The basics of a bayonet attack were taught to Russian soldiers back in the days of Alexander Suvorov. Many people today are well aware of his phrase, which has become a proverb: “a bullet is a fool, a bayonet is a good man.”

This phrase was first published in a manual on combat training of troops prepared by the famous Russian commander and published under the title "The Science of Conquering" in 1806. For many years to come, the bayonet charge became a formidable weapon for the Russian soldier, with whom there were not many people willing to engage in hand-to-hand combat.

In his work “The Science of Victory,” Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov called on soldiers and officers to effective use available ammunition. Not surprising, given that muzzle-loading weapons took a long time to reload, which was a problem in itself. That is why the famous commander urged the infantry to shoot accurately, and at the moment of attack to use the bayonet as effectively as possible. Smoothbore guns of that time were a priori never considered rapid-fire, so the bayonet attack in battle was given great importance - a Russian grenadier during a bayonet attack could kill up to four opponents, while hundreds of bullets fired by ordinary infantrymen flew “into the milk.” The bullets and guns themselves were not as effective as modern small arms, and their effective range was seriously limited.

For a long time, Russian gunsmiths simply did not create mass-produced small arms without the possibility of using a bayonet with them. The bayonet was the faithful weapon of the infantryman in many wars, the Napoleonic wars were no exception. In battles with French troops, the bayonet more than once helped Russian soldiers gain the upper hand on the battlefield. Pre-revolutionary historian A.I. Koblenz-Cruz described the story of the grenadier Leonty Korenny, who in 1813, in the battle of Leipzig (Battle of the Nations), entered into a battle with the French as part of a small unit. When his comrades died in battle, Leonty continued to fight alone. In the battle he broke his bayonet, but continued to fight off the enemy with the butt. As a result, he received 18 wounds and fell among the French he killed. Despite his wounds, Korennoy survived and was captured. Amazed by the warrior’s courage, Napoleon later ordered the brave grenadier to be released from captivity.

Subsequently, with the development of multi-charge and automatic weapons the role of bayonet attacks decreased. In wars already at the end of the 19th century, the number of people killed and wounded with knives was extremely small. At the same time, a bayonet attack, in most cases, made it possible to put the enemy to flight. In fact, it was not even the use of the bayonet itself that began to play the main role, but only the threat of its use. Despite this, the techniques of bayonet attack and hand-to-hand combat were given enough attention in many armies of the world, the Red Army was no exception.

IN pre-war years In the Red Army, a sufficient amount of time was devoted to bayonet fighting. Training military personnel in the basics of such combat was considered quite an important activity. Bayonet combat at that time constituted the main part of hand-to-hand combat, as was clearly stated in the specialized literature of that time (“Fencing and hand-to-hand combat,” K.T. Bulochko, V.K. Dobrovolsky, 1940 edition). According to the Manual on Preparation for Hand-to-Hand Combat of the Red Army (NPRB-38, Voenizdat, 1938), the main task of bayonet combat was to train military personnel in the most appropriate offensive and defensive techniques, that is, “to be able to quickly inflict injections and blows on the enemy at any time and from different positions, repel the enemy's weapon and immediately respond with an attack. Be able to use one or another combat technique in a timely and tactically appropriate manner.” Among other things, it was pointed out that bayonet fighting instills in the Red Army soldier the most valuable qualities and skills: speed of reaction, dexterity, endurance and calmness, courage, determination, etc.

One of the theorists of bayonet combat in the USSR, G. Kalachev, emphasized that a real bayonet attack requires courage from soldiers, the correct direction of force and speed of reaction in the presence of a state of extreme nervous excitement and, possibly, significant physical fatigue. In view of this, it is necessary to develop soldiers physically and maintain their physical development at the highest possible level. To transform the blow into a stronger one and gradually strengthen the muscles, including the legs, all training fighters must practice and, from the very beginning of training, make attacks at short distances, jump into dug trenches and jump out of them.

