Will the close-quarter blade ever go out of fashion?

[Darth Tedious]

I guess the out of fashion comes from one article I read where a US general decided to stop bayonet training in basic - he got his ass kicked by veterans, and almost at the same time there were a couple of British Bayonet charges in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Source on that?

Because I find it hard to believe a bayonet charge would be used in Afghanistan of all places.

I don't know about Afghanistan, but here's an article from The Mirror telling of 20 members of the 16th Air Assault Brigade making short work of around 100 members of the Madhi Army. The extent to which bayonets were employed isn't made quite clear, but they were certainly used.
Whether it's a reliable source or not, it at least explains where the rumours would have originated...

EDIT: Looks like I was a little slow to post. I would continue to say that these incidents demonstrate bayonets still having a purpose. Had they not had them, the situations would have been more than desperate.

[Kingmaker]

I remember reading several articles on that event a few years ago, and if I recall correctly, most of them greatly exaggerated the use of bayonets. The insurgents had already been more or less broken by the highlanders' gunfire before the bayonet charge. I would not be at all surprised if not a single enemy casualty was the result of bayonet wounds.

As others have said, I think the real demonstration of bayonets' continued usefulness is whether or not soldiers find them useful (it appear they do).

[Mr Bean]

Yeah, as I thought these read more like desperation attacks that would have resulted in the death of the involved against competent enemies.

I take that you mean enemies in well fortified positions with clear lines of sight and barbed wire and entrenchments to the front? Men still beat each other to death with clubs (Read stocks of their AR's) not regularly in urban combat, it's not crazy to say in urban areas a bayonet charge can not still succeed even against a determine enemy by simple psychological impact. The circumstances are everything. To quote an old maxim, if it's dumb and works... it's not dumb.

[TOSDOC]

Yeah, as I thought these read more like desperation attacks that would have resulted in the death of the involved against competent enemies.

I take that you mean enemies in well fortified positions with clear lines of sight and barbed wire and entrenchments to the front? Men still beat each other to death with clubs (Read stocks of their AR's) not regularly in urban combat, it's not crazy to say in urban areas a bayonet charge can not still succeed even against a determine enemy by simple psychological impact. The circumstances are everything. To quote an old maxim, if it's dumb and works... it's not dumb.

I have to agree with Mr. Bean here. You may be entirely correct about a "desperation attack" but if they could have repelled the militia with their firearms they would have. They were in a convoy that was ambushed, and may not have been as equipped to repel the superior firepower of the militia for very long (mortars, RPG's, etc) as an offensive unit out looking to engage. From what the article says the last bayonet charge was in the Falklands, so it's not like these regiments go around looking for a bayonet charge at every opportunity. The point is that they are trained and equipped to do so in a cooperative and tactically precise manner, so that when a "desperation attack" occurs, they can conduct one against the enemy, in this case a superior force, without fatalities of their own, and tell the militia they will not be pushed around. The benefits of the surprise, effectiveness, psychological impact on both sides, and the lack of fatalities for the British should not be dismissed.

[Rayo Azul]

For sheer terror factor...what's the factor morale is as ten to one?

"Show them steel, we know they'll fold..."

Thanks for putting up the references, I was out of action so appreciate it...I think they are the same as mine anyway

http://www.thesun.co.uk/scotsol/home...ghanistan.html

http://www.hmforces.co.uk/news/artic...-bravery-award

[Connor MacLeod]

One problem I suspect is that when some people hear of bayonets and charges, they think of Richard-Sharpe style napoleonic tactics, or WW1 style human wave tactics, which creates some confusion in context of modern forces. But technology and the tactics to go with that technology have evolved over time as well and that can give a military new options in combat. So a "modern" charge or bayonet combat probably wouldn't be completely identical to what happened in the past even if the tactics have similarity.

