Bayonets of the Russian army. Russian needle four-sided bayonet Four-sided bayonet of the Russian army history of origin

Discussions about the need for bayonets have long ceased to be relevant in our era of the widespread use of automatic weapons. But back in the 19th century and even at the beginning of the 20th century, many copies were broken on this issue. Even the appearance of magazine rifles did not immediately send the bayonet to the scrap. And the biggest controversy unfolded over the type of bayonet. Should it be of the saber type, as, for example, among the Prussians, or is the only piercing option more relevant, like the four-sided bayonet of the Mosin rifle.

History of creation

Russian faceted bayonets have a rich history. The first needle bayonet was used on the Berdank. At first it was triangular, and in 1870 a stronger four-sided needle bayonet was designed. A slightly modified version of this bayonet also ended up on the legendary Mosin rifle, which became the main Russian weapon of both world wars. The bayonet was fired along with the rifle and did not need to be removed during firing.

It should be noted that it was attached to the right of the barrel, since in this position it had the least effect on the firing trajectory. The four-sided bayonet was used in various versions of the 1891 model - in infantry, Cossack, dragoon.

Design

The standard was a design with a bayonet fastened with a collar and a tube in the shape of the letter "G", which thickened at the rear end.

But more complex and, therefore, expensive options with a spring latch were also produced, which pursued the goal of quickly removing and putting on the bayonet.

The tetrahedral blade had valleys in all faces. The total length is 500 mm, of which the length of the blade is 430 mm. The blade width is 17.7 mm and the inner diameter of the tube is 15 mm.

Advantages

The four-sided bayonet knife was traditionally condemned by Europeans for "inhumanity". The needle blade penetrated much deeper than the wide saber bayonets of European rifles. In addition, wounds inflicted by faceted weapons practically do not close, since they have a rounded, and not wide, but also a flat section. Therefore, the wounded with a Russian four-sided bayonet was much more likely to bleed to death. However, in the era of the proliferation of mines and chemical weapons, any claims to edged weapons about inhumanity seem meaningless.

The Russian bayonet was technologically advanced in production, light and cheap compared to European counterparts. Due to its low weight, it created less interference when shooting and allowed the rifle to work faster in the bayonet proper. Under the conditions of a classic bayonet attack of a unit against a unit, a faceted bayonet looked preferable to a saber bayonet.

disadvantages

In combat combat, the needle bayonet wins, but in the case of a one-on-one duel, when two fighters maneuver and try to fence, the saber bayonet, which allows you to deliver sweeping chopping blows, has the advantage.

The main disadvantage of the Russian bayonet is the inability to fold it without separating it from the weapon, or at least the ability to quickly remove and put it on. This became especially evident during the trench confrontations of the First World War. There is not enough space in the trench, and the bayonet constantly clings to something. It was not uncommon for it to break.

The second drawback is the small applicability of the square bayonet outside of hand-to-hand combat. And knife-shaped and saber-shaped bayonets always retain an applied function.

Development

By the beginning of the twentieth century, bayonets began to be used quite rarely. Therefore, in the advanced European armies, they increasingly began to pay attention to the convenience of bayonets, relying on shooting and preferring to produce light and short quick-release models that minimally interfere with the shooter. And the countries of the Triple Alliance were the first to produce cheap "ersatz bayonets" made of low-quality steel, which, however, fully justified themselves in the conditions of the predominance of small arms rather than hand-to-hand combat.

The Russian command, on the other hand, stubbornly held on to the high piercing qualities of a faceted bayonet in hand-to-hand combat, although shooting suffered from this. Only in 1916 was a new bayonet created, which made it possible to make chopping blows that were more effective in trench warfare. Also, this model was easier and cheaper to manufacture.

IN USSR

However, after the revolution, the leadership of the Red Army left the old four-sided bayonet of the 1891 model in service, despite a number of attempts to switch to bladed bayonet-knives.

In 1930, a modified version of the weapon was created, designed for the modernized Mosin rifle of the 1930 model. The most interesting modification of the old Russian bayonet was the folding bayonet for the Mosin carbine, which was put into service in 1943. This bayonet was shorter than the standard one and had a protrusion on the base, which tightly fixed the weapon in the firing position. Later, a second protrusion was added, which fixed the bayonet in the stowed position. It was fixed with a spring latch-sleeve, which was put on the barrel in the combat position, and moved forward in the stowed position, allowing the bayonet to be folded back to the forearm.

The Russian needle bayonet left a very noticeable mark in the history of wars, ending the era of the famous bayonet attacks of the Russian infantry, for which it has been famous since the time of Suvorov. And even though the legendary weapon left the stage a little later than it should have, it still left a significant mark on the history of military affairs. In its direct purpose - hand-to-hand combat, there were no equals to the Russian four-sided bayonet.

The Russian bayonet has acquired a mass of legends, sometimes completely inconsistent with the truth. Many of them have long been accepted as true.

Perhaps one of the most interesting references to the use of the bayonet, which various domestic and Western “historians” are very fond of quoting now, is the words of the greatest commander A.V. Suvorov: "The bullet is a fool, the bayonet is well done." Now, with these words, they are trying to show the backwardness of the Russian army, in fact, saying that in the hands of a Russian soldier a gun was like a spear. And the function of the shot was absolutely secondary. Alexander Vasilyevich, if he knew about such an interpretation of his words in the future, would be very surprised.

In the original, words by A.V. Suvorov in "The Science of Victory" sound like this: "Take care of the bullet for three days, and sometimes for a whole campaign, as there is nowhere to take it. Shoot rarely, but accurately; with a bayonet if firmly. The bullet will miss, the bayonet will not miss: the bullet is a fool, the bayonet is well done. This fragment as a whole completely changes the understanding of the phrase that is usually illiterately snatched from the works of the commander. The commander only calls to save ammunition and shoot accurately and focuses on the importance of the ability to work with a bayonet. The era of the muzzle-loader forced to try to shoot accurately, the importance of accurate shooting was impossible to underestimate. But smooth-bore guns with bag loading could not provide a high rate of fire, the required accuracy, and a good command of the bayonet in battle was very important. This is emphasized by other Suvorov words: "One person can stab three with a bayonet, where there are four, and a hundred bullets fly into the air."

The Russian bayonet is traditionally needle-shaped with a three or four-sided blade, a neck and a tube with a slot for putting on the barrel. Now it is customary to criticize military officials who kept our soldiers with a needle bayonet for so long, when the “cleaver bayonet”, a bayonet with a knife-shaped blade and a handle, was already introduced in many armies of the world. No matter what explanations they come up with. Perhaps the most absurd thing is that military officials believed that “bayonet-knives” are of great economic value for a soldier, and they will carry them home from service. And no one needs a needle bayonet. Such nonsense can be cultivated only by people who are far from military history, who have absolutely no idea of ​​the rules for handling state property. It is strange that the presence of full-time cleavers and other edged soldier's weapons is not commented on by the authors of this "wild explanation".

1812, Borodino, bayonet attacks

Let's get back to the bayonets, so - a bayonet for a muzzle-loading gun. It is clear that the bayonet must be constantly attached, but at the same time make it possible to load the gun safely for the shooter. These requirements apply only to a triangular bayonet, which has a long neck that moves the wedge of the bayonet from the muzzle to a distance that is safe for the hand when loading. In this case, the edge facing the muzzle should not be sharp. These requirements are perfectly satisfied by a trihedral bayonet with a flat edge facing the muzzle.

The huntsman, sitting with the fitting of the huntsman in the sheath on the side of the bayonet-cleaver

Were there bayonets-cleavers in the Russian army? Of course they were. Back in the 18th century for Jaeger fittings such bayonets were adopted, in those days they were called daggers. The bayonet-cleaver, for example, was at the famous Russian Littikh fitting arr. 1843. Again a strange picture is drawn, why Russian huntsmen and skirmishers did not cut their hands when loading a fitting with a hewn blade. The answer to it is simple, huntsmen and skirmishers solved specific tasks with their rifled weapons, in modern terms, they were snipers. An example is the episode related to the defense of Smolensk in 1812. Against the actions of only one huntsman on the right bank of the Dnieper, the French were forced to concentrate rifle fire and use artillery, only by night the fire of the huntsman subsided. On the morning of the next day, a non-commissioned officer of the Jaeger regiment, killed by a core, was found at that place. What need does a sniper have in a bayonet? Only in extreme cases does he attach the bayonet to his fitting.

A very important issue was the length of the bayonet, it was determined not just like that, but based on the most important requirement. The total length of the gun with the bayonet must be such that the infantryman can repel the saber blow of the cavalryman at a safe distance. Accordingly, the length of the bayonet was determined in this way. The rifled fittings were shorter than infantry rifles and the bayonet-cleaver for them was correspondingly longer. When fired, he caused inconvenience, outweighed the muzzle of the barrel down, deflected the direction of the bullet.