How important it is for soldiers to learn the basics of hand-to-hand combat was shown by the battles with the Japanese at Lake Khasan and Khalkhin Gol and Soviet-Finnish war 1939-40. As a result, the training of Soviet soldiers before the Great Patriotic War was carried out in a single complex, which combined bayonet fighting, grenade throwing and shooting. Later, during the war, especially in urban battles and in the trenches, new experience was gained and generalized, which made it possible to strengthen the training of soldiers. The approximate tactics for storming enemy fortified areas were described by the Soviet command as follows: “From a distance of 40-50 meters, the attacking infantry must cease fire in order to reach the enemy trenches with a decisive throw. From a distance of 20-25 meters it is necessary to use hand grenades thrown while running. Next, you need to fire a shot at point-blank range and ensure the defeat of the enemy with cold steel.”

Such training was useful to the Red Army soldiers during the Great Patriotic War. Patriotic War. Unlike Soviet soldiers, Wehrmacht soldiers in most cases tried to avoid hand-to-hand combat. The experience of the first months of the war showed that in bayonet attacks the Red Army soldiers most often prevailed over enemy soldiers. However, very often such attacks were carried out in 1941 not out of good fortune. Often a bayonet strike remained the only chance to break out of the still loosely closed encirclement ring. The soldiers and commanders of the Red Army who were surrounded sometimes simply had no ammunition left, which forced them to use a bayonet attack, trying to force hand-to-hand combat on the enemy where the terrain allowed it.

The Red Army entered the Great Patriotic War with the well-known tetrahedral needle bayonet, which was adopted by the Russian army back in 1870 and was initially attached to Berdan rifles (the famous “Berdanka”), and later in 1891 a modification of the bayonet for the Mosin rifle appeared ( the no less famous “three-ruler”). Even later, such a bayonet was used with the Mosin carbine of the 1944 model and the Simonov self-loading carbine of the 1945 model (SKS). In the literature, this bayonet has a name - Russian bayonet. In close combat, the Russian bayonet was a formidable weapon. The point of the bayonet was sharpened in the shape of a screwdriver. The wounds inflicted by a tetrahedral needle bayonet were more severe than those that could be inflicted by a knife bayonet. The depth of the wound was greater, and the entrance hole was smaller, for this reason the wound was accompanied by severe internal bleeding. Therefore, such a bayonet was even condemned as an inhumane weapon, but it is hardly worth discussing the humanity of the bayonet in military conflicts that have claimed tens of millions of lives. Among other things, the needle-shaped shape of the Russian bayonet reduced the chance of getting stuck in the enemy’s body and increased penetrating power, which was necessary to confidently defeat the enemy, even if he was wrapped from head to toe in winter uniform.

Russian tetrahedral needle bayonet for the Mosin rifle

Recalling their European campaigns, Wehrmacht soldiers, in conversations with each other or in letters sent to Germany, voiced the idea that those who did not fight the Russians in hand-to-hand combat had not seen real war. Artillery shelling, bombing, skirmishes, tank attacks, marches through impassable mud, cold and hunger could not be compared with fierce and short hand-to-hand battles, in which it was extremely difficult to survive. They especially remembered the fierce hand-to-hand combat and close combat in the ruins of Stalingrad, where the fight was literally for individual houses and floors in these houses, and the path traveled during the day could be measured not only in meters, but also in the corpses of dead soldiers.

During the Great Patriotic War, soldiers and officers of the Red Army deservedly became known as a formidable force in hand-to-hand combat. But the experience of the war itself demonstrated a significant reduction in the role of the bayonet during hand-to-hand combat. Practice has shown that knives and sapper blades Soviet fighters used more efficiently and successfully. The increasing spread of automatic weapons in the infantry also played an important role. For example, submachine guns, which were massively used by Soviet soldiers during the war, never received bayonets (although they were supposed to); practice showed that short bursts at point-blank range were much more effective.

After the end of the Great Patriotic War, the first Soviet serial machine gun - the famous AK, adopted for service in 1949, was equipped with a new type of bladed weapon - a bayonet. The army was well aware that soldiers would still need edged weapons, but multifunctional and compact ones. The bayonet-knife was intended to defeat enemy soldiers in close combat, for this it could either be attached to a machine gun, or, on the contrary, be used by a soldier as a regular knife. At the same time, the bayonet-knife received a blade shape, and subsequently its functionality expanded mainly towards household use. Figuratively speaking, of the three roles “bayonet - knife - tool”, preference was given to the last two. Real bayonet attacks have forever remained on the pages of history textbooks, documentaries and feature films, but hand-to-hand combat has not gone away. In the Russian army, as in the armies of most countries of the world, a sufficient share of attention is still paid to it when training military personnel.

