Close-quarter combat; Combat Shovel or Bayonet?

[SpaceMarine93]

Judging from all the wars and battles throughout the 20th to 21st Century, I have to ask - in the end, which is a better close-quarter combat weapon, a sharpened combat shovel, or a standard knife-bayonet?

[Sea Skimmer]

In the open, a bayonet because the reach actually counts for something. In confined spaces any short handle shovel will probably win out. Since gunfire dominated open spaces and multiple instances in the Boer War and WW1 exist of troops throwing rocks at each other rather then fight with bayonets, after both sides ran out of ammo, the shovel wins. Bayonets were really invented to fight off calvary anyway. In the wars before breach loading firearms it was much more typical for the defending side to break and run when faced with a bayonet charge, or else the charging side to halt his charge, than to actually get into a determined bayonet fight as it was.

[madd0ct0r]

yeah. this actually came up last week in the dwarf's don't use axes thread.

to expand on skimmers comment - big issue with bayonet is it's easy to get it stuck in the first person you skewer. then you get skewered in turn.

holding it as a knife or the gun as a club might be more effective.

[Irbis]

Judging from all the wars and battles throughout the 20th to 21st Century, I have to ask - in the end, which is a better close-quarter combat weapon, a sharpened combat shovel, or a standard knife-bayonet?

Russian Specnaz actually picked shovel as their main weapon, even inventing new martial art specifically for it. Though, I'd say it depends on usage - in massed battle, wall of bayonets wins, in skirmish or solo combat, shovel is more useful, especially seeing it can be used as ranged weapon to get kills impossible with bayonet. Have one quote about possible uses.

Though, I wonder why you didn't asked about Soviet ballistic knife instead

[PeZook]

The ballistic knife isn't a serious weapon ; It's one of those "Whoa look how AWESOME we are" things.

Why? Because when you use it, you no longer have a knife...and it's really, really easy to miss.

[Irbis]

Indeed, it's a weapon which *might* be effective in hands of skilled special forces operative against immobile target, nothing more... But it was precisely this "coolness" factor appealing to younger audiences which made me ask the question, practicality be damned

[Sea Skimmer]

Those spring loaded knives made some sense in the past like WW2, you have two enemy guards standing by a door, you shoot the knife at once and stab the other with a handheld knife ect... but now highly effective silenced guns are so widely available its hard to see even a serious niche use. It would only have a niche at all when you need a silent ranged weapon which is also incredibly compact, and even then you can make a silenced single shot handgun that's tiny.

[Ryan Thunder]

I thought silenced weapons were actually still very loud, just not ear-rape level like unsuppressed guns.

[Skgoa]

There are specially silenced guns nowadays that make so little noise they are essentially silent. I believe "the click the trigger makes is the loudest part" was how someone in the know described it to me.

In the open, a bayonet because the reach actually counts for something. In confined spaces any short handle shovel will probably win out. Since gunfire dominated open spaces and multiple instances in the Boer War and WW1 exist of troops throwing rocks at each other rather then fight with bayonets, after both sides ran out of ammo, the shovel wins. Bayonets were really invented to fight off calvary anyway. In the wars before breach loading firearms it was much more typical for the defending side to break and run when faced with a bayonet charge, or else the charging side to halt his charge, than to actually get into a determined bayonet fight as it was.

Aren't modern bayonets knives that can be stuck on the "point towards enemy" end of rifles, anyways?

[Sea Skimmer]

There are specially silenced guns nowadays that make so little noise they are essentially silent. I believe "the click the trigger makes is the loudest part" was how someone in the know described it to me.

You can make a silent trigger mechanisum. The only part that makes audible noise in the best silenced guns now is the actual firing pin striking the cartridge, and even that can be eliminated if you use electrically primed ammunition though I can't think of a specific silenced gun which does this but IIRC they do exist. In any event the firing pin is unlikely to be clearly heard more then 10-15 feet away, if even that. The Russians actually make silenced guns in which the gas of the propellent charge never leaves the barrel, the cartridge case actually contains an integral gas piston that kicks the bullet out but holds in the gas. The silencers meanwhile wrap completely around the barrel to mask even the noise of the bullet going down said barrel.

Aren't modern bayonets knives that can be stuck on the "point towards enemy" end of rifles, anyways?

Well the basic idea of a bayonet is to have a pointy thing that goes on the killy end of the rifle. But not all of them are shaped like knives, the Chinese and other people were still making spike bayonets for military service to a very recent date, and they still make them for civilian stuff like endless SKS clones. Now the Russians had a brilliant idea a long while ago for the AK series, and made knife bayonets with part of the blade designed as a wire cutter. You have a metal scabbard with a nub on it, which fits into a hole in the bayonet blade and this forms the other half of the cutter. Handy thing to have around so every man can get his way through barbed wire and also cut stuff like enemy communications wire or electric wires for demolitions that may be a bit strong for a normal knife blade.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pesrQFoOF4

[madd0ct0r]

now that is clever. an edged notch isn't enough for barbed wire.

