"Bloodgrooves and nicks"

[auld argonian]

If you ever get to see those two loonies on "Two Men in a Trench" and the episode where they investigate the Battle of Bannockburn (I think that that was the one)...they take turns getting tricked out as members of the opposing armies by history experts. They covered the distribution of cutlery rather nicely.

Best

AA

[bubba]

I recall seeing a program on the History Channel about the development of the sword. They gave a fairly complete picture going from early bronze swords to the present. The purpose of the fuller was and is to maintain the strength of the blade while lightening it. It first appeared in large battle swords to remove weight and make the sword more agile. A byproduct of it is it added a bit of rigidity to the blade, but not a great deal. A blade needed to have some flexability or it would break in battle under the repeated impacts.

[Nick]

True, a simple fuller doesn't add an incredible amount of rigidity, but you don't want a whippy blade, either. On a small knife like a sgian dhu, the fuller is really more decorative than anything else.

[Pleater]

The back of a small thick knife with a saw ridge is good for separating the joints of deer or sheep. It won't go through bone but cartilage and tendons give way fairly quickly.

The bayonet to use is the needle type with three edges - the modern ones are quite tame by comparison. Stick that on the end of a good long rifle and you can see why 'They don't like it up 'em, Sir, they don't.' (Cpl Jones, Dads' Army)

You can also see why the entire cast of extras went on strike when instructed to charge towards the cameras, downhill - with bayonets fixed - in two ranks. Sometimes directors are wrong - it is just that they can't see it. When the camera men realised the possible/probable results they went on strike too. It was only student film making and the props were just wood - but even so -

The edges give the bayonet the rigidity of something heavier, for multiple use.

I got a close up - with a real bayonet - I was the only one with small enough hands. Even in the 1970's it was obvious that people born after the war (WWII) were far larger than those who fought in it. Trying to depict older times using exact replicas or the real thing is difficult if all your young men are too tall for your 'good' props.

There was the same problem in Shogun, I believe. All the Japanese were too tall and the European 'hero' spent the film standing on boxes or walking along planks.

[KiltedKnight]

On a side note...While going thru baynoet training, we were told that if the bayonet ever became stuck in an opponent, don't stand there yanking on it trying to get it out...pull the freaking trigger and let the discharge kick the blade loose. Ahhhhhh, the poetry of the Drill Instructor

What the DI left out is the usual fact that if you have to bayonet your enemy you're usually out of ammo and so is he so you really can't ask to borrow one of his bullets to relieve the situation.

Chris. :rolleyes:

[James]

Of course the real joke is that over the last seventy years bayonet drill has really had nothing at all to do with actual bayonet fighting: rather it is about the morale of traineee soldiers. Just as the bayonet is all about morale these days, and the getting of an infantry soldier to actually do his job. A problem all western armies had to face after the second world war, and the studies of people like Marshall.

There is another joke, the great bulk of instructors in such subjects are people who are good at the job of instructing, but are not of necessity the people you want in a unit that is actually facing action.

James

[Schultz]

As for the bayonet, extracting it is the least of the problems: in any event it is mainly a psychological weapon-as it is oddly comforting to have it sticking out in front when moving forward. At the same time the morale effect upon the enemy is quite amazing, and very few will hang about when they get that close. Even when they are your own soldiers, and you have given the order-it is quite alarming to see the bayonets of a rifle company come down from the high port to the on gard position.

James

After discovering that an ancestor of mine was a member of the Virginia Line in the American Revolution, I learned more about the Battle of Green Spring, where, with only about 800 men, General "Mad" Anthony Wayne ordered his men to fix bayonets and charge an advancing British force of 5000. The British, believing no one would be daft enough to give such an order unless he had superior forces, withdrew to Portsmouth, VA.

The bayonet certainly worked it psychological magic then!

[toadinakilt]

What a great name for a band- The Bloodgrooves. Sorry just stuck in my mind and had to share.

yeah, like a Scottish hard rock band, like Guns and Roses, except with sweet accents and KILTS...

[Livingston]

Think of the claybeg in the main [usually right] hand, and the dirk carried in the left along with the targe. Whilst the black knife-skean dhu is a last hidden reserve: albeit now oft carried in the sock.
James

An example:

[Livingston]

More info from the same site:

The first true dirks appeared in the early 1600's, evolving from the medieval ballock dagger. The ballock dagger was a stabbing weapon, designed to pierce armor, with a heavy, sharply-pointed blade and a handle in the form of an erect penis with the testicles forming the ballocks, protective bulges between the handle and blade. In polite company, these were sometimes called kidney daggers.

The first Scottish Dirks retained the ballocks between the handle and blade but developed a wide, flaring pommel capped by a circular brass disk. The handle was carved of ivy root or boxwood root, usually cylindrical in shape, with grooves or one or two bands of Celtic knotwork carved around it. The blade was 12-13 inches long, thick, heavy and triangular in both profile and cross-section. Visitors to the Highlands during this period commented on how thick the dirk blades were and how sharp the single edge was kept. Quickly, the entire surface of the handle began to be richly carved with deep Celtic interlace patterns.

At first glance the large, flaring, disk-topped pommel looks awkward; but it served a purpose. When carrying the targe and dirk, the flared pommel helped prevent the dirk from being knocked from the clansman's hand in the shock of combat, when the targe was receiving blows. Under these circumstances, the shape of the pommel made sense.