Gulkevich's bayonet
My casual interest in the bayonet of the Mosin rifle led to an unexpected result - I discovered that this type of simple edged weapon had a rather interesting and difficult fate. The needle tetrahedral bayonet was adopted by the Russian imperial army simultaneously with the Mosin rifle back in the 19th century.

This bayonet was always supposed to be worn fixed, and therefore the rifle was sighted with the bayonet fixed. The advantage of using a bayonet this way was that the rifle was always ready for hand-to-hand combat.
Military experts calculated During the time when the fighter is holding his bayonet, he could fire 6-7 shots. Therefore, in defense, the always fixed bayonet of the Mosin rifle was especially valuable - the fighter, without stopping fire, switched to bayonet combat.
In addition, they believed that the bayonet was a factor reducing the chance of retreat and escape. The fact is that already in the wars of the late 19th century, the number of people killed and wounded with knives was negligible. However, it was the bayonet attack that, in most cases, put the enemy to flight.

Thus, the main role was played not by the actual use of the bayonet, but by the threat of its use. Therefore, a fighter who does not have an effective bladed weapon begins to experience uncertainty.
However, no matter how good the long needle bayonet of the Mosinka was, the massive use of shrapnel and machine guns radically changed the nature of the battle.
Already at the beginning of the 20th century, this bayonet did not meet modern requirements. Its main drawback was that the bayonet always had to be worn attached.

An original solution to this problem was found shortly before the start of the First World War by Colonel ON THE. Gulkevich. He proposed a bayonet of an original design. Its bayonet was attached to the rifle and, due to the hinge, folded with its tip towards the butt.
The bayonet passed the test - it was used for a long time to hit the boards, the bayonet passed the test and was accepted into service. It is often written that Gulkevich’s bayonet is experimental, but this cannot be, if the model is adopted for service, it ceases to be experimental.
Gulkevich was equipped with a bayonet mainly by Cossack units. Reviews from combat units were enthusiastic. Later, weapons designer Fedorov would write that Gulkevich’s bayonet was discontinued due to deficiencies identified in it.

It was meant that as a result of prolonged wear and shaking, the hinge screw loosened itself. However, as it seems to me, the screw is an excuse, the real problem was the lack of production capacity. The Russian industry could not produce even a simple standard bayonet in sufficient quantity, so in the first place world war there were many different ersatz bayonets.
During the most difficult periods of the war, everything was used: captured Mannlichers, Berdans, Winchesters with a Henry brace, etc.

It is interesting that in the armies of Austria, Germany and France, which used a large number of Mosin rifles took a different route - they shot the three-ruler without a bayonet, and he the bayonet was worn on the belt in a special case. After the First World War, the leadership of Soviet Russia long time there was no modernization of weapons. We only got around to a rifle in the late 20s. The changes also affected the bayonet. In particular, a latch was made and now the bayonet no longer came loose, held tightly and did not interfere with shooting.
Why the production of Gulkevich bayonets was not resumed in the USSR at this time is a mystery to me. It can be assumed that this was done again for economic reasons.

Why start producing a new bayonet if automatic and self-loading rifles with blade bayonets are being prepared for serial production?

At the end of the 30s Soviet designer Tokarev F.V. developed and tested the SVT rifle. It was adopted into service and gradually began to replace old repeating rifles with it. A lot has been written in fiction and is still being written to this day that the rifle was unreliable, “lousy”, so it was gradually taken out of production.
However, it seems to me that the main The reason for the discontinuation of SVT was its high cost. History knows a lot of cases where there are wonderful examples of weapons that were withdrawn from service or not accepted for service due to their high cost.
The SVT suffered the fate of Gulkevich's bayonet - it was declared unreliable because it was not cheap enough.

Digressing a little, I want to dwell in more detail on the cost of weapons. You can often read on the Internet long list complaints about the Mosin rifle: it is heavy, long, does not have at least a half-pistol bend, not the most convenient bolt, trigger, etc.
However, not many people know that even before the First World War, the chief of artillery of the Odessa Military District Lieutenant General N. I. Kholodovsky significantly modernized the Mosin rifle. The experimental specimen was called the “Mosin-Kholodovsky rifle.”
The weapon had remarkable characteristics: it was much shorter, lighter, and shooting from it was much more accurate. By the way, the bayonet of this rifle was also quite original: made of an alloy with aluminum.

