PLEASE READ!!! Yes! I am aware that the text scrolling is out of sync with the audio! No need to continue informing me of issues on this video which is nearly two years old, thank you very much. :) Also, contrary to what the thumbnail suggests, the central point of the video is not whether these blades are banned by the Geneva Convention. Actually watch the video before you comment.
As your company doctor probably explained to you at some point. Most wounds are not clean lines to begin with. The first step when preparing any suture is trimming the edge to facilitate a clean final presentation of the procedure.
I heard basically those exact words from a WWI vet. He said that when he charged a trench the enemy was usually gone because "some people don't mind being shot, but no one wants to be stabbed." Also in "Military Experince in the Age of Reason" (1740 - 1780) they quote a number of officers saying that maybe they used bayonets in the old days but in modern war most soldiers will shoot but run away before the lines meet.
I have to confess that, whenever I hear bayonets, I remember a line about the 1994 Assault Weapon Ban that banned guns with bayonet lugs: "They said the ban was about crime, but when was the last time you heard of an inner-city gang bayonet charge?"
@@volatile100 No they just either go to states that have non-exsistant gun laws or they go through private purchase where there is no background check.
Some reenactors: "triangular blades are banned by Geneva Convention" Me: *slowly hides my Chinese SKS with integrated triangular bayonet that was manufactured in the 1960's*
Triangular bayonets are pretty sturdy, which is really important. Specially if you're using conscripts. Conscripts will manage to break just about anything you give them.
Hahah there's a forgotten weapons video where they show old French MAS rifles had bayonet lugs that would lock the bayonet, but you could actually put two separate rifles together and lock them into place. They had to completely change the design so no more soldiers would fuck their rifles up lol
@@tomfoolery2913 agh yes because stabbing the people killing you is their problem, and not the person deciding to stab you back, if you attack medical encampments your enemy will attack medical encampments. Nothing to report from a dead body except he died fighting and was stabbed multiple times doing so
@jeff nomad : That's why snipers don't always shoot to kill or rather prefer it if they don't kill, at least in a battle involving regular forces. A wounded soldier who has been hit by a bullet has several benefits for the enemy; Morale, hearing a wounded comrade screaming or groaning or begging for help will cause a real loss of morale to his mates. If anyone attempts to go to his aid they run the risk of also being shot but many times at least one or more will eventually try to help. So you have tied down 2-3 soldiers with one bullet. If they're allowed to remove him from the field then he becomes a drain on the limited battlefield medical supplies and still causes a negative impact on the morale of his squad.
Weapons of war aren't designed to kill, their purpose is to incapacitate and killing is just one way of so doing. An injured soldier may return to duty but in the meantime he is a considerable burden. The same problem occurs with modern weapons, there are frequent complaints of lack of lethality of certain rounds and anecdotes of enemies fighting on despite being hit. In the vast majority of cases all rifle round wounds incapacitate, killing is simply unnecessary
@@anguishedcarpet considering stitches aren’t used to stop bleeding but to facilitate the healing of a wound I think the pressure bandage would be much more important than stitches and would actually save your life
As a retired surgeon I can state with confidence that a triangular wound can be sutured. One basic technique in plastic surgery is the V-Y plasty, used to add length to a section of tissue. The surgeon makes a V-shaped incision, stretches it lengthways, and sutures it as a Y-shape, which is what you get with a 3 sided weapon. The reason why gunshot wounds are worse than stab wounds is that a musket ball rips out a section of the wearer's clothing and forces it into the wound. This contaminates the wound, so that if he doesn't die from organ damage or blood loss, the victim often dies from infection. This is apparently what killed Admiral Nelson.
I wasn’t blown away by the knowledge but I for sure was blown away by the way they took notes. It’s very similar to the current method doctors use to take notes on patients
They had a very good understanding of the larger physiology of the body. The difference between then and now is the understanding of micobiology and the causes of disease etc. You could very easily die from a minor wound from infection becuase they didn’t know what caused it or how to prevent it and you could survive massive wounds if it didn’t become infected.
“Our ancestors were primitive, not stupid,” is always a good thing to keep in mind. It was in medieval times they first studied and illustrated the vascular system. On a related note, their engineers built artificial hills and then castles on top of them. Very impressive considering they had to get everything right or it’d all collapse in a rainstorm.
I believed this one for a pretty embarrassing amount of time, too. I think a lot of reenactors fall into that same category of hearing information from a more veteran reenactor, thinking "Wow that sounds interesting and about right," and repeat it themselves, perhaps adding a little bit of their own embellishment on top of it all. Also including that scribbling noise in the background of your reading was a good idea!
@@ChristheRedcoat triangular bayonet or not getting stabbed with a bayonet with a screaming maniac on the other side is an unpleasant experience regardless of the era
@@ChristheRedcoat I thought those were called schools. A lot of teachers forego the book and teach hearsay; then again some school books sources are hearsay.
Being that the cardboard box in question most likely hails from China, I'm going to speculate that it refused to buy opium from The Honourable Royal East India Company in exchange for tea...
As a soldier I'd be less concerned with the shape of the bayonet and more concerned with the fact that a complete stranger wants to stab my guts with one.
@@goldendash1527 well if it existed yet. Triangle bayonets were around back when they called "shrapnel", "fragments" and the weapons that caused it were few and far between.
Amen, this guy in bed 1 got hit with a 2 pounder, he has a 4 inch hole clean through his chest, but this guy in bed 2, HE has a "3/4" inch "T" shaped stab wound, he's so fucked....
It's interesting that that Confederate surgeon remarked on how expectations had been "exaggerated" with regards to bayonet wounds. Almost sounds as though even they were assuming more of triangular bayonets than is warranted.
The bayonet is a psychological weapon more than an offensive weapon, British doctrine was to fire a few volleys before charging the enemy line. It's remarkable how often a unit will weather intense gunfire or shelling only to break completely when they're charged with bayonet.
You can almost talk yourself up to getting shot at, but NOBODY wants to be stabbed. Hell, British troops have engaged in bayonet charges as late as 2012 in Afghanistan. Men from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and from the Princess of Wales charged fortified Iraqi positions in 2004 and most of the Iraqi troops ran before they reached the trenches, leaving 28 EKIA (mostly to bayonet and close range shots)
@@padraig6200 This was a big problem for the US army during the Revolution: it took months of drilling and many battles for them to be able to actually stand to a British bayonet charge. Happens with other close combat: the poorly trained Egyptians broke when the Madhists charged in with swords. Native Americans combined both charges with tomahawks and clubs with psychological tactics of attacking from cover and making war cries. At the battle of Pumpkin Fields, only the US regulars stood and fought while the rest routed.
@@Tareltonlives the native Americans are particularly scary I imagine! Anytime I watch the likes of The Last Of The Mohicans, I can't help but imagine it must've been like to be the likes of one of the redcoats in the column that's attacked, you only have 1 round and you bayonet and musket are a poor match against tomahawks
A minor correction to the content, The Geneva Conventions don't actually discuss weapons or use of equipment in war. The Geneva Conventions are centrally concerned with the humane treatment of the wounded, POW's and civilian or non-combatant populations and the neutral actors in theater. It also establishes the protections of the Red Cross and other approved symbols. The restrictions on weapons are found in The Hague Conventions. They are sometimes conflated with The Geneva Conventions because they are subject adjacent. Some consider The Hague to be an attachment to The Geneva. It is also notable that there are period medical texts that show how to properly suture a triangular wound from a bayonet. Of course to a lay person this would seem to be a difficult or impossible task, but a properly trained surgeon would know the technique. Now if the battlefield surgeon is properly trained is a completely different matter.
@@kekistanimememan170 The Hague Convention to the St. Petersburg declaration, incidentally enough, doesn't mention triangular bayonets. Neither this agreement nor the Geneva Convention bans the use of flamethrowers, either.
@@Schwarzvogel1 Yeah, flamethrowers and other incendiary weapons are actually considered under Protocol III of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons and are “partially banned.” Use against people is banned, but use for asset denial, i.e., using a thermite grenade to destroy a wrecked vehicle so it can’t be scavenged by the enemy, is allowed.
@@jeremytownsend6805 The text you're referring to is less than 2 pages, and it is very clear that you have not read it. The text does in no way restrict the use of incendiary weapons against purely military targets (i.e. flamethrowers against personel is OK), the only restrictions imposed are in situations where civilian populations are involved.
I honestly wasn't aware of how advanced and knowledgeable the doctors of the time were. I often see memes and jokes about how inferior they were, but it seems like the doctors were advanced despite their equipment possible being subpar in relation to modern tools. Not only that, but I also wasn't aware that a patient could recover from a deep impalation within 9 days. Very interesting; thank you for doing this!
For real, dudes were impaled clean through their bodies and survived! One dude got hit where his heart should have been, but missed due to being in a twisted position. The other nearly got hit in the liver, but again missed due to his body also being in a strange position. The men didn't seem too fazed by it, considering they waited over an hour to get treatment! Badass surgeons and hearty men.
Yeah people assume doctors from the 1800s were incompetent and didn't know how the human body worked. In reality the first edition of Gray's Anatomy was published in 1858 and had detailed illustrations of all the internal systems of the body and what they do. I think a lot of the perception that these doctors were just winging it comes from the fact that there were so many conmen back then pretending to be doctors and medical professionals so they could hawk their imaginary miracle cures to make a buck.
I have heard that the military trained it's doctors for WW1 and WW2 from detailed accounts of wounded soldiers and how to treat wounds from the Civil war. Don't know if that was true or not.
