Will the close-quarter blade ever go out of fashion?

[Rayo Azul]

Here's my question or logic line. In the many SF novels, films, games, ROP which I've encountered, a good old-fashioned (or new and improved) blade appears.

Whether it's a K-Bar, stiletto, machete or sword - ultimately getting into close quarters they appear.

Wil they ever go out of fashion? I think not. So, what do you think and which is your favourite close quarter tool of destruction?

[Zor]

Not until someone devises a better weapon that does not need to reload.

Zo

[TOSDOC]

I think of Dune whenever I hear something like this. It's the perfect example of advances in technology (their personal shields) creating the need to return to melee weapons such as knives and a return to the art of knife-fighting and close-quarters combat.

Knives are one of the oldest tools around, and it is unfortunate that they are largely frowned upon by our society. I especially am reminded of the Eagle Scout and West Point contender upstate who was suspended for having a swiss army knife in a survival kit locked in the trunk of his car on school grounds. (Sorry about the tangent, just something I feel strongly about).

No, I don't think they'll go out of style. Knife fights continue to abound in fiction in the absence of guns and ammo, from Kill Bill and The Abyss to Avatar (the knives that the mechs wield). I imagine they always will.

[Mr Bean]

Until you can invent a better fallback weapon that combines stabby power with something so useful for everything from using the butt as a makeshift hammer to food preparation to brush clearer and so much more no. Even when the US Marines are in fact running around with pulse rifles they will still have a Kbar or it's equivalent on them because of how often a knife comes in handy.

[Connor MacLeod]

I suppose it depends what the OP means by "out of fashion." It could mean just some asthetic (D13's answer), or it could mean something more practical (which means utility, combat, etc. Which I assume can mean contrivances like Dune-like combat as well.)

[Serafina]

I would argue that it is already out of fashion, sort off. It's a last-resort backup in most cases already and hardly a vital piece of equipment. The reason why we still equip soldiers with it is that it's cheap and lightweight.
Feel free to disagree with me if you've got actual combat experienced people telling otherwise

That being said, from that premise i would conclude that it might never get out of fashion simply because it'll always be able to fulfill the role it currently does. There are two ways i see this could change:
-People have such effective body armor that it'll be useless. However, it would have to cover everything (including the face) and every combatant would have to wear it. It would stay in use for civilian purposes (police, criminals), just not in the military.
-We get a high-tech version that is similarly cheap and as reliable. Those are after all the selling points of such a weapon - a very expensive yet deadly close-combat weapon would still not be used because you'll get shot first in most situations. Spending that money on more rifles/body armor/soldiers would be the more sensible choice. Hence, our potential sci-fi knife would have to be cheap and reliable.

[Rayo Azul]

I guess the out of fashion comes from one article I read where a US general decided to stop bayonet training in basic - he got his ass kicked by veterans, and almost at the same time there were a couple of British Bayonet charges in Afghanistan and Iraq.

I just think as a terror tool, sharp and pointy scares the crap out of the enemy - Big, sweaty, Marine/Commando screaming die! and with a blade

[TOSDOC]

I would argue that it is already out of fashion, sort off. It's a last-resort backup in most cases already and hardly a vital piece of equipment. The reason why we still equip soldiers with it is that it's cheap and lightweight.
Feel free to disagree with me if you've got actual combat experienced people telling otherwise

That being said, from that premise i would conclude that it might never get out of fashion simply because it'll always be able to fulfill the role it currently does. There are two ways i see this could change:
-People have such effective body armor that it'll be useless. However, it would have to cover everything (including the face) and every combatant would have to wear it. It would stay in use for civilian purposes (police, criminals), just not in the military.
-We get a high-tech version that is similarly cheap and as reliable. Those are after all the selling points of such a weapon - a very expensive yet deadly close-combat weapon would still not be used because you'll get shot first in most situations. Spending that money on more rifles/body armor/soldiers would be the more sensible choice. Hence, our potential sci-fi knife would have to be cheap and reliable.

I'm sure there are some Special Forces operatives who would not consider it just a last resort during stealth operations--a knife can be very silent, and there are ways around or between body armor. As for not being vital, it is not only a weapon but also a tool for surviving behind enemy lines. A knife is the second most valuable tool in a survival situation (the first being your brain)--anything else is icing on the cake. It doesn't take someone with actual combat experience on the ground to see the value here--look at a downed pilot behind enemy lines. When equipping our soldiers, common sense dictates getting the most out of a single piece of equipment, in this case doubling up as survival tool and weapon in one.