Subsequently, many dreamers from the “French bakers” sighed: if only Kholodovsky’s rifle, and Gulkevich’s bayonet, made using Kholodovsky’s technology, then Russia would have the best rifle in the world!
But dreamers are dreamers. During the First World War, Russian industry could not even cope with orders for “wartime” three-line rifles with ersatz bayonets.

However, let us return to the period of the Great Patriotic War. The terrible burden on Soviet industry quickly forced the abandonment of SVT production and the resumption of mass production of three-line models. 1930. It was produced with the same constantly worn bayonet, which was already considered obsolete at the beginning of the century.
As it turned out, magazines supplemented with pistols and machine guns could well satisfy the needs of the front. But the rifle should be shorter, and the bayonet should be removable or foldable.
As a result, a competition was announced and out of 8 bayonets, the most suitable bayonet of the design was chosen N.S. Semina. This bayonet was equipped with a carbine mod. 1938, after which the carbine was called “carbine arr. 1944."

I came across information that supposedly Gulkevich’s bayonet was presented at the mentioned competition. It is possible that several decades after it was discontinued, it had a chance to return. However, the 1930 model rifle was excessively long even with a folding bayonet. That's why the carbine went into production.
Now we can only express regret that the Gulkevich bayonet was taken out of production during the First World War and its production was not resumed in 1930, during the modernization of the three-line.

Just in case, I’ll make a reservation: I am a “manufacturer” historian, not a “hardware worker” and this post is not in my specialization. And everything I wrote above I read on the Internet. Therefore, I will be grateful to anyone who provides more accurate material.