Also (and something Sea Skimmer pointed out to me recently in a discussion) is that being "old" doesn't neccesarily make a tactic bad - it largely depends on the circumstances and conditions one is fighting in. Mobility warfare has existed in the past in various forms (such as cavalry) and has largely changed in the equipment and means (replacing horses with vehicles, swords and lances with guns, etc.) Same with stuff like artillery. I remember seeing an article online that said in (I think Afghanistan) they'd even used tactics similar to what was employed in WW1 against insurgents in some places. That doesn't mean such tactics are automatically commonplace, however. IT doesn't have to be frequent for someone to want to plan for it, and giving a guy a knife or bayonet just in case they find themselves at close quarters with the enemy (or to use as a psychological weapon) is a trivial cost. Because you never know it might just come in handy.

[Eternal_Freedom]

As an addendum to that, Al Capone famously said:

"The guy that's still standing is the guy that won the fight. It doesn't matter how he did it."

Does it matter if its an old tactic or weapon? If it works, then why not use it?

[Simon_Jester]

Here's my question or logic line. In the many SF novels, films, games, ROP which I've encountered, a good old-fashioned (or new and improved) blade appears.

Whether it's a K-Bar, stiletto, machete or sword - ultimately getting into close quarters they appear.

Wil they ever go out of fashion? I think not.

They already did, when the bayonet disappeared as a primary means of hand to hand combat. At this point, a knife is as specialized and unlikely a tool for a soldier to use as a weapon as a rocket launcher would be- indeed, I suspect more soldiers have fired rocket launchers in anger than have blooded an edged weapon.

They stay 'in fashion' in fiction because they're iconic and because (bullet time gun kata absurdity notwithstanding) it's a lot easier to create choreographed, dramatic fights between guys with knives or swords than it is between guys with guns. People still carry them in war zones because they're tools, not for fighting- the closest you come to "fighting" with edged weapons in this day and age among heavily armed forces is when Third World militia start massacring people with machetes to save bullets.

I guess the out of fashion comes from one article I read where a US general decided to stop bayonet training in basic - he got his ass kicked by veterans, and almost at the same time there were a couple of British Bayonet charges in Afghanistan and Iraq.

I'm not sure the general who wants to stop bayonet training should be viewed as being on the wrong side of history here- remember the people who wanted to discontinue brightly colored uniforms during the runup to World War One and were shouted down because the soldiers wouldn't look like part of the glorious French Army without their equally glorious red trousers, or some such?

I think it comes down to "give some diehard commando type a pointy bit of metal, and he will create situations that require him to use it." Aside, of course, from the specialized role of being used for assassination at close quarters.

I guess the out of fashion comes from one article I read where a US general decided to stop bayonet training in basic - he got his ass kicked by veterans, and almost at the same time there were a couple of British Bayonet charges in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Ever since the invention of the SMG, there has been a line of thought that bayonets are somewhat obsolete- the original recipie AK-47 lacked a bayonet socket (which was remedied in the later M model). The theory being that if you have a machine gun you simply won't need a bayonet. Obviously, this doesn't account for running out of ammo. However, modern logistics make running out of ammo less of an issue than it's ever been in the past, which may be why the argument is being dragged out again.

Also, as the antitank rocket matured into a routine form of infantry support weapon, the defensive usefulness of the bayonet has arguably gone down- it's more practical for hostile infantry to literally blast you out of your position than it was during the Second World War, and far more so than it was before that point.

In the 19th century, if infantry in a defended position ran out of ammunition and chose to hold with the bayonet, as long as they had any kind of worthwhile cover there was very little the attacker could do about it unless they had a lot of artillery handy. Even during the World Wars, the attacker's options were still basically limited to "call for artillery support" or "send the troops in to clear you out room to room." Today, they can lob RPGs at you; you can't really reply to that with a stick, be it ever so pointy.

Personally, I think the bayonet will continue to be useful, as those British Bayonet charges demonstrate.
As everyone has said, the knife is a tool first and a weapon second, and is really a seperate issue to that of bayonets.

From what I remember of the context, those were "bayonet charges" in a very unusual sense of the term: a bunch of guys rushing very quietly until they were literally on top of a position that was busily firing in another direction, or a bunch of guys using fairly standard "fire and move" tactics but with bayonets on. Not so much the iconic "charge with pointy stick up to the muzzle of the guns" sort of thing.

