Cold Steel in Modern War: Bayonets and Fighting Knives from the Type 30 to the KM2000

Designed in 1897 for the Imperial Japanese Army's Arisaka Type 30 rifle, this single-edged sword bayonet has a 400 millimeter blade, and roughly 8,400,000 were made between 1897 and 1945. It was later fitted to the Type 38 and Type 99 rifles, and even to the Type 100 submachine gun, which shows how long a bayonet pattern could outlive the rifle it was drawn for.

The American counterpart of the same era, introduced in 1906 for the M1903 Springfield rifle, carried a 16 inch steel blade, which made it about 20 inches long overall. It was later found to fit the M1 Garand too, and about 2.7 million of the type were made, with private makers joining Springfield Armory and Rock Island Arsenal during the Second World War.

Introduced in 1940 after the Winter War exposed deficiencies in Soviet equipment, the NR-40 is a scout's knife with a 152 millimeter clip point blade and an S-shaped guard, made mainly at the ZiK factory in Zlatoust. In 1943 the Ural Volunteer Tank Corps received an all-black issue, and German troops nicknamed the unit the Black Knife Tank Division.

William Fairbairn and Eric Sykes drew on their years with the Shanghai Municipal Police to design this double-edged dagger, with a seven inch blade tapered for thrusting. The first fifty were made by the Wilkinson Sword Company in January 1941, and the knife became closely tied to British Commandos, Airborne Forces and the Special Air Service.

The United States Marine Corps adopted this knife on November 23, 1942 as the Marine Corps utility knife, Mark 2, and Camillus began producing it in January 1943. Its seven inch clip point blade made it both a fighting knife and a tool suited to jungle warfare, and it has stayed in American service from the Second World War to the present.

Developed for the M14 rifle, introduced in 1957 and issued from 1961, the M6 bayonet takes its blade from the Second World War M3 trench knife. It is 11.75 inches long with a 6.75 inch spear point blade, and it was made between 1961 and 1969 by three contractors, a reminder that the bayonet outlived the era of the long rifle.

Retired Army Captain Clarence Holzmann designed this double-edged knife in 1966, basing the pattern on the ancient Roman Mainz gladius. It entered service in the Vietnam War and was produced from 1967 to 2000, becoming the second most widely used American military knife of that era after the Ka-Bar.

A ballistic knife ejects its detachable blade several meters at the press of a trigger or lever. Spring-powered versions first appeared in books and press reports on Soviet and Eastern Bloc forces in the late 1970s, and sales of commercial versions to civilians have since been restricted or banned in several nations, so this stop is the odd one out among issued blades.

Adopted in 1986 for the M16 rifle, the M9 is both bayonet and multi-purpose knife, with a seven inch clip point blade and a sheath that works as a wire cutter. Charles Mickey Finn's Qual-A-Tec entry beat more than 49 competitors as the only design with a zero percent failure rate, and it has served in Panama, the Persian Gulf War, Afghanistan and Iraq.

The standard combat knife of the German Bundeswehr, made by Eickhorn-Solingen, has a 172 millimeter stainless blade in a Westernized tanto style, one of the few tanto pattern military knives issued in significant numbers. It adds a rope-cutting serrated section, a glass-breaker tip and a sheath that fits MOLLE and PALS webbing.