Old Tom Posted 7 February , 2012 Share Posted 7 February , 2012 There have been a number of threads dealing with specific types. On reflection I find I am uncertain about their origins, evolution and intended function in general. May I air my thoughts? With the introduction of firearms, infantry were either armed with muskets or pikes. The pike men could protect the musketers while they reloaded, to some extent. Neither, as far as I know, carried swords. At some stage a clever Frenchman from Bayonne devised a spike that could be inserted in the musket barrel, thus enabling the musketer to defend himself after firing. Later bayonets e.g for the SMLE, allowed the rifleman to fire and act, almost may I suggest, as a pikeman. But bayonets were called sword bayonets and, as I have said, British Rifle Regiments at one time, perhaps still, call them swords. However I do not believe infantry men were trained to draw bayonets and engage the enemy in a swordsman like manner. The unfixed bayonet was too long for hand to hand fighting. In the years after the SMLE bayonets reverted to being short spikes and current bayonets are multi purpose tools, and have become more like daggers. Pikes were much longer, 15 to 20 feet, if my memory is to be trusted. Firearms plus bayonets were never that long and hence my suggested evolution my be quite wrong. Comments please. Old Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trajan Posted 8 February , 2012 Share Posted 8 February , 2012 I've got to get a three hour graduate class ready otherwise I would sit down and try to answer this properly. But, broadly speaking, at least as I understand it, and remembering that early firearms until the late 19th century were single-shot afairs, yes, a bayonet provided that additional bit of offensive/defensive capability. Even when magazine rifles came in, it was still seen in that light, hence (so anecdote claims) Tommy Atkins' mistrust of the SMLE with the short 1903 bayonet and even the longer 1907 pattern: their overall reach was less than that of soldiers from the Central Powers, with their longer rifles and longer bayonets. Anecdote also claims that the SMLE and short P 1903 bayonet were also mistrusted as they did not have a long enough reach to get at a cavalryman. Trajan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Tom Posted 8 February , 2012 Author Share Posted 8 February , 2012 Trajan, Thanks for that. The need for a longer weapon i.e. rifle plus bayonet, seems, to some extent, to look back to the pike era, or perhaps to Napoleonic days; or before entrenchments. Might that be an example of armies preparing to fight the last war? Is there a discernable trend from Waterloo, to Franco-Prussian, to ACW, to Russo-Japanese? An afterthought - the quote from Hansard in the thread on SMLE bayonets included dimensions which rounded to the inch show overall lengths; Austrian 5 ft, British 5 ft 2 ins, Russian and German 5 ft 9 ins and French 6 ft Old Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truthergw Posted 8 February , 2012 Share Posted 8 February , 2012 Bayonets were intended to give soldiers a weapon when his firearm could not be fired. Out of ammunition, raining, whatever. Infantry were trained then to engage their opposite numbers in hand to hand fighting. Assuming both sides equally well trained and of similar aptitude, the man with the longer reach had a definite advantage. Of course there would be a limit to how long a rifle and bayonet could be without becoming unmanageable. Presumably each country chose a length which represented a happy medium. I don't think there was a great disparity between the bayonets of the great war so we can assume that that happy medium was in fact arrived at as far as the different authorities were concerned at the time. I find it interesting that bayonets continued to evolve long after most authorities saw their usefulness as having dwindled. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Tom Posted 8 February , 2012 Author Share Posted 8 February , 2012 Tom, Do you refer to post WW1 or WW2 evolution? Post WW2 I suggest the advent of selfloading rifles and then smaller calibre i.e more rounds in the magazine would be factors leading to less reliance on the bayonet as a last resort weapon. Old Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reese williams Posted 8 February , 2012 Share Posted 8 February , 2012 Tom, Some of the confusion may come because of the terminology. Bayonets can be broadly classed into three types, plug, socket and sword. Plug bayonets have a handle that plugs into the muzzle of the rifle. They went out of fashion sometime before the Brown Bess. Socket bayonets are useful only as bayonets, tent pegs and candle holders. They have a socket that fits over the muzzle. Think Brown Bess, US Springfield Musket, Moisin-Nagant, Lee-Enfield No4. Sword bayonets have a hilt, some had D guards or sword type hilts and were cutlass length. A sword bayonet can be used as a separate hand held weapon. Maybe not a great one but better than picking up a stick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thunderbox Posted 8 February , 2012 Share Posted 8 February , 2012 Up until the advent of the magazine rifle - the Lee Metford - the bayonet was an equal weapon to the rifle, if not actually the primary weapon of the infantryman. Early weapons simply didn't provide sufficient range and rate of fire to prevent human wave attacks - be it French Imperial Guard or Ashanti tribesmen. If you put "Zulu" on the DVD, wait for the Impi to begin its charge and attempt to shoot down 50 or so Zulus with your Martini-Henry (dry firing, of course!), you will soon see why the Army issued an 18" bayonet and a rifle robust enough to bash over someone's head... Whilst magazine rifles and then auto rifles have substantially reduced the likelihood of needing a bayonet, the need hasn't gone away and provision of a bayonet remains vital. Even modern rifles with high-capacity magazines are prone to be jammed or emptied at a critical moment in an unexpected hand to hand fight. The bayonet and "implement" kills by British soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan have underlined the need to have a secondary weapon permanently and immediately available - and nothing fulfils that better than a blade or spike on the end of the firearm already in the soldier's hands. