I need a response to a friend about knife shapes

[Jeffrey Hull]

I would just simply say

"Dude, rondel-daggers and ballock-daggers were tactical knives."

A K-Bar is a tactical knife. A diving-knife is a tactical knife. A 1914 Mauser bayonet is a tactical knife. A tanto is a tactical knife. And yes, a Medieval degen is a tactical knife. Those are all effective inasmuch as the wielder is effective and he does with them what they were designed to do. If he knows how to utilise the design and make it serve for his likely combat, then I guess it must be a tactical knife.

[Randall Pleasant]

I would just simply say

"Dude, rondel-daggers and ballock-daggers were tactical knives."

A K-Bar is a tactical knife. A diving-knife is a tactical knife. A 1914 Mauser bayonet is a tactical knife. A tanto is a tactical knife. And yes, a Medieval degen is a tactical knife. Those are all effective inasmuch as the wielder is effective and he does with them what they were designed to do. If he knows how to utilise the design and make it serve for his likely combat, then I guess it must be a tactical knife.

Jeffrey

Well stated. In regard to knifes and daggers "tactical" is just another modern marketing term. Many of the "tactical" knifes I seen in stores could just as easily be described as "battle ready" In other words, just as there are Sword Like Objects (SLOs) marketed as "battle ready", there are also Knife Like Objects (KLOs) that are marketed as "tactical". The bottom line is always in the metal, not the marketing.

When push comes to shove I have no problems with any of the knifes and daggers you listed. If a blade has to also serve as an actual tool (more than just punching holes in soda pop cans) then without doubt I would go with a plain large Bowie (midget messer ).

[david welch]

Re: The M-9 Bayonet .

The M-9 is a marvel of modern military thinking.

Both the U.S. military and the Russians found the same solution for the same problem with this style of Bayonet.

In the early 80's we thought the next major war was going to be in the European theatre against the Russians. Our leaders knew two things... on a long campaign soldiers throw away everything they think is useless, and at the end of an assault there was going to be fixed obstacles in the way, dragons teeth and concertina wire.

Their worry was that at the end of assaults when we got to the wire, most soldiers would have pitched their wire cutters long before.

How do you make a soldier lug around a pair of wire cutters for weeks or months? The answer: disguise them as a knife!

Most people in the field will throw away everything they have before pitching their knife. It is primal and bred in us.

So we got our M-9, and the Russians got theirs. They are both horrible knives, both as a utility knife and as a fighting knife. As a bayonet it is almost useless. But the military leadership doesn't believe we will ever be in close combat in modern warfare. Not knife close or bayonet close anyway.

The M-9. A useless knife and terrible bayonet

But a fantastic wire cutter.

[Ken Dietiker]

You are absolutely right David. I was an armorer for a year and I must have DXed 20 M-9's for broken tips or tangs. Very cheap metal. The plastic knives one gets with an MRE cuts better.

A word to the wise: I got around the "no dagger" and length restrictions policy because I still "owned" an M-7 and since it has a GS identification, I was able to bring it as my secondary. The M-7 (and the 4-6) is good quality steel and it is an excellent cutting tool and bayonet, but obviously not a wire cutter. Having both gave me my warm fuzzy on deployments. Anyone can pick up an M-4 thru 7 at your local military surplus store. I recommend them if anyone reading this is still in the military, or planning on it.

[Jay Vail]

I would just simply say

"Dude, rondel-daggers and ballock-daggers were tactical knives."

A K-Bar is a tactical knife. A diving-knife is a tactical knife. A 1914 Mauser bayonet is a tactical knife. A tanto is a tactical knife. And yes, a Medieval degen is a tactical knife. Those are all effective inasmuch as the wielder is effective and he does with them what they were designed to do. If he knows how to utilise the design and make it serve for his likely combat, then I guess it must be a tactical knife.

A knife is a tool. It is secondarily a weapon.

A dagger is a weapon. It is secondarily a tool.

Both (usually that is, thinking of the Arkansas toothpick and M-3, vs the K-Bar and its daddy the Bowie) have a point and an edge. Both stab and cut.

IMO, at the end of the day, it's six of one, half a dozen of the other, unless you need your dagger to penetrate mail. Then you might need a special dagger.

Otherwise, what you use ultimately doesn't matter that much. I know people who have been stabbed with lengths of steel torn from cots and given an edge by diligently scraping them on a concrete floor. So: tactical, smaktical.

PS, my daddy carried an M3 in WW2. He showed me how to open cans with it, which apparently was the chief use to which he put the weapon since I know he never stuck it in anyone. It opened cans real good. It would also cut a banana tree as thick as your wrist.