I read that in the ten years leading up to the American Civil War weapons technology advanced and that in the ten years after medicine advanced,i would think this was due to experience gained during the conflict and all wars seem to have this effect.
Love the inclusion of historical documents- An excerpt of an actual field doctor's medical journal during the civil war almost 2 centuries ago... WOW!! Definitely brings credibility to your response. Most people talk out of their asseth. Not your channel. You back up your viewpoint with actual facts and examples. Outstanding video. Love the lore and research you brought to is in this entertaining and succinct video. I've seen other channels answer this question (worse) and take over 30min trying to do so. 👍
South Carolina Sandlappers! My Boy Scout Master was the Grandson of a Confederate Colonel Shaw, who faught for South Carolina. The Scout Master had his sword and epaulets and a Medical text printed in the North, but used by the surgeon the Colonel served with. Most of it was how to cut something off of your personage (usually without sedation). This video cleared up the misconception that I was told about the triangular bayonet. One of my fellow scouts worked the whole summer to buy his Brown Bess in order to reenact here in South Carolina.
No... not really. It was a stronger blade design but it wasn't nearly as easy or as cheap to make when compared to a new model or sword bayonet that could be forged from a worn out metal file in a short amount of time at a pretty cheap cost.
Tangentially, _Sharpe's_ fans -- good books, read 'em -- are very used to hearing the 95th calling them 'swords,' as their issue Baker flintlock rifles took a sword bayonet fixed on the side of the muzzle end of the arm. The bayonets would have done for small swords too. Completely different in an era where the triangular socket bayonet was the norm.
Really? So my question is now is there any merit to this? Are the triangular wounds any more complex to close or is it pretty much the same in all regards?
@Jo Jo I’m not taking shots, but my personal opinion is that we should always be students, strive to learn new things and gain understanding in different fields.
In playing down the significance of bayonet wounds (triangular or otherwise), the surgeon may have fallen victim to survivorship bias. Obviously he only saw soldiers who survived long enough to make it to the infirmary. He never saw those who died immediately or within a few minutes. Still, quite impressive that those two soldiers who had been run through were back on duty two months later.
Well to be fair, the soldiers who died right away or within minutes would very much have done so regardless of the particular shape of the bayonet stabbing them.
I mean the difference between dying instantly and dying later in a hospital is dumb luck, where were you stabbed/shot, how far from the hospital, how long before you were taken there etc. I recall a story of a Revolutionary solider being stabbed some dozens of times by multiple very angry British men and surviving to tell the tale.
This is a good point. The Americans at first analyzed the damage on Confederate infantrymen who returned from their bombing missions over Japan and strengthened those areas on the newer models of Confederate soldiers. After this failed they realized that to improve survivability they should strengthen the areas that were not damaged on the Confederate soldiers that returned to base. If only the doctor had been aware of this bias when he treated the two B-29s that were stabbed by triangular bayonets...
Thank you. I'm a retired physician and love military history. You are correct. Triangle bayonets were much easier made. A metal worker could take a sheet of metal, fold it, hammer it, then sharpen as a pike blade. Whereas a now standard bayonet was forged as a knife blade, involving many other steps including a proper handle and hilt.
Hey Chris. Someone recommended me this video and I wanted to pop in the comments to say thank you. Very informative, and I enjoy the little bits of humor thrown in. I am a no bullshit guy in everything I do, especially history, so it was nice to have you dispell the myth so easily. I learned something today. Great video
I think the reason bayonets were "more lethal" because in close quarters your opponent is more likely to follow up with a second thrust or a twist of the blade. Your opponent is more likely to see you aren't dead and stab again.
Nah man, as proven in that British documentary about the search for the Holy Grail, even when someone is yelling "I'm not dead!" over and over, people usually aren't able to figure out that they are still alive. The bodies just pile up on the carts, sometimes a frying pan needs to be used to ensure an individual is dead.
The people who constantly recite this factoid never seem to notice that that in the Commonwealth, we went back to spike bayonets for WWII. Other countries used spike and triangular bayonets after the existence of the Geneva Convention. The whole arguement just does not hold water. On the other hand, soldiers frequently claim something is against the Geneva Convention if they are afraid of the weapon or practice, or just don't like it. During my time in, I noticed a number of things go from "I don't want to do it," to "It should be outlawed by the Geneva Convention" to "That is outlawed by the Geneva Convention." Sometimes it happens fast, before a Basic serial has completed.
@@homeboy2166 Exactly, variants made in a number of Warsaw Pact countries plus China and their satellites. All of these have spike or triangular folding bayonets.
The Geneva Convention they are usually referring to, even though it's wrong, was accepted in the 50s. I have a Mosin Nagant with a triangular bayonet attachment that's pretty old
@@carlosandleon That would be the 2nd or 3rd Geneva Convention. The 1st Convention focused on establishing basic rules, along with restricting anything that will continue to cause harm long after conflict has ceased. Such things include chemical weapons, and, back in the 1800s, triangular bayonets in certain cases, due to disease
And even if there was some mention of these matters in the Geneva convention, these dudes wouldnt be aware of it during their lifetime, some convention in the distant future.
@@garethjames1300 : Probably never know for sure, the reports would just list the dead and wounded, it's just fortunate that this doctor considered these two wounded men worthy of recording.
@@DenianWriter The ban on hollow-point bullets is largely to prevent an arms race to produce the nastiest small arms cartridges possible. It came about because the Russians invented an exploding (or fulminating, to be precise) musket ball, and being smart people, they realised that as effective as this type of bullet was, they didn't want _their_ soldiers being shot at with even better versions (most likely invented by the Germans or the French). Look up some of the tests on WWII-era explosive ammunition on InRangeTV, and ask if you'd be fine with people shooting at you with that type of stuff. If we allow expanding ammunition to be used in war zones, it's a slippery slope toward even nastier types of projectiles. Imagine an improved version of the Black Talon in rifle calibres, coated with some sort of bonded anticoagulant to ensure that the target bleeds to death before receiving medical attention, or bullets with delay fuzes and tiny amounts of HE to try and ensure that they would explode and maim surgeons who were extracting them from wounded personnel, or at least that they would explode only after penetrating flesh. If it weren't for the St. Petersburg Declaration, someone would have _tried_ to make projectiles like that, and perhaps succeeded. Serrated bayonets are *not* banned either; plenty of bayonets still have a saw blade on the back of the blade. The AKM Type 1 Bayonet (introduced in the late 1960s, still in use in many countries) has saw teeth on the back of the blade. The US M9 bayonet also has a serrated edge on the back of the blade.
@@jacquesstrapp3219 Eh. Even if you are chances are you'd die. Like, you get stabbed, you stab the guy 3 times and live. ...now what are you gonna do about the other 150 men who charged with him?
That is why a wise, if bloodthirsty, Providence came up with repeating rifles. Which dramatically reduced the bayonet's role... and its size and weight, along with tweaking it into primarily a handy wire cutter that looks like a pokey thing. So Our Hero keeps it on him.
This has been something I've argued with other reenactors about! Yes, a triangular wound is nasty, no it's NOT impossible to heal from. Thanks for the well made video!
For information, I had surgery to the chest which resulted in an approximately 8” long incision. Due to the paucity of flesh above the sternum, the surgeon was not able to suture the wound closed. The wound was left open and healed over quite quickly and without leaving a scar and I was mobile within a day of the procedure with negligible discomfort or loss of blood. Obviously this was not a deep, penetrating wound but shows that stitches are not always necessary or required.
My mates in the military say that bayonets are still great for crowd control/containment of smaller groups as you can have "sharp pointy bad thing" deter anyone pressing on you or pushing forward.
my grandfather commanded MPs post WW2 in the Pacific, he always armed the people handling prisoners with a 1903 w/ bayonet and no ammo along with the fact he picked only the burliest that were experience in hand to hand
-I own a musket for home defense, since that's what the founding fathers intended. -Four ruffians break into my house -"What the devil?" As I grab my powdered wig and Kentucky rifle. -Blow a golf ball sized hole through the first man. He's dead on the spot. -Draw my pistol on the second man. Misses him entirely because it's smoothbore and nails the neighbor's dog -I have to resort to the cannon at the top of the stairs loaded with grapeshot. -"TALLY HO, LADS!" The grapeshot shreds two men in the blast. the sound an extra shrapnel set off car alarms. -Fix bayonets and charge the last terrified rapscallion. -He bleeds out waiting on the police to arrive since triangular bayonet wounds are difficult to stitch-up. -Ah, just as the founding fathers intended.
Thank you for the explanation! I too had been couched in this misinformation for years, until TODAY! The thing I find particularly annoying, is that when conversing with someone regarded as an expert, they spread these myths faster than an STD at a Florida retirement home. This, of course, is on par with other bad information passed on by "experts" in other fields.
I was always more skeptical about the difficulty closing these wounds. A metal spear tip capable of going clean through you and coming out the other side is scary enough.
I think part of the reason they died off was that the bayonet started being used as a fighting/utility knife. A bayonet is good at poking holes in meat and that’s about it, similar to the FS knife. A much more useful blade is one that can open a can of food, cut a rope, hack through tree branches. Once the risk of a cavalry attack died on the fields of Europe in WWI this was made even more evident
They died of because we have high capacity easily reload machine guns instead of a one shot slow reload muskets. In WW1 they started with the same mentality as past conflicts but discovered very quickly that doing a bayonet charge would only let to many men getting obliterated by machine gun fire
Good video, very informative! The closing statements, especially "...people do not enjoy being stabbed!" reminded me of General Patton's recommendation of agressive bayonet training as a confidence builder for the troops. "There aren't a lot of people killed or wounded by the bayonet, but EVERYONE if afraid of it!" Some things don't change.
