The Good Idea Fairy Strikes: American Trowel Bayonets
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- Опубліковано 12 лис 2017
- The United States first experimented with a combination trowel and bayonet in 1868, producing 200 experimental examples made from standard socket bayonets. This was immediately followed by an additional 500 Model 1869 trowel bayonets made new. These were distributed to a few companies of the infantry to test in the field. Remarkably, the trials reports were overwhelmingly positive.
The US infantryman at that time did not carry any sort of entrenching tool, and so even an awkward combination tool was an improvement over a canteen cup or other ad hoc tool for digging. The bayonet was seen by some officers as becoming obsolete with the introduction of breechloading rifles, so the reduced effectiveness of the new item as a bayonet was not a substantial concern. The intended use of these tools was not to dig elaborate trenches, but rather to hastily construct a shallow ditch and embankment which would provide just enough cover to shelter a prone soldier.
With the trials reports in, the government purchased 10,000 of the improved 1873 pattern trowel bayonet, which featured a stronger blade and a much more comfortable handle for digging. These were issued and used in the field (and in several combat engagements), but the developmental direction turned towards combination knife trowels instead of bayonets, and there would be no further development or issue of these tools after the 1870s.
See the full trials report here: books.google.com/books?id=qUE...
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1869: bayonets have become obsolete. These new rifles can be fired and loaded too quickly for a bayonet to be effective.
1914: Look at those trenches. I'm thinking a bayonet charge will do the trick...
1912: Airplanes and machine guns. Pfft. They will always be just an accessory to the man and horse.
Gihren Zabi 1930s USSR: Let's invest heavily in light tanks, they'll be very useful in the next war.
1942-5 the US seems to have a lot of gun's, but we outnumber them, lets just charge them on mass (some Japanese commander WW2)
If I may...bayonets were for close quarters fightin/ dispatching enemies without wasting ammo/ psychological intimidation.
@@retiredamericanpatriot5571 It didn't carry over
Easier than building a shovel that shoots bullets, I suppose.
The Soviets actually made and issued a shovel with a built in mortar
@@Shaun_Jones what? What was it called? I need to know more of this
google "37mm spade mortar"
@@Shaun_Jones I suppose they figured the common soldier needs more than one means of making holes in the ground.
This entire comment and reply section is the best
I wonder how many old ladies use these in their rose garden and have no idea what it is.
I've seen these in a tool shed before, kid you not!
I heard a story from a guy at the range of finding one in a garage sale in a pile of tools. Had definitely been used as a gardening tool. No idea if it's true, but it certainly sounds plausible.
Austin's Corner shoosh , now California will be trying to ban trowels, as they look a lot like the military ones 🤔
If we ban trowels, we may as well ban the whole frickin' garden section. We won't mind you, we are your fruit and veggie supplier. :P
My mother and her siblings used my grandfathers katanas to cut weeds in soybean fields. Happens all the time.
Excerpt from Army field trials, 1871 - "I informed Pvt. Jones that he was on report and as punishment he must use his trowel bayonet to dig the latrine for the entire Company. And that he best be quick at the task as the men would be using said latrine whilst he was digging. He set about this endeavor with the utmost ferver and his behavior improved greatly after this." Lt. Haughten Pepperidge III
I'm not sure what images will be used with the Ken Burns pan-and-scan effect, but we could probably find something in the National Archives.
Literally in tears.
😆 Me, too! 😁
I wonder what that poor bastard did to earn that punishment.
Pepperidge Farm remembers
@@BeavisSaves used the trowel while attached to the riffle?
For rapid wall repairs on the battlefield
Infinately more popular than the hod carrier attachment.
-20% build time
-5% agility
Well, both soldiers and bricklayers use some kind of mortar...
Oh good grief now someone making DLC for COD zombies is going use this idea.
I initially imagined trying to lay down mortar with a long gun handle.
The handle/socket change was based on trowel and error.
I hate to brick it to you but that was a horrible joke.
Does it really mortar? Maybe you just need to get laid.
I went to the Bay for nets.
I hate humanity.
Bad puns are how eye roll
Somewhere, somehow, the Team Fortress 2 Soldier is whispering:
_"Perfect..."_
RIP Rick May
Is that the Rákosi coat of arms?
Far from it. It's based on the later, "Kádár" coat-of-arms, with some nationalistic elements:
www.deviantart.com/tiszazug/art/Hungarian-Coat-Of-Arms-310671862
@@Shunteration my bad, nincs rajtam szemüveg és telefonról vagyok
He puts it on the front of his rocket launcher!
well if you suddenly have to serve cake while on the field they're quite handy.
