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Bayonet Ya: Difference between revisions
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* [http://www.laserlyte.com/Pistol_Bayonet/PB-1/PB-1.html Bayonets for pistols.]
* Before the invention of the bayonet, early gunpowder age infantry would often be split into musketeers and pikemen. The muskets fired too slowly, inaccurately, and with too short a range to reliably defend [[Anti-Cavalry|against cavalry charges]], and proved less than adequate in hand to hand fighting. Therefore, it was the pikemen's job to keep the horsemen at bay with a medieval style pike formation, while also serving as a buffer between the gunmen and hand to hand combat. The Bayonet revolutionized things by turning the musket into a spear, allowing a musketeer to both shoot volleys and stop cavalry, all while not being useless at hand to hand. Due to the early musket's aforementioned disadvantages, bayonet charges also served as a surprisingly effective means charging enemy infantry, something a single shot gun could hardly be used for. The bayonet started out not as an emergency weapon, but as primary form of armament.
**Even in the eighteenth century the bayonet's primary use aside from anti-cavalry was not the generation of casualties for as suregons noted only a small percentage of wounds were from bayonets. It was for the destruction of units that had already been softened by fire. A bayonet charge was like a game of "chicken" and the unit that had it's morale at a lower ebb ran first.
**In modern times most hand-to-hand fights including those with bayonets, are fighting for corners and crawl spaces.
***Bayonets are in fact used more often as camp tools nowadays. Later models have been made with this in mind.
* Giuseppe Garibaldi once said "The rifle is no more than the grip of the bayonet."
* Famously used in [[The American Civil War]] by the 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry under Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. During the battle of [[Gettysburg]], Chamberlain's troops were suffering heavy casualties and running out of ammo, and he knew they would be unable to defend their vital position on Little Round Top against the approaching Confederate army. So, in a complete [[Badass]] move, he ordered a bayonet charge, which even at the time was considered an old-school textbook maneuver, but which Chamberlain realized could be used as a simultaneous frontal attack and flanking. The Confederates were utterly cowed and the 20th Maine [[Moment of Awesome|won the day]]. Chamberlain himself received a Medal of Honor for it.
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