A gun with a needle bayonet in the hands of a skilled soldier worked wonders. As an example, we can recall the feat of Corporal Leonty Korennoy, in 1813, in the battle of Leipzig in the village of Gossu, his unit was squeezed by superior enemy forces. Having evacuated the wounded, Root with a small number of comrades entered into a bayonet battle with the French, soon he was left alone, parrying bayonet blows, he inflicted them himself, after the bayonet broke, he fought back with a butt. When Root, wounded by French bayonets, fell, there were many French bodies around him. The hero received 18 bayonet wounds, but survived, in recognition of his highest military prowess, on the personal order of Napoleon, he was released from captivity.

Time passed, weapons changed, after the American Civil War, when all the advantages of breech-loading systems for unitary cartridges, characterized by a high rate of fire, were revealed, conversations began in the military environment about the meaninglessness of the bayonet. Since with such a rate of fire, things will not reach bayonet attacks.

The first Russian breech-loading rifles had triangular bayonets, identical to the old guns. This was due to the fact that 6-line rifles at the beginning of their release were converted from old muzzle-loaders, and there was no point in changing the old bayonet for them.

The last bayonet-cleaver in the Russian Empire to the fitting of rifle battalions arr. 1843 ("Littich fitting") and the first mass-produced bayonet-knife in the Soviet Union for the ABC-36 rifle

Bayonet to the "Littich fitting", scabbard - modern reconstruction according to the English model

The very first Russian rifle, which was originally designed as a breech-loading rifle, was a 4.2-line rifle mod. 1868 of the Gorlov-Gunius system (“Berdan system No. 1”). This rifle was designed by our officers in the USA and fired without a bayonet. Gorlov, at his own discretion, chose a three-sided bayonet for the rifle, which was installed under the barrel. After firing with a bayonet, it turned out that the bullet was moving away from the aiming point. After that, a new, more durable four-sided bayonet was designed (remember that three sides were needed exclusively for muzzle-loading systems). This bayonet, as on previous rifles, was placed to the right of the barrel to compensate for derivation.

The feat of Leonty Root. Leonty received 18 bayonet wounds, after the death of his comrades, he single-handedly opposed the French unit in hand-to-hand combat. The wounded was taken prisoner, as having shown the highest military prowess, after being cured, he was released from captivity on the personal order of Napoleon

Such a bayonet was also adopted for the 4.2-line infantry rifle mod. 1870 ("Berdan system No. 2") and, slightly modified, to the dragoon version of this rifle. And then very interesting attempts began to replace the needle bayonet with a cleaver bayonet. It was only through the efforts of the best Russian Minister of War in the entire history of our state, Dmitry Alekseevich Milyutin, that the excellent Russian bayonet was defended. Here is an excerpt from the diary of D.A. Milyutin on March 14, 1874: “... the question of replacing bayonets with cleavers has been raised again ... following the example of the Prussians. Three times this question has already been discussed by competent persons: everyone unanimously gave preference to our bayonets and refuted the sovereign’s assumptions that bayonets should be attached to guns only at the time when the need to use edged weapons presents itself. And despite all the previous reports in this sense, the issue is raised again for the fourth time. With a high probability, here we can assume the insistence of the Duke Georg of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who cannot allow us to have anything better than in the Prussian army.

Bayonet to a smooth-bore muzzle-loading Russian 7-line infantry rifle mod. 1828 With a decrease in the length of a gun or rifle, the length of the bayonet increased. The requirements for protection against a cavalry saber strike determined the total length of an infantry rifle (rifle) with an attached bayonet

Bayonet for 6-line rapid-fire rifle arr. 1869 (“Krnka system”, this bayonet is a bayonet originally adopted for a muzzle-loading 6-linear rifle model 1856)

Bayonet for 4.2-line infantry rifle mod. 1870 ("Berdan system No. 2")

This issue was finally resolved only in 1876. That's what D.A. Milyutin writes about this on April 14, 1876: “During my report, the sovereign announced to me his decision on bayonets. The sovereign has long been inclined to the opinion of Duke Georg of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, so that in our infantry, following the example of the Prussian, a German cleaver, a bayonet, should be adopted instead of our beautiful three-sided bayonet ... and that shooting should be carried out without an attached bayonet. .. All the minutes of the meeting, with the attachment of separate notes, were submitted by me to the sovereign, who, after considering them, made a decision, ordering the introduction of new bayonets - cleavers and shooting without attached bayonets only in rifle battalions and in the guard; in the whole army to leave as before. Thus, there is a new complication, a new variegation; again the lack of unity and uniformity, so important in the organization and formation of troops. Nevertheless, I still prefer this decision to the one that I was afraid of and to which the sovereign has noticeably leaned so far.

A bayonet sharpened to a plane and a standard rifle screwdriver (using the Berdan No. 2 system as an example). It is unreasonable to assume that such a bayonet is intended for unscrewing screws. If you try to do this, the tip of the bayonet will be damaged and most likely the unscrewer will be seriously injured by the bayonet that has come off.

Turkestan soldier in winter uniform. 1873. A soldier has a 6-line rifle arr. 1869 ("Krnk system") with attached bayonet

Thus, for the sake of the Germanophiles in Russia, the Prussian cleaver replaced the Russian bayonet, contrary to all common sense and the opinion of qualified specialists. But ... in fact, apart from experiments and experiments, things did not work out. And the needle four-sided bayonet remained in its place.

The capture of the Grivitsky redoubt near Plevna, the Russian-Turkish war, 1877. The picture shows fragments of hand-to-hand fights and work with bayonets

Shooting practice of the lower ranks of the 280th Sursky Infantry Regiment in gas masks. 3-line rifles arr. 1891 with attached bayonets. 1916 World War I. 1914-1918

Soon the Russian-Turkish war broke out (1877-1878). The army of the Russian Empire for the first time entered into such large-scale hostilities with rapid-fire breech-loading weapons. At the main apartment of the Russian army was an American military agent engineer-lieutenant F.V. Green, who collected data for the US Government. He was instructed to collect materials on the effectiveness of the use of sabers and bayonets in combat. This was due to the fact that the Americans wanted to abandon both, but were afraid to make a mistake. After receiving the order, Green had a lot of conversations about the bayonet with Russian officers and among them he met only "ardent defenders of this type of weapon." In his report, the lieutenant engineer completely refutes the opinion of the American command about the impossibility of bayonet fighting in the conditions of using rapid-fire weapons and notes, on the contrary, that during the campaign very often hand-to-hand combat decided the outcome of the battle. He described the tactics of attacking with chains, when the chains move, using the shelters of the terrain, the first chain suffers greatly, and numerous subsequent ones break into the trenches or, as they were called then, rifle ditches. And then the enemy either runs, or surrenders, or a quick hand-to-hand fight begins.

The moment of the bayonet fight at the competitions in the Central Park of Culture and Recreation. Gorky. Moscow, 1942

Bulgarian soldier armed with a Russian 3-line infantry rifle model 1891, converted to the Mannlicher cartridge model 1893, with an attached bayonet. A steel bayonet scabbard of the Austrian model is visible on the waist belt. World War I. 1914-1918

As the American notes, usually the Turks fled or surrendered. But it was not always so. In 1877, in the September battle of Lovcha, the Turkish redoubts were surrounded, the Turks refused to surrender, during the attack all the defenders (about 200 people) were pierced by Russian bayonets. The detachment of General Skobelev in the same September attacked two Turkish redoubts and rifle ditches south of Plevna, from which the Turks could only be knocked out with bayonets. Fortifications on the right flank near Gorny Dubnyak during the October battles were also taken with hostility. 1878, the January battles near Sheinovo, the attack on the fortified Turkish positions ended in hand-to-hand combat, after 3 minutes from its beginning the Turks surrendered. Near Philippo-lem, the guards captured 24 Turkish guns, while hand-to-hand combat ensued, in which 150 Turkish soldiers and officers were wounded with bayonets. The bayonet always worked and worked perfectly.

The battle on January 1, 1878 at Gorny Bogrov is very indicative. The Russian units were defending, the Turks were advancing. The fire on the Turks was opened from a distance of 40 yards (about 40 m), the Turks suffered serious losses, some of the survivors rushed back, and some - into the Russian fortifications, where they were killed. When examining the corpses, it turned out that some of them had their skulls pierced with rifle butts. This fact was explained as follows: the soldiers there were recruits, if they were more experienced, they would work with bayonets.