Most military historians believed bayonet charges actually saved lives, as most sane people would run away from overwhelming enemies attacking with pointy things. In the American civil war, where bayonet charges were rare, more casualties were caused by gunfire because the weaker force was not driven off the field of battle, but instead both forces just kept shooting at each other.
Isn't that why we pulled out of Vietnam? Alongside mounting political pressure we had utterly destroyed northern Vietnam's manufacturing and infrastructure.
@@kenshy10 Not exactly, because the NV was able to quickly replace the infrastructure. The US had a very shitty doctrine in the first place, centered in killing Vietcongs, because if the enemy lost more men than they could recruit, then the war will soon be over, right? But that led to absurdly pointless operations like the battle for Hamburger hill, and adding the fact that they didn't knew exactly how many Vietcongs there were at any given time, or even underestimating their capabilities, led to the fall of the South and the eventual withdrawal of US forces. There is a tale of a squadron tasked with destroying the same bridge every certain months or so because the NV kept rebuilding it, even when there was a concrete factory right ahead. When they asked why couldn't they attack the factory, the higher ups responded that it wasn't a priority target at the time. There is a 2-part documentary called "technowar" right here on youtube that I would recommend watching. It shines a lot of light on the terrible impact the US doctrine had on the whole war.
@@DonVigaDeFierro ok infrastructure is NOT easy to replace even with commie dollars. Also yes the US was stupid with its military doctrine but you don't start putting your dead inside your tunnels with you if things are going well. Or strapping kids with bombs. Hell the quote end of the war left a destroyed NV and a southern Vietnam that was mostly intact. Too bad they didn't get any weapons like we promised them and the NV rolled through and put everyone in concentration camps.
I found exactly what I figured I’d find for treating the wounds: they aren’t stitched like a seam so much as treated like a drawstring on a bag so the pressure of the stitches upward and outward makes the natural healing occur…it’s hard to do with a person in pain writhing and two spots to do it, shock and blood loss likely caused the real deaths attributed to the issues with closure their biggest enemy is infection, the first guy was lucky to have had a slight nick of the lungs instead of full perforation
I believe that the Empire of Japan was *not* a signatory of the Geneva Accords, as "humane treatment of prisoners of war" was not part of the Bushido code Japan followed during WW II. An enemy who allowed himself to be captured alive was dishonored, thus had no rights
@@mikegrossberg8624 Doesn't justify the mass slaughter of civilians. Also, WWI. Japan invaded German colonies and treated the surrendered Germans with respect.
@@youraveragescotsman7119 Didn't justify because they lost the war. if they had won it would be suddenly OK. For some stranage reason victors are always treated differently.
I heard this and I went with it even though I thought that it would be as easy to patch one up any other bayonet, modern bayonets are even vaguely triangular because of how thick they are. Anyway I have learned.
OK, I’ve been sick all day but Private Tinkler had me laughing like a 5 yr old. My family probably thinks I’m delirious now. I admit to being surprised at the detailed doctor notes, as I had mistakenly envisioned the chaos of battle surgery to preclude this. 💕🐝🇺🇸
Great video. And yes, it was mostly psychological. Long time ago I read that less than 2% of all wounds during the Napoleonic Wars were from bayonets. A period that is otherwise "renowned" for bayonet charges. But as you so beautifully showed in the video. It was meant to break the enemy's psyche and line and not necessarily inflict wounds. Once two units engaged in actual close quarter fighting you could scratch those units as coherent and effective fighting formations for the rest of the battle. Something any sane commanding officer would loathe to do. Therefore it was more often used as a psychological shock weapon to make the enemy abandon any given position rather than closing to engage in close quarters.
Hahahah!! LOVE the footage of the Rebel Light Infantry from Stoney Point to, um, drive home the point. Great job, Chris -- and there are some really nice references to bayonets from the AWI you should consider, too. Notably, several accounts in after action reports from the Battle of Paoli --- the most astonishing being mention of one wounded fellow who had something like SIXTY SIX bayonet wounds!! He lived for at least a day after that battle, so clearly didn't just 'bleed out' I'm curious what treatment actually was, though (I'll have to look through some period treatises), but it's worth noting that the wound produced, at least on the outside, is probably even less "repairable" than the puncture wound created by a ~.70 caliber musketball... and, obviously, those were considered treatable. I wonder if they just didn't bother sewing those wounds up. Maybe that's how GSWs are treated today, too?
@@ChristheRedcoat yup. It's surely one of the things that contributed to this battle being called a massacre. Very likely this is because of a couple factors: possibly half those wounds are exit wounds, and since this action happened in near total darkness and mass confusion, there's all likelihood that some folks got bayoneted multiple times by overzealous and frantic bloodhounds.
Paoli was a night attack where Charles Grey's composite group of light infantry battalions attacked without firing a shot; Grey even ordered that the men remove the flints from their pieces. Despite 71 prisoners being taken, the Patriots reported a massacre. What this did was a baptism by fire to Anthony Wayne, who would develop into the most professional soldier in the US Army and a key player in the conquest of the Ohio territory.
I used to be an American Civil War reenactor and a dark ages reenactor as a viking here in the UK. I heard this myth several times. Even got speared through my hand accidentally during a Viking reenactment. A spear tip is wider than a bayonet of triangular form and is thicker and diamond in shape but it was easily treated and you can barely see the scar 20 years later.
There seems to be this tendency to attribute much more complicated reasons to military things, when most of the time the reason that a thing is like it is is because a: it’s the cheapest option or b: it’s the easiest option.
I always did kinda think the idea of treating a bayonet wound by stitching externally rather than packing and applying pressure to stop bleeding as suspiciously ridiculous.
A triangle just makes sense. It's the simplest, strongest shape for it's intended purpose and having a flat where you're expected to run your hand while ramming a shot seems more preferable to an edge, even if dull.
I am a Medieval Reeanactor, even in the 10th century there are records and founds of triangular blades. These Blades are sturdy and quite narrow and more easy to maintain. In earlier periods these were useful in the Astoc (A triangular stabbing sword) and the Eealspear (Wooden Spear Shaft with Triangular or Quadroangular Spearhead) , these were used for thrusting into Mail Armor. Into Haubergons and Hauberks because you only have to damage one rivited Ring to go through the Gambeson/Body underneath. And the design was used in many ways: For example later in the Rondell Dagger to thrust into gaps in late 15th century Armor, or in Arrowheads. This desingn ist not as versitile as the Two sided Blade but it is speciallized useful and a stabbing powerhouse that does not brake easy and does not Blunt easy on its Point. Hope i was able to help.
Meanwhile in Russia. Let's keep the pokey stick bayonet. Everyone else, let's make bayonet a sword. America, yeah this five and a half foot sword on my rifle is just overly cumbersome, let's make a bayonet a knife.
@@matthiasthulman4058 Very true. I orrignal saw this when I was trying to find a good Mosin Nagant disassembly video the guy did it with the bayo. I've never done it myself I always just use the disassembly tool lol
Never heard this myth before but I immediately thought of it with skeptacism. People have had drills lodged in their skulls, survived explosions that removed parts of their body including limbs, and various slicing/stabbing/bludgon type injuries and been relatively fine after.
Great talk Chris . I have gotten into this argument with historians more times than i care to count . “Why is it that soldiers have such a wholesome fear of the bayonet … This dread of ‘cold steel’ is, in my humble opinion, mainly attributable to ignorance of the nature of the injuries inflicted by it … bayonet wounds are almost harmless when compared to the ploughed tracks which the terrible minie bores through the tissues / A bayonet wound almost invariably heals … and leaves no deformity behind, while the simplest ball wound requires weeks for a complete recovery and, then, perhaps, leaves the sufferer with a contracted and useless limb.” CSA surgeon Simon Baruch 1864
Triangular bayonets were also a pretty common thing in the 20th century. The No. 4 Enfield, several variants of the Mosin Nagant, and the Chinese Type 56 SKS and AK all had triangular bayonets. The only reason for the change was that a knife style bayonet has more general utility. Bayonet charges are rare in the modern day, but soldiers are going to have to cut things regularly in their day to day lives
Even with the relatively low bullet velocities of the time, nothing really beats out gunshots in terms of damage or lethality Thanks for making this video! My uncle and cousin used to do civil war re-enactments back in the day, so this brought back lots of fun memories
"Triangular bayonets make a wound impossible to heal!" A little tip: In war, you really aren't concerned with what happens to your foe after the battle. You concern is whether they are fighting you or not. Even if you could make a wound that cannot be treated, why would you? It doesn't give you any edge in the battle.
Wrong in so many ways possible Do you really think the soldier picks what shape his bayonet is? No its whoever ordered the bayonet ie the officers And they in fact care very much about what happens after the battle This is even seen in today's weapons, the sa80 is chambered in 5.56 specifically so it doesn't kill an enemy but instead injures them costing the enemy more resources and manpower *after the battle*
@@Alucard-gt1zf the SA80 is chambered in 5.56 because the Americans switched, in fact the US dictated chambering for NATO countries several times. The reason that 5.56 was chosen has far more to do with cost, weight actual engagement ranges and accuracy of fire (of the soldier not the round (less recoil meaning more efficient burst fire)).
@@Alucard-gt1zf Yeah, I have no idea where you got that idea from. Nathan's right abotu the 5.56 round. They're smaller so you can carry more of them and have more control when you fire.
