Firing Line, which I summarize below.
Movies notwithstanding, hand-to-hand combat is quite rare, and when it DOES happen shovels and rifles used as clubs tend to be preferred. The bayonet has a almost purely psychological effect: if you’re pointing it, or being trained to use it, it forces home the thought that you might actually have to stick it in somebody. If you’re having it pointed at you, it encourages you to not stick around for that to happen. For whatever reason, the thought of stabbing or being stabbed in much more horrifying than shooting or being shot. The point is that it doesn’t matter much what they tell you to do with a bayonet, as long as they tell you something.
Infantry training, Bayonet training to be exact, at both these locales, was for me not what grandpa described. We were issued bayonets with our rifles. Our M-16A2s. They were worn on our pistol belts or web gear though, only to be used as a last resort if in combat, ie. the enemy is so close you can see the whites of their eyes, so fix bayonets, and stab the suckers! or in civil disobedience action, aka, riots. I don’t know if it ever came to it, my unit never needed to fix bayonets, and the only thing i ever used mine for was to carve out posts for poncho when it was raining at night, but in the civil disobedience action we encountered, there was no use for a bayonet, the locals see 160 men in full gear with weapons, they tend to behave knowing there’s more men they can’t see somewhere.
We even got issued bayonets if we didn’t have the M-16s. I carried a SAW (M-249) for most of my time in the unit, and still carried a bayonet at my side. Makes a great carving/whittling blade. Made plenty of nice little sculptures while laying in the prone trying to stay awake.
Taking a somewhat educated guess on things bayonet:
Bayonets are a hold over from the days before firearms. Fighting was done with lines of soldiers. The front line had spears that were used to impale the line of attackers. This works so that the soldiers could stand close together and brace to use the attacker’s momentum, rather than swinging a blade wide. Great defense against cavalry - knights on horseback can’t charge in without killing the horses and losing their advantage.
It could be very effective in an assault of the Revolutionary or Civil War type, where you fire your muskets in a barrage once, maybe twice, and then the attackers are on top of you. You don’t have time to reload, but use the bayonet on the end of the musket as a spear to stab the charging foes as they approach. It gives the defense the advantage of tight lines and lots of sharp points with less space for the attackers to get through.
Of course once melee hits, anything goes. Your musket becomes a club, and you hope the one you’re looking at is the only person attacking you, not the guy who slipped behind you when he took out your next buddy over.
I don’t know much about WWI fighting techniques, but it seems odd to me the instructions would include shooting to remove the bayonet from your victim. Maybe as a backup if the knife got stuck, and you had time to reload or something.
Keep in mind the kind of trench warfare of WWI did involve similar charges like previous wars. It was brutal with the invention of the machine gun, but for a while people tried the old fighting techniques anyway, including rushing the trenches in an all-out assault. In that situation, your bayonet was just as effective as it was for the Civil War battle lines. Just more likely they wouldn’t get through the gunfire first.
I think it was Victorian General Sir Hector MacDonald, who, when informed by his adjutant during a battle that the men were down to ten rounds each of ammunition, replied: “Thank God! Then I’ll be at them with the bayonet!”
The bayonet was used quite often in the British small wars, particularly before the introduction of magazine rifles, and where large numbers of “tribesmen”-type enemies would attempt to swarm your position (most likely as they had only stabbing weapons). The Martini-Henry bayonet (triangular in cross-section–a triangular hole in your belly is far less likely to close up) was 17 inches in length, and when fixed to the rifle gave a reach of close to 6.5 feet.
I have heard from at least 4 veterans (including my Grandfather) of the British and Canadian armies of the Great War that bayonet training included the advice that if you were unable to withdraw your bayonet from an enemy (presumably if it had become lodged in bone), then you would pull the trigger. Your point-blank .303 would almost certainly break whatever was causing the bayonet to stick.
While there can be no question that artillery and the machine-gun were the big killers in the Great War, there were instances of the bayonet being used, even if only as a hand-held knife during night trench raids (the short Canadian Ross bayonet was a favourite, the British Lee-Enfield being rather unwieldy at 18"!)
There were several VCs won involving the “proper” use of the fixed bayonet, but overall the main uses were as tin opener, fire stoker, kindling splitter, etc. Certainly in 25 years of meeting and speaking to hundreds of veterans of 14-18 and 39-45, I have never encountered anyone who claimed to have used the bayonet in action.
