AHC: Find a way to make bayonets useful in modern combat

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The bayonet began as a spear alternative i.e. converted the musket into a short pike. With the socket bayonet it also then removed the need for a side arm sword too. When it shortened it replaced the need for a knife as well.

Even going back to the heyday of the bayonet it's principal task was to intimidate. A bayonet charge is intended to frighten the enemy into running away and the records of the proportions of bayonet deaths and injuries show that they were out ranked by artillery and ball even then.

In that role the bayonet can be useful in riot control and prisoner control. A less lethal weapon than ball and one which can be displayed. 'Fix bayonets' in such circumstances includes flourishing the bayonet so that the opposition can see the intent.

In the old days they were long, on long rifles, to defend against cavalry up there on a horse. When magazine rifles thwarted cavalry charges the short rifle took over with a shorter knife bayonet but one can go too far. The SMLE 'pig sticker' was an efficient killing bayonet but the short spike failed to intimidate and was replaced by a knife bayonet that could be seen.

Lastly, one never runs out of bayonet. It is a sidearm. The descendent of the pre bayonet sword and is a weapon of the last resort in battle. You need a knife anyway for assorted daily tasks so it may as well be a bayonet. Without a bayonet controlling riots and guarding prisoners it can far too easily lead to deadly shootings when young frightened soldiers feel under threat from a mob. It is more selective than ball which is less precise under stress and over penetrates. The bayonet wielder can select individual targets out of a group. Psychologically it frightens because the threat is personal not general.

Teaching bayonet fighting is less about technique than about teaching the necessity of combining it with visible aggression. 'Crossing bayonets' rarely ever happened and you use a bayonet because you have to and it can only be effective in directly attacking the enemy. Aggression is all. Eventually boots have to go on the ground and action devolves to 'pointy stick' distance. Ball is good, HE etc. is better but the bayonet is always at hand when fixed. Not your first choice is always the last.

When one is stationed in Fulda Gap in 1985...
 
WI you can only deploy light infantry at the far end of an unreliable supply train?
WI those troops have to search villages - every day - without air or artillery support?
WI steep terrain, rough roads and shortages of trucks limit forward deployment of heavy infantry weapons like mortars?
Forget about helicopter support if budgets are already this tight.
This is the best that most Third World Armies can muster .... even while on United Nations paid peace-keeping duties. Most TWA arrive with few supplies and every request has to go up the chain of command, be announced, receive three or more bids, be manufactured, be shipped to the war-zone, be un-loaded from ships, trucked to the front-line, etc. Supplies are vulnerable to theft at every stage. Also consider that many TWA officers are more concerned with lining their pockets than arming their own troops.
Fixing bayonets is a good way to disperse unruly crowds with minimal casualties.
 
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Bayonets have been used frequently in Afghanistan. The Falklands is a better example of them being used in peer/near peer conflicts.

Ultimately, even in the Fulda Gap WW3 scenario, there will come a time when infantry units have to dig an enemy force out of its positions in urban terrain. That doesn't even take into account the psychological effect...
 
They are useful more primarily in more niche roles and as psychological weapon
This. A guy is much more threatening when he has a pointy stick in his hands. Bayonets have never been used as a means of massacring the enemy, but of driving him away. This has been well-known since the Napoleonic Wars, maybe even before.
 
Aside from their obvious (to me) use in actual combat, they also fill another role. Bayonet training isn't just about killing (although obviously all weapon training is ultimately aimed at teaching you to kill) it's about controlled aggression. Anybody (theoretically) can sit 300m away from the enemy and pull a trigger but it takes a lot more to put a big fucking knife on the end of your gun, get close enough to him that you can smell his last meal on his breath and push that knife through his face for annoying Liz. The first time I did it (in the far less enlightened 90s when language that would get me banned from this site and probably put me on six different government watch lists was still used if not officially allowed) they lined us all up and started with the Full Metal Jacket spiel (What makes the grass grow? BLOOD, BLOOD, BLOOD! What is your job? KILL, KILL, KILL, now show me your war face!) to get us warmed up. Loads of low level PT to tire us out to get us into the condition we'd be in if we ever had to do it for real, then pointing at the dummies and screaming in your face about what the black/Indian gentleman over there had just done to your mum, little sister, favourite pet etc before you set off to show a couple of sandbags who was the boss.

I loved it but it's surprising how often the big 6 foot hardman just can't do it while the four foot nothing girl in your troop who can't make it over the six foot wall on her own suddenly goes full Boudicca and has to be pulled off the dummies as she's trying to bite it's 'throat' out while stabbing it repeatedly in the 'groin'. Controlled aggression is something rightly prized by the military and in reality there's not that many opportunities to instill it into people in training. The Paras have milling (I'm sure there's other similar events in some other units too) and there's a bit in PT occasionally (you need it sometimes to get yourself over obstacles, for example) but not much else. If you're going to take 16/17/18 year old kids and train them to be in situations where they may one day have to kill or be killed, especially at close quarters, you either need to make them dangerous thugs or you need to teach controlled aggression and bayonet training is still (in my opinion) one of the best ways there is of doing that on a level playing field where their age, size and how 'hard' they are is all irrelevant.
 