I remember watching an interview with a Brittish army about a bayonet charge aganst an Argentine position on a hill top,the charge started with full mags and was more of series of rushes.His explanation of why they fixed bayonets was a signaling device "we are comeing up and will kill anyone we find".When the reached the crest there were no enemy in sight,this meant no one had to die,a life saving message.😇
There was cruciform bayonets still used in the 1950s, and they seem worse, so I doubt they were banned, british, soviet, german, French used cruciform in ww2
Cruciform bayonets were _never_ banned, and they continued in use up to the present day. The reason they generally fell out of favour is that countries quickly discovered soldiers tend to use and need blades for opening packages and containers far more often than opening enemy personnel. Rather than equipping a soldier with a utility knife *and* a bayonet (the latter of which he would probably never use), why not combine the two into one handy device? Saves money, and the duckfoot who has to carry all this kit will thank you too! Everyone wins... except the weapons manufacturers who can't squeeze 2x as much money out of the government, perhaps.
A lot of people think weird shaped cuts are harder to suture, they are not as long as the flesh is not jagged, that's when you get a lot of problems, from tissue tearing to necrosis due to over tensioning the stitches, and that's why shrapnel is so deadly, it doesn't cut, tears apart. Most likely a triangular bayonet is production design decision, it has to be pointy, can't bend and can't break, as long as it is pointy that's it, and that saves higher quality steel for other uses instead of issuing a expensive bayonet that has to sharpened, can bend or get struck.
I learned a new word Reenactorism, And when people ask me why the bayonet is triangular I just say, cause it looks cool. It’s short, sweet and to the point Oh and, the cardboard works, however I think watermelon might wok too, that’s just me tho, and they’re not really in season
Cat: Did you NOTCH this BAYONET? New Kid: Yes, Sir. Cat: Who told you to? New Kid: Back at the training camp... Cat: Training camp, huh? Sonny, if the enemy ever caught you with this, they wouldn't keel you. They'd 'plump' your eyes out; fill 'em full of sawdust! Nobody uses these things anymore. It's by MUTUAL AGREEMENT. On both sides. New Kid: I didn't know..... I thought... Cat: Don't think. Just listen. Your spade is better. You hit a man under the chin with a spade, you can take his head right off. It's a good club too. Because it's heavy. You hit a man between the neck and shoulder, right here, you then split him one, right in two. Second New Guy: Mother...! Cat: And, it's cleaner. BAYONET gets stuck in a man's ribs, you have to Kick him to pull it out! Time it takes, you're a "deed" man. You understand? New Guy: 'just nods, short and quick' ~ 'All Quiet on the Western Front', movie, 1979.
I thought it related to the metal technology of the day. The sword type would often bend initially. In WWII they were on occasion round with short four sided point. The sword bayonet was issued to the Pioneers as a substitute to their swords which had a saw back to cut timber. The triangular version is less likely to jam between the ribs. Arte et Marte.
As a mechanical engineer I'd say shape has more to do with strength. A flat bayonet is weakest if load is applied at 90deg to the blade where as a triangular bayonet is pretty much the same in all directions! Edit: should have watched all the upload before commenting. Also, the flutes on a triangular bayonet as well as allowing the bayonet cut the full length of the blade make it much stiffer than a round bayonet.
I grew up reenacting. I also heard this. From someone who used to be the curator of this place. oddly enough on a field trip to where my family reenacted. believed it till this video (it's a weird feeling you feel your out of place ) Old Fort Niagara BTW.
People can solve this myth by asking a simple question. That question is "Can a bullet wound be mended" because both a triangular and conical bayonet cause puncture wounds along with bullet wounds they can to some degree be compared.
PLEASE READ!!!
Yes! I am aware that the text scrolling is out of sync with the audio! No need to continue informing me of issues on this video which is nearly two years old, thank you very much. :)
Also, contrary to what the thumbnail suggests, the central point of the video is not whether these blades are banned by the Geneva Convention. Actually watch the video before you comment.
As your company doctor probably explained to you at some point. Most wounds are not clean lines to begin with. The first step when preparing any suture is trimming the edge to facilitate a clean final presentation of the procedure.
Hey, I don't know if anyone told you but the text scrolling is out of sync with the audio.
Ok, but the text doesn't scroll in sync with the audio, thought you should know
The text scrolling is out of sync btw.
the text scroll is way out of sync with the audio
Also it would help if the thumbnail described the content.
that being said-- great content
“For comparison” *does an entire outfit change*
Have to be faithfull to the time period
We fucking jumped like two eras
*Black skinhead intensifies*
Changes from 1700 red coat to 1914 not so red coat
Dedication
“The bayonet was transfixed” sounds a lot better than “dude got fucking stabbed”
Being "transfixed" doesn't just mean stabbed. It means the blade passed completely through the body until it came out the other side.
@@dwaneanderson8039 Oh god I don't even want to imagine that, basically another word for impaled.
Got gonna lie, I laughed way harder than I should have.
@@dwaneanderson8039 b
Tbf "fucking stabbed" is a good equivalent description
“The majority of people do not enjoy being stabbed.” - because knowing is half the battle.
The rest of the battle is knowing that a minority do enjoy it......
Rim Shot!!
I heard basically those exact words from a WWI vet. He said that when he charged a trench the enemy was usually gone because "some people don't mind being shot, but no one wants to be stabbed."
Also in "Military Experince in the Age of Reason" (1740 - 1780) they quote a number of officers saying that maybe they used bayonets in the old days but in modern war most soldiers will shoot but run away before the lines meet.
@@joehonan1773 very true. I rather get shot so I die fast instead of slowly bleeding for hours in horrible pain.
They don't like it up 'em, no sir, they do not like it up 'em.
I have to confess that, whenever I hear bayonets, I remember a line about the 1994 Assault Weapon Ban that banned guns with bayonet lugs: "They said the ban was about crime, but when was the last time you heard of an inner-city gang bayonet charge?"
I just imagine rival gangs running at each other with with bayonets attached to their huge assault guns
It's not like most firearms violations and attacks happen with illegally obtained or home made pistols and smgs
@@MrPikaGammer Nahhhh that'd be crazy if that was true. Everyone knows that they go get background checks and register their legally obtained guns.
@@volatile100 No they just either go to states that have non-exsistant gun laws or they go through private purchase where there is no background check.
“Ey blud, affix your bayonet innit”
Some reenactors: "triangular blades are banned by Geneva Convention"
Me: *slowly hides my Chinese SKS with integrated triangular bayonet that was manufactured in the 1960's*
Oooh
There's gonna be a tax for that.
I have a Russian cross-shaped blade on my 1945 nagant. That's a permanently affixed folder.
Oh boy using triangle bayonets are we that’s against the Geneva convention my friend to the guillotine
This person: uses triangular bayonet
Narrator: this enraged the UN who punished him severely
Triangular bayonets are pretty sturdy, which is really important. Specially if you're using conscripts. Conscripts will manage to break just about anything you give them.
Marines better trained will still break it even if they make somewhat Marine proof
Shit, guys who volunteered tend to break everything, it's like a game to us lol
Not just conscripts. Soldiers in general will break anything if they can.
@@Wayofswords this is why the k bar was made it was a combat knife that even marines had a hard time breaking
Hahah there's a forgotten weapons video where they show old French MAS rifles had bayonet lugs that would lock the bayonet, but you could actually put two separate rifles together and lock them into place. They had to completely change the design so no more soldiers would fuck their rifles up lol
If your enemy is receiving medical treatment for a bayonet wound, you probably did it wrong.
@Jordan Rodrigues yeah, if you start stabbing the wounded soldiers, the enemies start stabbing your wounded soldiers
@@tomfoolery2913 plus this was the age before we conditioned soldiers to kill
@@tomfoolery2913 agh yes because stabbing the people killing you is their problem, and not the person deciding to stab you back, if you attack medical encampments your enemy will attack medical encampments. Nothing to report from a dead body except he died fighting and was stabbed multiple times doing so
@jeff nomad : That's why snipers don't always shoot to kill or rather prefer it if they don't kill, at least in a battle involving regular forces.
A wounded soldier who has been hit by a bullet has several benefits for the enemy;
Morale, hearing a wounded comrade screaming or groaning or begging for help will cause a real loss of morale to his mates.
If anyone attempts to go to his aid they run the risk of also being shot but many times at least one or more will eventually try to help. So you have tied down 2-3 soldiers with one bullet.
If they're allowed to remove him from the field then he becomes a drain on the limited battlefield medical supplies and still causes a negative impact on the morale of his squad.
Weapons of war aren't designed to kill, their purpose is to incapacitate and killing is just one way of so doing. An injured soldier may return to duty but in the meantime he is a considerable burden.
The same problem occurs with modern weapons, there are frequent complaints of lack of lethality of certain rounds and anecdotes of enemies fighting on despite being hit. In the vast majority of cases all rifle round wounds incapacitate, killing is simply unnecessary
“Can’t be stitched closed”
Pressure bandage: *Am I a joke to you?*
Strapped for time cauterizing works too
@@sods2731 Cauterize with the bayonet.
Thats not stitches, nice try though lol
@@anguishedcarpet can't be stitched, can still be closed...hell, probably with the same bayonet cauterizing
@@anguishedcarpet considering stitches aren’t used to stop bleeding but to facilitate the healing of a wound
I think the pressure bandage would be much more important than stitches and would actually save your life
As a retired surgeon I can state with confidence that a triangular wound can be sutured. One basic technique in plastic surgery is the V-Y plasty, used to add length to a section of tissue. The surgeon makes a V-shaped incision, stretches it lengthways, and sutures it as a Y-shape, which is what you get with a 3 sided weapon.