BufusTurbo92 😄😄😄
Italian Spider-Man m
Do you believe that love can bloom on the battlefield?
ua-cam.com/video/epLFeT4qYgc/v-deo.html
Perfect for Armistace day!
When you need to storm the German trench at 8 but also need to tend to your garden at 9
Or tend the German's Garden as they are now too dead to tend it themselves..
Blood makes the grass grow.
Considering how dangerous a shovel can be (WWI was infamous for this, medics would have to tend to soldiers with what looks to be "battle axe" wounds which were in fact shovels), I could see this being an actually pretty effective melee weapon along with being a nice entrenching tool.
Agreed; that looks like something deeply unpleasant to be hit with.
Indeed. Up to this day, there are sections in military manuals for close combat featuring fighting with showels. And modern entrenching tools usually have one side of the showel head beveled to enable the soldier to sharpen it if desired. I have done so on the entrenching tools I have been issued, and though i have not struck any enemies with them, I have used it a lot as an improvised axe, chopping down small trees, clearing branches and bushes. The older styles of entrenching tools with straight wooden handles are the best for such use, but newer styles with triangular handles also works ok.
There is no way you'd stop every soldier from trying to dig with it attached, there is always some idiot who thinks he knows better.
_"i'm aiming right at the target sarg.. but my bullets keep hitting low"_
...
_"Son, your gun is bent.. get a string and some arrows... that's all it's good for now"_
just tell them they have to buy a new gun if they bend their barrel. Make them aware that it's out of pocket.
Everything's gotta be soldier proof, lol. There's always one guy......
Randy Magnum What do there is only one. After the first guy the rest will think its a design feature and 1 month later the manual will appended.
Matthew Doye my thoughts exactly. Heck even my stupid ass
The trowel bayonet. When your men in uniform need to scoop something up, be it dirt, a slice of pizza, or a man's insides, accept no substitutes.
Tired of too many enemy soldiers raiding your trench?!
Then you gotta get disembowel trowel!
Let’s just hope the pizza party was BEFORE the bayonet charge...
Eh, on second thought, might not notice if it was a meat lover’s pizza.
I never knew about the “idea fairy” until working with someone x-army. I’m explaining about the needless things an admin at our job had done only to justify his existence to the boss that did nothing to increase quality or efficiency, but made my job more complicated. He said “The idea fairy strikes again”. And after seeing the puzzled expression on my face, explained himself. It really is.a perfect phrase.
Upon seeing the trowel affixed to the gun, I instinctively thought "That would dig the hell out of some holes!" Then you mentioned that they knew at least a few soldiers would be dumb enough to dig holes with the entire gun. Those plugs, they were for people like me.
That was an incredibly satisfying sound that came from fixing that second pattern bayonet.
These thing really remind me of a Zulu Iklwa when mounted on a rifle. Both em have markedly broad spear-heads.
GreatgoatonFire that is true, I thought it reminded of that short fat italian sword (Cinquedea?) also
Skrymer U I think you are refering to a Cinquedea aka five finger sword. Sure I can ser the recemblance, sort of.
greatgoatonfire exactly what I thought too, the second I saw the thumbnail
Agreed! Would make nasty wounds and probably scare the crap out of the enemy on the charge in.
Those things have a very different blade to handle ratio (around 50/50 I believe)
I could definitely see digging with it attached , clean it off and use it to cook with.
My guess is the trowel will bend before the barrel does. For that matter you'd have to hit the rock with a lot of force. This is a trowel. You're not trying to spear the ground to death with powerful thrusts, you're basically scraping it away.
But it's not a shovel. It's a trowel. As Ian explains in this video it's not meant to dig a trench. More of a 1' deep hole.
cook some heroin :) ... you could really do a big batch .. enough for the whole platoon
If the rock was to hard, cock, firs and blow the bloody thing out of the way.
Out of the frying pan, and into the ... FIRE!!
fix trowels! Doesn't have the same impact as "fix bayonets!" tbh
Interestingly, the command for British troops equipped with sword bayonets (Napoleonic riflemen, etc.) was to "Fix Swords"
Just imagine what the enemy would think if they heard that
I'm guessing that they'd be falling about in helpless laughter!!
"End em rightly!!"
I imagine ramming that several-inch-wide blade between ribs would have more impact than a normal dagger bayonet.
It's brilliant, as you're digging with the trowel, you just fire into the dirt and it softens it up for you!
That thing would be wicked to try and sight a target in a high wind, it would be like sticking your hand out a car window.
VetteKid just like. Standard bayonet you wouldn’t affix it to the barrel until a bayonet charge.
steven heckert
Some bayonet are meant to be fixed at all times.
