The quiet death of the bayonet

[Lawrence]

Looking at the new XM5 carbine the US Army is planning to replace the M4 with, there's a feature missing that few people are talking about; there's no bayonet lug.

 

The XM5

 

The M4, for comparison

 

To my knowledge, this is will be the first US service rifle to lack a method of mounting a bayonet. To be fair, the bayonet has been falling out of use for the past few decades, even Obama commented on it. I don't even think the Infantry School at Fort Benning has trained anyone on it since the early 2010's at the latest. The current Combatives Training Circular still has material regarding it's use, but it's not like anyone has looked at that section for anything other than entertainment in years. Personally I was never trained on it and only saw a bayonet once, during a change of command layout.

 

A very motivated Rakkasan using a bayonet during a live fire at Fort Knox in 2022, probably the only time I've ever seen anyone use a bayonet nowadays.

 

Do bayonets have any real use today in your view? If a veteran, were you trained on them?

[Ssnake]

The situations where bayonets would be needed will be rare. Converesely, when you need one, the situation will be dire and you'll wish you had that option.

Since a bayonet lug is really cheap compared to the price of a full rifle kit, I suppose it was eliminated in this specific case for reasons other than cost. I don't know those reasons, so I can't say if it was a good trade-off.

[TSe419E]

“Cold Steel” would not approve.

[Los]

The official scientific term for this is pussification....

[Gibsonm]

We are keeping ours, albeit rebranded as a "combat knife".

 

Whilst I've never had to use it, I think I prefer the previous SLR + bayonet combination as it gave more reach than the F-88 + bayonet, due to the rifle being longer.

[Ssnake]

Yeah, that's an obvious battle between two requirements. Longer reach requires longer barrels. Longer barrels are more cumbersome especially in urban combat, which is likely to happen more often in the future because of the unbroken global trend of urbanization. Also, they add more weight. So, demands on gun design ask for the minimal barrel length that still delivers a desired muzzle velocity for a given caliber. Hence the reason why we're seeing more and more bullpup designs, because you can extend the barrel into the shoulder stock rather than protrude more.

Which makes it more convenient to carry it in confined spaces, at the expense of other desirable features. Some think that bullpup is that one step too far. At the end of the day, it's either that or an overall 10...15cm longer design. Every army will draw the line differently, but a lot of considerations go into the specification before it's sent out to industry to submit their designs in a public tender. No design feature is accidental.

[MAJ_Fubar]

Well, the primary reason the M5 in particular lacks a bayonet lug is because the weapon is meant to be suppressed during normal operation, rendering a bayonet rather moot. 

[mpow66m]

Im sure they ll find a way to slap a bayo on there.If not id rather hv a 1911 on my hip.Before people start whining about the extra weight of the 6.8 or the pistol(not meant to be a dig at anyone here)thats when the real fun starts because Pvt Johnny cant handle the extra weight because he spent his whole life indoors chained to an X Box.

[Apocalypse 31]

 

Fun fact - this thing can fire 30 mini bayonets out of the barrel, with deadly accuracy up to 500 meters. It's a new thing since the 1300s when having a bayonet was actually a functional piece of equipment that acted as a secondary weapon. 

 

40 minutes ago, mpow66m said:

because Pvt Johnny cant handle the extra weight because he spent his whole life indoors chained to an X Box.

Every generation gets its chance - and I certainly I wouldn't underestimate this generation. 

[mpow66m]

10 minutes ago, Apocalypse 31 said:

 

Fun fact - this thing can fire 30 mini bayonets out of the barrel, with deadly accuracy up to 500 meters. It's a new thing since the 1300s when having a bayonet was actually a functional piece of equipment that acted as a secondary weapon. 

 

Every generation gets its chance - and I certainly I wouldn't underestimate this generation. 

Thats is true,but sometimes I wonder....lol.

Edited February 19 by mpow66m

[Mirzayev]

Oh no... how will our future Company Commanders ever be able to fight a war without having to count bayonets every month? 

 

I own an M9 bayonet. Fresh out of the sheath... it is really underwhelming. You can't use it to cut anything because the blade is dull. I tried using it to cut tape on a box. It literally couldn't do it. So now you've got this knife-like object that comes too dull to do any knife-like functions that might actually be useful, like cutting open an MRE, cutting 550 cord, or... just cutting anything at all. I guess you could carry it along with the sheath and use it to cut wire. 

 

Or you could just do everything above with that Leatherman that you are constantly carrying around instead. Minus stabbing people. Which you won't do with your bayonet cause bullets are better. 

 

As far as it missing a bayonet lug, you can install one. Check out the Geissele SSBM. If the Army really wants to mount those dull M9s to the XM5, they can. 

 

Want proof? Here is my dull M9 mounted to my AUG. 

 

 

That's the great thing about having a more modular platform: you can add what you need and remove what you don't. 

 

(I've since given the M9 a much needed sharpening. It is now actually useful.)