The reason why gunshot wounds are worse than stab wounds is that a musket ball rips out a section of the wearer's clothing and forces it into the wound. This contaminates the wound, so that if he doesn't die from organ damage or blood loss, the victim often dies from infection. This is apparently what killed Admiral Nelson.
Nelson died in battle.
He died hours after being shot.
It's also what killed Stonewall Jackson iirc
Was that technique around in 18th/19th century?
Square bladed bayonet: I'm going to ruin this man's whole career
You always hear about how medical knowledge was archaic back then, but I was blown away by how much that was known by the surgeon.
Really? It was hardly the medieval times
Now be surprised about how much me we knew since the middle ages
I wasn’t blown away by the knowledge but I for sure was blown away by the way they took notes. It’s very similar to the current method doctors use to take notes on patients
They had a very good understanding of the larger physiology of the body. The difference between then and now is the understanding of micobiology and the causes of disease etc. You could very easily die from a minor wound from infection becuase they didn’t know what caused it or how to prevent it and you could survive massive wounds if it didn’t become infected.
“Our ancestors were primitive, not stupid,” is always a good thing to keep in mind. It was in medieval times they first studied and illustrated the vascular system.
On a related note, their engineers built artificial hills and then castles on top of them. Very impressive considering they had to get everything right or it’d all collapse in a rainstorm.
I don't care what the shape of a bayonet is, if you get stabbed with one, you're having a bad day.
It could ruin your whole day.
@@tomdooley3522 indeed
A lot of times it can ruin your life. Or what’s left of it.
@@themanwithallthewrongopini3551 Humans seem terrible susceptible to deep holes in their body (that weren't there in the original design, that is).
Especially if it's on a Monday, I always hate that.
I believed this one for a pretty embarrassing amount of time, too. I think a lot of reenactors fall into that same category of hearing information from a more veteran reenactor, thinking "Wow that sounds interesting and about right," and repeat it themselves, perhaps adding a little bit of their own embellishment on top of it all.
Also including that scribbling noise in the background of your reading was a good idea!
Yeah. Reenacting is like one big game of Telephone in that way.
Don’t be embarrassed. I was in the army and got training on use of bayonet. Me and all my buddies heard and believed this myth.
@@ChristheRedcoat triangular bayonet or not getting stabbed with a bayonet with a screaming maniac on the other side is an unpleasant experience regardless of the era
@@ChristheRedcoat I thought those were called schools.
A lot of teachers forego the book and teach hearsay; then again some school books sources are hearsay.
Thank you, I did not notice the scribbling.
See, this is why you capture rebel prisoners for testing. What did that poor cardboard do wrong?
Cat toy companies: It made our products obsolete!!!
Being that the cardboard box in question most likely hails from China,
I'm going to speculate that it refused to buy opium from The Honourable Royal East India Company in exchange for tea...
@@Tarantio1983 The damned impudence! Okay, the cardboard deserved everything it got.
Im sure the imperial Japanese tested this at least once
As a soldier I'd be less concerned with the shape of the bayonet and more concerned with the fact that a complete stranger wants to stab my guts with one.
The shape of the bayonet is far less concerning than its proximity
You mean...just like he'd said in the video? 🙄
@@Embrachu I'm gonna poke you with one
Well then, how about I introduce myself first.
So you are saying you'd be perfectly OK with someone you know wanting to stab your guts? What if they introduce themselves first?
"A majority of people do not appreciate being stabbed."
I love your sense of humor. Nearly choked on my coffee laughing!
It is very British. Well done that man!
Reminds me of Heinlein line. " And the dead didn't complain"
I would imagine that there'd be a lot of odd wounds created on a battle field and a triangular wound would be the least of a surgeons worries
Shrapnel is probably worse wound channeling
Like wooden stakes fired from a blunderbus.
@@goldendash1527 well if it existed yet. Triangle bayonets were around back when they called "shrapnel", "fragments" and the weapons that caused it were few and far between.
@@grizzlyblackpowder1960
Purpose built shrapnel yes, but cannonballs hitting rocks, wooden structures, etc. would cause plenty of shrapnel
Amen, this guy in bed 1 got hit with a 2 pounder, he has a 4 inch hole clean through his chest, but this guy in bed 2, HE has a "3/4" inch "T" shaped stab wound, he's so fucked....
Reminds me of the nonsense that gets taught about “blood grooves” (actually fullers) in knives and swords.
In retrospect, I wish I had brought that up in the video, too. That’s another one that gets tossed around a lot.
But if you don't have blood grooves how can you get the kids interested in violence?
КРОВОСТООООООООК!!!!!
@@molodoy.. Translation?
@@judosailor literally “Blood groove” also name of music group
It's interesting that that Confederate surgeon remarked on how expectations had been "exaggerated" with regards to bayonet wounds. Almost sounds as though even they were assuming more of triangular bayonets than is warranted.
Something like 1% of deaths came from bayonets; while bayonets were important in tactics, the killing was done by rifle and field gun.
The bayonet is a psychological weapon more than an offensive weapon, British doctrine was to fire a few volleys before charging the enemy line. It's remarkable how often a unit will weather intense gunfire or shelling only to break completely when they're charged with bayonet.
You can almost talk yourself up to getting shot at, but NOBODY wants to be stabbed.
Hell, British troops have engaged in bayonet charges as late as 2012 in Afghanistan.
Men from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and from the Princess of Wales charged fortified Iraqi positions in 2004 and most of the Iraqi troops ran before they reached the trenches, leaving 28 EKIA (mostly to bayonet and close range shots)
@@padraig6200 This was a big problem for the US army during the Revolution: it took months of drilling and many battles for them to be able to actually stand to a British bayonet charge.
Happens with other close combat: the poorly trained Egyptians broke when the Madhists charged in with swords. Native Americans combined both charges with tomahawks and clubs with psychological tactics of attacking from cover and making war cries. At the battle of Pumpkin Fields, only the US regulars stood and fought while the rest routed.
@@Tareltonlives the native Americans are particularly scary I imagine!
Anytime I watch the likes of The Last Of The Mohicans, I can't help but imagine it must've been like to be the likes of one of the redcoats in the column that's attacked, you only have 1 round and you bayonet and musket are a poor match against tomahawks
I know these two soldiers are long dead by now, but it made me pretty happy that they went on to fully recover.
“Few men are killed by bayonets but all men fear them, therefore bayonets should be fixed at the first sign of contact.”- General Patton
"Incoming tanks! Fix bayonets!" - General Patton, probably
@@MadMikeRyan. Armour Piercing High Explosive Bayonets!
Pointy stick go brrrrr.
@@sanitarycockroach9038 😎 Naw, that's when its intended target feels a severe chill...
@@kadekitchin7356
Warhammer 40k be like:
A minor correction to the content, The Geneva Conventions don't actually discuss weapons or use of equipment in war. The Geneva Conventions are centrally concerned with the humane treatment of the wounded, POW's and civilian or non-combatant populations and the neutral actors in theater. It also establishes the protections of the Red Cross and other approved symbols.
The restrictions on weapons are found in The Hague Conventions. They are sometimes conflated with The Geneva Conventions because they are subject adjacent. Some consider The Hague to be an attachment to The Geneva.
It is also notable that there are period medical texts that show how to properly suture a triangular wound from a bayonet. Of course to a lay person this would seem to be a difficult or impossible task, but a properly trained surgeon would know the technique. Now if the battlefield surgeon is properly trained is a completely different matter.
And the Saint Petersburg declaration.
@@kekistanimememan170 The Hague Convention to the St. Petersburg declaration, incidentally enough, doesn't mention triangular bayonets. Neither this agreement nor the Geneva Convention bans the use of flamethrowers, either.
@@Schwarzvogel1 Yeah, flamethrowers and other incendiary weapons are actually considered under Protocol III of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons and are “partially banned.” Use against people is banned, but use for asset denial, i.e., using a thermite grenade to destroy a wrecked vehicle so it can’t be scavenged by the enemy, is allowed.
A simple purse string stitch probably my first guess
@@jeremytownsend6805 The text you're referring to is less than 2 pages, and it is very clear that you have not read it. The text does in no way restrict the use of incendiary weapons against purely military targets (i.e. flamethrowers against personel is OK), the only restrictions imposed are in situations where civilian populations are involved.
Missed this one when you posted. I'm glad my "hairy eye" got you thinking and made this. The good doctor.
I honestly wasn't aware of how advanced and knowledgeable the doctors of the time were. I often see memes and jokes about how inferior they were, but it seems like the doctors were advanced despite their equipment possible being subpar in relation to modern tools. Not only that, but I also wasn't aware that a patient could recover from a deep impalation within 9 days. Very interesting; thank you for doing this!
For real, dudes were impaled clean through their bodies and survived! One dude got hit where his heart should have been, but missed due to being in a twisted position. The other nearly got hit in the liver, but again missed due to his body also being in a strange position. The men didn't seem too fazed by it, considering they waited over an hour to get treatment! Badass surgeons and hearty men.
Yeah people from all time periods are far, far more intelligent then contemporary people like to assume.
Mostly because of Hollywood media myths.