[Thanas]

I take that you mean enemies in well fortified positions with clear lines of sight and barbed wire and entrenchments to the front? Men still beat each other to death with clubs (Read stocks of their AR's) not regularly in urban combat, it's not crazy to say in urban areas a bayonet charge can not still succeed even against a determine enemy by simple psychological impact. The circumstances are everything. To quote an old maxim, if it's dumb and works... it's not dumb.

No, I mean enemies that can shoot straight. From the accounts the coalition forces were hemmed in and had nothing to respond with anymore. Really, I would think they suffered at least one or two casualties charging straight at the enemy positions, but not a single one. Which IMO means the enemy was rather incompetent.

[Mr Bean]

No, I mean enemies that can shoot straight. From the accounts the coalition forces were hemmed in and had nothing to respond with anymore. Really, I would think they suffered at least one or two casualties charging straight at the enemy positions, but not a single one. Which IMO means the enemy was rather incompetent.

Thanas does not understand coming as he does from the land of the fearless Volk who bear any hardship and never break under pressure, one proper Prussian soldier is worth ten of us common humans, fear is for the standard puny human not peerless German solider!

For us Puny humans however, even our special forces no matter American, British, French, Russian or whatever country you care to name that's seen action in the last fifty years, even our best will break and run if the circumstances are right. Most of those circumstances involve the key element of surprise and a very few soldiers breaking in fear infecting the rest of their units who in turn flee rearward and by their panicked flight caused even more panicked flight and so on. One of those maxims, a man is never so vulnerable as when he turns and runs.

Now imagine your an 19 something kid of Kansas or Kirov and just when you think you have the enemy on the ropes instead of surrendering with a sudden yell you have what seems like dozens, hundreds of men rushing your position, you fire a burst that hits nothing and sudden one of the other men in your unit throws down his gun and runs, then you look back towards the charging men and turn and run yourself and suddenly your pushing and shoving as the rest of your unit is trying to outrun YOU away from the enemy.

Fear is an infections thing, and what makes a bayonet charge work is less the work of changing men who have guns and are firing at you and more the sudden reversal to very old fashion methods of warfare up close and personal except you don't have five men behind you stiffing your resolve, your little unit is twenty men at most you can see in close proximity to you. Maybe there is tracer fire visible or the sound of explosions distant but in there here and now there are a hundred men it seems to you charging you with blood in their eyes and bullets don't slow them only knock down a few of them while the rest charge onwards.

So you break
And you run
And running you escape, or die as fortune favors you
The training comes in on how easy it is to break you, not to make it impossible, as well training determines how far you run for your speed will sure as the sun rises the best you can manage.

This my Dear Thanas is why we still train for the Bayonet. Because sometimes when all else fails and your only option is stand an die or charge and die it's a highly psychological useful weapon simply because it is so rarely seen. Not something to be attempted under normal circumstances, a weapon for desperate times. But it will work against a properly trained foe just as well as militiamen.

[Coyote]

Hey, there's a reason why, suddenly after years of neglect, hand-to-hand combat ("combatives") is seeing a revival in the US Army-- it has been found useful. Whacking people with fists (and knowing how to do it right) still comes in handy even in this technological age.

[loomer]

It's also a much more trivial cost to give each man on the front a knife than to train his replacement if something goes wrong that could have been prevented by one. Sure, it may be more expensive in total since the cost ratio is, to my recollection, around 12/13:1 and I doubt one in twelve deaths in the Middle East these days are even to do with close quarters attacks, but the fact that it could potentially save you a significant amount some day is still there.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Yeah, as I thought these read more like desperation attacks that would have resulted in the death of the involved against competent enemies.

Er no. Going to a jungle without a knife in hand to fight jungle warfare is utterly suicidal.

Not least, I recall that some armies still bayonet their opponents to make sure they are actually dead.

[Thanas]

Thanas does not understand coming as he does from the land of the fearless Volk who bear any hardship and never break under pressure, one proper Prussian soldier is worth ten of us common humans, fear is for the standard puny human not peerless German solider!

Get lost, troll.

