Quote:
Originally Posted by
Adam Helmer
I collect military arms and bayonets for each rifle. Several rifles shoot better groups and to the sights with their bayonet affixed. I am on my 15th notebook documenting such things as well as reload performance.
As a point of interest, the military pams published in the later half of WWII for the Lee Enfield No.4 Mk1 specify that the rifle is to be zeroed for both adjustable and fixed rear sights at 300 yards with the bayonet fixed. Or at least, the British and Canadian pams specify that; I have not seen an Australian pam for the rifle at any time.
Sidebar: While the British and Canadian pams specify zeroing the exact same rifle with the exact same ammunition using the same 300 yard aperture, the value they give for high above point of aim the point of impact should be at different shorter ranges differs greatly. Going on memory, it is a difference of several inches at 100 yards. I have never seen anyone else mention this discrepancy, which leads me to regularly confirm the discrepancy to ensure I didn't make a mistake in what I noticed.
As Larry Gibson pointed out, 300 yards is not a distance where the troops are likely to have already been given the order "Fix bayonets". I primary have used my Long Branch in Service Rifle competition, so I have never bothered seeing what it groups like while comparing bayonet fixed versus no bayonet - I can't imagine being welcomed to join your relay while fixing bayonets.
Historically, the career infantryman and senior NCO remaining in me is intrigued by the question: What was the military thinking behind specifying the rifles would be zeroed at 300 yards with the bayonet fixed? I don't believe that was so with the previous version of the Lee Enfield during WWI. By that time of WWII, those susceptible to the siren whisperings of The Good Idea Fairy would have probably been weeded out by the reality of three years of war with both the Germans and then Japan.
About the only thing I can think of to offer as an explanation is that the military visualized troops defending from fixed defensive positions, engaging an attacking force from 300 yards in. Where, should the attack not be stopped, the last defense would be man to man bayonet fighting in the defensive positions. A desperate ongoing battle that would not leave time for platoon commanders to give the order to fix bayonets at the time when the attacking infantry were now so close that what had been a shooting battle was now going to be bayonets and buttstrokes.
As far as the bayonet being a thing of the past, it is still very much a part of basic infantry training in at least some NATO countries, although certainly not as much as in the aftermath of WWII. The Brits at the very least have on numerous recent occasions put their bayonets to very good use against the hajjis in Afghanistan:
https://www.military.com/history/bri...et-charge.html
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...h-bayonet.html
Having never participated in anything like that overseas on deployment, will say that a couple of times while tasked to act as the OPFOR, watching troops storming towards me as the designated enemy machine gun position, watching a screaming trooper with his war face on closing with me with his bayonet levelled at my face was pretty unnerving, despite the fact I knew it was just another battle in the War With The Fantasians. I remember thinking "I hope this guy remembers that this is just training while I sit here behind this light machine gun loaded with blanks while he practices clearing the enemy fighting positions".