[Serafina]

I was mostly talking about soldiers in an actual war against a conventional enemy. That excludes insurgents, specops and such.
Now excluding insurgents is mostly unrealistic given todays military situation, i'll admit that.

[Mr Bean]

I was mostly talking about soldiers in an actual war against a conventional enemy. That excludes insurgents, specops and such.
Now excluding insurgents is mostly unrealistic given todays military situation, i'll admit that.

Patrols have to be killed quietly SOME way which knives are great at. And in a conventional war having a knife behind enemy lines during escape and evasion is vital never mind all the military needed times for a knife.
Example a buddy is shot in the leg, one does not pull his pants off but cuts off that section of legging to let you treat the wound easier.
Example, barbed wire in front of objective, solution is hold down the barbed wire with gloved hands or better still knife blade.
Example need to make native foliage into wearable concealment.
Example need to check of landmines or boody traps in path of advance, a good knife makes a handy poking tool as well as being useful for disarming most conventional explosives
I could go on and on but suffice it to say there's not a day goes by you cut need to cut something or poke something in the military and a knife always comes in handy for that. If Serafina had ever served in the military the fact its "not a vital piece of equipment" would have never crossed her mind. There are a thousand and one uses for a knife in a combat situation and combat itself is pretty far down the list as I mentioned previously.

Don't even get me started on the ways in which a good knife aids in both computer maintenance and diesel generator repair.

[Block]

I was mostly talking about soldiers in an actual war against a conventional enemy. That excludes insurgents, specops and such.
Now excluding insurgents is mostly unrealistic given todays military situation, i'll admit that.

They're absolutely essential for urban combat and defending static positions unless your plan is to abandon them anyways. They're also used as a tool in many situations, such as setting up claymores, making stakes for limits of fire and a number of other things.

[Wing Commander MAD]

Isn't the knife much like the spade a tool first and weapon second? I honestly, don't see either ever being replaced, simply becuase they perform simple, yet multipurpose, functions. The fact that a knife can be used to kill someone in close quarters is a plus, one which you can incorporate features into the design to maximize that ability without impacting the other utilitarian function.

[SWPIGWANG]

In the future, fighting will be about stabbing terminators with pointy sticks. Or fighting nanomachine clouds with knifes. Or used in place of variable yield laser guns that have ammo storage in the TJ range. Yes, point objects are the weapon of choice when cover penetrating sensors can detect anything kilometers behind solid objects, to be sniped with a GBE. In t3h future, battles will be about people jumping from spaceship to spaceship to stab the meatbags inside of them with glow sticks~

Yes, the future is all about pointy objects. It is just impossible otherwise!
---
All things said, pointy objects of all forms will survive in fiction even after the civilization that uses it have discarded its practical use completely, the only difference is that it'd get categorized as fantasy.

[Wing Commander MAD]

Crap, Mr. Bean and Block beat me to the punch and with actual examples to boot. I guess that's what I get for taking so long to compose a post and then deciding it can be cut down to a sentence or two and still convey the same overall message.

Edit: fixed typo

[Connor MacLeod]

This discussion gas gone on before as far as the utility of knives go, bayonets, close combat weapons etc. The circumstnaces pretty much haven't changed. You can contrive reasons for it (40K for example is essentially fantasy in space, so it still borrows from some fantasy-esque conventions. Some enemies only die if you cut off their heads or burn them to ash, or whatever. Blame it on magic. Other times its because many enemies in 40K either like close up fighting or are just outright alien/insane or just downright better than an average human up close.) Technolgical contrivances may dictate melee weapons have an edge (again Dune, but IIRC so does the LOGH anime) and so on.

Beyond that, I really don't want to generalize. In real life, you don't bring a knife to a gun fight, but that doesn't mean knives, or bayonets are totally useless either or there won't be situations where you might use it. Really, I think it's less a matter of fashion and more of "it might happen, its possibly best to be prepared just in case it does" coupled with general utility of knives (as others have pointed out.) Guns still have plenty of advantages over close combat weapons, but its not neccesarily going to be an "either/or" thing. One also cannot rule out other factors than just tactics/strategy/operations/eetc." Politics or logistical/economic factors might push it, propoganda, tradition, and so on.