I know we all love the bayonet for its versatile abilities in everything from cookery to crowd control, but the OP was very specific about “modern combat” - not the seventies or eighties but today.
Or in other words - find a way to make soldiers enthusiastic about bringing a mediocre knife to a rifle/grenade/CSW/artillery/drone/missile/airstrike fight. That’s a bit of a tough ask, since from a pure combat perspective it’s sole advantage is that it’s better than being totally unarmed. Anyone resorting to using a bayonet in “modern combat” is IMO not having a very good day.
 
I know we all love the bayonet for its versatile abilities in everything from cookery to crowd control, but the OP was very specific about “modern combat” - not the seventies or eighties but today.
Or in other words - find a way to make soldiers enthusiastic about bringing a mediocre knife to a rifle/grenade/CSW/artillery/drone/missile/airstrike fight. That’s a bit of a tough ask, since from a pure combat perspective it’s sole advantage is that it’s better than being totally unarmed. Anyone resorting to using a bayonet in “modern combat” is IMO not having a very good day.

I am going to double down on this comment as most 'western' front line infantry now also carry a sidearm such as a Glock 17 (other side arms are available) and if for whatever reason the soldiers main weapon become 'unserviceable' for whatever reason the soldier if they cannot reload in time can instead transition to said side arm.

X times more effective than turning the main firearm into a poor spear
 
I am going to double down on this comment as most 'western' front line infantry now also carry a sidearm such as a Glock 17 (other side arms are available) and if for whatever reason the soldiers main weapon become 'unserviceable' for whatever reason the soldier if they cannot reload in time can instead transition to said side arm.

X times more effective than turning the main firearm into a poor spear

In my experience most squaddies would be better off throwing the pistol at the enemy and hoping it distracts them for long enough to fuck off in the opposite direction.

For most people the only real use for a pistol is tour photos that can drop a pair of knickers from 50 yards and (for the RAF Regiment) shooting your mate in the stomach while playing cowboys.

I know we all love the bayonet for its versatile abilities in everything from cookery to crowd control, but the OP was very specific about “modern combat” - not the seventies or eighties but today.
Or in other words - find a way to make soldiers enthusiastic about bringing a mediocre knife to a rifle/grenade/CSW/artillery/drone/missile/airstrike fight. That’s a bit of a tough ask, since from a pure combat perspective it’s sole advantage is that it’s better than being totally unarmed. Anyone resorting to using a bayonet in “modern combat” is IMO not having a very good day.

All of those things are great until you're clearing compounds in Basra or Helmand or fighting house to house in Fallujah.
 

SsgtC

Banned
I know we all love the bayonet for its versatile abilities in everything from cookery to crowd control, but the OP was very specific about “modern combat” - not the seventies or eighties but today.
Or in other words - find a way to make soldiers enthusiastic about bringing a mediocre knife to a rifle/grenade/CSW/artillery/drone/missile/airstrike fight. That’s a bit of a tough ask, since from a pure combat perspective it’s sole advantage is that it’s better than being totally unarmed. Anyone resorting to using a bayonet in “modern combat” is IMO not having a very good day.

I am going to double down on this comment as most 'western' front line infantry now also carry a sidearm such as a Glock 17 (other side arms are available) and if for whatever reason the soldiers main weapon become 'unserviceable' for whatever reason the soldier if they cannot reload in time can instead transition to said side arm.

X times more effective than turning the main firearm into a poor spear
And all of that is true. Until you're engaged in house to house fighting in some shithole like Fallujah. There is no calling for air support or artillery or using a grenade when your typical engagement range is well under 5 meters. Then having a sharp, pointy object on the end of your rifle comes in very handy. At those ranges, and with how fast fighting in a house goes down, you may not have time to draw your sidearm or reload or, God forbid, clear a jam.

But to your point, house to house Urban combat is about the only facet of modern warfare where a bayonet is still militarily useful. Outside that, everything you've said is correct
 
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All of those things are great until you're clearing compounds in Basra or Helmand or fighting house to house in Fallujah.
And if a modern army’s key equipment for pre planned urban combat ops is a rifle-mounted knife then there are, IMO, problems.
 
And if a modern army’s key equipment for pre planned urban combat ops is a rifle-mounted knife then there are, IMO, problems.

What's the alternative? Pistols require a lot of training that takes time, money and facilities which often aren't available and, as SSgtC said above, other weapons often aren't viable in those circumstances.
 
And all of that is true. Until you're engaged in house to house fighting in some shithole like Fallujah. There is no calling for air support or artillery or using a grenade when your typical engagement range is well under 5 meters. Then having a sharp, pointy object on the end of your rifle comes in very handy. At those ranges, and with how fast fighting in a house goes down, you may not have time to draw your sidearm or reload or, God forbid, clear a jam.