Austrian conversion of a bayonet to a 4.2-line infantry rifle model 1870 (“Berdan system No. 2) for a rifle o6jj.1895 (“Mannlicher system”). The blade is attached to the handle of a bayonet-knife model 1895. The First World War. 1914-1918

Bayonet for 4.2-line infantry rifle model 1870 in Austrian steel scabbard. World War I. 1914-1918

Bayonets for a three-line rifle in the service of foreign armies in a sheath. From bottom to top: Austrian, German, German ersatz, Finnish, Romanian scabbards

Greene comes to one important conclusion: during a fleeting hand-to-hand fight, only those who have attached bayonets win the upper hand. It is impossible to reload weapons during such a battle. According to Green's estimates, for every 90,000 who died in that war, 1,000 died from the bayonet. And there is no better weapon for hand-to-hand combat than a bayonet.

Here it is time to recall another interesting feature of the Russian bayonet, its sharpening. Very often it is called a screwdriver. And even very serious authors write about the dual purpose of the bayonet, they say, they can stab the enemy and unscrew the screw. This, of course, is nonsense.

For the first time, the sharpening of the bayonet blade not on the point, but on a plane similar to the sting of a screwdriver, appeared on newly manufactured bayonets for the Russian rapid-fire 6-line rifle mod. 1869 (“Krnka system”) and four-sided bayonets for an infantry 4.2-linear rifle mod. 1870 ("Berdan system No. 2"). Why was she needed? Clearly do not unscrew the screws. The fact is that the bayonet must not only be “sticked” into the enemy, but also quickly removed from him. If a bayonet sharpened on a point stuck into a bone, then it was difficult to remove it, and a bayonet sharpened to a plane, as it were, bypassed the bone without getting stuck in it.

By the way, another curious story is connected with the position of the bayonet relative to the barrel. After the Berlin Congress of 1878, when withdrawing its army from the Balkans, the Russian Empire presented the young Bulgarian army with over 280 thousand 6-line rapid-fire rifles mod. 1869 "Krnka systems" mainly with bayonets arr. 1856. But a lot of bayonets for rifled guns mod. 1854 and to earlier smoothbore. These bayonets normally adjoined the Krnks, but the blade of the bayonet was not located to the right, as it should be, but to the left of the barrel. It was possible to use such a rifle, but it was impossible to shoot accurately from it without reshooting. And besides, this position of the bayonet did not reduce the derivation. The reasons for this incorrect placement were different slots on the tubes, which determine the method of attaching the bayonet: arr. 1856 was fixed at the front sight, and bayonets to the systems of 1854 and earlier were fixed on the under-barrel "bayonet rear sight".

Privates of the 13th Belozersky Infantry Regiment in combat uniform with full field equipment and a Berdan No. 2 rifle with an attached bayonet. 1882

Private of the Sofia Infantry Regiment with a muzzle-loading rifle mod. 1856 with an attached trihedral bayonet and clerk of the Divisional Headquarters (in full dress). 1862

And so the years passed, and the era of magazine weapons began. The Russian 3-line rifle already had a shorter bayonet. The overall length of the rifle and bayonet was shorter than previous systems. The reason for this was the changed requirements for the overall length of the weapon, now the overall length of the rifle with the bayonet had to be higher than the eyes of a soldier of average height.

The bayonet still remained attached to the rifle, it was believed that the soldier should shoot accurately, and when the bayonet was attached to the rifle, shot without it, the aiming point changed. That at very close distances it doesn’t matter, but at distances of about 400 steps it was already impossible to hit the target.

The Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) showed a new battle tactic, and it was surprising to note that by the time of hand-to-hand combat, Japanese soldiers still had time to fasten bladed bayonets to their Arisaks.

Soviet bayonets at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. Top down:
bayonet for 3-line rifle arr. 1891, bayonet for 3-line rifle mod. 1891/30, bayonet for ABC-36, bayonet for SVT-38, bayonets for CBT-40 of two types

Bayonets in scabbards. From top to bottom: bayonet to CBT-40, bayonet to SVT-38, bayonet to ABC-36

Despite the changed situation, the bayonet remained popular and in demand. Moreover, officers marching with their lower ranks took a rifle with an attached bayonet from the dead and wounded, being more confident in the bayonet than in their checker.

Time passed, the question of replacing the bayonet with a cleaver was not forgotten. As before, the main task in his solution was the task of shooting with and without a bayonet attached.

Attached bayonets-cleavers did not allow accurate shooting, so it was possible to open fire with an attached bayonet only as an exception. With needle-shaped faceted bayonets, where the neck deflects the blade some distance from the axis of the bore, shooting is not a problem.

The arguments of the supporters of one or another point of view on bayonets were very consistent. Supporters of bayonets-cleavers pointed to the development of hand-held firearms: with an increase in range, the beginning of the battle is tied at sufficiently long distances, which eliminates the need for hand-to-hand fights. The retreat of one side or the other takes place under the influence of only fire contact, bayonet battles in modern wars are less and less common, and the number of wounded and killed with cold weapons is also decreasing. At the same time, the needle bayonet, which is always attached to the rifle, still, although slightly, affects the accuracy of fire. Its weight, applied to the muzzle away from the rifle's fulcrum, tires the shooter. This was especially considered important when a soldier enters the battle already tired. It was further pointed out that the needle bayonet, except for attack, is useless in all cases of combat and marching life, while the bayonet-cleaver replaces the lower ranks with a knife, is used when chopping firewood, when pitching tents, when arranging bivouac and household appliances, etc. The requirements of the instant connection of an open cleaver, according to its propagandists, were met, since the procedure itself is simple and does not require much time. If necessary: ​​at posts, on guard, in secrets, etc. cleaver bayonets must be attached. If a soldier needs to go somewhere without a rifle, then he will always be armed with a cleaver. A permanently attached bayonet makes the rifle longer, the bayonet clings to branches in the forest, making it difficult to carry the rifle over the shoulder on a shoulder strap. A bayonet-cleaver, hanging on the belt, avoids these difficulties.

The poster depicts a fighter with a SVT-40 rifle with an attached bayonet-knife, going on the attack

The issue of replacing the needle bayonet was considered in great detail in the Russian army at the beginning of the 20th century, and what is very important - the arguments for it significantly outweighed the above arguments against.

So what was said in defense of a permanently attached needle bayonet? In order to satisfy all the conditions of battle, it is necessary that the infantry be armed with such weapons that make it possible to hit the enemy both from a distance and in chest-to-chest combat. So that the infantryman at any moment of the battle would be ready to act with both firearms and melee weapons. Attaching bayonets before an attack presents significant difficulties, the conditions of battle are so diverse that it is impossible to determine in advance the moments at which troops should have their bayonets attached. The need for a bayonet in combat may come suddenly, at a time when hand-to-hand combat is not expected.

Reserves for the front: In the classroom for practicing bayonet fighting. Central Asian military district, 1943

The adjoining of cleavers when approaching the enemy entails the most unfavorable consequences: in this period of the battle, people are in such an excited state that they may not attach the bayonet at all. In addition, it takes not so little time to attach a bayonet in battle as it might seem. Experience has shown that in order to remove and attach the bayonet, it will take time corresponding to at least 5 to 6 shots. At a time when the lower ranks will adjoin bayonets, the fire must significantly weaken, and this can have disastrous consequences. At the same time, the closer to the enemy the bayonet is attached, the more fussy and slower it will be executed.

Thus, our rifle with a permanently attached bayonet fully satisfies all the conditions for firearms and hand-to-hand combat.

The mentioned harmful effects of the weight of the bayonet on the results of firing are insignificant. In combat, it is rare to shoot accurately while standing without cover, in most cases shooting is carried out lying down, and it is always possible to put the gun on a support or rest your elbow on the ground. As for the effect of the bayonet on the accuracy of fire, firstly, the bayonet attached to the right reduces the derivation, and secondly, in our rifle system the bayonet affects the accuracy of the battle. With a correctly attached bayonet, the radius of the circle containing all the bullets is smaller. This phenomenon is explained by the fact that when shooting with a bayonet from our rifle (with the accepted barrel length, weight of parts and charge, etc.), the muzzle part of the barrel shakes less, and the bullet gets a more uniform direction.

The decision taken in the Western European armies to shoot without a bayonet and adjoin it only when approaching the enemy at 300 - 400 steps, slightly contributes to less fatigue of the shooter, but the accuracy of the system loses from this. Shooting from a rifle without a bayonet, zeroed in with a bayonet, without moving the front sight, gives such results that at a distance of 400 paces one can no longer expect accurate shooting.

The needle bayonet gave more dangerous non-healing wounds, provided better penetration of thick clothing.

The decision taken in the Russian army - to shoot at all distances with an attached bayonet, with which the rifle is aimed, is the most correct.

Years passed, August 1914 came. Russia entered the First World War. New types of weapons did not reduce the relevance of the bayonet. The Russian bayonet has ceased to be only Russian.

