A chap Trench gun ?

Never understood having a bayonet lug on a shotgun...surely if they're close enough to stab with a bayonet they're also close enough to pull the trigger.

Never understood having a bayonet lug on a shotgun...surely if they're close enough to stab with a bayonet they're also close enough to pull the trigger.

Unless you're out of ammo, or too busy to reload, the same applies to any weapon with a bayonet, particularly in trench warfare. Also, it saves ammo to bayonet someone rather than shoot them. Another thing about a bayonet is that it's a sign of intent to your enemy, he can stand his ground and let you stab him, or he can do a runner. It's a principal that's served the British army rather well over the years.

The .."they don't like it up em" principal . Can't remember now if it was Paras talking about the Falklands or not , but they reckoned the order to fix bayonets did a lot to boost their morale prior to going in , gave a grim sense of purpose to what they were about to do .

Yes, it's surprising how important the bayonet can be, even in the Falklands. There are accounts of SLR bayonets snapping off in the ribcages of Argies as the Paras tried to pull them out! But the British army carried the day at the point of the bayonet on Tumbledown and Mount Kent. I remember when we were given the order to fix bayonets in the 1st gulf war, it definitely reminded us that we weren't playing at it and reminded our enemy what would happen to them if they wanted a fight.

Mind you, modern bayonets are nowhere near as terrifying as 18 inches of cold steel on the end of an Enfield or a trench broom. The ultimate in terrifying is a Martini Henry, with a 22" lunger fixed to it, even the Zulus were scared of that.

bayonets shouldnt go in ribcages, soft lower abdomen if i remember correctly. bloody gruesome . my uncle eric got an enfield pig sticker through his upper arm by accident during his national service, that certainly stayed with him for life

Yes, they should go in soft bellies, or in his neck when he's down but I suppose in the dark without proper nvg's and in the frenzy of battle, a bayonet into the ribs is an understandable thing. I bet it still hurts just as much.

i dont even want to think about how much it would hurt pete, have you ever read about arnold ridley? the guy who played PVT godfrey in dads army? quite a record, fought at the somme and was bayonetted through the groin by a hun. survived that and a fractured skull from a rifle but to the head, then fought in the battle of france in ww2!!!

And now he's your avatar...

A Falklands veteran once told me about how he got his bayonet stuck in a young Argentinian. The only way to free it was to fire the gun.

i have read that a few times, with knife blade bayonets, its the vacuum created when they are shoved into a solid mass, thats why its" STICK IT IN......TWIST IT( to break the seal, allow air into the wound)...... PULL IT OUT !". one of the reasons the spike bayonet came in. fairburne sykes could be a bugger for it too.

I think from what I remember he did try to twist it before having to resort to shooting.

I think from what I remember he did try to twist it before having to resort to shooting.

Should have just put a foot on him and pulled. Since WW1, bayonets have had a "blood gutter" on them, to prevent the vacuum effect of trying to pull it out of a body, they are also designed to part the ribcage although in practice that doesn't always work. The "In, twist, pull" drill is just to do more damage to the bloke you're bayonetting. Problems are caused when you you push it in all the way to the hilt, as the gutter doesn't extend that far up.

yeah, you dont ever sharpen the rib seperator, but then you get bollocked for aiming too hi and going through the ribs

Feckin hell you're a blood thirsty lot ,,,,,it's only a £24 trench gun for 'chaps'

Whatever happened to the "The Chap" magazine photoshoot that Porta was sorting out? Or were they holding off until they got hold of a few of these trench guns?

Oh ..I thought it was a cowboy thing

Oooooooooohhhhhh! I bow to your superior knowledge on the matter. I was going from what I was taught in the army. Bayonet blades don't need to be sharp anyway, it's the point that does the damage and momentum that pushes it in. It doesn't take that much effort to push a bayonet into someone. We were actually told not to sharpen our bayonets to too much of an edge.

Maybe not relevant but I've got a brilliant story that my Granddad told me about bayonets...

Sitting at the dinner table one day talking about the war, all of a sudden he said 'Sometimes when you stuck em with my bayonet I had to stick my foot on their chest to get it out' And so the dinner carried on in silence.

Apologies if I came over a bit strong there.

Don't worry about it, so did I, I think . I certainly learned something new anyway. Got to agree that the SA80 bayonet is crap, I much preferred the SLR bayonet. When we were first issued SA80, we couldn't fix bayonets for live firing because they had a habit of flying off about 20 feet when the weapon was fired!

if you stick a sharp object in a living thing, the first thing that happens is an involantery contraction of muscles, thus clamping in the object this has a two stage effect, 1),the holding effect of clamping by muscle, this creates vacuum by squeezing out any air around the wound.2)then holding the object in place.

this was taken from a medical/first aid book i have. its good a enough answer for me.