Should You Bother With a Bayonet for Survival Self-Defense?

By Josh

The bayonet has a long an illustrious history and has resulted in many victories, but it has also been the weapon of choice for suicidal mass charges against entrenched positions. When it comes to individual survival, is the bayonet just another useful tool to tote along, or should you leave it as a nostalgic tool of a bygone era? Let’s look at the pro’s and con’s and see what you decide.

Disclaimer: I’m no lawyer, firearms expert, or bladed weapons expert. Please check all local, state and Federal laws particularly before affixing a bayonet or carrying it on your person. Some may qualify as bladed weapons, and you don’t want to be arrested! Furthermore, bayonets are intended to kill and stab, so treat them with proper respect to avoid accidental injury.

Looking at the bayonet

This weapon is made to be attached to long arms like rifles, despite the ludicrous attempts in the past to make “mini-bayonets” designed for handguns. It is primarily a weapon of last resort, only to be used to hold an incoming enemy or to charge him when ammunition runs low and there is small chance of immediate resupply. Secondarily, some modern bayonets are also designed as a camp tool and utility knife, with some even including a wire cutting hook for use in the field.

Depending on the country of origin, differing bayonets use different levels of modern or ancient design. The M-7 and M-9 bayonets in use by the U.S. Army, for example are largely modern. They look like knives and the handles even have improved grips in case a soldier uses one without his rifle. The French Army by contrast uses a more traditional spear-point bayonet on their FAMAS rifles, which can serve as a knife but isn’t quite as versatile as the true knife-shaped bayonet designs.

Use in history

As mentioned above, the bayonet has been a weapon of glorious victory and horrific defeat depending on the era and the how they were used. The muskets the first bayonets were designed for fired extremely slowly, and the bayonet allowed soldiers to charge through the single volley an enemy was likely to get off and smash into enemy infantry lines. They could also be used as polearms to halt cavalry charges without the need for a dedicated company of pikes or halberds.

They continued to see frequent use in mass charges, with acceptable losses and many great victories up until the advent of the American Civil War. The concentration of fire, the speed of reloading, and the accuracy of the weapons involved turned many mass charges into total slaughters. This was also true during World War 1, although bayonet charges that actually made it to enemy trenches were sometimes successful owing to having melee weapons at the ready, making them marginally more useful than they were during the Civil War.

In modern times, they have seen better use as commanders have limited their presence to only the most dire of circumstances. They have even been used during the Falkland Islands War and the Second Gulf War, though unlike the mass charges of previous centuries these were limited to a few men and a single taken position. Relative to the total number of casualties inflicted these uses were minimal, but they saved lives and took positions that might otherwise have remained in enemy hands.

Pro’s and Con’s for a prepper

For the average prepper, a bayonet is a mixed bag. There are positives and negatives to this weapon, some related to training and proper use which can be cured by proper instruction while others are simply owing to the weaknesses of a melee weapon in a world of rifles and handguns. Here are the primary strengths and weaknesses that would be most important for you:

Strengths

• Bayonets are psychologically reassuring for you, scary for opponents. Generally speaking having a weapon on hand can’t help but make you feel better, and so being equipped with one could be helpful for keeping your morale up. Enemies that see you fixing a bayonet may see the implication that you will fight face-to-face, to the horrible, drawn out and painful death. It’s basically an indication that you have no desire to surrender, which can turn off looters or opportunists who may see a lot of risk and little reward in fighting a man who has nothing to lose.
• The utility aspects may make it more practical to carry than another knife. This depends on the quality of the knives you have, but the bayonets are generally fairly decent at the jobs they are made for. They’re not going to outdo dedicated utility knives, but if you see a use in having a bayonet the minor inconvenience may be inconsequential to you.
• A bayonet gives you slightly more reach and more “punch” to your strikes than a knife in your hand. Being able to drive a blade into an opponent with the long “handle” of your rifle can do some serious damage to the poor sucker you just stabbed.

Weaknesses

• Bayonets are generally heavier and bulkier than normal knives. They are designed to be rammed into things like a spear and they have to remain firmly attached, and all that extra stuff makes it heavier to lug around all day. This could also affect you if you decide to use one without its rifle in hand-to-hand combat, as it would tire you out sooner.
• Without proper training, bayonets are likely to get stuck, fall off, or otherwise perform poorly. It sounds silly that you need training to figure out “stick the sharp end in the guy” but the proper motions for maximum damage with minimal risk of getting the blade stuck does require some practice and instruction. Furthermore, if you just try to muddle along and figure out how it works by yourself, it is possible that you won’t attach, secure, and aim it properly. Certainly it will still work most times, but it adds an extra element on unpredictability to a combat situation.
• Your rifle may not be able to handle it. Unfortunately even rifles with bayonets designed specifically for them may not be up to the sheer amount of force used when stabbing someone. I have heard more than one soldier complain that his M16 would never be able to withstand the stress involved in smashing into a human being again and again in furious combat.
• It may give you a false sense of power or security. People can act stupid when they think they have some advantage over their opponents, and you wouldn’t be the first one to use a bayonet to get yourself killed. This is more of an issue with people who are inexperienced or who lack training, as they can imagine some Rambo-esque adventure where they tear through ranks with their trusty rifle-spear. The bayonet has limitations just like any weapon, but it’s hard to get people to understand that in some cases.
• You’re bringing a knife to a gunfight. In the end, the truth is that spears went out of fashion for combat once people developed detachable magazines and semiautomatic fire. Short of true desperation, there are very few times when you will need a bayonet for actual combat.

So, should you use it?

Honestly that has to be up to you. If you have the weight and room to spare, maybe a bayonet would be a helpful option to have. If you’re already struggling to pack in what you’ll need, maybe that added bulk is too much. Personally, I would want proper training before I could decide either way in order to understand exactly what it would be like to fight with a bayonet. Without that, you’ll be making decisions based on uneducated guessing which rarely ends well.

Your thoughts?

Would a bayonet seem like a good idea to you? Why or why not? Let us know in the comments below!

This article first appeared at Prepared For That: Should You Bother With a Bayonet for Survival Self-Defense?