The Japanese for instance really focused on aiming and they got pretty good for the arquebus prior to the Tokugowa Shogunate.
What if the bayonet was invented earlier?
- Thread starter tallwingedgoat
- Start date
Not to mention the prod (the bow-y part) makes it a much more awkward stabbing weapon than the musket, which is effectively a long straight stick.
Its still a matter of holding the d--- thing. Am I really being dense on this?
Sachyriel
Banned
Every pic of a crossbow I look at seems to indicate you can shove it into another mans chest or at least wave it so it slices their neck.
It's a HELL of a lot easier and more reliable to do it with a sword. It's also faster because the of the weight being concentrated at the end (the bow part+end of stock+pointy end). And making the point of the xbow long enough to stand up to cavalry would severely retard its use as a portable crossbow. How much do you know about early modern crossbows?
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if they've gotten that close, you're doing something wrong with those Crossbows...
Sachyriel
Banned
I am no expert on early crossbows but I did not claim its effectiveness against cavalry; I merely stipulated a bayonet could be attached to a crossbow to make a tradition of attached knives to projectile weapons so that later gun-makers attach bayonets out of tradition.
Being out of ammo is a problem, yes, but having a bayonet might help you survive to get more ammo.
It doesn't matter, crossbows are loaded with "muzzle" in the ground, you can't have a mounted bayonet and use it as a crossbow at the same time. Finally it just wont have the reach that a long musket would have. I'm not saying it's not doable, just that it's of limited utility compared with a back up sword. OTOH, a musket whether matchlock or flintlock could take a bayonet and be used as a handy spear.
What's your point? Are you suggesting the Prussian bayonet would have been inferior to having no bayonet at all?
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I agree with you about its utility (or lack thereof compared to a sword) but you can very well load them from horseback (i.e. ride to battle then dismount). In fact the description in the Taybugha book is probably the European method of loading from horseback. I also think you can load the crank ones without have to brace them against the ground. But I agree, it's pretty unlikely as a matter of utility and you'd probably use the ground to brace them or point them close to the ground.
I think once you run out of Crossbow Ammo, it is time to switch to close range combat, or hope your back up is coming.
No, I am suggesting that there is a Reason that the Permanently fixed bayonet died off while the socket and Ring Bayonets prospered.
the permanent Bayonet upsets the balance of a Firearm,making it harder for the gunners to aim.
a detachable Bayonet can also double as a Close range weapon, in the event the rifle is dropped, Damaged, or otherwise compromised as a weapon.
With the Permanently fixed bayonet, losing the gun means you lost both your Melee and main weapon. Yes, you can carry another melee weapon to use, but that is extra weight.
My point, in essence, is that a Detachable Bayonet has much more Uses than a permanently attached one.
Are you dense? No one is arguing the socket bayonet is inferior to the permanent bayonet. The choice is not between the two bayonets but between bayonet and pike.
The topic is WI the bayonet was invented much earlier. Since the permanent bayonet was simple to make and did its job, I propose that it could have been invented earlier without going through the OTL route of bayonet development.
The question then is how? There's a reason things developed the way they did, and its not that people wanted to have a bayonet that would impede the ability to fire for some reason that can be eliminated with a wand of cure stupidity.
I don't know enough on the history to know what it was, so I can't offer a way to change that.
I don't know enough on the history to know what it was, so I can't offer a way to change that.
Sachyriel
Banned
Well, if you're out of ammo but your opponent is two or three steps away there might not be time to draw your sword, a bayonet makes sense.
if the Permanent Bayonet is so simple, as you claim, then why didn't anyone think of it sooner than Fredrick?
the first bayonets were plugs, because that what they were inspired by.
unless you change that "Proto Bayonet", to something like People making Musket-pikes or somesuch, I don't see why the permanently fixed bayonet is the next logical step in Bayonet technology.
like I said earlier, if you've got a Crossbow and they're that close, you're doing something wrong.
although Another question is how strong the Crossbow is, and how much damage would ramming it into someone do to it....
If you're in that situation and haven't drawn it already, the word "idiot" comes to mind.
And speaking of pointy sticks (and cavalry, which is the big problem): Spears. Even easier than swords.
The bayonet would not impede the ability to fire, unless it's that fool plug type. IMO the reason it was not invented earlier was because people were used to the idea of pikes protecting musketmen, much as they protected crossbowmen in earlier times. It took time for people to realize replacing the pikemen with bayonet armed musket men would simultanously double the firepower and pointy things, and eliminate the need to coordinate the awkward movements of two types of soliders in the same formation.
Men of war are naturally conservative. They stake their lives on proven concepts until something new is thoroughly proven. They're not idiots for not inventing bayonets earlier, but it doesn't take a genius to invent an earlier bayonet either.
To put it plainly, bayonets did not actually make sense until one could get saturation fire; not good but infrequent shooting like with a 17th c. arquebousse, but mass shooting that would overwhelm the lighter cavalry of the day (remember, the reitar killed the lancer by then!). The bayonet as a tool of last resort would make sense then, and help minimize casualties by gunfire by getting right into the fighting. Otherwise the bayonet was a really really poor pike substitute - behold the Swedes employing pike effectively against their bayonet-wielding opponents, and behold the rainy campaign on 1813 where even light cavalry on occasion hacked apart formed squares with bayonets (remember how badly the odds are stacked against the horse), because the rain turned the muskets into simple spears.
I would be very surprised if, say, Cossacks could break a pike square, yet they managed to chop through Napoleon's Young Guard.
I would be very surprised if, say, Cossacks could break a pike square, yet they managed to chop through Napoleon's Young Guard.
Why not making a sturdier stock with dome spikes at the rear end? You run out of bullera, you use it as a club!
you mean on the bottom of the Stock, by the Butt?
I think it's easier to thrust than to swing.