Really, the best answer I can think of is just "depends." Maybe Sea Skimmer or one of the Mess people can do better than I can in explaining it, but based on my own understanding from past discussions and questions to others, it's not an absolute.
(Edit: Bean and Block already started hitting on this point bette rthan I did. Damn)

[Lord of the Abyss]

That being said, from that premise i would conclude that it might never get out of fashion simply because it'll always be able to fulfill the role it currently does. There are two ways i see this could change:
-People have such effective body armor that it'll be useless. However, it would have to cover everything (including the face) and every combatant would have to wear it.

A variation on this that immediately occurred to me; if humans all upload or cyborg themselves to the point that knives can't hurt them, then they lose their utility as weapons (obviously).

[Knife]

Indeed, keeping a knife for a tool first will probably always happen.

Besides actual military factoids though, our culture, and many others, have romanticized the bladed weapon. A sword is so much a symbol anymore than a weapon. You see someone with a sword and you think noble, honor, chivalry, power, wealth, tradition as virtues and probably many more. People seem to think that to use one takes years of practice and guns can be used by idiots; discounting the fact that any idiot can swing around a sharp chunk of iron and it takes years to perfect marksman skills.

So no. As long as we write stories, authors will put in symbols to stand for such things. As long as we have military forces who need handy dandy tools and occasionally to stab something, yes we'll have knives and other bladed weapons.

[Uncluttered]

That being said, from that premise i would conclude that it might never get out of fashion simply because it'll always be able to fulfill the role it currently does. There are two ways i see this could change:
-People have such effective body armor that it'll be useless. However, it would have to cover everything (including the face) and every combatant would have to wear it.

A variation on this that immediately occurred to me; if humans all upload or cyborg themselves to the point that knives can't hurt them, then they lose their utility as weapons (obviously).

Until I cut the powercable/fuel hoses/fiberoptics to the computer/batteryCharger/cyborgSupportMachinery/doughnutMaker with my insulated knife....

[Venator]

I've always been partial to the entrenchment tool - it's not a precision cutting instrument unless there's an auxillary cutting edge somewhere, but a good one can do other tool functions of a knife better while remaining bloody nasty in close quarters. Some of them are excellent throwing weapons too, albeit not the absurdly heavy 1960s German model I own, which the aerodynamic properties of a large conference center.

I agree that it will never go out of style in fiction, just because of how ingrained it is, regardless of how practical or not it might be for the setting.

[Jawawithagun]

Until I cut the powercable/fuel hoses/fiberoptics to the computer/batteryCharger/cyborgSupportMachinery/doughnutMaker with my insulated knife....

...or jam it into a joint, pry open a data entry port, short out the battery charger...

[Darth Tedious]

I guess the out of fashion comes from one article I read where a US general decided to stop bayonet training in basic - he got his ass kicked by veterans, and almost at the same time there were a couple of British Bayonet charges in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Ever since the invention of the SMG, there has been a line of thought that bayonets are somewhat obsolete- the original recipie AK-47 lacked a bayonet socket (which was remedied in the later M model). The theory being that if you have a machine gun you simply won't need a bayonet. Obviously, this doesn't account for running out of ammo. However, modern logistics make running out of ammo less of an issue than it's ever been in the past, which may be why the argument is being dragged out again. Personally, I think the bayonet will continue to be useful, as those British Bayonet charges demonstrate.
As everyone has said, the knife is a tool first and a weapon second, and is really a seperate issue to that of bayonets.

Besides actual military factoids though, our culture, and many others, have romanticized the bladed weapon. A sword is so much a symbol anymore than a weapon. You see someone with a sword and you think noble, honor, chivalry, power, wealth, tradition as virtues and probably many more.

This is exactly why George Lucas decided to reserve lighsabers for his Jedi Knights, instead of everyone wielding them.

[Thanas]

I guess the out of fashion comes from one article I read where a US general decided to stop bayonet training in basic - he got his ass kicked by veterans, and almost at the same time there were a couple of British Bayonet charges in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Source on that?

Because I find it hard to believe a bayonet charge would be used in Afghanistan of all places.

[Coyote]

A knife will always be a useful tool.

And tomahawks are seriously under-appreciated.

[Jawawithagun]

I guess the out of fashion comes from one article I read where a US general decided to stop bayonet training in basic - he got his ass kicked by veterans, and almost at the same time there were a couple of British Bayonet charges in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Source on that?

Because I find it hard to believe a bayonet charge would be used in Afghanistan of all places.

Make of these links what you will:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8252974.stm
http://www.hmforces.co.uk/news/articles ... very-award

And one about a bayonet charge in Iraq - http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0bd_1249524865

[Thanas]

Yeah, as I thought these read more like desperation attacks that would have resulted in the death of the involved against competent enemies.