Yeah people assume doctors from the 1800s were incompetent and didn't know how the human body worked. In reality the first edition of Gray's Anatomy was published in 1858 and had detailed illustrations of all the internal systems of the body and what they do. I think a lot of the perception that these doctors were just winging it comes from the fact that there were so many conmen back then pretending to be doctors and medical professionals so they could hawk their imaginary miracle cures to make a buck.
I have heard that the military trained it's doctors for WW1 and WW2 from detailed accounts of wounded soldiers and how to treat wounds from the Civil war. Don't know if that was true or not.
I read that in the ten years leading up to the American Civil War weapons technology advanced and that in the ten years after medicine advanced,i would think this was due to experience gained during the conflict and all wars seem to have this effect.
Love the inclusion of historical documents- An excerpt of an actual field doctor's medical journal during the civil war almost 2 centuries ago... WOW!! Definitely brings credibility to your response. Most people talk out of their asseth. Not your channel. You back up your viewpoint with actual facts and examples. Outstanding video. Love the lore and research you brought to is in this entertaining and succinct video. I've seen other channels answer this question (worse) and take over 30min trying to do so. 👍
South Carolina Sandlappers! My Boy Scout Master was the Grandson of a Confederate Colonel Shaw, who faught for South Carolina. The Scout Master had his sword and epaulets and a Medical text printed in the North, but used by the surgeon the Colonel served with. Most of it was how to cut something off of your personage (usually without sedation). This video cleared up the misconception that I was told about the triangular bayonet. One of my fellow scouts worked the whole summer to buy his Brown Bess in order to reenact here in South Carolina.
I think that the reason bayonets were triangular is because its a relatively simple, cheap to hammer out, and strong design to issue en masse.
No... not really. It was a stronger blade design but it wasn't nearly as easy or as cheap to make when compared to a new model or sword bayonet that could be forged from a worn out metal file in a short amount of time at a pretty cheap cost.
Tangentially, _Sharpe's_ fans -- good books, read 'em -- are very used to hearing the 95th calling them 'swords,' as their issue Baker flintlock rifles took a sword bayonet fixed on the side of the muzzle end of the arm. The bayonets would have done for small swords too. Completely different in an era where the triangular socket bayonet was the norm.
Fun fact!! You learn EXACTLY how to stick this exact type of wound in med school
Really? So my question is now is there any merit to this? Are the triangular wounds any more complex to close or is it pretty much the same in all regards?
So tell a little bit. Open the wound, patch organs, then close up?
That's not so fun. More of an embarrassing effort to disclose med student status. Being a student is not cool.
@Jo Jo I’m not taking shots, but my personal opinion is that we should always be students, strive to learn new things and gain understanding in different fields.
@@philmcclenaghan7056 well its not as cool as being a certified doctor but its cooler than being uneducated
In playing down the significance of bayonet wounds (triangular or otherwise), the surgeon may have fallen victim to survivorship bias. Obviously he only saw soldiers who survived long enough to make it to the infirmary. He never saw those who died immediately or within a few minutes.
Still, quite impressive that those two soldiers who had been run through were back on duty two months later.
Well to be fair, the soldiers who died right away or within minutes would very much have done so regardless of the particular shape of the bayonet stabbing them.
I mean the difference between dying instantly and dying later in a hospital is dumb luck, where were you stabbed/shot, how far from the hospital, how long before you were taken there etc. I recall a story of a Revolutionary solider being stabbed some dozens of times by multiple very angry British men and surviving to tell the tale.
This is a good point.
The Americans at first analyzed the damage on Confederate infantrymen who returned from their bombing missions over Japan and strengthened those areas on the newer models of Confederate soldiers. After this failed they realized that to improve survivability they should strengthen the areas that were not damaged on the Confederate soldiers that returned to base.
If only the doctor had been aware of this bias when he treated the two B-29s that were stabbed by triangular bayonets...
@@Zogerpogger my brain melted reading this
@@Zogerpogger This is why you don't huff paint-thinner
Thank you. I'm a retired physician and love military history. You are correct. Triangle bayonets were much easier made. A metal worker could take a sheet of metal, fold it, hammer it, then sharpen as a pike blade. Whereas a now standard bayonet was forged as a knife blade, involving many other steps including a proper handle and hilt.
Hey Chris. Someone recommended me this video and I wanted to pop in the comments to say thank you. Very informative, and I enjoy the little bits of humor thrown in. I am a no bullshit guy in everything I do, especially history, so it was nice to have you dispell the myth so easily. I learned something today. Great video
I think the reason bayonets were "more lethal" because in close quarters your opponent is more likely to follow up with a second thrust or a twist of the blade. Your opponent is more likely to see you aren't dead and stab again.
Not to mention that melee combat, in general, is just...savage, brutal, and often desperate.
Nah man, as proven in that British documentary about the search for the Holy Grail, even when someone is yelling "I'm not dead!" over and over, people usually aren't able to figure out that they are still alive. The bodies just pile up on the carts, sometimes a frying pan needs to be used to ensure an individual is dead.
yeah, well, if you only stab once, your just lazy.
Very possible, I knew a WWII veteran who was bayonetted twice.
The people who constantly recite this factoid never seem to notice that that in the Commonwealth, we went back to spike bayonets for WWII. Other countries used spike and triangular bayonets after the existence of the Geneva Convention. The whole arguement just does not hold water.
On the other hand, soldiers frequently claim something is against the Geneva Convention if they are afraid of the weapon or practice, or just don't like it. During my time in, I noticed a number of things go from "I don't want to do it," to "It should be outlawed by the Geneva Convention" to "That is outlawed by the Geneva Convention." Sometimes it happens fast, before a Basic serial has completed.
I think a certain model of the AK47 comes complete with a retractable spiked bayonet.
@@homeboy2166 Exactly, variants made in a number of Warsaw Pact countries plus China and their satellites. All of these have spike or triangular folding bayonets.
The Geneva Convention they are usually referring to, even though it's wrong, was accepted in the 50s. I have a Mosin Nagant with a triangular bayonet attachment that's pretty old
Geneva conventions say nothing about weaponry. Just protection of civilians and POWs i think
@@carlosandleon That would be the 2nd or 3rd Geneva Convention. The 1st Convention focused on establishing basic rules, along with restricting anything that will continue to cause harm long after conflict has ceased. Such things include chemical weapons, and, back in the 1800s, triangular bayonets in certain cases, due to disease
That gentlemen were also quite happily stabbing each other with triangular cross section small swords for centuries also points to this being a myth.
And even if there was some mention of these matters in the Geneva convention, these dudes wouldnt be aware of it during their lifetime, some convention in the distant future.
Ah man, I love this kind of content, straight forward, informative, and founded on actual proof that you actually showed to support your argument.
"shut up im making a point"
Such an underrated moment of this video...
I’m stopping you now, I’ve heard this one before
Damn it.
It's interesting that people who have been "run through" returned to active duty so relatively soon.
I guess that's why we have bans on serrated bayonets and hollow point bullets in warzones.
Two did but how many killed outright?
That's my point (no pun intended.) It's a very lucky thing to survive such wounds. Especially given the level of medical care available at the time.
@@garethjames1300 : Probably never know for sure, the reports would just list the dead and wounded, it's just fortunate that this doctor considered these two wounded men worthy of recording.
@@DenianWriter The ban on hollow-point bullets is largely to prevent an arms race to produce the nastiest small arms cartridges possible. It came about because the Russians invented an exploding (or fulminating, to be precise) musket ball, and being smart people, they realised that as effective as this type of bullet was, they didn't want _their_ soldiers being shot at with even better versions (most likely invented by the Germans or the French).
Look up some of the tests on WWII-era explosive ammunition on InRangeTV, and ask if you'd be fine with people shooting at you with that type of stuff. If we allow expanding ammunition to be used in war zones, it's a slippery slope toward even nastier types of projectiles. Imagine an improved version of the Black Talon in rifle calibres, coated with some sort of bonded anticoagulant to ensure that the target bleeds to death before receiving medical attention, or bullets with delay fuzes and tiny amounts of HE to try and ensure that they would explode and maim surgeons who were extracting them from wounded personnel, or at least that they would explode only after penetrating flesh. If it weren't for the St. Petersburg Declaration, someone would have _tried_ to make projectiles like that, and perhaps succeeded.
Serrated bayonets are *not* banned either; plenty of bayonets still have a saw blade on the back of the blade. The AKM Type 1 Bayonet (introduced in the late 1960s, still in use in many countries) has saw teeth on the back of the blade. The US M9 bayonet also has a serrated edge on the back of the blade.
Generally if you are bayonetted you will be bayonetted again until you die.
That is why the bayonet wounded are so few and recover.
Most die.
That's assuming that you're not stabbing back.
@@jacquesstrapp3219
Eh. Even if you are chances are you'd die.
Like, you get stabbed, you stab the guy 3 times and live.
...now what are you gonna do about the other 150 men who charged with him?
That is why a wise, if bloodthirsty, Providence came up with repeating rifles.
Which dramatically reduced the bayonet's role... and its size and weight, along with tweaking it into primarily a handy wire cutter that looks like a pokey thing. So Our Hero keeps it on him.
Aside from that copypasta, I’ve always heard it as triangular bayonet wounds being harder to stitch up, but not impossible
This has been something I've argued with other reenactors about!
Yes, a triangular wound is nasty, no it's NOT impossible to heal from.
Thanks for the well made video!
Look at that triangle blade didn't look like it's meant for slashing it's meant for piercing well the two-sided blade can be more lethal.