GFO 04/15/2003 - 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 bayonet combat. But when, by the end of the 19th century, bladed bayonets and knives began to be adopted everywhere, in Russia, it seemed that time had stopped. Nothing could shake the hegemony of the needle bayonet. However, we also made repeated attempts to arm the army with a bladed bayonet.
Since the end of the 17th century, military-style guns were equipped mainly with triangular bayonets with a tube, which replaced baguettes inserted into the barrel. There were bayonets with a tube and flat knife-like blades; some of them are kept in the collection of VIMAIViVS (St. Petersburg). But they could not be used separately from the gun, like a cleaver or a dagger. Cleaver bayonets were accepted only for Jaeger cutlery fittings, and at first Jaeger cutlass daggers were worn separately, and only later they were able to be attached to a fitting.
Battles of the 17th and early 19th centuries. often ended in bayonet fights, so in battle a bayonet constantly attached to the rifle was necessary. However, starting from mid-19th centuries, the improvement of small arms led to a significant decrease in the number of hand-to-hand combats. Therefore, in most European armies, needle bayonets were replaced by blade-type bayonets, which could be worn on the belt and used not only in battle, but also as a household knife at a rest stop, 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 triangular, as before, but tetrahedral.
For the first time in the Russian army, a tetrahedral bayonet was adopted for the Berdan? 2 infantry rifle mod. 1870. This bayonet was used with Mosin repeating rifles without any significant changes until their final removal from service at the end of the 40s of the 20th century.
IN late XIX- early 20th century in the Russian army there were many supporters of retaining the needle bayonet (constantly attached to the rifle in battle), who sought to prove its superiority over the knife bayonet.
An interesting and rather curious “dignity” of a tetrahedral bayonet is cited by the famous weapons designer and researcher V. G. Fedorov. The fact is that the blade bayonet could be used in 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 into the hands of “amateurs.” Strict orders from the command did not help either. “Our faceted bayonet enjoys less love from an everyday point of view - that is its advantage,” notes V. G. Fedorov, who stood for the rearmament of the Russian army with blade bayonets, with irony.
Nevertheless, 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." It was planned to equip the troops of the Turkestan district with rifles with such a bladed bayonet.
Detailed description this “bayonet-dagger” was not given in the message, but we can conclude that it had a tube with a slot that was put on the barrel: “...The method of attaching the dagger to the barrel is the same as that now accepted in our 4.2- line infantry rifle with a French bayonet."
The sample was tested by firing live cartridges with a charge of gunpowder 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 said edge of the tube against the base of the front sight. With further firing of up to 20 shots, the rear edge of the base of the front sight also broke, and the edge of the front sight slot bent upward so much that it interfered with further aiming of the rifle, and the connection of the dagger with the barrel was broken.”
Based on the test results, the presented sample was modified in the shooting range workshop.
To strengthen the barrel wall, a “special prism” was soldered into its muzzle. The handle of the dagger was lengthened, making it more comfortable, and the connection with the barrel more rigid. As follows from a further report, the new version of the bayonet apparently did not have the tube that the previous model had.
Tests have shown that when shooting at a distance of 200 steps (142 m), a fixed bayonet does not affect “neither the deflection of bullets nor the accuracy of shooting.” However, it was noted that the possibility of bending the “relatively thin-walled barrel adopted for 4.2-line Cossack rifles” has not been completely eliminated, and the alteration of rifles must be done at factories. At the same time, it will be possible to avoid significant defects only on newly manufactured weapons.
The issue of adopting a bladed bayonet was submitted to the Main Committee for the Organization and Education of Troops. However, the bayonet was never adopted for service.
This issue was returned to again in 1909, when the Artillery Committee unanimously recognized the need to arm the Cossacks with a bayonet-dagger, which could be worn on the belt and attached 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. Transbaikal Cossacks sought to acquire Japanese bayonets-knives by any means.
The weapons department proposed to state-owned arms factories, the Rifle Range, and the Zlatoust Arms Factory to develop a sample bayonet-knife, taking into account the designs of bladed bayonets adopted for service in the West. European armies. Special attention it was recommended to use a bayonet for a German rifle mod. 1898
The following requirements for the bayonet were developed:
- the weight of the bayonet should 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 tetrahedral bayonet;
- quick and convenient connection of the bayonet to the barrel;
- the fastening must ensure a strong and reliable connection of the bayonet with the barrel and prevent it from becoming loose during operation;
- the ability to wear a bayonet on a belt.
On December 21, 1909, the Imperial Tula Arms Plant received a request from the GAU to speed up the production and delivery of “bayonet-dagger” samples. A report dated April 8, 1910 reported on the development and production 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 the civilian gunsmith of the Control Workshop Kavarinov.
The document provides the following brief description of the “cleaver bayonet” designed by N. Kavarinov: “...The cleaver bayonet consists of 6 parts: a cleaver bayonet made from a single piece of steel, a bolt, a bolt spring, a spring pin, a latch and a screw for delaying the latch. In order to put on a cleaver bayonet, you need to put it on the barrel with a tube and direct it with a groove into the protrusion made on the ring, push it all the way, you can put it on both with the latch open and with it closed. To remove the cleaver bayonet you need a large turn the latch downwards with your finger, the latch will fit into its socket, and the cleaver bayonet 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 needle tetrahedral, 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 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 handle, and “to be worn on a waist belt” it also required “a sheath, which should be made of wood and covered with leather.”
As production manager A.V. Kun, “in addition to the specified conditions, he also had in mind the easy adaptation of this bayonet to an existing rifle by the regimental workshops.” To convert the rifle for 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; unroll 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 "We'll have to send in an unfinished one and disassemble it among the troops when fitting bayonets to rifles."
“...New muzzles will have to be issued to military units... due to the fact that the outer dimensions of the muzzle are made with significant tolerances,” therefore, “when fitting bayonet rings, the outer surface of the existing muzzles would have to be adjusted to the new bayonet rings, and this work will not be "at the expense of military workshops, or at least it will take a lot of time. We will have to send to the units a reamer for the crosshair hole."
“To put the designed bayonet on a rifle, it is enough to insert the rod at the end of the handle into the hole in the bayonet ring, and put the hole in the crosshairs on the barrel and push the bayonet down until it stops, while the springs in the rod jump over the edge of the bayonet ring. To remove the bayonet you need , pressing the fingers of your right or left hand on the protruding ends of the springs, press the bayonet up and, when the heads of the springs go slightly inside, lift the bayonet up."
From the above passages we can conclude that in order to attach a bayonet of Kuhn’s design, it was necessary to equip the rifle with an additional bayonet ring, which was attached to the “muzzle.” By “muzzle”, apparently, in this case we should understand the tip of the forend.
Two samples of new bayonets-daggers for the Cossack rifle were presented to the State Agrarian University, and on June 30, 1910 they were received by the Rifle Range at the Officer Rifle School in Oranienbaum.
The available documents do not allow us to trace future fate samples. One thing is certain: a bladed bayonet for a rifle mod. 1891 was never put into service. Main role Economic reasons played a role in this. So, when upgrading the rifle mod. 1891 in 1930, the proposal to accept a blade bayonet along with it 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 machine guns and Mauser pistols. Some were equipped with many technical innovations of that time: optical sights and binoculars, devices for shooting from cover, portable shooting shields. Among the weapons, “special bayonets-daggers modeled on the Caucasian Cossack army” are mentioned.
It’s curious what to adapt to the rifle mod. 1891 the blade bayonet was achieved...by the Germans. During the First World War, captured Russian rifles in the German army were equipped with a special element for attaching a German bladed bayonet from a Mauser rifle. Such samples are kept in the Tula State Weapons Museum.
Models based on the rifle mod. also had mounts for a bladed bayonet. 1891, adopted for service in a number of countries: Poland - model 91/98/25, Finland - rifles M27, M28, M28-30 (Schutzkor), M30 and M39.
As for Russia, blade 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.
The needle bayonet with a tetrahedral blade took root in Russia for a long time. One of the variants of the bayonet for the experimental self-loading rifle of 1930 by V. A. Degtyarev, although it had a wooden handle, however, the bayonet blade was tetrahedral needle-shaped. The Simonov self-loading carbine, adopted for service at the end of the war, was equipped with an integral folding tetrahedral needle bayonet.
The decision to replace needle bayonets with bladed ones for repeating rifles for the Red Army was never made due to cost savings. However, after the modernization of 1930, V. E. Markevich proposed the BEM for his rifle, an improved version of the 1891/30 model. - a bayonet with a “cleaver blade”. Only self-loading and automatic rifles ABC-36, SVT-38, SVT-40 were equipped with blade bayonets, and then the bayonet was adopted for Kalashnikov assault rifles.
In the modern period, the needle tetrahedral integral bayonet has been preserved only on the Chinese-made Kalashnikov assault rifle “type 56”.
Igor Pink (c)