Captured Russian 3-line rifles mod. 1891 ("Mosin system") was massively used by Germany and Austria-Hungary. In Austria-Hungary, together with them, both captured and ersatz bayonets of Austrian production of excellent quality were used. They differed from the original only in the slot in the tube, which the "Austrians" had a straight line. The scabbards for the original and ersatz bayonets were made of iron with hooks characteristic of Austrian scabbards. The German sheath for bayonets for the 3-line "Mosin rifle" could be of two types: iron, similar to the Austrian ones, but with a drop-shaped hook characteristic of the "Germans", and an ersatz made of galvanized sheet.

Suzdal Infantry Regiment in the vanguard of the Danube Army. Forced movement to Adrianople. 1878 At the lower ranks of the rifle of the Krnk and Berdan systems No. 2 with attached bayonets

The lower ranks of the 64th Infantry Kazan Regiment. Halt during the march from Baba-Eski to Adrianople. 1878 In the foreground, Berdan rifles No. 2 with attached bayonets mounted in goats

Repulse of the assault on the Bayazet fortress on June 8, 1877. The Russian soldiers defending the fortress have rapid-firing needle rifles mod. 1867 ("Carle system") with attached bayonets

In the Austro-Hungarian army during the First World War, captured Russian rifles of the Berdan No. 2 system were also in service. For their bayonets, leather and iron scabbards were developed. A number of bayonets for the "Berdan rifle No. 2" were converted into bayonets for the rifle mod. 1895 of the "Mannlicher system", by welding the handle of the Mannlicher bayonet to the blade.

From 1882 to 1913, the Bulgarian army received from Russia about 180 thousand infantry rifles of the Berdan No. 2 system and 3 thousand dragoon rifles of the same system. All of them were equipped with infantry and dragoon bayonets. The Bulgarian army was also armed with about 66 thousand Russian 3-line rifles of the "Mosin system", which in 1912-1913. were delivered from Russia. In 1917, Austria-Hungary transferred allied assistance to Bulgaria - 10,000 rifles of the Mosin system, converted to the Mannlicher cartridge mod. 1893. The bayonets for them were in metal Austrian and German scabbards.

The war is over, the Russian bayonet proved to be excellent. But his time was irrevocably gone. The conditions of the battle changed, new automatic weapons appeared. And for the first time, the bayonet-knife came to the Red Army en masse in 1936, it was a bayonet for the Simonov automatic rifle mod. 1936. Soon, new Tokarev SVT-38 and SVT-40 self-loading rifles begin to enter service. Only at that historical stage, and only with the use of fast-firing, quickly reloading rifles, with the widespread use of fire from automatic weapons, did the needle bayonet give up its positions.

The Life Guards Moscow Regiment attacks Turkish positions at Araba-Konak

And be our army with a new rifle and a new bayonet, if not for the war. June 1941, the powerful blow of the German army, the inability to take decisive action and the outright sabotage of the military leadership of the Soviet Union allowed the Germans to capture a significant part of our country in the shortest possible time. The production of the “three-line” was forced, the bayonet was still needle-shaped, but already modified in 1930. In 1944, a new 3-line carbine was adopted, it also had a needle bayonet, but of a different design. The bayonet was fixed on the carbine and leaned forward if necessary. The last needle bayonet in the history of the Soviet army was the bayonet for the Simonov self-loading carbine mod. 1945 Shortly after the start of production, the needle bayonet was replaced with a knife-shaped bayonet. From that moment on, the old needle bayonets in the USSR and Russia were no longer returned.

Training of soldiers of the Red Army in hand-to-hand combat shortly before the start of the war

During the Napoleonic Wars, the Russian tsarist army demonstrated the power of the bayonet to the whole world. Currently, this melee weapon is still in service with the Russian army, but these are completely different models designed to perform more versatile tasks.

General information about bayonets

A bayonet from a rifle is a melee weapon, the main task of which is to defeat the enemy with a powerful piercing blow in hand-to-hand combat. The weapon is attached to the muzzle of a rifle, shotgun, carbine or machine gun. Depending on the type, all bayonets can be divided into the following groups:

• Faceted or needle bayonets. Unlike blade models, these weapons were small in size and easily hit the enemy's bodies. While bayonet attacks played a huge role on the battlefield, this bayonet was out of competition, but with the advent of machine guns, it lost its position;
• Blade bayonets. A typical example of such a weapon would be a bayonet-knife from a Kalashnikov assault rifle. He allowed not only to chop, but also to prick. In addition, with the help of a bayonet-knife, you can perform a lot of different chores.

All weapons of this type are divided into categories depending on the method of attachment:

• To the tip of the forearm and to the stock ring at the same time;
• To the trunk;
• Be removable or non-removable;
• Folding.

At present, folding bayonets are considered the most advanced modification, but they should soon completely disappear.

Rifle bayonet: development history

The bayonet weapon is a direct descendant of the fighting pikes, which in turn are the latest evolution of the spear. Before the advent of the first firearms, edged weapons were the main weapons of the infantry. When whole detachments appeared, armed with muskets, edged weapons gradually began to lose their positions. But since the musket needed a long reload, detachments of pikemen were given to help the musketeers. The life of a soldier with a pike was short, since he could only fight in close combat, so these units gradually disappeared.

Since after the shot the shooter turned out to be practically unarmed, he needed a specific weapon that would not interfere with owning a firearm at the same time. This is how the first samples of baguettes appeared - long blades that were inserted directly into the barrel of a musket. This weapon interfered with reloading, but in the conditions of a fleeting fight, it coped well with its duties.

In 1699, the first bayonets appeared, which did not interfere with the reloading process at all. Soon, this weapon almost completely replaced the pikes from the battlefield.

The first bayonets were faceted and had a tubular mount. The classic Russian bayonet, which was glorified by the great commander Suvorov, belongs to just such a variety. In addition, this melee weapon comes in the following varieties:

• Bayonets with a tube with slots and without;
• Pipe bayonets with lock;
• Tubular without clamps;
• Bayonets that are fastened with clamps;
• Bayonets with clamps of screw design;
• Bayonets with latches.

In addition to faceted bayonets, a completely different group developed - bayonets-cleavers. This weapon was more functional, although in battle the same Russian bayonet significantly surpassed them in speed and maneuverability.

German bayonets of the two world wars of the 20th century

Before the outbreak of the First World War, Germany was the leader in the production of bayonets for rifles. German weapons of this type were distinguished by a huge variety of models, which can be seen in the rare surviving photos of those years. The most popular bayonet was model 98-05, which was represented by knife bayonets. This weapon was significantly different from the same Russian bayonets of the tsarist, and even the Soviet army.

This weapon proved to be so successful that German soldiers used them not only in the First, but also in the Second World War. Due to the fact that these bayonets were forged from high-quality metal, today many models of those years have been preserved.

The famous Mosin rifle bayonet

The first bayonets for the Mosin rifle appeared before the start of the First World War. If you look up archival documents of those years, you can see that initially it was proposed to make Mosin's bayonet of a knife type. However, the proponents of the classic needle guns managed to insist on the old design. After the civil war, Mosin rifles continued to be produced in the USSR, having carried out several bayonet upgrades.

It should be noted that in the USSR the bayonet mount was mainly modernized, leaving its shape unchanged. During the Great Patriotic War, bayonets with a knife or even a dagger blade appeared, but these were homemade.

By the mid-1930s, the Soviet command decided that the future was with blade-type bayonets, and the new SVT-38 rifle received a knife bayonet, which was clearly made based on the German model 98-05. Looking at the German army, the government decided that the bayonet for the new rifle should be worn on the belt, putting on the weapon only when necessary.

Indeed, a weapon with automatic reloading did not need a blade constantly attached to it. Nevertheless, the bayonet turned out to be quite formidable and long. Tests showed that this length was not needed, so the upgraded SVT-40 rifle received a shorter removable bayonet. The Second World War showed that it was too early to write off bayonets - sometimes the fighters still had to go into a bayonet attack.

SKS bayonet and its features

After the end of the Second World War, the Simonov self-loading carbine was adopted by the USSR army. The results of the Second World War showed that a removable bayonet-knife had some drawbacks, so they decided to equip the new weapon with a folding integral bayonet, which does not interfere with transportation. SKS bayonets were produced in two types: needle and knife. This mounting design has not yet been used in the history of Russian weapons, so there were many opponents of folding models.

However, one could not disagree with the statements of the designers, who claimed that removable bayonets were practically useless in a surprise melee attack. Also, the folding design was safe for both the shooter and the people around him.

AKM bayonet and its modifications

The first Kalashnikov assault rifle, which entered service in 1949, was generally devoid of a bayonet. Only after the modernization of 1953 did he finally acquire these archaic melee weapons. The bayonet was called 6X2 and almost completely copied the SVT-40 bayonet. The only difference was in the locking mechanism.

