Fix, BAYONETS!!

In ancient times, men fought with clubs, spears, rocks and stones (thrown by hand or by sling). Eventually edged weapons like the sword were developed along with shields for protection. Armor in the form of helmets, to protect the head, and greaves, to protect the legs, were developed to protect the parts of the body not covered by the shield.

Up until gunpowder weapons were invented, men killed and wounded each other by stabbing, slashing, and by blunt force trauma. In olden times, warriors had to be very tough, those that weren't became extinct (their tribes were destroyed by those with the better warriors) or became slaves (rather than slaughter the defeated enemy, put them to work). Sometimes they were chased off to live in less desirable lands. Ancient times could be, as Hobbes said (in describing the natural state humankind would be in, were it not for political community):

In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. (Source)

Eventually gunpowder weapons came along, the troops didn't have to close with the enemy anymore,  the men could stand off and pot them over a distance, admittedly a very short distance. But the early firearms took a long time to reload, cavalry could then charge home and cut the musketeers to red ribbons. So there were still men with long pointy things (pikes) who were still the main component of the infantry.

Until the plug bayonet came along. Essentially a blade attached to something which could be shoved into the barrel of the musket so that the musketeer could defend himself from cavalry. (Horses are very reluctant to charge into a hedge of sharp pointy things. Oh, you can get the horse to run at them, then the horse will stop short often flinging the rider onto the sharp pointy things.)

17th-century plug bayonet
(Source)

Trouble was, you couldn't load or fire your musket with that plug bayonet in it.

The major problem with plug bayonets was that when attached they made it impossible to fire the musket, requiring soldiers to wait until the last possible moment before a melee to fixing bayonets. The defeat of forces loyal to William of Orange by Jacobite Highlanders at the Battle of Killiecrankie in 1689 was due (among other things) to the use of the plug bayonet. The Highlanders closed to 50 meters, fired a single volley, dropped their muskets, and using axes and swords quickly overwhelmed the loyalists before they had time to fix bayonets. Shortly thereafter, the defeated leader, Hugh Mackay, is believed to have introduced a socket bayonet of his own invention. Soon "socket" bayonets would incorporate both socket mounts and an offset blade that fit around the musket's barrel, which allowed the musket to be fired and reloaded while the bayonet was attached. (Source)

Socket Bayonet
(Source)

As infantry became better drilled, and more and more armies adopted the bayonet, the numbers of infantrymen swelled while the cavalry dwindled. Especially when you factor artillery into the equation. Lots of men on horses make a large target, which artillerymen played havoc with. (Artillery was getting lighter and thus more mobile. During the Thirty Years War the guns would be emplaced before the battle and pretty much stayed put throughout. Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, experimented with lighter cannon which could keep pace with the infantry, but they didn't pack enough of a punch to make them that useful.)

The infantryman with his bayonet-tipped musket began to dominate the battlefield. Some armies, like the Russian, swore by the bayonet.

The bullet is a fool, the bayonet is a fine chap.
General Alexander Suvorov

However, an examination of the causes of casualties from the Napoleonic Wars indicated that wounds due to the bayonet constituted a very small proportion of the wounds suffered by men in battle, less than 5%. Quite often the inexorable advance of a steady body of infantry, bayonets at the charge advancing on a position, was often enough to cause the enemy to flee. Normally, an advance with the bayonet would only occur if the two sides had traded volleys. Blasting away at each other over shorter and shorter distances.

That was usually enough to rattle normal infantry. If your own men still had the stomach for it, advancing with cold steel would cause the enemy to run. Hand to hand combat in major battles was rare. Often hand to hand fighting would only occur would two units blundered into each other.

Or, if one side had no bayonets, as was the case early in our own Revolution. Militia would scatter upon spying British infantry coming at them with fixed bayonets. As they had few or none at all themselves. Not to mention not being trained in their use. Baron von Steuben was the remedy for that, not to mention acquiring a stock of bayonets and the muskets which could mount them. Which the French were more than willing to supply.

When some years ago, there were those in the U.S. Army advocating getting rid of the bayonet, traditionalists were aghast. The thought being that bayonets seemed less than useful on the modern battlefield.

US troops hadn’t launched a bayonet charge since 1951* during the Korean War. And new soldiers preparing for an increasingly violent war in Afghanistan already need to learn far more skills than the 10 weeks of basic training allows, says Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, head of initial entry training and the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command.

So he made a change, substituting skills drill sergeants reported that they wanted to teach new recruits in favor of dropping the time-honored practice of the bayonet charge. (Source)

However...

“Traditionally in the 20th century – certainly after World War I – bayonet training was basically designed to develop in soldiers aggressiveness, courage, and preparation for close combat,” says Richard Kohn, professor of military history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (Ibid)

Furthermore...

In 2004, with ammunition running low, a British unit launched a bayonet charge toward a trench outside of Basra, Iraq, where some 100 members of the Mahdi Army militia were staging an attack. The British soldiers later said that though some of the insurgents were wounded in the bayonet charge itself, others were simply terrified into surrender. (Ibid)

When do you need the bayonet? When the ammo has run low, the enemy is closing in, and the only thing between you and eternity is a trusty blade affixed to the muzzle of your rifle. At the very least you might scare the crap out of the guy on the other side.

Nothing like the sound of this command -

And  yes, there's always that one guy...

Screen capture

* See yesterday's post.