For information, I had surgery to the chest which resulted in an approximately 8” long incision. Due to the paucity of flesh above the sternum, the surgeon was not able to suture the wound closed. The wound was left open and healed over quite quickly and without leaving a scar and I was mobile within a day of the procedure with negligible discomfort or loss of blood. Obviously this was not a deep, penetrating wound but shows that stitches are not always necessary or required.
Your body literally makes its own
My mates in the military say that bayonets are still great for crowd control/containment of smaller groups as you can have "sharp pointy bad thing" deter anyone pressing on you or pushing forward.
They are also good for "poking" things during searches
my grandfather commanded MPs post WW2 in the Pacific, he always armed the people handling prisoners with a 1903 w/ bayonet and no ammo along with the fact he picked only the burliest that were experience in hand to hand
At least the front row
"Pointy thing bad!" Best quote of the day!
-I own a musket for home defense, since that's what the founding fathers intended.
-Four ruffians break into my house
-"What the devil?" As I grab my powdered wig and Kentucky rifle.
-Blow a golf ball sized hole through the first man. He's dead on the spot.
-Draw my pistol on the second man. Misses him entirely because it's smoothbore and nails the neighbor's dog
-I have to resort to the cannon at the top of the stairs loaded with grapeshot.
-"TALLY HO, LADS!" The grapeshot shreds two men in the blast. the sound an extra shrapnel set off car alarms.
-Fix bayonets and charge the last terrified rapscallion.
-He bleeds out waiting on the police to arrive since triangular bayonet wounds are difficult to stitch-up.
-Ah, just as the founding fathers intended.
Thank you for the explanation! I too had been couched in this misinformation for years, until TODAY! The thing I find particularly annoying, is that when conversing with someone regarded as an expert, they spread these myths faster than an STD at a Florida retirement home. This, of course, is on par with other bad information passed on by "experts" in other fields.
I was always more skeptical about the difficulty closing these wounds. A metal spear tip capable of going clean through you and coming out the other side is scary enough.
I think part of the reason they died off was that the bayonet started being used as a fighting/utility knife. A bayonet is good at poking holes in meat and that’s about it, similar to the FS knife. A much more useful blade is one that can open a can of food, cut a rope, hack through tree branches. Once the risk of a cavalry attack died on the fields of Europe in WWI this was made even more evident
They died of because we have high capacity easily reload machine guns instead of a one shot slow reload muskets. In WW1 they started with the same mentality as past conflicts but discovered very quickly that doing a bayonet charge would only let to many men getting obliterated by machine gun fire
Good video, very informative!
The closing statements, especially "...people do not enjoy being stabbed!" reminded me of General Patton's recommendation of agressive bayonet training as a confidence builder for the troops. "There aren't a lot of people killed or wounded by the bayonet, but EVERYONE if afraid of it!" Some things don't change.
Most military historians believed bayonet charges actually saved lives, as most sane people would run away from overwhelming enemies attacking with pointy things. In the American civil war, where bayonet charges were rare, more casualties were caused by gunfire because the weaker force was not driven off the field of battle, but instead both forces just kept shooting at each other.
"Shut up, I'm trying to make a POINT." LMAO
9:22 and on killed me “I don’t wanna get stabbed”. Thanks for the video Chris!
I am a civil war reenactor and I can not even count how many times I have been told this and tbh i didn’t know any different until now
I do 1812 reenacting and I heard that all the time too. I never gave it any thought until now either.
people assume war is about killing. it's not, it's about destroying your enemy's ability to fight.
Isn't that why we pulled out of Vietnam? Alongside mounting political pressure we had utterly destroyed northern Vietnam's manufacturing and infrastructure.
@@kenshy10 Not exactly, because the NV was able to quickly replace the infrastructure. The US had a very shitty doctrine in the first place, centered in killing Vietcongs, because if the enemy lost more men than they could recruit, then the war will soon be over, right? But that led to absurdly pointless operations like the battle for Hamburger hill, and adding the fact that they didn't knew exactly how many Vietcongs there were at any given time, or even underestimating their capabilities, led to the fall of the South and the eventual withdrawal of US forces.
There is a tale of a squadron tasked with destroying the same bridge every certain months or so because the NV kept rebuilding it, even when there was a concrete factory right ahead.
When they asked why couldn't they attack the factory, the higher ups responded that it wasn't a priority target at the time.
There is a 2-part documentary called "technowar" right here on youtube that I would recommend watching. It shines a lot of light on the terrible impact the US doctrine had on the whole war.
@@DonVigaDeFierro ok infrastructure is NOT easy to replace even with commie dollars. Also yes the US was stupid with its military doctrine but you don't start putting your dead inside your tunnels with you if things are going well. Or strapping kids with bombs. Hell the quote end of the war left a destroyed NV and a southern Vietnam that was mostly intact. Too bad they didn't get any weapons like we promised them and the NV rolled through and put everyone in concentration camps.
@@kenshy10 lol anglo still pissed they couldn’t colonize vietnam
@@kenshy10 you could say the NV took the fight out of the Americans. It’s nigh impossible to use conventional tactics against guerilla warfare.
I found exactly what I figured I’d find for treating the wounds: they aren’t stitched like a seam so much as treated like a drawstring on a bag so the pressure of the stitches upward and outward makes the natural healing occur…it’s hard to do with a person in pain writhing and two spots to do it, shock and blood loss likely caused the real deaths attributed to the issues with closure
their biggest enemy is infection, the first guy was lucky to have had a slight nick of the lungs instead of full perforation
"well let's find out" *bayonet charges random passer-by*
Y’know, for science…
Just as the Founding Fathers Intended brought me here.
"Geneva Suggestion"
Just ask Imperial Nippon of Rising Sun.
The flames of the war burn the paper first!
They committed mass atrocities and, soon after, received the consequences.
I believe you Yanks refer to it as: "Fuck around and find out".
I believe that the Empire of Japan was *not* a signatory of the Geneva Accords, as "humane treatment of prisoners of war" was not part of the Bushido code Japan followed during WW II. An enemy who allowed himself to be captured alive was dishonored, thus had no rights
@@mikegrossberg8624
Doesn't justify the mass slaughter of civilians.
Also, WWI. Japan invaded German colonies and treated the surrendered Germans with respect.
@@youraveragescotsman7119 Didn't justify because they lost the war. if they had won it would be suddenly OK. For some stranage reason victors are always treated differently.
I heard this and I went with it even though I thought that it would be as easy to patch one up any other bayonet, modern bayonets are even vaguely triangular because of how thick they are. Anyway I have learned.
OK, I’ve been sick all day but Private Tinkler had me laughing like a 5 yr old. My family probably thinks I’m delirious now. I admit to being surprised at the detailed doctor notes, as I had mistakenly envisioned the chaos of battle surgery to preclude this. 💕🐝🇺🇸
I couldn’t help thinking of “Monty Python” as you retreated from the Rebels charge...
RUN AWAY!😂
Thank you for this, even before the Geneva convention there was the Hague, and it makes no mention either
Great video. And yes, it was mostly psychological. Long time ago I read that less than 2% of all wounds during the Napoleonic Wars were from bayonets. A period that is otherwise "renowned" for bayonet charges.
But as you so beautifully showed in the video. It was meant to break the enemy's psyche and line and not necessarily inflict wounds. Once two units engaged in actual close quarter fighting you could scratch those units as coherent and effective fighting formations for the rest of the battle. Something any sane commanding officer would loathe to do.
Therefore it was more often used as a psychological shock weapon to make the enemy abandon any given position rather than closing to engage in close quarters.
Hahahah!! LOVE the footage of the Rebel Light Infantry from Stoney Point to, um, drive home the point.
Great job, Chris -- and there are some really nice references to bayonets from the AWI you should consider, too. Notably, several accounts in after action reports from the Battle of Paoli --- the most astonishing being mention of one wounded fellow who had something like SIXTY SIX bayonet wounds!! He lived for at least a day after that battle, so clearly didn't just 'bleed out'
I'm curious what treatment actually was, though (I'll have to look through some period treatises), but it's worth noting that the wound produced, at least on the outside, is probably even less "repairable" than the puncture wound created by a ~.70 caliber musketball... and, obviously, those were considered treatable. I wonder if they just didn't bother sewing those wounds up. Maybe that's how GSWs are treated today, too?
Sixty-six? Good Lord, that’s... excessive.
@@ChristheRedcoat yup. It's surely one of the things that contributed to this battle being called a massacre.
Very likely this is because of a couple factors: possibly half those wounds are exit wounds, and since this action happened in near total darkness and mass confusion, there's all likelihood that some folks got bayoneted multiple times by overzealous and frantic bloodhounds.
Paoli was a night attack where Charles Grey's composite group of light infantry battalions attacked without firing a shot; Grey even ordered that the men remove the flints from their pieces. Despite 71 prisoners being taken, the Patriots reported a massacre.
What this did was a baptism by fire to Anthony Wayne, who would develop into the most professional soldier in the US Army and a key player in the conquest of the Ohio territory.
I used to be an American Civil War reenactor and a dark ages reenactor as a viking here in the UK. I heard this myth several times. Even got speared through my hand accidentally during a Viking reenactment. A spear tip is wider than a bayonet of triangular form and is thicker and diamond in shape but it was easily treated and you can barely see the scar 20 years later.
Most people -"Trianguler bayonets are impossible to stitch"
Me "fire, I shall use fire"
There seems to be this tendency to attribute much more complicated reasons to military things, when most of the time the reason that a thing is like it is is because a: it’s the cheapest option or b: it’s the easiest option.
Same explanation as to why the coats are red!