The bayonet for the AKM was made on the basis of the Navy reconnaissance knife, which was designed by Lieutenant Colonel Todorov in 1956. For the AK-74 was developed its own version of the bayonet-knife, model 1978.

In 1989, another upgrade of the AK bayonet took place, but the terrible workmanship of these bayonets made all the efforts of the engineers useless.

At present, the bayonets are living out their last days. According to military experts, they will soon disappear completely.

GFO 15.04.2003 - 02:40

The needle bayonet with a tube in service with the Russian army lasted longer than in all European countries. During this time, he became a symbol of the inflexibility and perseverance of the Russian soldier. Few armies in the world could compete on equal terms with the Russian army in a bayonet battle. But when, by the end of the 19th century, bladed bayonet-knives began to be adopted everywhere, it seemed that time had stopped in Russia. Nothing could shake the hegemony of the needle bayonet. However, we also made repeated attempts to equip the army with a bladed bayonet.
From the end of the 17th century, military-style guns were mainly equipped with triangular bayonets with a tube, which replaced baguettes inserted into the barrel. There were bayonets with a pipe and flat knife-like blades; some of them are stored in the collection of VIMAIViVS (St. Petersburg). But they could not be used separately from the gun, like a cleaver or dagger. Bayonets-cleavers were accepted only for Jaeger fittings, and at first Jaeger daggers-cleavers were worn separately, and only later they got the possibility of attaching to the fitting.
Battles of the 17th and early 19th centuries often ended in bayonet fights, so in battle a bayonet constantly attached to a rifle was necessary. However, since the middle of the 19th century, the improvement of small arms has led to a significant decrease in the number of hand-to-hand combat. Therefore, in most European armies, needle bayonets were replaced by blade-type bayonet-knives that could be worn on a belt and used not only in battle, but also as a household knife at a halt, in a camp, etc.
Russia was among the few countries that left needle bayonets with a tube in service with the army. However, the Russian bayonet became not three-sided, as before, but four-sided.
For the first time in the Russian army, a four-sided bayonet was adopted for the Berdan? 2 infantry rifle mod. 1870 This bayonet, without any significant changes, was used with Mosin magazine rifles until they were finally withdrawn from service in the late 40s of the 20th century.
At the end of XIX - beginning of XX centuries. in the Russian army there were many supporters of the preservation of the needle bayonet (always attached to the rifle in battle), who sought to prove its superiority over the knife bayonet.
A curious and rather curious "dignity" of a tetrahedral bayonet is given by the famous weapons designer and researcher V. G. Fedorov. The fact is that the bladed bayonet could be used in the household as a knife. Therefore, during the First World War in the Russian army, when collecting captured weapons, bladed bayonets for foreign rifles often went to the hands of "amateurs". The strict orders of the command did not help either. “Our faceted bayonet is less loved from a domestic point of view - this is its dignity,” notes V. G. Fedorov, who stood for the rearmament of the Russian army with bladed bayonets, with irony.
However, in Russia they understood the advantages of a blade-type bayonet.
In 1877, a 4.2-line Cossack rifle mod. 1873 "with a dagger adapted to it instead of a bayonet." Rifles with such a bladed bayonet were supposed to equip the troops of the Turkestan district.
A detailed description of this "bayonet-dagger" was not given in the message, but it can be concluded that it had a tube with a slot that was worn on the barrel: "... The method of attaching the dagger to the barrel is the same as that adopted now in our 4, 2-line infantry rifle with a French bayonet.
Samples were tested by firing live ammunition with a gunpowder charge of 1 spool (4.26 g). Here is how the results are described: “After 10 ... shots fired, the thin edge of the slot, with which the dagger was put on the barrel, bent and crumpled due to the fact that when fired, the dagger with the tube, lagging behind the barrel by inertia, hit the named edge of the tube on the base of the front sight. With further firing up to 20 shots, the rear edge of the base of the front sight also broke, and the edge of the front sight bent up so much that it interfered with further aiming of the rifle, and the fastening of the dagger to the barrel was broken.
According to the test results, the presented sample was finalized in the shooting range workshop.
To strengthen the wall of the barrel, a "special prism" was soldered in its muzzle. The handle of the dagger was lengthened, which made it more comfortable, and the connection with the barrel was more rigid. As follows from a further message, the new version of the bayonet, apparently, did not have the tube that the previous sample had.
The tests carried out showed that when firing at a distance of 200 steps (142 m), the attached bayonet does not affect "neither the deflection of bullets, nor the accuracy of fire." However, it was noted that the possibility of bending "a relatively thin-walled barrel adopted for 4.2-linear Cossack rifles" has not been completely eliminated, and the rifles must be converted at factories. At the same time, it will be possible to avoid a significant marriage only on newly manufactured weapons.
The issue of adopting a bladed bayonet was referred to the Main Committee for the Arrangement and Formation of Troops. However, the bayonet-knife was never adopted.
This issue was again returned in 1909, when the Artillery Committee unanimously recognized the need to equip the Cossacks with a bayonet-dagger, which could be worn on a belt and adjoined to a rifle before hand-to-hand combat. Cossack rifle mod. 1891 did not have a bayonet. During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. Transbaikalian Cossacks sought to acquire Japanese bayonets-knives by any means.
The weapons department proposed to the state-owned weapons factories, the Gun Range, and the Zlatoust Arms Factory to develop a model of a bayonet-knife, taking into account the designs of bladed bayonets adopted by Western European armies. It was recommended to pay special attention to the bayonet for the German rifle mod. 1898
The following bayonet requirements have been developed:
- the mass of the bayonet must not exceed 1 pound (409 g);
- if possible, the length of a Cossack rifle with an attached bayonet should be no less than the length of a dragoon rifle with a four-sided bayonet;
- fast and convenient connection of the bayonet to the barrel;
- fastening should provide a strong and reliable connection of the bayonet with the barrel and prevent loosening during operation;
- the possibility of wearing a bayonet on the belt.
On December 21, 1909, the Imperial Tula Arms Plant received a request from the GAU to expedite the production and delivery of samples of the "bayonet-dagger". A report dated April 8, 1910 reported on the development and manufacture of two different samples of a bladed bayonet for a Cossack rifle. One was proposed by the head of the plant, Lieutenant General Alexander Vladimirovich Kun, the other - by a civilian weapons master of the Control Workshop Kavarinov.
The document provides the following brief description of the "bayonet-cleaver" designed by N. Kavarinov: "... The bayonet-cleaver consists of 6 parts: a bayonet-cleaver made of a single piece of steel, a valve, a valve spring, a spring stud, a latch and a screw for In order to put on the bayonet-cleaver, you need to put the tube on the muzzle and direct the groove into the protrusion made on the ring, send it to failure, you can put it on both with the latch open and closed. turn the latch down with your finger, while the latch will enter its nest, and the bayonet-cleaver will move freely.
Explanatory drawings and drawings were not attached to the document. The description suggests that this sample was a bayonet with a tube, but not with a four-sided needle blade, but with a knife blade. The design, apparently, resembled a bladed bayonet, which was produced during the Great Patriotic War for rifles mod. 1891/30 In this case, it could not be used conveniently enough as a dagger, thereby not fulfilling one of the basic requirements. Even less detailed information is available about Kuhn's sample. It is clear that it could be used as a dagger, since it had a hilt, and "for wearing on a belt" he needed "also a scabbard, which should be made of wood and sheathed with leather."
As production manager A. V. Kun, "in addition to the conditions indicated, he also had in mind the easy adaptation of this bayonet to an existing rifle by the forces of regimental workshops." To convert the rifle to a new bayonet, it was enough to drill a new hole in the stock "for the bolt passing through the ears of the bayonet ring; expand the hole for the muzzle screw and then, due to the fact that the diameters of the muzzle of the barrels of Cossack rifles have large comparative tolerances, a hole in the crosshair of the bayonet you will have to let the unfinished one in, shatter it in the troops when fitting bayonets to rifles.
"... The military units will have to issue new muzzles ... due to the fact that the outer dimensions of the muzzle are made with significant tolerances", therefore "when fitting the bayonet rings, the outer surface of the existing muzzles would have to be adjusted to the new bayonet rings, and this work will not by the means of military workshops, or at least it will take a lot of time.
"To put the designed bayonet on the rifle, it is enough to insert the rod at the end of the handle into the hole of the bayonet ring, and put the hole in the crosshair on the muzzle and send the bayonet down to failure, while the springs in the rod jump over the edge of the bayonet ring. To remove the bayonet, you need , pressing the fingers of the right or left hand on the protruding ends of the springs, press the bayonet up and, when the heads of the springs go a little inward, raise the bayonet up.
From the above passages, we can conclude that in order to mount the bayonet designed by Kuhn, it was necessary to provide the rifle with an additional bayonet ring, which was attached to the "muzzle". Under the "muzzle", apparently, should be understood in this case, the tip of the forearm.
Two samples of new bayonet-daggers for the Cossack rifle were presented to the GAU, and on June 30, 1910 they were received by the Rifle Range at the Officer's Rifle School in Oranienbaum.
The available documents do not allow us to trace the further fate of the samples. One thing is certain: a bladed bayonet for a rifle mod. 1891 was never adopted. Economic reasons played a major role in this. So, when upgrading the rifle arr. 1891 in 1930, the proposal to take a bladed bayonet with her was rejected, as it required significant financial costs.
There is some information about attempts during the First World War to use blade-type bayonets in the Russian army. In the summer of 1916, a special team was formed, armed with automatic rifles, V. G. Fedorov submachine guns and Mauser pistols. Part was equipped with many technical innovations of that time: optical sights and binoculars, devices for shooting from shelters, portable shooting shields. Among the weapons, "special bayonets-daggers modeled on the Caucasian Cossack army" are mentioned.
It is curious what to adapt to the rifle arr. In 1891, the bladed bayonet was succeeded ... by the Germans. During the First World War, captured Russian rifles in the German army were supplied with a special element for attaching the German bladed bayonet from the Mauser rifle. Such samples are stored in the Tula State Museum of Weapons.
They also had mounts for the bladed bayonet of the model based on the rifle mod. 1891, adopted by a number of countries: Poland - model 91/98/25, Finland - rifles M27, M28, M28-30 ("Shutskor"), M30 and M39.
As for Russia, bladed bayonets for rifles mod. 1891, arr. 1891/10 and arr. 1891/30 were used only in small quantities, for example, blade bayonets issued during the Great Patriotic War.
A needle bayonet with a four-sided blade took root in Russia for a long time. One of the options for a bayonet for an experimental self-loading rifle of 1930 by V. A. Degtyarev, although it had a wooden handle, however, the blade of the bayonet was four-sided needle-shaped. Adopted at the end of the war, Simonov's self-loading carbine was equipped with an integral folding four-sided needle bayonet.
The decision to replace needle bayonets with blade bayonets for repeating rifles for the Red Army was never made due to cost savings. Nevertheless, already after the modernization of 1930, V. E. Markevich offered for his BEM rifle - an improved version of the 1891/30 model. - a bayonet with a "hewn blade". Only self-loading and automatic rifles ABC-36, SVT-38, SVT-40 were equipped with bladed bayonet-knives, and then the bayonet-knife was adopted for Kalashnikov assault rifles.
In the modern period, the needle four-sided integral bayonet was preserved only in the Kalashnikov assault rifle of Chinese production "type 56".
Igor Pink (c)