Shall i post the obligatory chinese wonder shovel video now?

[Sea Skimmer]

Sure. Also someone needs to look for video of British troops drilling with pikes in WW2. Supposedly over a quarter million were produced in 1940 by welding surplus bayonet and knives onto iron and steel poles after an offhand comment was made, possibly by Churchill, calling for medieval weapons to be taken out of museums to arm the Home Guard. Pikes actually had slight logic since Nazi paratroopers jumped separately from their main weapons, carrying only a pistol, and might be overwhelmed by swarming British pike hoards before they could get organized.

[madd0ct0r]

that and the home gaurd had feffing nothing else, and at least it kept them busy.

chinese wonder shovel. coming to you straight from World War Z.

[Sea Skimmer]

I looked for a video but could only find a still image, so sad. One might question is keeping them busy drilling with pikes was actually better than keeping them busy digging anti tank ditches or crafting wooden spears to emplace in the fields as anti paratrooper/anti glider defenses. Still, since the British had gas masks for almost everyone prewar, and they intended to use gas an an invasion, squads and platoons of pikemen attacking Nazi landings that were being gassed by biplane trainers might accomplish something.

[PeZook]

Actually, only one unit was ever equipped with the pikes ; The rest of them were left in warehouses, because unit and area commanders felt issuing them would destroy morale.

Can't blame them. Those things weren't even proper pikes

[Sea Skimmer]

Pity, Home Guard manuals of the time were actually telling men to lodge metal poles in the tracks of tanks to disable them as a primary means of attack, without telling them how to get such a metal pole... this would have been two weapons in one!

Now meanwhile when I was looking for videos and images, I came across a tale, hardly an isolated, one of a guy who's railroad company formed a home guard detachment which he soon joined. They had forty men and were eventually issued a rifle and two five round clips of ammunition for it with orders that one man carried the rifle and one clip, another man carried the other clip. The assigned mission was guarding a power substation from sabotage. At that point, and considering the spy/fifth column mania I have to wonder if it really would have hurt moral. Certainly it would facilitate going through drills which perhaps was the real idea anyway.

[Simon_Jester]

Sure. Also someone needs to look for video of British troops drilling with pikes in WW2. Supposedly over a quarter million were produced in 1940 by welding surplus bayonet and knives onto iron and steel poles after an offhand comment was made, possibly by Churchill, calling for medieval weapons to be taken out of museums to arm the Home Guard. Pikes actually had slight logic since Nazi paratroopers jumped separately from their main weapons, carrying only a pistol, and might be overwhelmed by swarming British pike hoards before they could get organized.

Well, Churchill's basic statement was probably taken from a June 29, 1941 memo on the defense of airbases:

Further to my minute of June 20, about the responsibility of the Air Force for the local and staticdefence of aerodromes. Every man in Air Force uniform ought to be armed with something- a rifle, a tommy-gun, a pistol, a pike, or a mace; and every one, without exception, should do at least one hour's drill and practice every day. every airman should have his place in the defence scheme. At least once a week an alarm should be given as an exercise (stated clearly beforehand in the signal that it is an exercise), and every man should be at his post. 90 per cent should be at their fighting stations in five minutes at the most. It must be understood by all ranks that they are expected to fight and die in the defence of their airfields. Every building which fits in with the scheme of defence should be prepared, so that each has to be conquered one by one by the enemy's parachute or glider troops. Each of these posts should have its leader appointed. In two or three hours the troops will arrive; meanwhile every post should resist and must be maintained- be it only a cottage or a mess- so that the enemy has to master each one. This is a slow and expensive process for him.

2. The enormous mass of non-combatant personnel who look after the very few heroic pilots, who alone in ordinary circumstances do all the fighting, is an inherent difficulty in the organisation of the Air Force. Here is the chance for this great mass to add a fighting quality to the necessary services they perform. Every airfield should be a stronghold of fighting air-groundmen, and not the abode of uniformed civilians in the prime of life protected by detachments of soldiers.

3. ...We simply cannot afford to have the best part of half a million uniformed men, with all the prestige of the Royal Air Force attaching to them, who have not got a definite fighting value quite apart from the indispensable services they perform for the pilots.

To me, this doesn't justify any real industrial effort at making maces or pikes, but it makes sense: you don't want totally unarmed men as nominal "defenders" of an important installation. Of course, it's really bad for morale to hand out spears to 20th century soldiers, so it's arguably counterproductive; I'm not sure Churchill expected anyone to take him seriously about that. The key point being everyone should have something, which I think does make sense.



If I remember The World Crisis properly, Churchill was also rather paranoid about German saboteurs in the runup to World War One, and said that he took steps to put guard detachments on (previously more or less unguarded) naval bases in Britain. As I recall, he noted that there was enough of a rifle shortage that some of the detachments were armed partly or entirely with cutlasses.

This sort of thing is definitely suboptimal, but it's arguably still better than having totally unarmed men doing these things. And I'd figure you can usually get firearms to them pretty quickly once you actually have adequate numbers of people assigned to guard things.

