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Asword bayonet is any long, knife-bladedbayonet designed for mounting on amusket orrifle. Its use is thought to have begun in the 18th century and to have reached its height of popularity throughout the 19th and into the early 20th centuries. When unmounted from a musket or rifle, sword bayonets with their typicalhilts and long blades also could be wielded asshort swords. While modern military bayonets typically haveknife blades, they are usually too short to be called sword bayonets and are more akin tofighting/utility knives.
Sword bayonets originated for use with muzzle-loading rifles. A typical example of an early sword bayonet is the 58 centimetre (23 inch) blade variety designed for theInfantry rifle, later called theBaker rifle of theNapoleonic eraBritish Army.
In the modern British "Rifles" regiment, all bayonets are referred to as swords.[1]
Mostinfantry would routinely keep bayonets fixed to their inaccurate smooth bore muskets throughout a battle. Close order ranks andsquares presented a hedge of bayonets to the enemy, which was especially useful for deterringcavalry. But a fixed bayonet - a pound (1 lb (0.45 kg)) or so of extra metal on the front of a firearm - seriously affects a firearm’s balance and hampers accurate shooting. However,Mosin-Nagant rifles using cruciform and dagger bayonets were arsenal zeroed with them affixed (or extended) as they affect point-of-impact via barrel harmonics, and in the case of Imperial Russian and Soviet battle doctrine dictated they were always affixed (with few exceptions). A rifleman usually fought without a fixed bayonet since accuracy was the whole purpose of their rifled weapon. He therefore required a side-arm that could be drawn and used instantly in an emergency so his bayonet had a cutting edge and a grippable hilt. That such bayonets were far heavier than standard socket bayonets was not a disadvantage since they were rarely fixed. Most riflemen found it worked better for cutting brush and roasting meat over a fire (See Rifleman Harris, Costello's, Simmons's diaries).
On occasion riflemen did form up in close order. Since rifles were shorter than muskets their bayonets needed to be longer to produce the same total length; the sword bayonet answered this need.
As well as rifle regiments, other soldiers whose battlefield role did not involve standing shoulder to shoulder in ranks, notablysergeants, also came to use sword bayonets. By the end of the nineteenth century all infantry had become riflemen and the sword bayonet had become the standard infantry bayonet.
Bayonets lost their popularity afterWorld War I. While sword bayonets can be effective asshort swords, they proved to be too unwieldy in cramped quarters intrench warfare, although spike bayonets continued to be used throughout most of the 20th century. A shorter version of the sword bayonet, theknife bayonet, was developed. Today, the majority of modern bayonets are knife bayonets.
With the appearance of the hiltless sword bayonet, such as thesocket-mounted variety, their use on the end of the musket or rifle also became a hindrance during the reloading of themuzzle-loadedlongarm, (a common problem to all muzzle-loading infantry weapons). A bayonet of similar style and dimension was used on theLee–Enfield rifle of the early 20th century.
The advantages of sword bayonets over spike bayonets are evident. Where aspike bayonet turns the rifle into a spear, a sword bayonet turns it into aglaive. Unlike spike bayonets, which can be used only for thrusting, sword bayonets can also be used for slashing, except for theépée bayonets. Twisting a sword bayonet in the wound was especially lethal. Before the advent of modern medicine after World War I, a soldier struck by a sword bayonet was very unlikely to survive.
While most sword bayonets have straight blades, a popular variant in the 19th century featured sinuous, S-curved blades like those found onOttoman sword called theyatagan. Today, sword bayonets of this style are said to have "yataghan" blades, or to be "yataghan-bladed".