This my Dear Thanas is why we still train for the Bayonet. Because sometimes when all else fails and your only option is stand an die or charge and die it's a highly psychological useful weapon simply because it is so rarely seen. Not something to be attempted under normal circumstances, a weapon for desperate times. But it will work against a properly trained foe just as well as militiamen.

So like I said, attacks of desperation. Now, you actually got anything that shows the ratio of effective bayonet charges vs ineffective ones against professional troops? Or are you going to go "works against militiamen, therefore works against Vympel" even more?

[Simon_Jester]

How much difference does "professionalism" really make?

The basic psychological factor is intrinsic to the nature of modern warfare: men don't fight in large clustered groups, they fight in dispersed positions spread out over large amounts of country, and the number of your friends within visual range is small. Which is necessary; if it isn't and the artillery opens up on you it will become small.

Can you really train a human being to be "professional" enough to ignore the fact that a hundred people are coming towards him and he can't shoot them fast enough to kill them all? Because "professional" troops don't reliably kill everything they aim at. Sure, you can find individuals who will hold their ground and stick to their guns (literally) until dragged out of their position and chopped to bits, and it doesn't take very many individuals like that to turn an aggressive infantry attack into an elaborate form of suicide-by-cop. But can you really make those individuals? Can you depend on having them where needed?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

So like I said, attacks of desperation. Now, you actually got anything that shows the ratio of effective bayonet charges vs ineffective ones against professional troops? Or are you going to go "works against militiamen, therefore works against Vympel" even more?

I dunno about you, but if you are in tight quarters and not in open area, it's actually quite effective. Not least, professional troops <> expert marksmen.

[Thanas]

So like I said, attacks of desperation. Now, you actually got anything that shows the ratio of effective bayonet charges vs ineffective ones against professional troops? Or are you going to go "works against militiamen, therefore works against Vympel" even more?

I dunno about you, but if you are in tight quarters and not in open area, it's actually quite effective. Not least, professional troops <> expert marksmen.

Let us look at the situation. The british side were facing about 100 Mahdi fighters in at least three positions who had them pinned down. They then managed to charge the Mahdi fighters, killing at least 28 while suffering "some" wounded.

Can you really train a human being to be "professional" enough to ignore the fact that a hundred people are coming towards him and he can't shoot them fast enough to kill them all? Because "professional" troops don't reliably kill everything they aim at. Sure, you can find individuals who will hold their ground and stick to their guns (literally) until dragged out of their position and chopped to bits, and it doesn't take very many individuals like that to turn an aggressive infantry attack into an elaborate form of suicide-by-cop. But can you really make those individuals? Can you depend on having them where needed?

Were it a hundred people? All I heard was that one patrol charged 100 mahdi fighters. The highest officer that is quoted is a sargeant and AFAIK they do not lead 100 guys.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Most, if not all, US police officers carry at least one knife on them. Most carry more than one and with the intention of using it as a weapon. I carry two knives. One in my cargo pocket, and another concealed in my duty belt.

[Mr Bean]

Thanas does not understand coming as he does from the land of the fearless Volk who bear any hardship and never break under pressure, one proper Prussian soldier is worth ten of us common humans, fear is for the standard puny human not peerless German solider!

Get lost, troll.

You are the one making claims that a proper "professional" military would never break before a bayonet charge despite bayonet charges having been successfully attempted in every war since their invention including both world wars, the Korean War, Vietnam, the current Afghanistan and Iraqi wars deriding all of those I suppose as against "unprofessional" opponents.

This my Dear Thanas is why we still train for the Bayonet. Because sometimes when all else fails and your only option is stand an die or charge and die it's a highly psychological useful weapon simply because it is so rarely seen. Not something to be attempted under normal circumstances, a weapon for desperate times. But it will work against a properly trained foe just as well as militiamen.

So like I said, attacks of desperation. Now, you actually got anything that shows the ratio of effective bayonet charges vs ineffective ones against professional troops? Or are you going to go "works against militiamen, therefore works against Vympel" even more?

Excuse me sir but my post is available for viewing and no such typo exists I can only

I will quote it again

This my Dear Thanas is why we still train for the Bayonet. Because sometimes when all else fails and your only option is stand an die or charge and die it's a highly psychological useful weapon simply because it is so rarely seen. Not something to be attempted under normal circumstances, a weapon for desperate times. But it will work against a properly trained foe just as well as militiamen.