[PeZook]

I thought silenced weapons were actually still very loud, just not ear-rape level like unsuppressed guns.

Thing is, if things around your target are so damn quiet, and the security guys are so jumpy that you are afraid of making even the slightest noise, then you shouldn't try and kill the guard. That's the situation when you lay still and don't move and crap your pants if necessary, waiting for a better opportunity.

Because whatever you use to do him in, there's going to be noise: even a perfectly silent gun that makes no noise whatsoever will still result in bones snapping, bodies falling, clatter of the guy's equipment, gurgling and wheezing and trashing about etc etc etc. These noises are constant, whether you use a silenced gun or a ballistic knife - except you can shoot more than one guy with the gun, or put a second bullet in the head of a guy who's on the ground moaning etc.

And this goes the same for stabbing. British commandos in WWII actually used a really violent technique to dispatch of guards "silently" without gunfire: they'd tackle the poor schmuck and drive their (absurdly huge) knives into the skull. You can imagine this made lots of noise, but it was quick.

But the point is that in the reality of the field, very few noises will actually make people alarmed enough to instantly put the base on alert. One of these noises is a guard yelling ALARM, the other is gunshots: so if you can kill the guy before he cries, from afar, using something that sounds different enough from a gunshot...that's good enough. Being spotted is actually the bigger danger than being heard (because if someone hears a strange noise, they won't instantly go apeshit, unlike when they see a guy in camo crawling near the perimeter), which is another advantage for silenced guns: you can kill guards from a safe distance.

Particulars, vary, of course, depending on the tactical situation.

[Ryan Thunder]

Well of course, but you'd think something that sounds almost exactly like quiet gunfire might turn a few too many heads, and if you use it from too far away somebody might find the body before you have to get out.

[PeZook]

Well of course, but you'd think something that sounds almost exactly like quiet gunfire might turn a few too many heads, and if you use it from too far away somebody might find the body before you have to get out.

As I wrote, particulars vary. Russian specialized silent guns supposedly sound more whispers or airguns than sniper rifles ; Lots of modern Western submachine guns actually make a sort of clacking noise because the action is actually louder than the shot itself etc.

But however your silenced gun sounds, even if it's basically "silent gunshot", it still won't carry anywhere near as far as an actual gunshot. If it can only be recognizably heard at about the same distance as a knife scraping on the ribs and the gurgling of a guy being stabbed, then it's about equivalent to a knife, as far as silence is concerned. It's certainly better than a ballistic knife, which has all the same drawbacks (lots of them use pressurized gas, which sounds almost exactly like a silenced gun when fired).

Of course, the fun thing is that guards who are used to how silenced guns sound will be more likely to react to that sound than any other, but that goes into all sorts of things about covert operations and the importance of reconeissance etc.

I think Shep went into some detail of what makes special forces work, and silence is only part of the deal.

[LaCroix]

Well, to me, that picture looks like guys getting basic drill with mock-ups instead of real guns&bayonet... And old Winston was just his usual self, exaggerating to make a point - I know we are short of guns, but give them something, even if it's just a 2by4 with nails in it.

PSS Silenced pistol


The Nagant 1895 can also be silenced by a simple silencer...

[Fenreer]

Judging from all the wars and battles throughout the 20th to 21st Century, I have to ask - in the end, which is a better close-quarter combat weapon, a sharpened combat shovel, or a standard knife-bayonet?

Going back to the OP since the thread seems to have drifted away into other things...

Combat shovels amuse the Hell out of me, but their practical application in battle is dubious at best.

That said, the bayonet hasn't been all that practical since the advent of the assault rifle. Too little length and weight severely hamper the effectiveness of the weapon. WW2 was probably the last hurrah of effective hand-to-hand combat using bayonet charges, though I use the word "effective" loosely.

When all is said and done, I'm taking the weapon that I don't need to piss around with in order to turn it into a weapon. Between "Twist this, turn that, tighten back down... combat axe!" and "Poke..poke...poke..poke" I'll go with the pigsticker.

[PeZook]

Combat shovels amuse the Hell out of me, but their practical application in battle is dubious at best.

WWI trench fighters disagree.

That said, the bayonet hasn't been all that practical since the advent of the assault rifle. Too little length and weight severely hamper the effectiveness of the weapon. WW2 was probably the last hurrah of effective hand-to-hand combat using bayonet charges, though I use the word "effective" loosely.

Off the top of my head, I am aware of at least one effective bayonett charge in every major war since WWII. It's a rare thing, but it happens from time to time, and the bayonet is so light, cheap and useful outside of combat that there really is no reason not to issue it to troops.

[Simon_Jester]

Combat shovels amuse the Hell out of me, but their practical application in battle is dubious at best.

WWI trench fighters disagree.

They used shovels because nothing more practical was nearly as handy. For fighting in a World War One trench, a sword might be just as good as a shovel, but they didn't have swords and they definitely all had shovels. Who do you think dug those trenches?

[PeZook]

The point is that they worked just fine for bashing people's skulls in.