They were issued to part of an English dragoon regiment raised in 1672, and to the Royal Fusiliers when raised in 1685. However, it was not until 1671 that General Jean Martinet standardized and issued plug bayonets to the French regiment of fusiliers then raised. He described the French using crude 1-foot (0.30 m) plug bayonets during the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648). The first known mention of the use of bayonets in European warfare was in the memoirs of Jacques de Chastenet, Vicomte de Puységur. This naturally prevented the gun from being fired. The bayonet had a round handle that slid directly into the musket barrel. This allowed light infantry to be converted to heavy infantry and hold off cavalry charges. Įarly bayonets were of the "plug" type, where the bayonet was fitted directly into the barrel of the musket. It was labelled as a "gun-blade" ( simplified Chinese: 铳刀 traditional Chinese: 銃刀 pinyin: Chòngdāo) with it being described as a "short sword that can be inserted into the barrel and secured by twisting it slightly" that it is to be used "when the battle have depleted both gunpowder and bullets as well as fighting against bandits, when forces are closing into melee or encountering an ambush" and if one "cannot load the gun within the time it takes to cover two bu (3.2 meters) of ground they are to attach the bayonet and hold it like a spear". It was in the form of the Son-and-mother gun, a breech-loading musket that was issued with a roughly 57.6 cm (22.7 in) long plug bayonet, giving it an overall length of 1.92 m (6 ft 4 in) with the bayonet attached. The first recorded instance of a bayonet proper is found in the Chinese military treatise, Binglu published in 1606. Plug bayonets Depiction of an early 18th-century Russian infantryman installing a plug bayonet. There are some accounts that place the invention of the bayonet in either France or Germany as early as 1570. Likewise, Pierre Borel wrote in 1655 that a kind of long-knife called a bayonette was made in Bayonne but does not give any further description. For example, Cotgrave's 1611 Dictionarie describes the bayonet as "a kind of small flat pocket dagger, furnished with knives or a great knife to hang at the girdle". The term bayonette itself dates back to the 16th century, but it is not clear whether bayonets at the time were knives that could be fitted to the ends of firearms, or simply a type of knife. The weapon's instructional manual and specifications is shown above. History Depiction of a Chinese muzzle-loading musket with a plug bayonet attached from 1606. Today, it is considered an ancillary weapon or weapon of last resort, although it is still used for ceremonial purposes. įrom the early 17th to the early 20th century, it was a melee weapon used by infantry for offensive and/or defensive tactics. Look up bayonet in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.Ī bayonet (from French baïonnette) is a knife, dagger, sword, or spike-shaped weapon designed to fit on the end of the muzzle of a rifle, carbine, musket or similar firearm, allowing it to be used as a spear-like weapon.
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