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calibre792x57.y Posted 9 February , 2012 Share Posted 9 February , 2012 Hopefully the rest of the Company or Battalion would be doing a bit of shooting too? - SW Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Tom Posted 9 February , 2012 Author Share Posted 9 February , 2012 Round about the early 50's the No 4 bayonet had a blade, some 8 to 10", with the socket arranged to be foldable into the handle. These replaced the simple spike of 39-45 vintage. Not long enough to be called a sword. Old Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trajan Posted 9 February , 2012 Share Posted 9 February , 2012 ... Not long enough to be called a sword. Indeed, Old Tom, so collectors of pointy things tend to categorise/classify said long pointy things as SWORD bayonets with a blade length over roughly 35 cm ((i.e., a P 1907, or a Lebel), and as KNIFE bayonets when less than that - most others being usually 25cm or less. BUT the German Ersatz bayonets are not one or the other, the 1888/98 being about 30 cm... Generally speaking (and I am new to all this so standing by to be corrected!), sword bayonets fell out of favour in most countries after WWI, but the UK and Commonwealth still had them in WWII. Knife bayonets were already being used in WWI by some armies (e.g., Austro-Hungarian, with its M1895, and the 'German' 1898), but the idea was slow to be adopted elsewhere. And although the UK spikey came in for use in the very late 1930's, it was not until1942 that the Germans introduced what we might recognise as the prototype of the modern 'dagger and utility knife bayonet', the Seitengewehr 42... The Gewehr 42 being, of course, the inspiration for the Kalashnikov/AK 47 - whatever Kalishnikov the inventor says! Trajan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Radlad Posted 9 February , 2012 Share Posted 9 February , 2012 Round about the early 50's the No 4 bayonet had a blade, some 8 to 10", with the socket arranged to be foldable into the handle. These replaced the simple spike of 39-45 vintage. Old Tom The bladed bayonet for the No.4 rifle was the No.9 bayonet with a fixed socket. The swivel socket version was much less common and was the No.7 bayonet , this was not issued with the NO.4 rifle but was used for some ceremonial purposes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Tom Posted 10 February , 2012 Author Share Posted 10 February , 2012 Radlad and Trajan, Many thanks, we live and learn! The No 7 and No 9 desiganation was new to me, although many years ago I fixed and unfixed a No 7 quite often. At risk of being too long in the wrong war; the numbering suggests that the swivel version came first, perhaps the change was akin to the loss of the hook 35 or so years earlier. Old Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truthergw Posted 10 February , 2012 Share Posted 10 February , 2012 Tom, Do you refer to post WW1 or WW2 evolution? Post WW2 I suggest the advent of selfloading rifles and then smaller calibre i.e more rounds in the magazine would be factors leading to less reliance on the bayonet as a last resort weapon. Old Tom I was thinking of pre-war evolution really, hence the reference to rain. I was actually thinking of a couple of instances in the ACW when torrential rain made firing muzzle loaders unreliable. Like many others, I thought the bayonet had lost any function as a weapon after WW2 but we are assured that it was used in the Falklands. A sharp pointy thing will presumably still function when all else fails. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truthergw Posted 10 February , 2012 Share Posted 10 February , 2012 Hopefully the rest of the Company or Battalion would be doing a bit of shooting too? - SW But not necessarily at the guy immeditely in front of you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4thGordons Posted 10 February , 2012 Share Posted 10 February , 2012 Radlad and Trajan, Many thanks, we live and learn! The No 7 and No 9 desiganation was new to me, although many years ago I fixed and unfixed a No 7 quite often. At risk of being too long in the wrong war; the numbering suggests that the swivel version came first, perhaps the change was akin to the loss of the hook 35 or so years earlier. Old Tom I think the No7 bayonet was actually first issued with the Sten SMG although I am not sure when. (This is why it has the muzzle ring - may also have been issued later with the Sterling SMG?). I think the first return to a blade on Enfields was @ 1944 with the introduction of the Rifle No5 MkI (aka Jungle Carbine) with it's No5 bayonet. There was also a bladed bayonet for the No4 that was produced in South Africa which has a different blade - aparently fabricated out of Uzi SMG bayonet blades welded to a No4 socket, and obviously therefore post WWII. Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calibre792x57.y Posted 10 February , 2012 Share Posted 10 February , 2012 You know you are getting old when you remember seeing events which are regarded as history now! The No.7 bayonet was issued to and used on No.4 rifles by at least one county battalion during operations in the Eoka troubles in Cyprus in the late fifties. Generally however, it never saw the same production levels as the No.4 because of the production costs. It was issued to the Guards because it looked nicer! Later as the total numbers to be equipped fell, it did appear amongst the line infantry as mentioned. The 'woolworths' version, aka No.9, was usually issued to the RAF and the Navy. I remember being issued with my No.4 and spike bayonet but was very indignant when I pulled the blade from the scabbard and found it was cruciform! Everyone else had easy to clean Mk II 'pigstickers' so I took it back to the armoury and exchanged it! SW Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lancashire Fusilier Posted 10 February , 2012 Share Posted 10 February , 2012 Here are both examples from my Collection, side by side for comparison :- Top - Bayonet No.7 Mk.1/L made by the R.O.F. Poole, Dorset. The pommel is able to swivel around to the side for fixing to the rifle. Bottom - Bayonet No.5 Mk.1 ( 2nd Type ) made by Wilkinson - aka Jungle Rifle Bayonet. LF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lancashire Fusilier Posted 10 February , 2012 Share Posted 10 February , 2012 No. 7 Bayonet with the pommel moved to the side. LF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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