1-blade bayonet from the Littikhsky fitting of the 1843 model, 2-Triangular bayonet from the 6-line gun, 3-Tetrahedral bayonet from the Berdan 2 rifle, 4-Tetrahedral bayonet with a collar from the Mosin rifle of the 1891 model, 5-Tetrahedral bayonet with spring stopper from a Mosin system rifle of 1891/1930, 6-tetrahedral bayonet of the Colonel Gulkevich system to a Mosin system rifle

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

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

Soviet bladed bayonet for the Simonov automatic rifle (ABC-36). The bayonet was connected to the rifle using movable handle pads. After engaging the hook located at the rear of the bayonet on the rifle, it is necessary to move the bayonet handle up and attach the bayonet to the weapon

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

Bladed bayonets on ABC-36 (top) and SVT-40 rifles:
the differences in the design of the bayonet attachment to the rifle are clearly visible

Feldwebel 04/15/2003 - 03:46

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

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

flint 04/15/2003 - 09:16

Vitiaz 04/16/2003 - 03:04

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

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

By the way, it is precisely because of their “unconventionality” that needle bayonets are removed from Chinese-made SKS carbines when they are sold in the USA. This does not happen with Soviet-made SKS bayonets (knife bayonets).

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

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

GFO 04/16/2003 - 10:44

2 Flint
There is a decoder lying around somewhere on the forum. And about rifles of the “rifling-not-rifling” type, can you be more specific? Please! If you take photos, then you’ll end up with a complete asshole! Thank you in advance.
4 Vityaz
I don’t think that needle bayonets left the arena precisely for this reason. To deliver a damaging blow with a needle bayonet, you need sufficient accuracy. And the likelihood of being hit by a bladed bayonet is much greater. Plus bleeding. This is already about medicine. A guy is more likely to die from loss of blood from an extensive bayonet wound than to “succumb” to an infection. With the exception of some penetrating wounds (such as a wound to the liver). Plus the improvement of firearms (transferring the battle to long distances). Changing war strategy (WW1 trenches). All this entailed the transformation of the bayonet into a bayonet - a knife. Those. loading the bayonet with household functions. And used as a hand-to-hand weapon. Unfortunately, nothing is universal. Bayonet in in capable hands- bayonet. A knife in skillful hands is a knife. AK bayonet knife for Soviet soldier. Everything is logical.

