h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Good stuff....yes in America we use the M16 (which is being replaced by the m4 carbine I do belive) and they look like little toy guns really but after attaching Bayonets it takes on a whole diffrent more serious look...one of my Sgt told me about a time (I think it would of been during Operation Just Cause in Pannama) that everyone was ordered to attach Bayonets because the people were starting to cause problems but the you were not alowed to shoot unless fired upon...they attached Bayonets and all the trouble dissapeared.....


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The M16 must have been one of the longest serving rifles in the history of the US Army! But I sure wouldn't be sad to see it go. It was a pain in the neck to clean!

By the way, I was in Panama, and your sergeant is right. I don't know what the drill is in the past few years, but scouts used to be taught to use the bayonet in AIT, and so did the National Guard.

There is an interesting piece of historic trivia, by the way, that hardly any soldiers in the Confederate army ever attached their bayonets during a battle, prefering to use their weapons as clubs in close quarter combat. There seems to have been an almost universal phobia among Southern soldiers that they would cut themselves while trying to load their weapons if they attached them!

regards,
Rev.

well I know it's still a big thing in Basic...bayonet training that is...and the M16A2 is being fazed out and being replaced by the M4 carbine but as far as cleaing goes the two weapons are pretty much the same in that regard...the biggest changes are the colabsable butt and shorter barrel...I think the sights are a bit diffrent also...


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Talking of cutting the hand while loading, the British soldier of both the Napoleonic AND Crimean campaigns complained about it and many had bandaged knuckles after the battle, a direct result of being sliced by their own bayonets. Since there were many links between the South and Britain during the Civil War, it is quite possible that they were told this by British instructors.

Long Serving Rifles - try the 'rat-trap' Springfield. Many were made during the Civil War (about 1864), were converted into breech-loading cartridge rifles in the 1870s, and last saw service in the Spanish American War of 1899. These, used by Volunteers and Reservists, were finally replaced by the Pattern 1903 Springfield Rifle (bolt-action this time).

I hadn't known that about the Springfields!

That's interesting.

I suppose having British instructors with some experience of scraping their knucks would have a great deal of influence on the Confederates. This is quite an interesting place, isn't it!!

regards,

Rev.