Ya just a sling hanging or even a long barrel can be irritating in a wind!
How high are the winds where you shoot?
40MPH+ is a tropical storm, and I don't find it very difficult to put my hand out the window at low speed.
USA 1870s: Errr, we don't really need bayonets all that much
USSR 100 years later: let's put bayonet on SVD!
the japanese really had an even bigger fetish, putting bayonets on LMGs :D
Someone needs to invent a bayonet to go onto a rifle grenade!
Mr.Mezmerize you mean attaching LMGs to the bayonets?
Probably because the USA gave actual ammunition to their soldiers, to use with repeating firearms, while the USSR might've just given the average Igor the SVD and the bayonet, no ammo. (yes, I'm being sarcastic)
Sólyom Csaba
sarcasm=/=cringy nonsense that is ironically opposite irl.
I'm dying to know if that 'blade' rings when fired. Even if it doesn't, a company of troopers with what amounts to baffles on the ends of their rifles would create a distinct sound on a battlefield. Opposing commander would definitely take a pause to figure out what the strange new sound he heard from the other side of the battlefield.
I remember first learning of the “idea fairy”. It made so much sense
Remember its Forgotten Weapons 🗡 not Forgotten Guns 🔫
Wauser So When Will He Talk About Pregunpoder Weapons ?
Other than the knife ,sword ,spike ,rod and trowel are there other types of bayonets?
Junichiro Yamashita Spoon
Junichiro Yamashita Kitchen knife and screw driver
Don't forget the Chainsaw bayonet for AR15 muh dude
Lots of ancient and modern spears (in rural Africa for instance) have very large triangular spearheads like these. They cause absolutely massive bleeding and quicker death, so were usually worth having if armor is uninvolved!
2:45 The Empire of Japan respectfully disagree on that.
I don't think the Japanese Empire ever *respectfully* disagreed with anyone lol
Vaasref
Japan lost.
I think most nations at that time disagreed
This was during the transition between formation combat and trench warfare
Japanese empire generals we should put bayonets on our pistols
so, this is just a militarised garden shovel?
Yep you can mount your rifle on it :)
I'm surprised the Russians aren't responsible for this.
No, it isn't militarized
This is a really interesting piece of equipment which really surprised me after reading the detailed reports. it also highlights who innovations were tested in practice at this time. Thank you for including this in the series.
A later version was the 'Plasterers Float Model 1931' able to scoop out the enemy's intestines and put a smooth finish onto the inside of your bunker.
Afterwards came the 'Stone Mason's Chisel Bayonet Model 1969' ideal for butchering the enemy and then carefully carving his name and rank and unit onto his gravestone.
I'm sure I'm not only one who'd really like to have an episode about the "knife trowel combinations"? Combination fighting knife trowel entrenching-tool rifle rest (?!) utility knife sounds kind of awesome
Love rewatching these.
This is the most sophisticate trowel I have ever seen. It even makes a Ding! when loading it.
They could have pretty easily included a regular bayonet in the Trowel sheath and made the trowel itself far lighter, you wouldn't lose the trowel and the sheath wouldn't take up any more space.
A bayonet shovel? Why not?!! Gardening has never been exciting!
Bayonet pruning shears maybe?
For when you have excessive gopher or groundhog issues in your yard?
Or brick laying.
Or you wanna cut off your thumb.
*insert Operation Market Garden joke here*
That stiffening feature on the bottom of the trowel is called a medial ridge and is a feature used in knife making, specifically daggers and that trowel is essentially dagger shaped on the bottom. Medial ridges offer substantial strength to a blade center while letting the sides get thinned out in a concave grind
I am a bricklayer and can say honestly a good quality trowel is *very* durable.
As always, very interesting nuggets of actual history. I was genuinely surprised by the low prices anticipated for these items but then I live in a country where guns are only for the "government" and any guns and even their accoutrements are expensive and generally illegal for peasants to own anyway.
I remember seeing you pick up one of these on RIA's youtube channel, you looked so excited!
Love that I will still find content I've overlooked this made my break dude.
What about a chainsaw bayonet???
shlomo lindsay hahaha😂😂😂
Gears of war did you say?
Heavy, high maintenance, unreliable and only useful as long as their fuel/power supply lasts
If man portable railguns ever happen I could see it since they could just run it off the gun's main power supply.
@@Anon26535 good point. I could see a man portable railgun happening, with the rise of EVs on the market, battery tech is being improved by the day, within ten years or so it's not unfeasible to think that a scaled down rail gun with a shoulder mounted battery pack would be able to fire several rounds before needing to recharge
One wonders how prevalent freemasonry was in the US Army in the 1870s?