You'll notice works against Vympel is no where in either quote so I have no idea what your talking about

Maybe at some point you should pay attention to the fact you stand alone on this issue and it's not one man against the world in a desperate struggle for truth but it's one academic against the entire forums military members including both former and current soldiers, sailors and airmen some of which have been in wars quite recently. Including your own nation's armies still carry and practice bayonet drill.

Or could it be that you Thanas don't know a godamn thing about modern warfare or combat psychology.

[Swindle1984]

I would argue that it is already out of fashion, sort off. It's a last-resort backup in most cases already and hardly a vital piece of equipment. The reason why we still equip soldiers with it is that it's cheap and lightweight.
Feel free to disagree with me if you've got actual combat experienced people telling otherwise

[Swindle1984]

Most, if not all, US police officers carry at least one knife on them. Most carry more than one and with the intention of using it as a weapon. I carry two knives. One in my cargo pocket, and another concealed in my duty belt.

Likewise. In fact, I tend to carry three knives, plus another in my car where I can get to it. And if I could justify spending that kind of money on a knife, I'd get an automatic so I could pull it faster.

I've never had to use a knife in a defensive situation, but I came darn close once. Funny how people who aren't afraid of getting punched, hit with a baton, or even shot will pause and reconsider if you whip out a blade.

It's all psychological. Very few people have been shot, so their fear of guns is mostly abstract. EVERYONE has been cut or stabbed by something sharp at some point in their life, so they have a very deep-seated desire to keep the pointy thing away from them. Once burned, twice shy. Plus, up close where you can touch the enemy, a knife is better than a gun for a multitude of reasons.

I've also read studies on the bayonet in combat and psychology plays in there as well. Enemy troops tended to break contact and disengage more quickly during a bayonet attack, partly because of the shock of an assault and partly because holy shit this crazy motherfucker is running at me with a knife.

Troops were also more aggressive during training if they had a bayonet mounted. It's primal. You've got a stick with a knife on the end of it, it doesn't get much more basic than that unless you're clubbing someone over the head with a rock.

[Kartr_Kana]

Here's my question or logic line. In the many SF novels, films, games, ROP which I've encountered, a good old-fashioned (or new and improved) blade appears.

Whether it's a K-Bar, stiletto, machete or sword - ultimately getting into close quarters they appear.

Wil they ever go out of fashion? I think not.

They already did, when the bayonet disappeared as a primary means of hand to hand combat. At this point, a knife is as specialized and unlikely a tool for a soldier to use as a weapon as a rocket launcher would be- indeed, I suspect more soldiers have fired rocket launchers in anger than have blooded an edged weapon.

Out of fashion as a primary weapon, but not out of fashion as a back up weapon. One of my senior Marines was in Fallujah and while clearing rooms somehow got jumped by an insurgent. With his weapon knocked away and grappling in close quarters he pulled out the bayonet strapped to his flak jacket and stabbed the insurgent. Don't remember if he stabbed him to death or if he just stabbed until the guy got back and then one of his buddies shot the insurgent. Ironically he was an Anti-Armor Assaultman which are the modern "bazooka men" and has fired off more rockets than you would believe.

They stay 'in fashion' in fiction because they're iconic and because (bullet time gun kata absurdity notwithstanding) it's a lot easier to create choreographed, dramatic fights between guys with knives or swords than it is between guys with guns. People still carry them in war zones because they're tools, not for fighting- the closest you come to "fighting" with edged weapons in this day and age among heavily armed forces is when Third World militia start massacring people with machetes to save bullets.

Or when you're clearing houses and suddenly find yourself in hand to hand combat. It seems unlikely in modern warfare, but war is such a chaotic and random thing that the likelihood of improbably events like hand to hand combat becomes a much more probably possibility.

I guess the out of fashion comes from one article I read where a US general decided to stop bayonet training in basic - he got his ass kicked by veterans, and almost at the same time there were a couple of British Bayonet charges in Afghanistan and Iraq.