1-bladed bayonet from the Littikh fitting of the 1843 model, 2-triangular bayonet from the 6-linear gun, 3-quadral bayonet from the rifle of the Berdan 2 system, spring stopper from the rifle of the Mosin system of 1891/1930, 6-quadrant bayonet of the system of Colonel Gulkevich to the rifle of the Mosin system

7-quadruple bayonet from the Lebel system rifle, 8-Japanese bayonet model "30" for the Arisaka rifle, 9-bladed bayonet for the German Mauser rifle of 1871, 10-bladed bayonet for ABC-36, 11-bladed bayonet from SVT -38, 12-bladed bayonet from SVT-40, 13-bladed bayonet for AK-47

Adjacency of a tetrahedral bayonet to a rifle of the Lebel system. The presence of the handle made it possible to use this bayonet in hand-to-hand combat separately from the gun as a stabbing weapon.

Soviet bladed bayonet for the Simonov automatic rifle (ABC-36). The bayonet was attached to the rifle with the help of movable handle plates. After engaging the hook located at the back of the bayonet on the rifle, you must move the bayonet handle up and attach the bayonet to the weapon

1-Needle bayonet on a Mosin rifle of the 1891 model, 2-Needle bayonet on a Berdan rifle? 2, 3-bladed bayonet on the SVT-38 rifle, 4-bladed bayonet on the ABC-36 rifle, 5-bladed bayonet on the SVT-40 rifle

Bladed bayonets on rifles AVS-36 (above) and SVT-40:
clearly visible differences in the design of fastening the bayonet to the rifle

Sergeant major 15.04.2003 - 03:46

GFO
Battles of the 17th and early 19th centuries often ended in bayonet fights, so in battle a bayonet constantly attached to a rifle was necessary.

Sorry, of course, but the terminology? What RIFLES in the battles of the 17th and early 19th centuries ???
Smoothbore guns.

flint 15.04.2003 - 09:16

Vitiaz 16.04.2003 - 03:04

In fact, the advantages of a knife bayonet in a bayonet fight are extremely doubtful. In any case, a good knife bayonet will tend to have a needle-like design.
Carrying around with a long saber like the Lebel bayonets is also a dubious pleasure.

The main reason for switching to knife bayonets is to facilitate the work of doctors when sorting the wounded. Very often (almost always) a wound with a needle bayonet does not cause any severe external bleeding. If the wounded enters covered in mud, such a wound may not be noticed. In this case, damage to internal organs can be very significant. As a result, the wounded quietly reaches the corner without any help - there is no blood to be seen.
A knife bayonet, on the contrary, causes profuse external bleeding. Such a wounded person will be immediately noticed and will begin to fuss. Purely subconsciously, at the stage of sorting the wounded, the severity of the injury is determined precisely by the amount of blood.

By the way, it is precisely because of their "non-conventionality" that needle bayonets are dismantled from Chinese-made SKS carbines when they are sold in the USA. This does not happen with Soviet-issue SKS bayonets (knife).

Besides, a good bayonet was never a good knife, and a good knife was never a good bayonet. For example - bayonet-knife AK / AKM / AK-74 - degradation from mediocre to outright shit. Although in the style of the evolution of knife bayonets.

By the way, the knife bayonet "gets stuck" in the enemy ...

GFO 16.04.2003 - 10:44

2 Flint
Somewhere in the forum the decoder is lying around. And about guns like "cutting - not cutting" can you be more detailed? You are welcome! If with pictures, then finally a complete fart monocle will turn out! Thanks in advance.
4 Knight
I do not think that needle bayonets left the arena for this very reason. Sufficient accuracy is needed to deliver a striking blow with a needle bayonet. And the probability of being hit by a bladed bayonet is much greater. Plus bleeding. This is about medicine. Rather, the dude will die from blood loss with an extensive bayonet wound than he will “reach” from infection. The exception is some penetrating wounds (like a wound to the liver). Plus the improvement of firearms (transferring combat over long distances). Changing the strategy of warfare (WW1 trenches). All this led to the transformation of the bayonet into a bayonet - a knife. Those. loading the bayonet with household functions. And use as a melee weapon. Unfortunately, nothing is universal. A bayonet in capable hands is a bayonet. A knife in skillful hands is a knife. Bayonet AK knife for a Soviet soldier. Everything is logical.

Sergeant major 16.04.2003 - 02:02

flint
To Feltfebel:

S terminologiey kak raz vse v poryadke. Zdes" (ya zhivu v Calgary) na severo-amerikanskom kontinente esche v XVIII century gospodstvuet nareznoe oruzhie, hotya zamki esche kremnevye. Y menya 2 ruzhya 50 caliber (octagon snaruzhi, 4 nareza vnutri. Eto dovol "no blizkie replici ruzhey togo vremeni) . Ya ne dumayu Rossiya otstavala. Naskol "ko mne izvestno Mushket M-1854 byl nareznym, oba Berdana, Krynka, Baranovskaya vintovka byli nareznymi. Pover" te, Mosinka voznikla ne na pustom meste.

This is not about the fittings of rangers or trappers (Kentucky rifles, etc.). Hunting rifled weapons have been known since the 16th century.
We are talking about weapons that are actually and massively exploited with a bayonet in battle. This means that we are referring to the SMOOTH-BOREED rifles of the line infantry, which, in general, due to the tactical conditions of its use on the battlefield, did not use rifled weapons until the widespread use of breech-loading models. That is, until the 40s. 19th century. My objections related to an earlier period (see previous posts), but the models you listed are the latest.

Sergeant major 16.04.2003 - 02:06

GFO
I do not think that needle bayonets left the arena for this very reason.

It was precisely because of inhumanity ... The needle bayonet was banned by the Hague, in a monmu, convention, I don’t remember ... in twenty some year.
The USSR did not participate in the signing of this document :-))))

Vitiaz 16.04.2003 - 10:55

It is from the loss of blood that the wounded will quietly come to a corner, moaning modestly and asking the little ones to drink ... He will bleed inside his beloved, WITHOUT SPILLING A DROPS ON THE FLOOR.
When wounded with a needle bayonet, approximately the same effect occurs as when wounded with an awl. The tissues are not so much cut as moved apart. On the surface, vessels and tissues have a bad habit of closing the wound and eliminating superficial capillary bleeding, or making it insignificant. Inside, the picture can be completely different, with damage to the abdominal organs, intestines, main vessels, etc.