Matthew Spencer I'm slightly embarrassed that that was my first thought.
Never mind: great minds think alike.
What does that jave to do with This?
Trowels as a lethal weapon have already been well documented in an episode of Dawn French's "Murder Most Horrid" dealing with freemasons in a local government planning department. For some strange reason, it's the only episode not available on You Tube, so there must be a masonic algorithm operating somewhere in the background.
The trowel *is* roughly triangular...
Shovel? Bayonet?
Bayvel? Shoonet?
neodoc1976 shovanet.
Bayvel
Shovelnet
Hotel? Trivago
Shayonet
Thank you for this. I saw a picture of one about forty years ago and wondered about them. The book only had a short caption and did not say much else. Really interesting
I love how, near the end of the video, you made it seem like the trapdoor rifle was just a bonus accessory that came with the trowel bayonet :)
l now need one of those for my AR.
At last, the AR becomes useful for something
Perfect! Ian has already demonstrated how resistant the AR platform is to the ingress of mud and dust, so it would make a great shovel handle. Also, it gives CNN another option for their next 'EVIL! things you can attach to your EVIL! AR-15' graphic.
jic1 I want to see a bow mounted to the front of an ar now...
Or a chainsaw bayonet.
@@cowishere8222 bow and ar ...ow
Omg I always wondered what those were. I remember my uncle using my grandfathers in the garden for planting veggies and such. Just in soft soil but still. Haha great video
One my favorite video titles if all time.
The sound it makes when you attach the bayonet is so satisfying. It the same feel i have when i hear the M1 Garand ping!
Pretty rad video Ian;)))))
Oh spef is alive.
Your back. Yay
Yay! Spef is back!
spef just subscribed
HE LIVES
The Australian Owen Machine Carbine aka Owen Gun had a 'machete' bayonet. Main problem was that it was rather small, about the size of a Garand bayonet.
I knew about them before your video Ian but it was a good video. It came out before anyone thought about issuing a shovel to troops.
10 seconds in - as an archaeologist, this made my day.
For Shovelry!
The bayonet happens to come with a rifle. Lol. The reverse of normal. Interesting items. Probably a reasonable idea given the lack of an e-tool. Certainly better than nothing. However, in 20 years as a cop i quickly learned that if you try to make 1 item do too many tasks, it doesn't do any of them very well. I am thinking mainly of the flashlight with the collapsible baton built into it (i doubt the light would stand up to vibration from strikes), the flashlight with an OC sprayer built in the butt (yeah right, as if- we know who probably ended up getting the OC most of the time), and the OC sprayer that mounts on a light rail (you know somebody got unintentionally shot if those things were ever used). I wonder how well those bayonets would penetrate past the first inch or so. As the blade widens, it gets more difficult of course. And here we are, in the 21st century, still issuing bayonets. Mainly for opening crates and MRE's, but still. Great video as always. Thank you
Trowel knives are super rad! Definitely gonna keep my eyes open for one!
I LOVE accoutrements
!
the reason it didn't bend is probably due to the physics of the shape. bronze and some iron sword had a "pizza slice" shape like the Italian Cinquedea, the Iberian triangular iron dagger (roman Pugio). this is meant to increase strength without increasing weight. the rib probably also helps a lot.
Finally! Tactical pie-picker-uppers!
Thanks
Interesting video, thanks Ian
Hey is there a chance for a video on telescoping ammo? Saw a post about the LSAT on reddit that got me interested about the pros and cons.
Thanks for your work :)
Telescoping ammo? I believe you have been fooled.
no it exists.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescoped_ammunition
ua-cam.com/video/WlM8IHij6Hs/v-deo.html
I was envisioning something similar to Nagant revolver ammo.
That was my Reddit post! Hope Ian covers this topic as well.
Since youve seen both, which trowel bayonet is better, these or the Mondragons?
These seem like better bayonets, while the Mondragon seems like a better trowel.
The 1873 pattern is a nice piece. I love that improved locking system and smooth handle :) As far as guys using these on the rifles, another concern would be the front sight busting off if you hit a rock or a hard root.
Should have mentioned the size of the wound inflicted as compared to other conventional bayonets of the time. It would be like the difference between field tip and Boar Head tip for arrows
Good for mortar repairs too.
For when you absolutely, positively have to build that brick wall under fire...