I always did kinda think the idea of treating a bayonet wound by stitching externally rather than packing and applying pressure to stop bleeding as suspiciously ridiculous.
"They don't like it up 'em!".
-Lance Corporal Jack Jones "Dad's Army
"GIV 'EM THE OL' COLD STEEL SIR!"
A triangle just makes sense. It's the simplest, strongest shape for it's intended purpose and having a flat where you're expected to run your hand while ramming a shot seems more preferable to an edge, even if dull.
I am a Medieval Reeanactor, even in the 10th century there are records and founds of triangular blades. These Blades are sturdy and quite narrow and more easy to maintain. In earlier periods these were useful in the Astoc (A triangular stabbing sword) and the Eealspear (Wooden Spear Shaft with Triangular or Quadroangular Spearhead) , these were used for thrusting into Mail Armor. Into Haubergons and Hauberks because you only have to damage one rivited Ring to go through the Gambeson/Body underneath.
And the design was used in many ways: For example later in the Rondell Dagger to thrust into gaps in late 15th century Armor, or in Arrowheads. This desingn ist not as versitile as the Two sided Blade but it is speciallized useful and a stabbing powerhouse that does not brake easy and does not Blunt easy on its Point.
Hope i was able to help.
Meanwhile in Russia. Let's keep the pokey stick bayonet. Everyone else, let's make bayonet a sword. America, yeah this five and a half foot sword on my rifle is just overly cumbersome, let's make a bayonet a knife.
My Mosin bayonet looks like a 3 foot flathead screwdriver. Probably pretty effective, all things considered
@@matthiasthulman4058 the cool thing is it is a giant flat head screwdriver you can disassemble the rifle with it lol
@@joechristel9133 yes, I suppose you're correct lol
Always look on the bright side of life
@@matthiasthulman4058 Very true. I orrignal saw this when I was trying to find a good Mosin Nagant disassembly video the guy did it with the bayo. I've never done it myself I always just use the disassembly tool lol
Never heard this myth before but I immediately thought of it with skeptacism. People have had drills lodged in their skulls, survived explosions that removed parts of their body including limbs, and various slicing/stabbing/bludgon type injuries and been relatively fine after.
Great talk Chris . I have gotten into this argument with historians more times than i care to count .
“Why is it that soldiers have such a wholesome fear of the bayonet …
This dread of ‘cold steel’ is, in my humble opinion, mainly attributable to ignorance of the nature of the injuries inflicted by it … bayonet wounds are almost harmless when compared to the ploughed tracks which the terrible minie bores through the tissues /
A bayonet wound almost invariably heals … and leaves no deformity
behind, while the simplest ball wound requires weeks for a complete recovery and, then, perhaps, leaves the sufferer with a contracted and
useless limb.” CSA surgeon Simon Baruch 1864
Triangular bayonets were also a pretty common thing in the 20th century. The No. 4 Enfield, several variants of the Mosin Nagant, and the Chinese Type 56 SKS and AK all had triangular bayonets. The only reason for the change was that a knife style bayonet has more general utility. Bayonet charges are rare in the modern day, but soldiers are going to have to cut things regularly in their day to day lives
It’s astonishing how quoting a historical and medical journal can get you demonetized now adays when it’s not said by the “right side”.
Even with the relatively low bullet velocities of the time, nothing really beats out gunshots in terms of damage or lethality
Thanks for making this video! My uncle and cousin used to do civil war re-enactments back in the day, so this brought back lots of fun memories
"Triangular bayonets make a wound impossible to heal!"
A little tip: In war, you really aren't concerned with what happens to your foe after the battle. You concern is whether they are fighting you or not. Even if you could make a wound that cannot be treated, why would you?
It doesn't give you any edge in the battle.
Wrong in so many ways possible
Do you really think the soldier picks what shape his bayonet is?
No its whoever ordered the bayonet ie the officers
And they in fact care very much about what happens after the battle
This is even seen in today's weapons, the sa80 is chambered in 5.56 specifically so it doesn't kill an enemy but instead injures them costing the enemy more resources and manpower *after the battle*
@@Alucard-gt1zf the SA80 is chambered in 5.56 because the Americans switched, in fact the US dictated chambering for NATO countries several times. The reason that 5.56 was chosen has far more to do with cost, weight actual engagement ranges and accuracy of fire (of the soldier not the round (less recoil meaning more efficient burst fire)).
@@Alucard-gt1zf Yeah, I have no idea where you got that idea from. Nathan's right abotu the 5.56 round. They're smaller so you can carry more of them and have more control when you fire.
I remember watching an interview with a Brittish army about a bayonet charge aganst an Argentine position on a hill top,the charge started with full mags and was more of series of rushes.His explanation of why they fixed bayonets was a signaling device "we are comeing up and will kill anyone we find".When the reached the crest there were no enemy in sight,this meant no one had to die,a life saving message.😇
'shut up, I'm trying to make a point' love it.
seeing a guy wear a historical military uniform while holding a really shiny iphone gave me a quite a bit of amusement
Let us grieve the loss of Pvt. Box. He bravely gave his life for our video content.
There was cruciform bayonets still used in the 1950s, and they seem worse, so I doubt they were banned, british, soviet, german, French used cruciform in ww2
Germany didn't use cruciform bayonets in ww1 and 2.
And I think neither did the brits.
@@grantiger4074 FG-42 had a cruciform, no4mk1 Lee enfield first pattern of bayonet was a cruciform
@@Palaemon907 ah didn't even know the FG had a Bajonett interesting
Cruciform bayonets were _never_ banned, and they continued in use up to the present day. The reason they generally fell out of favour is that countries quickly discovered soldiers tend to use and need blades for opening packages and containers far more often than opening enemy personnel. Rather than equipping a soldier with a utility knife *and* a bayonet (the latter of which he would probably never use), why not combine the two into one handy device? Saves money, and the duckfoot who has to carry all this kit will thank you too! Everyone wins... except the weapons manufacturers who can't squeeze 2x as much money out of the government, perhaps.
Lol, his phone fits his coat.
I bet the British army adopted it so the enemy couldn’t see the when soldiers were on the phone
Nailed it.
I can already hear the keyboards rattling: "BuT wHaT iF tHe TrIaNgUlAr BlAdE iS tWiStEd?"
A lot of people think weird shaped cuts are harder to suture, they are not as long as the flesh is not jagged, that's when you get a lot of problems, from tissue tearing to necrosis due to over tensioning the stitches, and that's why shrapnel is so deadly, it doesn't cut, tears apart.
Most likely a triangular bayonet is production design decision, it has to be pointy, can't bend and can't break, as long as it is pointy that's it, and that saves higher quality steel for other uses instead of issuing a expensive bayonet that has to sharpened, can bend or get struck.
I've always been skeptical of this myth.
never heard the term "the hairy eyeball" before, that's two things I've learnt today
where is your accent from? (that'll make three)
Tough question to answer because I don’t think of myself having a particularly strong strong accent. I suppose it’s a bit of generic New England?
I learned a new word
Reenactorism,
And when people ask me why the bayonet is triangular I just say, cause it looks cool.
It’s short, sweet and to the point
Oh and, the cardboard works, however I think watermelon might wok too, that’s just me tho, and they’re not really in season
"The majority of people, do not enjoy nor appreciate being stabbed"
Kind of an understatement really
"pointy thing bad" is just good overall life advice
Old army saying "They Dont Like It UP EMM"
1:15
Cat: Did you NOTCH this BAYONET?
New Kid: Yes, Sir.
Cat: Who told you to?
New Kid: Back at the training camp...
Cat: Training camp, huh? Sonny, if the enemy ever caught you with this, they wouldn't keel you. They'd 'plump' your eyes out; fill 'em full of sawdust! Nobody uses these things anymore. It's by MUTUAL AGREEMENT. On both sides.
New Kid: I didn't know..... I thought...
Cat: Don't think. Just listen. Your spade is better. You hit a man under the chin with a spade, you can take his head right off. It's a good club too. Because it's heavy. You hit a man between the neck and shoulder, right here, you then split him one, right in two.
Second New Guy: Mother...!
Cat: And, it's cleaner. BAYONET gets stuck in a man's ribs, you have to Kick him to pull it out! Time it takes, you're a "deed" man. You understand?
New Guy: 'just nods, short and quick'
~ 'All Quiet on the Western Front', movie, 1979.
I thought it related to the metal technology of the day. The sword type would often bend initially. In WWII they were on occasion round with short four sided point. The sword bayonet was issued to the Pioneers as a substitute to their swords which had a saw back to cut timber. The triangular version is less likely to jam between the ribs. Arte et Marte.
I’m kind of surprised to learn that, in pre-germ-theory days, people could get stabbed through the lungs and recover, without dying of sepsis.
As a mechanical engineer I'd say shape has more to do with strength. A flat bayonet is weakest if load is applied at 90deg to the blade where as a triangular bayonet is pretty much the same in all directions!
Edit: should have watched all the upload before commenting.
Also, the flutes on a triangular bayonet as well as allowing the bayonet cut the full length of the blade make it much stiffer than a round bayonet.
I am amazed that any surgeon involved in battles had time for such copious notes.
I grew up reenacting. I also heard this. From someone who used to be the curator of this place. oddly enough on a field trip to where my family reenacted. believed it till this video (it's a weird feeling you feel your out of place ) Old Fort Niagara BTW.
People can solve this myth by asking a simple question. That question is "Can a bullet wound be mended" because both a triangular and conical bayonet cause puncture wounds along with bullet wounds they can to some degree be compared.