Edited February 19 by Mirzayev

[Galileo]

France still have a bayonet for the new HK-416. It's the German SG2000WC-G36 (used for the G36!) slightly modified and renamed SG2000WC-F (it cost 350$US per unit).

 

Last french use of a bayonet assault was in 1995, during the Vrbanja bridge recapture from the Serbs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vrbanja_Bridge

Edited February 20 by Galileo

[Captain_Colossus]

bayonet charges are a red herring in my view- obviously that idea comes from the evolution of earlier firearms and warfare which were not what they are today but at the crossroads of the last of the armored troops and and infantry tactics which were still being worked out with these new weapons which were still inaccurate and slow loading and in some cases impractical (in the age of colonization and native warfare- an opponent might get off several arrows or close the distance for a muzzle loading black powder musket put into action, a bayonet was just as much a defensive weapon in this case in between cycles). as we know the organization and tactics available to the thinking at the time is that traditional warfare meant that armies would openly march out and face each other, and then bang bang and a line drops dead at 50 paces or whatever, and then once that happens one side or the other would charge. so this is obsolete and not to mention a stupid way to conduct warfare with modern weapons, if it was so even then.

 

but you still see in modern situations bayonets serve as a useful tool for poking or prodding and the intimidation factor in order to pacify prisoners of war (which we still see to this day when they are being marched at bayonet point) or simply just simply adds to the intimidation factor in occupied zones or hot spots with local unrest- so in a way what you see for example with the french foreign legion the bayonet is both a traditional display of heraldry in their parades promoting espirit de corps, but also an intimidating image that is meant to convey business in the types of work they might do

[Los]

There is this little infantry trench-war going ion in Ukraine where the fighting is within grenade range on a daily basis. I'd prefer maintaining the option for a bayonet. Reminds me of when wonks thought there would no longer be a need for fighters to be designed with guns back in the late fifties. After all, there were missiles...

[Captain_Colossus]

good point but i do not think it will do anything to affect the outcome of the war or even a particular operation. it will be the individual soldier's story in the trenches rather than something more than that. most projections seem to agree that ukraine for all practical purposes risks exhausting its ammunition stocks by summer, depending on how russia conducts the war, which russia seems to understand that it can simply outlast ukraine in the short term up to perhaps two years, which is the war it is prepared to fight. the russian economy is in a wartime production mode that in the short term nato economies are not configured to match- perhaps several months to several years to answer. i do not think ukraine has that much time.

 

nato is looking for some silver bullet to drop in their laps mainly in the form of some kind of weapon that will change the outcome- certainly i do not think it will be a weapon system of any type that is going to do it, i.e., any particular infantry weapon or tank or aircraft. i think statements from general milley, us defense secretary austin and from nato secretary general stoltenberg are hiding what they know. they have to find some way of making the case for ammunition and weapons supplied to ukraine but without really admitting the reason why they are requesting it

[TSe419E]

On 2/18/2023 at 3:07 PM, TSe419E said:

“Cold Steel” would not approve.

 

[Snoggy]

Kukris for all!

 

 

[Arch]

Modern doctrine is moving towards some kind of large muzzle device for every professional soldier, be it a suppressor or large compensator. Bayonet lugs can also I suppose get snagged on gear etc. Of course the real reason is that it's just not part of the requirement.

 

For the Ukraine post above, don't worry. The west consistently over-estimates Russia and under-estimates Ukraine, and the information space is currently dominated by pro-Russian outlooks, although it has started to shift recently now when the big offensive will start soon. Dunno what that has to do with bayonets though.

[Captain_Colossus]

1 hour ago, Arch said:

 

 

For the Ukraine post above, don't worry. The west consistently over-estimates Russia and under-estimates Ukraine

an over used trope which does not hold up here because it either does not know or show that this is a proxy war between nato and russia, not a war beteen ukraine and russia- it should cone as no surprise that that ukraine has held on this long because of nato and in particular american backing providing ukraine not only with weapons but information and disposition and location of russan forces. time and again this really did save ukraines bacon from the opening phase (since this war had already been going on since at least 2014 when tbe obama administration and select european partners overthrew the ukrainian government and installed a puppet during a coup, stoking the civil wat leading to the current phase of an ongoing conflict- of course you dont hear much at all in western press or from washington or london or brussels or berlin); western support has bern going on for years, or otherwise you dont see much success at all over breakaway regions by ukraines regular army; while russian information sources are obviously biased, so too is western discourse colossally manufactured probably making johnson- macnamara and vietnam era information domination look sheepish in comparison (

still of you believe some of the revelations from the leaked documents,  a ukranian couter offensive is looking quite chancey, far from assured). we will see when the ground hardens come late spring and summer whether the war was really stalemated or whether the combatants were waiting for favorable conditions to maneuver

[TSe419E]

That's politics.

[Sean]

This has strayed far from the death into the bayonet, and into politics.