Swords vs Bayonets

[fsn]

Gentlemen, I need enquire of the hive mind.

Does anyone know of any examples of musket & bayonet armed infantry fighting sword armed infantry? I'm interested in the outcome of close combat.

Culloden comes to mind. I think a fruitful area may be the Ottomans and India.

I appreciate that other factors come to bear: training, morale etc, but all things being equal, is the bayonet more effective than the sword?
 

[pierre the shy]

Maybe this will assist a little fsn

I have posted it before in a post about the effectiveness of the Highland Charge, but it is relevant to your question.

[fsn]

Thank you.

[Orcs]

The bayonets primary objective was to give musketeers/riflemen an ability to to stop cavalry by replacing the pike. So its designed to be used at a distance.

A sword is designed as a close in fighting weapon.

The problem with the Musket/rifle and bayonet and the pike is that once you have stepped past the sharp pointy bit the rifle/bayonet/ pike is useless to defend yourself.THey are oth unweildy and you have to bring the blade back a long way to engage your opponent, by which time he has probably made a nasty wound on you.

That is why the ECW pikemen carried their own sword.

Renaissance Sword and buckler armed troops or Turkish Janissaries were both reasonable effective against the pike blocks, Push the blade aside step in and stab.   
A rifle would be better than a pike as you can hold it halfway along and use it as both a blade and club.

The problem is getting past the pointy bit. I would make it more difficult for sword armed troops to actually close, but give them an advantage when actually in close combat. Often they would have a shield of some form as well. 

A more modern example of this is the police batten that is only 21" long or for  home defence - you are better with a shorter rounders bat than a baseball bat.

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

I'd disagree with Rilfe/Musket being too long. 1970's bayonette drill was Right Parry and stab, or Left Parry, BUTT STROKE, kill. An SLRaint so differnt in size to an India Pattern Land Musket. I suspect the drillm aint chainged much sine 1750.

[fsn]

 

[Orcs]

I'd disagree with Rilfe/Musket being too long. 1970's bayonette drill was Right Parry and stab, or Left Parry, BUTT STROKE, kill. An SLRaint so differnt in size to an India Pattern Land Musket. I suspect the drillm aint chainged much sine 1750.

Yes but as you stab he knocks the bayonet aside with his shield, blocks it. steps forward and stabs you?

[fsn]

Hmmm. Granted that bayonets were anti-cavalry to begin with, but (relatively) quickly they replaced swords. This could be due to the improvement in firearms as well.

I'm not sure that the length of a musket would be that much of an impediment. For many centuries the most common weapon was the spear - a big stick with a blade on it. Granted weight may be a problem, but musketeers would fight in multiple ranks, potentially giving the swordsman more than one opponent. 

Youtube videos seems to be a) one to one fights and b) done by swordsmen.

[Big Insect]

Some Ottoman regular infantry in the Crimea (& Caucasus) were issued with both bayonet and a short sword. There appears to be little or no logic in which units were so armed. But it is notable that those fighting in Rumania, against the Russians were not double armed.

We also see North American/Canadian native tribes armed with tomahawk hand axes apparently doing well against European regular infantry (in the French-Indian Wars/SYW). But they had to get in amongst the regulars in the 1st place.

My own thrupence-worth is that if the sword was 'mightier' than they bayonet, I'd expect to see a lot more troops double armed with it, and we don't. And it didn't do the Ansar in the Sudan or the Pathan on the N.W.Frontier or the Chinese Tiger-men during the Opium Wars that much good against bayonet armed British Empire Regulars.

I'm not aware of any conclusive scientific studies on the matter and would tend to be extremely wary of on-line videos by re-enactors on the subject (having been a re-enactor myself) as they seem to tend to favour the preferred weapon of the videos producer (in my humble experience).

[steve_holmes_11]

Gentlemen, I need enquire of the hive mind.

Does anyone know of any examples of musket & bayonet armed infantry fighting sword armed infantry? I'm interested in the outcome of close combat.

Culloden comes to mind. I think a fruitful area may be the Ottomans and India.

I appreciate that other factors come to bear: training, morale etc, but all things being equal, is the bayonet more effective than the sword?
 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahdist_War

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Bayonet, when you literally take a knife to a gun fight!

[John Cook]

....I appreciate that other factors come to bear: training, morale etc, but all things being equal, is the bayonet more effective than the sword?

I can't help with examples other than Culloden but a book you might find interesting in this context is 'The Myth of the Jacobite Clans – The Jacobite Army in 1745' by Murray Pittock, Edinburgh University Press, 1995.  It argues that the Jacobite army was not the amorphous, untrained, sword-armed mob, as it is sometimes portrayed, rather that it was trained, organised and relatively well armed.  Also that it was as much a Lowland Scottish army as it was a Highland one
In aftermath of the battle, for example, 2,320 muskets were left on the field by the Jacobites, as opposed to only 190 swords – those numbers account for more than a third of the entire Jacobite army.  In the surrenders of weapons subsequent to the battle, the musket also outnumbered the sword by a considerable margin. This suggests that that swords were not used nearly as much as imagined, or were carried away from the battlefield, and retained afterwards, or, perhaps, that swords were only carried by Highland officers and clansmen of higher status, and not by lower class Jacobite rank and file, Highland and Lowland, who were predominantly musket-armed.  It does seem that the Jacobites favoured the musket as their predominent infantry weapon. 
I general terms though, the bayonet is a secondary weapon and where the sword is the primary weapon it is only useful in hand-to-hand fighting.  In the age of the effective musket, in the hands of trained infantry, examples of hand to hand fighting might be hard to find, and when they are, there are often other factors involved which make it the exception rather than the rule.  I wonder if the answer to this question is similar to the 'is the longbow more effective than the musket' one, which, as I remember, is that the longbow is at least as effective, but only in the hands of infantry with long training and experience.

[steve_holmes_11]

Excellent summary of the Jacobite situation.

Always bear in mind that contemporary accounts will over-emphasize the unusual, while often ignoring what's considered ordinary.

Accounts of Alexander and his successor's battles spend paragraphs on a handful of scythed chariots or elephants.
Meanwhile the evolutions of the 20,000 are ignores or dismissed in a sentence.

It's an age where most able-bodied men will have drilled under arms.
They don't need a lecture on how a phalanx fights.
That's unfortunate for we modern day gamers, who would readily gobble a complete drill manual.

But we ourselves do the same things with our armies.
Don't all our Wellington armies have a few kilted highlanders.
Don't the Napoleon rivals have Hussars, when Dragoons or Chasseurs a Cheval were far more numerous.
Admit it, we love the unusual and the pretty boys.

So maybe we shouldn't be too harsh on contemporary chroniclers and eyewitnesses.

[Matt J]

Killiecrankie - highlanders taking horrendous casualties from musket fire before doing major damage with sword and axes (first action where British used plug in bayonet - probably a pretty fraught process when you have an enraged Scotsman with a bloody big sword screaming and running at you).

Quebec 1759, Frasers highlanders drawing swords and charging the French. Did loads of damage but again took large casualties in return from musket fire.

IMHO - if you have well trained ranked up troops you gonna pick the bayonet for the reach and the fact you can still shoot. Sword only useful in disorderly melee or cavalry engagement.

[Orcs]

I fully agree a man needs to be well practiced with any weapon to be effective.

Couple of points

The sword was more expensive than the humble spear ( which is what an unloaded rifle with bayonet attached  effectively is). So if a sword was more effective in close combat why go to expense of purchasing a weapon that is inferior?

I know you could throw a spear, but then you would carry more than one of them. Keeping the last for close combat if it was better than a sword..