I'm not sure the general who wants to stop bayonet training should be viewed as being on the wrong side of history here- remember the people who wanted to discontinue brightly colored uniforms during the runup to World War One and were shouted down because the soldiers wouldn't look like part of the glorious French Army without their equally glorious red trousers, or some such?

Personally I find this an invalid argument since it uses the French Army as an example. I kid I kid, however I do not think that brightly colored pants and bayonet training are the same kind of "modernization". One you have an absurdly impractical and possibly fatal uniform on the other hand you have a method of killing the enemy that isn't practical under most situations, yet could become necessary under the right circumstances.

I think it comes down to "give some diehard commando type a pointy bit of metal, and he will create situations that require him to use it." Aside, of course, from the specialized role of being used for assassination at close quarters.

Diehard commandos and regular grunts are hardly the same thing. We disliked carrying bayonets in Iraq because it was another piece of gear we had to keep track of. No one wanted to get into a bayonet charge (except a couple nutters who thought it would be "cool"), but we did understand that they could save our lives if we somehow wound up in hand to hand combat.

I guess the out of fashion comes from one article I read where a US general decided to stop bayonet training in basic - he got his ass kicked by veterans, and almost at the same time there were a couple of British Bayonet charges in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Ever since the invention of the SMG, there has been a line of thought that bayonets are somewhat obsolete- the original recipie AK-47 lacked a bayonet socket (which was remedied in the later M model). The theory being that if you have a machine gun you simply won't need a bayonet. Obviously, this doesn't account for running out of ammo. However, modern logistics make running out of ammo less of an issue than it's ever been in the past, which may be why the argument is being dragged out again.

Also, as the antitank rocket matured into a routine form of infantry support weapon, the defensive usefulness of the bayonet has arguably gone down- it's more practical for hostile infantry to literally blast you out of your position than it was during the Second World War, and far more so than it was before that point.

In the 19th century, if infantry in a defended position ran out of ammunition and chose to hold with the bayonet, as long as they had any kind of worthwhile cover there was very little the attacker could do about it unless they had a lot of artillery handy. Even during the World Wars, the attacker's options were still basically limited to "call for artillery support" or "send the troops in to clear you out room to room." Today, they can lob RPGs at you; you can't really reply to that with a stick, be it ever so pointy.

Not entirely true, yes we now carry "lightweight" rockets capable of leveling buildings, but you can't just use those indiscriminately. If you're just going to blow up every house that has someone inside shooting at you, you might as well just level the whole area with aerial and artillery strikes. However like we saw during the Pacific Campaign it is possible to be dug in deep enough that bombardment won't kill you. At some point you have to send in infantry to root out the enemy and in tight spaces like houses or caves there is a good possibility you might find yourself in hand to hand combat.

I take that you mean enemies in well fortified positions with clear lines of sight and barbed wire and entrenchments to the front? Men still beat each other to death with clubs (Read stocks of their AR's) not regularly in urban combat, it's not crazy to say in urban areas a bayonet charge can not still succeed even against a determine enemy by simple psychological impact. The circumstances are everything. To quote an old maxim, if it's dumb and works... it's not dumb.

No, I mean enemies that can shoot straight. From the accounts the coalition forces were hemmed in and had nothing to respond with anymore. Really, I would think they suffered at least one or two casualties charging straight at the enemy positions, but not a single one. Which IMO means the enemy was rather incompetent.

Insurgents, with the exception of their sharpshooters/snipers, don't seem to be that accurate in the first place, they certainly they don't compare to USMC 500m/yd rifle qualified Marines. The problem is compounded by their use of fully automatic fire and the generally poor range/accuracy of the AK-47 and round.

My guess is the Brits were spread out with plenty of room between each other so they couldn't be mowed down in a single burst. They were probably also doing the "I'm up he sees me I'm down" tactic of popping up sprinting dropping to the deck. Interspersed with some leapfrogging where if a guy is prone the soldiers to his left and right are up and moving. Add in a little cover fire to keep the insurgents heads down and keep them from having the time to take careful aim. Also the wounded mentioned did not have a status of the injuries sustained and to put it into perspective a Navy Corpsman who took a tremendous amount of shrapnel to the face, while rescuing a Marine under enemy fire, which left horrific wounds called them "a couple of scratches". It's not uncommon for soldiers who have done something heroic at the risk of their own lives to downplay their injuries and actions.