Internal bleeding is diagnosed either at autopsy or during a CAREFUL examination based on indirect signs IN SUSPECTED. With the mass sorting of the wounded, coming in huge numbers from the battlefield, they will most likely deal with bloodied screaming people first of all, rather than a quietly fading man in dirty uniforms WITHOUT VISIBLE TRACES OF BLOOD AND OTHER DAMAGES.

When wounded with a knife bayonet, the intestines will dangle on the floor, the wounded will yell, and in other ways to attract attention. The wound will be of the type of fragmentation - easily and understandably, any paramedic can handle it.

flint 17.04.2003 - 01:40

S udovol "stviem mogu sdelat" otdel "nuyu temku na predmet "sovremennye repliki chernoporohovyh ruzhey" or something v takom duhe. No tol "ko obyasnite mne ubogomu (a esche programmist!) kak vy kartinki on server uploadite? Or ya dolzhen vystavit" svoi linki?

Esli takaya ideya podoydet, dayte znat".

GFO 17.04.2003 - 11:55

4 Knight
Logically, I did not think about internal bleeding. Although the question of the humanity of the needle and blade bayonet is still the same. Like sho is more dangerous than a rosette or sharpening. I remember there was such a top. In capable hands, both are dangerous. And the question of humanity is one of the aspects of the evolution of the bayonet. So sho the problem should be considered at the complex. I think so! (c) Thanks anyway - enlightened.
2 Flint
Extinguish! With great pleasure! If there is no nada for anyone, then mine is nada! If the top is not fucking needed, I'll kill it before saving myself. Pictures are easy to insert. You write a message. You post it on a server. Patom you press Edith. Then you will see everything! Pragramer after all should be f courses! 😀 And pls use transliteration. And then the eyes of cancer after your messages. 😛ipec:

Reaper 19.04.2003 - 01:22

That is why the best weapon for a sniper is an infantry three-ruler with an attached bayonet. The enemy hardly expects that when trying to take a sniper prisoner, he decides to hit with bayonets... 😛

And about internal bleedings - is true. The main thing is that it doesn’t even hurt too much, i.e. the wounded man does not complain very actively and yells. But that doesn't make it any less deadly. The tactics of bayonet fighting included a quick injection into an organ with many vessels (lungs, stomach, liver) and a quick rebound, since the enemy did not die right away - in the words of A.V. Suvorov, "dead on a bayonet, scratching his neck with a saber." 😀

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Speaking about Russian blades of the 18th-19th centuries - in particular, edged weapons, it is impossible not to dwell on bayonets. “A bullet is a fool, a bayonet is a good fellow,” this legendary saying of Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov went down in history forever as a concise description of the tactics of an infantry attack of that time. But when did the bayonet itself appear?

The prototype of the bayonet was a baguinet (bayonet) - a dagger or a strong knife with a handle tapering to the edge, which was inserted into the barrel of a gun, turning it into a kind of spear or horn. By the way, it was the shortened horn that became the first baguette, which was originally invented by hunters. Indeed, when hunting for a large and dangerous animal, in the distant past, hunters had to carry, in addition to a gun, a spear (to finish off a wounded animal or repel its attack on a hunter). And this is an extra and bulky load. It is much more convenient to have a removable blade or a powerful tip that fits on the barrel of a gun.

The baguinet is the prototype of the bayonet.

The first baguettes in Great Britain appeared in 1662 (this date marks the first mention of baguettes as part of the armament of the English regiment). According to various sources, English baguettes had blades ranging in length from 10 inches to 1 foot.

Baguinet could have a flat or faceted shape, as a rule, did not have a guard (just a thickening or a simple crosshair). The handle was made of bone, wood or metal.

In France, baguettes appeared a little earlier, since the British initially acquired them from the French. The French themselves are credited with the invention of this device (some historians indicate 1641 as the date of the creation of the bayonet in the vicinity of the city of Bayonne). The baguette was adopted by the French army in 1647.

Baginet-esponton was in service with Saxon officers in the 18th century.

Baguettes were also used in Russia, but very little is known about their use. Archival documents contain evidence that baguettes were adopted in 1694 and until 1708-1709. Russian infantry used baguettes with one-sided sharpening along with fusees. Russian baguettes had a guard in the form of a bow that did not reach the handle (so as not to interfere with sticking a gun into the barrel). The length of Russian baguettes ranged from 35 to 55 cm.

The bayonet (from the Polish sztych) replaced the baguette. The French began to use improved baguettes in the form of blades with a tube instead of a handle, which were mounted on top of the gun barrels and made it possible to shoot and load with an attached bladed weapon. The first French troops were equipped with bayonets in 1689. Following the French, the Prussians and Danes switched to bayonets. In Russia, bayonets began to be used in 1702, and the complete transition to bayonets and the rejection of baguettes was completed in 1709.

Bayonets are divided into removable and non-removable; faceted, round, needle and flat. Flat, that is, bladed bayonets are divided into bayonet-knives, bayonet-swords, bayonet-daggers, bayonet-cleavers, scimitar bayonets. Such edged weapons can be used separately from firearms and have devices for attaching to the barrels of small arms.

Faceted and round needle bayonet

A faceted bayonet looks like a sharp blade with several edges (usually three or four) with a tube instead of a handle, which is put on the barrel. Initially, a faceted bayonet had three edges. Somewhat later, tetrahedral bayonets appeared, as well as T-bayonets (in cross section they looked like the letter “T”). Sometimes there were five- and six-sided ones, but soon an increase in the number of faces turned the faceted bayonet into a round one, and models with more than four faces did not take root.

Faceted bayonets with pipes from the period of the Crimean War from the exposition of the museum complex "Mikhailovskaya Battery", Sevastopol: British at the top, Russian bayonet at the bottom.

At first, the attachment of the bayonet tube to the barrel was carried out simply on a tight fit (holding due to friction). In battle, such bayonets often fell from the barrels, could be pulled off by the enemy, and sometimes, due to dirt that got into the attachment point, it was very difficult to separate the small arms and the bayonet. Around 1740, a bayonet with an L-shaped groove on the attachment tube was created in France, which made it possible to securely fasten the bayonet to the barrel, putting it on so that the front sight went into the groove (in this case, the aiming front sight acted as a stopper). In the future, this design was slightly modified, but not fundamentally.

The edges of the bayonets could have valleys or not. Some models of bayonets had sharp ribs (a shape formed when crossing adjacent valleys). Such bayonets could inflict wounds not only with the tip, but also with the ribs. But their strength was lower, the edges of the edges of the bayonets often crumbled in collisions with enemy bayonets or other solid objects. Russian bayonets had fullers with blunt ribs, only the tip of the bayonet was sharpened sharply. Trihedral bayonets were in service with many armies of European countries. Tetrahedral bayonets were used in the army of Russia and France.

Used in the Russian army and round bayonets. It was at the end of the 18th century. From a report dated 03/27/1791 addressed to His Serene Highness Prince Potemkin: “On this March 25, received from Mr. Steer-Kriegs-Commissar Cavalier Turchaninov in Your Highness entrusted Yekaterinoslav Grenadier Regiment of sabers for chief officers eighty-six, and for non-commissioned officers and grenadier four thousand, round bayonets three thousand five hundred and seventy nine ... ". The indicated regiment received precisely round bayonets, and not faceted ones. A bayonet of this form is available in the collection of VIMAIViVS, it is also listed as an "experimental bayonet" in the reference book edited by A. N. Kulinsky. Also a gun with a round bayonet is in the Artillery Museum. It is known that round bayonets were in service with the Yekaterinoslav regiment until the end of the reign of Catherine the Great.

Needle-shaped bayonets were preferable during hand-to-hand (bayonet) combat than bladed ones. They practically did not get stuck in the body of the enemy, had a smaller mass and were not bulky. Shooting from a rifle with an attached needle-shaped bayonet is always more aimed. However, the needle bayonet is almost impossible to use for other purposes. Therefore, blade models of bayonets also had a certain distribution.

The bayonet-sword is very similar to the usual faceted bayonet. Such bayonets were in service with the French army (1890). The length of the blade of the bayonet-sword reached 650 mm. The bayonet-sword had a hilt and a small guard in the form of a cross. One edge of the cross ended with a ring that was put on the barrel, and the pommel of the handle adjoined a special socket with a latch located in the forend of the rifle. Sword bayonets were used by the French for a long time, until the First World War. There were several varieties of them: with a triangular and tetrahedral blade, with a T-shaped section, with a forged steel handle, etc. All bayonets-swords were completed with a sheath made of leather or metal.