:P
That is some really cool rope knurling especially for the fact that the handle isn’t round. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you Ian. I find your videos about gun 'accessories' and the recent 'fireside' chats very interesting as they cover aspects of firearms that are usually overlooked and forgotten. Until I saw this video I had never heard of a trowel bayonet and I wonder what strangeness you will present us with next... (Thinks) has anyone come up with a pickaxe mortar I wonder? :D
As corporal Jones says, They don't like it up them.
But it does put the icing on your victory!
The bayonet actually evolved from the spear. Though extremely limited, bayonets are still used on the battlefield. The descendants of the spear are still in use some 20,000 years after they were invented
Bayonet is answer to enemys with swords, calvary and such. Early musket battle was 1 or 2 shots charge. One guy had to drop gun grab sword. Other guy stabbed him in guts with knife attached to gun he already held. Also reach advantage.
The improved locking/handle design is really slick
That was a great lesson in history.
*Me upon seeing thumbnail* Being a fish-chef is more competitive than I imagined apparently...
I wondered about the weirdly shaped thing that the Gun Jesus was gleefully picking off the shelf in the Rock Island video.
Your voice is really soothing.
When you mentioned the folding tompion version, I chuckled. The first thing I thought of when pulling up the video was, "Hmmm, I'd whittle a plug tompion and use the rifle as a handle... I wonder if they ever did thing the Brits did with the spike bayonet for the No4, and issue a wooden handle with a steel end cap with bayonet mount..."
10:21
Man, what a rad sound
I came
I camed
How in the world did they test these things. Not as trowels but as the sharp pointy thing. Pig carcasses's? Unwilling volunteers? Willing volunteers? Grave robbing? Or did they finally find something useful for Second Lts to do.
mpetersen6 Butterbars definitely need to be useful instead of just generally useless. lol
This is the best title you could possibly hope for
That mounting is godly
I personally DIG how they look
Ian it would be cool if you could make a video about the Volkssturmgewehre wich use uses mg 13 and mg 15 Barrels greetings from germany
Lars Bruns pretty sure he's done videos on the VG1 and VG2.
love the historical accuracy of the flag in the Thumbnail Ian.
10:20 What a satisfying sound when it attaches.
i just see lots of bricklayers,going for it..
tony Wyatt I am a bricklayer and disagree. The handle is totally unsuitable.
pie server bayonet!
I like how you think ^-^
It only became a pie server when it wore out
Looks like some high quality gardening tool.
I recall visiting either the Clearwater Battlefield or the Big Hole Battlefield as part of the National Parks service Nez Perce Trail in Idaho/Montana and touring vestigial entrenchments where an Army attack on a Indian encampment had gone terribly wrong and turned into a rout of the blue coats. The trail markers and signage specifically mentioned the troops dug in using primarily their trowel bayonets. That was in 1877 so they were define toy in use still then.
but wouldnt dirt go down the barrel when you scoop?
You are not meant to use it on the weapon to dig, you gotta take it off first but he did mention felt muzzle caps to prevent private dumbass from getting dirt in his barrel when he tried it with the bloody thing on :)
ellswtf Ian specifically addresses this, saying the trowel was meant to be held in the hand for digging, and mounted to the rifle for fighting. It's a shovel that can be a bayonet, not a device to turn a rifle into a shovel.
mrb692 *grenade.
Perfect for gardening in a bunny rich environment
The sound of the bayonet clicking into place... ^_^
Historically cool, Mechanically cool, totally obsolete, yet still cool and interesting. That's why I'm here, Keep up the great content
right...and now shooting, erm... digging video please
I've seen Zulu spears with wider blades than that, and we know how effective those were even in 1879.
very cool, i have been experimenting with blacksmithing some garden tools for some years now. amazing how useful something like that can be. i suppose from a soldiers perspective that trowel kicks butt over a spike if nothing else is avail
Think of the excellent morale building gardens these could have propagated!
I always let the adverts run on gun & experiment video channels (cody's lab, etc). We need them to be making bank on these channels so they will stop discriminating against them.
Potentially dumb idea here. I see that on the rifle the trowel is mounted in what looks like a 3'o'clock position. If it were mounted at a 6'o'clock position, and the rifle were fired with it attached, would the flat face of that trowel absorb some of the blast and potentially mitigate some muzzle climb? Hardly a concern with a single-shot breechloading rifle I know, but just a thought.
10:21 Such a satisfying sound!
I came
I saw a similar (though piss take version) when I was a combat engineer. We all had primary combat trades but also a secondary "building" trade within the engineers. We had brickies, chippies, plasterers, welders etc. But all within a combat engineer section.
One of the guys modified an SLR bayonete with a bricklayers trowel that he could actually mount on his rifle. He said he was a "combat brickie" and would "build his own brick wall to hide behind in battle"