But to your point, house to house Urban combat is about the only facet of modern warfare where a bayonet is still militarily useful. Outside that, everything you've said is correct

Some Australian Commandos got in a lot of Trouble for clearing rooms with Grenades in Afghanistan. They put a grenade into a room they were taking fire from, only problem was that there turned out to be children in there as well.

So Grenades are not really an option in many situations now, which leaves them with their rifle and their bayonet as their best options. Because unless they are in a very specialised unit, they will a very limited amount of training with their pistol (if they carry one). Fairly sure in the ADF pistols aren't really issued outside of specialist units.
 
What's the alternative? Pistols require a lot of training that takes time, money and facilities which often aren't available and, as SSgtC said above, other weapons often aren't viable in those circumstances.
So like I said - someone is having a very bad day, when bad luck and/or A Rupert Idea forces them to leave behind all the whizzbang advantages of a twenty-first century military and adopt Full Spectrum Equivalence with a medieval peasant. Rather than two thousand pounds of education and a ten-rupee jezail it’s potentially two hundred and fifty thousand pounds of training and equipment falling to a ten-rupee carving knife.

IMO bayonets are pretty much the weapon equivalent of a colostomy, which plenty of people are glad to have as it beats dying but very few sane people would seek out. I can’t see them ever going away completely but they ought to be a desperation measure.

Returning to the OP, it occurs to me that we actually have an answer plucked directly from recent history. To make bayonets more useful in combat, leave behind peer on peer conflict planning and instead embroil modern armed forces in poorly thought out colonial adventures, with inchoate objectives involving repeated fighting in centres of population where most of the advantages of a modern professional military are negated by the need to minimise civilian casualties. Job jobbed.
 
Well I would argue that a pistol is obsolescent in modern combat against peer opponents.

Unless you aim at the head (reducing your chance of a hit), your combat effectiveness will be minimal against a soldier with modern body armour, plate carrier etc.

You are not going to get through a solid plate with a pistol round. Yes you can hit an arm, a head, a leg, a neck....but that is not what they will be aiming at.

Even if a 5.56mmx45 or 5.45mmx39 doesn't penetrate the armour, the additional amount of trauma caused is going to be significant. I assume you would be very unlikely to clear a building with a pistol if you have a rifle available.

So are you better off with an extra 1-2 magazines of rifle ammunition and a bayonet then you are to carry a pistol? I would argue yes.
 
So like I said - someone is having a very bad day, when bad luck and/or A Rupert Idea forces them to leave behind all the whizzbang advantages of a twenty-first century military and adopt Full Spectrum Equivalence with a medieval peasant.

You can't fight wars without entering enemy held cities. It's not bad luck or bad officer decisions, it's a fact of life that built up areas exist and have to be captured and occupied at some point. When you're in an environment like Afghanistan with lots of walled compounds those compounds have to be cleared whether the people holding them are the local peasantry with some rusty old AKs (or even Lee-Enfields) or 3rd Shock Army.

It doesn't matter how much technology advances, at some point in any war it comes down to small groups of men facing other small groups of men, whether that might be through built up areas, compounds or trenches. That's when it comes down to training, aggression and occasionally the ability to push six inches of steel into another man's chest to keep the attack moving forward or to buy a bit more time in defence. The fact that it's not as common as it once was is down to a distinct lack of large scale peer-on-peer wars of national survival in recent years and an increase of almost walkovers and occupations against Third World conscripts.

You could count it as a bad day I suppose but realistically any day where someone is trying to kill you is a fairly bad day.
 
You can't fight wars without entering enemy held cities. It's not bad luck or bad officer decisions, it's a fact of life that built up areas exist and have to be captured and occupied at some point. When you're in an environment like Afghanistan with lots of walled compounds those compounds have to be cleared whether the people holding them are the local peasantry with some rusty old AKs (or even Lee-Enfields) or 3rd Shock Army
So the NATO doctrine for holding off third shock army was to do bayonet fighting in German houses? Really? I thought it involved massive amounts of artillery, air power, armour and an inevitable escalation to nuclear weapons and if a few thousand housefuls of German civilians got pulverised then so what.
Ditto when the US decided to do Iraq 2, I don’t seem to remember a lot of bayonets being employed on the way to and into Baghdad, just massive amounts of firepower. In fact I’m pretty sure I remember USMC in Falluja clearing houses with anti-tank missiles.

Sure, there may have been the odd few incidents where people got the knives out but nothing like what you are talking about, where their regular use is the inevitable consequence of the western forces deciding to reprise the role of the British Army in India and settle in for an infinitely long colonial occupation where success is vainly sought somewhere in the microscopic area where ‘used enough force to win the engagement and impress the population’ overlaps with ‘avoided alienating the population by using excessive force’.
 
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