At the beginning of WWII they were still using the bayonet designed for the '03 Springfield rifle that had a 16" blade. The standard issue bayonet was shortened to 10" and later to 7". Rifles also became shorter in that time too, not lending them to bayonet charges. I’ve got an M1 Garand and a 10" bayo that looks like it might actually be useful if things got really bad in the trenches. I also have an M4 replica (a shorty M16 type about three feet long) that looks a little ridiculous with a bayonet. I think the bayonet lug on the M-16/M4 is a vestigial organ like an appendix.
If I recall correctly, there is a scene in the movie Gallipoli, where the poor ANZAC guys are told to fix bayonets and UNLOAD their rifles. Supposed to give them more fighting spirit, I guess.
During bayonet training back before WW11 we were taught that occasionally a bayonet thrust will get caught in bone & matter and manual retraction would fail.
In this case,to dislodge the blade,you had to fire the rifle so that the RECOIL would assist ,or permit, removal.
AS regards WWI use, I recall scenes of the Old Sarge character in “All Quiet on the Western Front” advising the young recruit on trench fighting, clearly favoring the shovel over the bayonet, more for its manueverability in tight circumstances than anything else. He further mentions, in a grisly sort of chivalry, that soldiers on both sides considered it “illegal” to add saw-tooths to the bayonets in order to cut through bone. Somethings one grunt just doesn’t do to another. Such a sad place for human decency to glimmer.
Couldn’t help but get a chill from the description of training to deal with “civil disobedience” (surely that isnt the wording!). Not much doubt about who these unruly types might be. Could be a wildly disordered band of Rotarians protesting capital gains taxes.
Thrust, twist, and pull. If you cannot remove, place foot against enemy and push him/her off.
Bayonets are a weapon of last resort. The last American bayonet charge was against Chinese forces in Korea.
Yeah, mipsman, I remember the same scene. I kind of thought they were required to unload to prevent them from shooting the men ahead of them with some sort of (hopeless?) suppression fire.
I wouldn’t put too much stock in what to do with your trigger while poking somebody with a bayonet, because I see the most important roles for the bayonet as the following:
(1) A backup weapon for after you run out of ammo. A glaive or spear is better than a knife. I don’t know how often troops run out of ammo in modern wars, but it happens to me often enough in Microsoft’s Close Combat II: A Bridge Too Far.
No ammo, no shooting.
(2) Guarding prisoners and/or intimidating rioters. The point of the bayonet here is not stabbing people, but scaring them. One guy guarding 15 POWs may not seem too secure, especially if the POWs are all wondering if he’s willing to fire his weapon in a crowded camp. The bayonet changes all that. Rioters might bet on soldiers not firing into a crowd (Kent State and other tragedies notwithstanding) but they’re not likely to leap upon levelled bayonets.
There’s no reason to shoot if you can control the situation with a show of force and little or no poking.
(3) Training. This one has also been mentioned, but I’ll repeat it here.
Shooting the sandbag after you’ve stabbed it doesn’t impress the drill sergeant.
(4) Silent elimination of sentries. This one probably isn’t too common any more, since there are special quiet weapons for this purpose, but it might come up every now and then. You could always use your knife, but then your rifle isn’t ready, which could be embarassing if the fella turns around and your still 10 paces away.
Shooting the sentry after you’ve poked him kind of spoils the ambience.
Anyway, I’m sure there are other roles, I just think most of them are pretty obsolete.
IIRC, the Hague Convention of 1899 banned the use of square or triangular-bladed bayonets, in favour of the straight blade variety. I believe it was the same convention that banned the use of dum-dum bullets.
The “saw-tooth” bayonets were, I think, also banned for combat use, but the Germans (as well as other Euros) continued issuing this type of bayonet for Pioneer troops, to be used for cutting branches, small trees, etc. It is not hard to imagine British troops finding one in abandoned German positions, or on a captured German, and drawing their own conclusions…the story would spread pretty quickly, given the roaring success of other rumour/black propaganda stories (such as the Crucified Canadian, Babies on Bayonets, and the always-popular Corpse Rendering Factory).
DRS- not my grasndfather, but the re-enactors. My grandpa was not a vet.
Ezstrete- So you were actually taught this by military personnel? OK. I guess that answers it for me. It just seems backwards to me to shoot something after you stab it. I would rather shoot it first and skip the stabbing part altogether.
Anyway, thanks for the replies.