Feldwebel 04/16/2003 - 02:02

flint
To Feltfebel:

S terminologiey kak raz vse v poryadke. Zdes" (ya zhivu v Calgary) na severo-amerikanskom kontinente esche v XVIII veke gospodstvuet nareznoe oruzhie, hotya zamki esche kremnevye. Y menya 2 ruzhya 50 calibra (octagon snaruzhi, 4 nareza vnutri. Eto dovol"no blizkie replici ruzhey to go time) . 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 empty place.

We are not talking about the guns of huntsmen 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 used with a bayonet in battle. This means that we are referring to SMOOTHBORES guns 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 more recent.

Feldwebel 04/16/2003 - 02:06

GFO
I don’t think that needle bayonets left the arena precisely for this reason.

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

Vitiaz 04/16/2003 - 10:55

It is from the loss of blood that the wounded man will bleed quietly in a corner, moaning modestly and asking for a drink... He will bleed inside his loved one, WITHOUT SPILLING A DROP 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 they are moved apart. On the surface, vessels and tissues have bad habit close the wound and exclude superficial capillary bleeding, or make it insignificant. Inside, the picture may be completely different, with damage to the cavitary organs, intestines, great vessels, etc.

Internal bleeding is diagnosed either at autopsy, or during a CAREFUL examination based on indirect signs IF SUSPECTED. During the mass triage of the wounded, arriving in huge numbers from the battlefield, they will most likely primarily deal with bloodied, screaming people, rather than a quietly fading person in dirty uniform WITHOUT VISIBLE TRACES OF BLOOD AND OTHER DAMAGE.

When wounded with a knife bayonet, the intestines will dangle along the floor, the wounded person will scream and in other ways attract attention to himself. The wound will be of the shrapnel type - easy and understandable, any paramedic can handle it.

flint 04/17/2003 - 01:40

S udovol "stviem mogu sdelat" otdel "nuyu temku na predmet "sovremennye repliki chernoporohovyh ruzhey" ili chto-to v takom duhe. No tol"ko obyasnite mne ubogomu (a esche programmist!) how vy kartinki na server uploadite? Ili ya dolzhen vystavit" svoi linki?

Esli takaya ideya podoydet, dayte znat."

GFO 04/17/2003 - 11:55

4 Vityaz
Logically, I didn’t think about internal bleeding. Although the question of the humanity of a needle and blade bayonet is still the same. Like, is a rosette or a sharpening more dangerous? I remember there was such a top. In the right hands, both are dangerous. And the question of humanity is one of the aspects of the evolution of the bayonet. So the problem needs to be looked at holistically. I think so! (c) Thank you anyway - I enlightened you.
2 Flint
Extinguish! With great pleasure! If nothing is wrong, it means nothing is wrong! If you don’t fucking need the top, I’ll kill you first and keep it for yourself. Pictures are inserted simply. You are writing a message. You upload it to the server. Then you press Edit. You will see everything further! After all, a programmer must be a master!!! 😀 And pls use the transliteration. And then my eyes get cancer after your messages. 😛ipec:

Reaper 04/19/2003 - 01:22

That is why best weapon for a sniper - an infantry three-line rifle with an attached bayonet. The enemy hardly expects that when trying to capture a sniper, he will decide to use bayonets... 😛

And about internal bleeding - that's true. The main thing is that it’s not even too painful, 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 combat included a quick injection into an organ with many vessels (lungs, stomach, liver) and a quick rebound, since the enemy did not die immediately - according to A.V. Suvorov, “dead at the bayonet, scratching his neck with a saber.” 😀

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Discussions about the need for bayonets have long ceased to be relevant in our era of widespread 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 advent of repeating rifles did not immediately send the bayonet into discard. And the biggest controversy revolved around the type of bayonet. Should it be of the saber type, as, for example, among the Prussians, or should an exclusively piercing version, like the tetrahedral bayonet of the Mosin rifle, be more relevant?

History of creation

Russian faceted bayonets have a rich history. The first needle bayonet was used on the Berdanka. At first it was triangular, and in 1870 a stronger tetrahedral needle bayonet was designed. A slightly modified version of this bayonet was also used on the legendary Mosin rifle, which became the main Russian weapon of both world wars. The bayonet was zeroed together with the rifle and did not need to be removed during shooting.

