Re: (TFT) Guns again

["Dave Seagraves" <dseagraves@austin.rr.com>]

Justin writes . . .

>Since the early and I mean early 1700s, socketed bayonets were
>part and parcel of a military musket. The weapon could be fired
>and loaded with the bayonet attached.  It was preferred though
>to reload the weapon without the bayonet as it made it easier
>to reload the weapon (speed), because the bayonet got in the way
>of the rammer.  But loading with the bayonet was common.  BTW
>soldiers feared the bayonet more than the projectile for obvious
>reasons.  During the Civil War, soldiers in HTH preferred to use
>fist, rocks, or the club of the weapon before the bayonet, as
>that kind of killing is TOO personal and it let you open to being
>attacked while pulling the bayonet out of a victim.

   That make a lot of sense.  I have a memory of one or more Civil War
battle paintings that had at least one soldier in melee with another; using
his rifle butt against the enemy instead of his fixed bayonet.  I guess
additional rules come into play in any civil war.
   (The bayonet is the most feared weapon in WWII reenacting as well!  Our
safety rules forbid open blades of any kind, even fake plastic/rubber ones!
We can shoot 'em with Garands, .45s, M1 carbines, machine guns, mortars,
anti-tank guns, and even tanks, but bayonets (or any kind of melee combat)
is /verboten/.)

Pfc. Dave Seagraves   101st Airborne Division
Texas Military Historical Society (WWII reenactors)
Sniper squad forming to defeat the krauts -- join us!
1 (512) 835-7527   http://members.aol.com/txmhs

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