Bayonet question

[jproveaux]

Cruciform spike bayonet or blade bayonet? Pros and cons. Which is more deadly.

 

[hawkeye2]

The point :grin: is moot. At the time of the Revolution anything that penetrated into a body cavity was almost 100% certain to cause death. Any of the bayonets used by the military on a muzzleloader was long enough to exit the far side and the recipient of the wound would only live a few days at the most. If the musket was fired one or two times with the bayonet fixed there would be the fouling and dirt carried into the wound along with some cloth. A lot is made of how difficult it is to stitch up a 3 cornered hole but that wouldn't have been very important as it did nothing to repair perforated organs or stop internal bleeding. Peritonitis would finish off anyone who survived the first couple of days.

The only cruciform blade that immediately comes to mind was for the Austrian Lorenz though there probably were others. The triangular cross section was the most common, possibly because it was easy to make and had good resistance to bending. The fullers found on many would have allowed it to retain its strength while being lighter. Blade bayonets weren't too common and seemed to be found on shorter guns such as rifles, the Brunswick rifle is a good example. Riflemen were generally employed as skirmishers and were less likely to engage in a bayonet charge.

(I expect this thread will be moved to another area shortly)

 

[Alden]

Blade would do more damage for same length, though it could get stuck more easily, but penetration of 7" is MINIMUM requirement so a spike has its advantages. And is cheaper/easier to make. Of course a blade was/is also useful as a knife. The first ones, plug bayonets, were blades.

 

[Artificer]

:hatsoff: to Hawkeye2 for an excellent reply!

In our period of traditional muzzleloading, the spike bayonet was most popular for a number of reasons.

As Alden mentioned, the Plug Bayonet was usually a spear type point or blade, but you could not reload with it in the bore of the musket.

I cannot document this, but no doubt they chose the spike bayonet because it would not get in the way as much as a blade when reloading and a blade on the end of a long musket would have been VERY difficult to make effective use of slashing with a blade bayonet. Socket bayonets were/are a LOT easier to get penetration with than blade bayonets and takes less training of the Soldiers.

Blade bayonets did not become very common until they shortened musket and rifle barrels to "Two Band Length" in the 19th century. The Blade was meant to make up for the shorter length of the 2 Band Arms vs a 3 band with a socket bayonet and supposedly sometimes to be used as an Infantry Hanger or Short Sword. Of course they didn't seem to TRAIN soldiers much with them being used as swords, as a general rule, and that made that point moot. Actually, to get the best out of a blade bayonet, you have to train the soldiers much more than they did for most of the 18th century as well.

So in our period, it wasn't JUST because they used the Socket Bayonet much more, it was because there were good reasons to do so.

Gus