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

Design

The standard design was that the bayonet was secured with a clamp and an L-shaped tube that thickened at the rear end.

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

The tetrahedral blade had fullers on all sides. The total length is 500 mm, of which the blade length is 430 mm. The blade width is 17.7 mm, and the internal diameter of the tube is 15 mm.

Advantages

The tetrahedral bayonet knife was traditionally condemned by Europeans for being “inhumane.” The needle-shaped 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 round, not wide, but also flat cross-section. Therefore, a person wounded by a Russian tetrahedral bayonet had a much greater chance of bleeding to death. However, in the era of the proliferation of mines and chemical weapons any claims to bladed weapons regarding inhumanity seem meaningless.

The Russian bayonet was technologically advanced in production, light and cheap compared to its European counterparts. Due to its light weight, it created less interference when shooting and made it possible to operate the rifle faster in actual bayonet combat. In the conditions of a classic bayonet attack from unit to unit, a faceted bayonet looked preferable to a saber bayonet.

Flaws

In a combat battle, 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 for sweeping slashing blows, has an advantage.

The main disadvantage of the Russian bayonet is the lack of ability to fold it without separating it from the weapon, or at least the ability to quickly remove and put it on. This became especially noticeable during the trench confrontations of the First World War. There is not enough space in the trench, and the bayonet constantly clings to something. There were frequent cases when it broke down.

The second disadvantage is the low applicability of the tetrahedral bayonet outside of hand-to-hand combat. And knife-shaped and saber-shaped bayonets always retain their applied function.

Development

By the beginning of the twentieth century, bayonets began to be used quite rarely. Therefore, advanced European armies increasingly began to pay attention to the convenience of bayonets, relying on shooting and preferring to produce light and short quick-detachable 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, were fully justified in the conditions of the predominance of small arms rather than hand-to-hand combat.

The Russian command stubbornly clung to the high piercing qualities of the 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 slashing blows that were more effective in trench warfare. This model was also simpler and cheaper to manufacture.

IN THE USSR

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

In 1930, a modified version of the weapon was created, intended 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, adopted for service in 1943. This bayonet was shorter than the standard one and had a protrusion on the base that 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 in the combat position was put on the barrel, and in the stowed position it moved forward, allowing the bayonet to be folded back to the fore-end.

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

The history of the Russian bayonet is overgrown with a mass of legends, sometimes completely untrue. Many of them have long been accepted as truth.

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. It is now customary to criticize military officials who kept our soldiers with a needle bayonet for so long, when many armies around the world had already introduced the “cleaver bayonet,” a bayonet with a knife-like blade and handle. They can't come up with any explanations for this. Perhaps the most absurd thing is that military officials believed that “bayonet knives” were of great economic value to the soldier, and they would carry them home from service. And no one needs a needle bayonet. Such nonsense can only be cultivated by people far from military history, completely unaware of the rules for handling government property. It is strange that the presence of standard cutlasses and other bladed soldier weapons is not commented on in any way by the authors of this “wild explanation.”

Did the Russian army have cleaver bayonets? Of course there were. Back in the 18th century. Such bayonets were adopted for Jaeger rifles; in those days they were called dirks. The famous Russian Littikh bayonet, for example, had a cleaver bayonet mod. 1843. Again, a strange picture is drawn of why Russian huntsmen and skirmishers did not cut their hands when loading a fitting with a cleaver blade. The answer to it is simple, the rangers and skirmishers decided with their rifled weapons specific tasks, in modern terms, these were snipers. An example is the episode associated with the defense of Smolensk in 1812. Against the actions of just one ranger on the right bank of the Dnieper, the French were forced to concentrate rifle fire and use artillery piece, only by nightfall the huntsman’s fire died down. On the morning of the next day, a non-commissioned officer of the Jaeger regiment, killed by a cannonball, was discovered at that place. What need does a sniper have for a bayonet? Only as a last resort 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 an infantryman can repel a saber strike from a 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 cleaver bayonet for them was correspondingly longer. When fired, it caused inconvenience, weighed the muzzle of the barrel down, and deviated 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 Korenny, in 1813, in the battle of Leipzig in the village of Gossu, his unit was squeezed by superior enemy forces. Having evacuated the wounded, Korennoy and 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 the butt. When Korennoy, 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 valor, on the personal order of Napoleon, he was released from captivity.