My $.02 is that bayonets/knives will never be "out of style". They will always be useful to military men and women even if they're not the weapon of choice. The utility they provide is indispensable and bayonets have an advantage over knives in that you can place it on a rifle and stick the bayonet in the ground if you have nothing else to hang an IV bag from (first example that came to mind).

[Cecelia5578]

Hey, there's a reason why, suddenly after years of neglect, hand-to-hand combat ("combatives") is seeing a revival in the US Army-- it has been found useful. Whacking people with fists (and knowing how to do it right) still comes in handy even in this technological age.

TBH I thought combatives were a waste of time, and the MMA worship is abominable.

How many documented occasions do we know of where soliders in Iraq or Afghanistan lost their weapon, were cut off from the rest of
their squad, and had to fight unarmed against an unarmed adversary? I can only think of one, very tangentially related incident-a crew member on a helicopter had to secure a POW-perhaps very vaguely in my mind from 2003ish.

I guess the point being that pointing out rare exceptions where certain old fashioned methods of fighting are still used, doesn't make them useful.
ETA: and just a dumbass way to get people injured training.

[Mr Bean]

Hey, there's a reason why, suddenly after years of neglect, hand-to-hand combat ("combatives") is seeing a revival in the US Army-- it has been found useful. Whacking people with fists (and knowing how to do it right) still comes in handy even in this technological age.

TBH I thought combatives were a waste of time, and the MMA worship is abominable.

How many documented occasions do we know of where soliders in Iraq or Afghanistan lost their weapon, were cut off from the rest of
their squad, and had to fight unarmed against an unarmed adversary? I can only think of one, very tangentially related incident-a crew member on a helicopter had to secure a POW-perhaps very vaguely in my mind from 2003ish.

I guess the point being that pointing out rare exceptions where certain old fashioned methods of fighting are still used, doesn't make them useful.
ETA: and just a dumbass way to get people injured training.

Hey dumbass that is not the conditions under which hand to hand combat training becomes useful.
Being able to fight H2H does not start when you are cut off from your fellow soldiers behind enemy lines without a bullet to your name. It starts when your clearing house to house and an insurgent bash your gun aside as you turn a corner now there's an enemy two feet away from you armed with you don't know what and your guns pointed the wrong way to shoot him. So being able to know the basics of how to toss him aside or disengage with him quickly are pretty damn vital before you fills your American ass with bullets or stabs you.

Here's a hint genius, US Army training covers both fighting an unarmed as well as armed enemy.

American wars to date are a mix of the utterly remote where kills are conducted via CCV's with weapons fired miles away and the grunts who have to go house to house checking every closet and under every bed for the enemy, the latter folks need to be able to handle themselves in CQB situations.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Hey, there's a reason why, suddenly after years of neglect, hand-to-hand combat ("combatives") is seeing a revival in the US Army-- it has been found useful. Whacking people with fists (and knowing how to do it right) still comes in handy even in this technological age.

TBH I thought combatives were a waste of time, and the MMA worship is abominable.

How many documented occasions do we know of where soliders in Iraq or Afghanistan lost their weapon, were cut off from the rest of
their squad, and had to fight unarmed against an unarmed adversary? I can only think of one, very tangentially related incident-a crew member on a helicopter had to secure a POW-perhaps very vaguely in my mind from 2003ish.

I guess the point being that pointing out rare exceptions where certain old fashioned methods of fighting are still used, doesn't make them useful.
ETA: and just a dumbass way to get people injured training.

On the civilian police side of things if someone goes for your gun having a knife and/or MMA skills gives you the tools you'll need to help you force that person off your gun or pull your knife and stab that person while they're focused on getting your gun. Basically, the same reason why the military carries knives and trains MMA.

In other words. It isn't worship or a waste of time. It's based off of real life examples from not just the military but any combat situation involving anyone.