How Close is 'Close Combat'?

[JMA]

There are a number of reasons to doubt the veracity of this story. At best it simply did not happen.- based on the account presented in the British Army Review and others who were there.
Since 2005, one weapons in four in a UK Rifle platoon fireteam can have a bayonet attached to it, so giving the order "fix bayonets" just means the one man with the bayonet does something.

Based on a few years of research, I have found very few truthful accounts of men actually using bayonets in combat.

I don't see it as being whether you carry bayonets or actually fix them and use them in battle. It is the final assault on the enemy position that requires training to cater for the physical eventualities and also and equally important the psychological preparation.

[jps2]

IMO, close combat training and skills are more psychological training than physical training. It is very important for soldiers to be prepared to hand, knive, or bayonet fights.

For many reasons including proportional response to aggression, assaulting an enemy position, searching/reco, these skills are important regarding self confidence.

[jcustis]

You must help me here Jon. Why is it so dangerous for a troop to follow the explosion of a bunker bomb through a door of a "musty old hut"? I would suggest that the biggest risk in so doing is that the building may collapse on him.

(Note: As I think I have stated somewhere here before why don't you fly in a flamethrower team when faced with this situation? Do you still have them somewhere? Man we could have done with those things in the cave situations we faced.)

Even if you do one or two rooms as an example eventually some troop is going to have to go into each room to ensure that everyone who was in there has in fact surrendered, yes?

You most absolutely can use corkscrew tactics to obliterate the enemy, but the point is that there is simply nothing worth throwing a troop through the door, unaided. To be more clear, that comment made by that former Ranger was used to highlight that we also need to train less for Battle Drill Six (I can't recall the thread where we beat that to death, but learned some useful stuff in the process) during workups, and focus on other discrete tasks, no matter how easy and rewarding it may be to lay engineer tape out on the deck to simulate the outline of a house.

[JMA]

IMO, close combat training and skills are more psychological training than physical training. It is very important for soldiers to be prepared to hand, knive, or bayonet fights.

For many reasons including proportional response to aggression, assaulting an enemy position, searching/reco, these skills are important regarding self confidence.

I share this opinion.

[Ken White]

As did N (That's the Imperial N...), "The moral is to the physical as three is to one."

[Bob's World]

I believe it was some Russian General who said, in a discussion about how few casualties had come from the bayonet during the war with Japan; "Yes, but they were the decisive casualties."

Perhaps. Facing a bayonet charge must be a ballsy thing. But then again, so is executing one.

[slapout9]

I have a good deal of research on Rex Applegate (and the others)and thought that every soldier should be issued and know how to use a combat knife as a basic skill. He never was that found of the Bayonet EXCEPT in Civil Disturbance type situations.

[OfTheTroops]

Bayonets.... Pretty sure the training courses are closed. Cant even replace broken m9's.. The Army seems to look to the Rear Naked Choke of MAC IOT instill the drive to close with and destroy the enemy. Hope one mind any weapon sentiment migrates over. I had a bayonet in 03 they were locked up within 4 months. We didnt even take them in 07. Bayonets are not the firstest with the mostest to be certain.

[William F. Owen]

It is the final assault on the enemy position that requires training to cater for the physical eventualities and also and equally important the psychological preparation.

What would characterise the idea of a "final assault" in your mind? Assault is deliberately a word I do no use.