Cleaver bayonets became widespread in the Prussian army in the middle of the 18th century. Such models of bayonets were intended to be used twice: as bayonets in the attached state, and as cleavers - for use separately from guns. By the beginning of the 19th century, the popularity of such bayonets increased and they began to be used in various European countries, in particular in England, where arming infantry with cleaver bayonets became widespread. English cleaver bayonets had brass hilts and double-edged blades. A similar type of bayonets-cleavers were used in 1850-1860. military of the North American States.

Sapper bayonet. It was used in the attached position to repel enemy attacks and separately from small arms - for hand-to-hand combat, trench work, clearing passages, cutting palisades.

In Russia, the bayonet-cleaver was used in conjunction with the fitting of the model 1780s, with the fitting of the model 1805 and the Littich fitting of the model 1843. At a later time, the cleaver bayonet was replaced by a needle-shaped bayonet (with rare exceptions, a faceted bayonet).

In the armies of Europe, the bayonet-cleaver quite successfully coexisted and competed with faceted bayonets. For example, in France, in artillery units, a faceted bayonet was replaced with a cleaver bayonet of the 1892 model. German and Austrian troops used the cleaver bayonet in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Bayonet-cleavers were also used in Asian countries. A rather curious example: the Type 96 light machine gun was adopted (in the 30s of the twentieth century) by the Japanese Kwantung Army, and later the Type 99. These machine guns were equipped with cleaver bayonets. It is not known whether there were cases of effective use of the attached bayonet for its intended purpose, because the Japanese soldiers of that time did not differ in physical strength, and the machine gun weighed about 10 kg and had decent dimensions. Most likely, the decision to equip the machine gun with a bayonet was made out of respect for the military traditions of Japan (the historically established cult of edged weapons).

Japanese machine gun with attached bayonet.

In the USSR, the bayonet-cleaver survived the “reincarnation”: they were equipped with automatic rifles by F. V. Tokarev, S. G. Simonov and V. G. Fedorov. Rifles Tokarev and Simonov were in service until 1945 (as well as bayonets-cleavers for them).

A scimitar-type bayonet is a special case of a cleaver bayonet. Such models were equipped with a blade that had an angular (very small angle) downward bend at a distance of ½ to ⅔ from the handle. Of course, it was not quite a scimitar, but the design is similar. Such bayonets were produced in France, in the UK, Japan and other countries. They were equipped with sheaths made of leather or metal.

Towards the end of the 19th century, bayonets-knives began to be adopted by the armies of the world. A. N. Kulinsky in his book “Bayonets of the World” defined a bayonet-knife: “... this is a bayonet, which, separated from a rifle or carbine, can be used as a knife, including for inflicting damage to the enemy ...”. That is, a bayonet-knife is a bayonet that has retained all the functional properties of a combat knife. The appearance of the bayonet-knife is due to the development of small arms: with an increase in range, rate of fire and power, the role of bayonets has sharply decreased. The infantry needed more functional and lightweight models.

The first bayonet-knife model 71/84 for the Mauser rifle, Germany.

The first bayonet-knife was created in Germany in 1884. It was developed for the Mauser system rifle (sample 1871/84). The bayonet-knife was used in the attached position for a bayonet attack, and in the hand it was also a formidable weapon. In addition, the bayonet 71/84 was used to perform various work in the field. After some time, bayonet-knives appeared in many armies of the world. The very first serial bayonet-knife became a prototype for creating such models.

Bayonet knives are usually divided into the following types:

• bayonet-knives with one-sided sharpening (single-blade models);
• bayonet-knives with double-edged blades;
• bayonet-knives with double-sided sharpening of the T-shaped blade;
• stiletto bayonets with needle-shaped blades.

The classic device for attaching a bayonet-knife to small arms is the “groove-latch-ring” combination, in which the ring is put on the barrel, a special protrusion on the handle is inserted into the groove, and the handle itself is fastened with the end part to the latch on the forearm of the weapon.

Germany became the world's main developer and manufacturer of bayonet knives. In Germany, they created a huge number of bayonet-knives both for the needs of their army and for third-party customers. There were about a hundred ersatz bayonets of German origin alone. At the beginning of the twentieth century (1905), a very popular model 98/05 was created, many of which have survived to this day. In Russia, bayonet-knives were not popular; Russian faceted bayonets with pipes were in use. The creation of bayonet-knives was taken care of only under the USSR, but we will talk about this later.

Bayonet 98/05

Concluding the story about bayonets, we note the existence of another interesting group, which includes rare and almost exotic models of bayonets. These are the so-called bayonets-tools. In different years, bayonets-shovels, bayonets-saws, bayonets-scissors, bayonets-machetes, bayonets-bipods and so on were created. Alas, these products did not receive great popularity due to their low efficiency. In this combination, neither a good instrument nor a decent bayonet was obtained.

At the beginning of the First World War, with the advent of the so-called "trench war", it turned out that in hand-to-hand fights, in trenches and dugouts, long-barreled firearms and bayonets created for it were not effective. Formidable Russian three-rulers and German Mauser rifles uselessly pricked the air at a distance of up to two meters, while a compact weapon was required, with a not very large blade adapted for stabbing. The armies of long-suffering Europe, shaken by hostilities, began to hastily arm themselves with whatever they could. Germany, which adopted bladed bayonets and full-fledged bayonet-knives, was in a winning situation. And France, Italy, Great Britain, Russia and others had to adapt and remake various edged weapons. Stilettos were made from trophy bayonets or shortened to the dimensions of a universal hunting knife. The so-called "French nail" was very popular - a piece of steel bar, riveted and pointed on one side and bent into an elongated letter "O" on the other. The primitive handle also served as a kind of brass knuckles.

The French nail is one of the popular homemade hand-to-hand combat in the trenches. The handle handle served as brass knuckles.

In Russia, due to archaic-minded officials, the adoption of a bladed bayonet-knife simply failed. A soldier's dagger of the 1907 model, known as bebut, helped out (see part II). The experience of the Caucasian campaign was not in vain. From 1907 to 1910, Bebut was adopted by the gendarmerie, lower ranks of machine gun crews, lower ranks of artillery crews, lower ranks of mounted reconnaissance. With the outbreak of the First World War, a simplified version of the bebut was also made, with a straight blade. Of course, daggers were not enough to fully support the army. In the course were trophy samples and alterations.

Russian infantry soldier's dagger bebut.

Over time, the "peaceful" models of knives have changed and updated. Shoemaker's knives, cutting tools for woodworking (carving) and other professional knives, as well as hunting knives, have changed little. But folding models appeared, first of all, the so-called penknives. At first they were imported from Sweden, Germany, France, Switzerland. And later, Russian craftsmen began to make very good folding knives. It is noteworthy that many craftsmen lived and created excellent knives in the outback, and not only in St. Petersburg, Moscow or Novgorod, placing their workshops closer to mines and handicrafts. For example, G. E. Varvarin from Vorsma made multifunctional knives that looked like the French Layol. Note folding knives from Vacha, the work of the master Kondratov. Well, the name of the master Zavyalov is world famous at all.

Penknife from Vorsma by Varvarin.

Ivan Zavyalov was a serf of Count Sheremetyev and, thanks to his skill, perseverance and natural gift, he was able to establish his own business and achieve the highest level of skill. In 1835, he made several knives for the imperial family. Nicholas I himself was shocked by the elegance and quality of Zavyalov's work, for which he granted him a caftan with gold braid and a cash reward - 5,000 rubles (a huge amount at that time).

Folding knife made by craftsman Kondratov from Vacha.

Zavyalov made folding penknives, table knives and combined tools (knife-fork in one item), the so-called hunting pairs (knife and fork for game) and other knives. The master himself forged blades, and used silver, horn, bone, wood for handles. In 1837, he presented the emperor with a set of folding knives, for which he was awarded a gold ring with diamonds. His works stood at the level of products of the best masters of Germany and England. Since 1841, Zavyalov was given the privilege to put the royal coat of arms on his works, later he received a medal at a manufactory exhibition in Moscow, and in 1862 - a medal at an exhibition in London. His work was admired by Duke Maximilian and the Grand Duke of the Russian Empire. Using the example of one master, we highlighted the level of knife production in Russia in the period of the 19th and early 20th centuries. But Zavyalov was not the only Russian cutler-craftsman of such a high level. The names of Khonin, Shchetin, Khabarov and others are well known to collectors and nayfoani of Russia. Knife crafts worked and developed in Pavlovskaya Sloboda (now Pavlovo-on-Oka), Zlatoust, Vorsma. By the beginning of the 20th century, Russia had several powerful blade production centers and a whole scattering of nugget masters who created real masterpieces.

A characteristic feature of knives with fixed blades made by craftsman Zavyalov is the Archimedean screw on the shank.

In the next chapter, we will dwell in detail on the blade products of the First World War, the Civil War and the Second World War, Russian and European knives of the period up to 1945.