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Shade53
Acolyte
      
Date Joined Jan 2005
Total Posts : 243
| Posted 7/15/2008 9:34 AM (GMT -5) |   | | Good old fashioned, beat the tarnation out of ka-bar.
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Shade53
Acolyte
Date Joined Jan 2005
Total Posts : 243
| Posted 7/15/2008 2:00 PM (GMT -5) | | I figure a brand like that, that is so well respected and recognized - I figure they'll still be making them well into the future. Sort of like I figure that AK's and M-whatevernumbertheyeventuallyreach will still be around in some form or another... espc. in military sf. you go with something a reader knows - even in a different form, and it's an automatic connection - something they can identify with. But, that's just my take on it and most of my military reading is nonfic. (hubster keeps half a billion books about the USMC and I've now read them all...)
~Sarah Wagner~
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Rob Mancebo
Adept
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 987
| Posted 7/16/2008 3:32 PM (GMT -5) | |
SJHigbee said...
My latest book strays into the realm of military sci-fi & a bunch of well-tooled mercenaries. Question is - what would be a useful regulation knife for them to use? Broad blade/thin blade/double bladed... I haven't a clue as pointy, stabbing things fall well outside my areas of expertise. Any suggestions would be gratefully received...
- I have a Ka-bar. Love it. Carried it in the army. Americans traditionally want a blade that they can both stab with and pry open a C-ration can, hence the bowie-style utility blade of a Ka-bar.
- However, realize that different cultures expect different things from a knife. The British have traditionally preferred a slim dagger-style for maximum penitration. Their commando knife work reflects this. They're never going to be abusing that slim commando dagger by breaking the retaining bands off a ration case with it. It's not that sort of tool. The Gurkas like their big, chopping blades and are traditionally more than ready to use them in a brawl. Lots of places in the tropics soldiers just go for a big machete as an all-around knife/tool. The Soviets had a crude and crummy-quality bayonet for general issue, but they put a handy little hole in the blade so it could be used as a wire-cutter. They weren't expecting to get into knife fights, but they might have to breach barb-wire.
- What the culture expects the blade to do, defines their choice. Build your culture, then the style of knife will naturally follow.
Adventure-History-Fantasy-Folklore www.geocities.com/robmancebo/ The Wastelander
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MichaelEhart
Sage
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 2352
| Posted 7/17/2008 5:13 PM (GMT -5) | | A Ka-Bar seems to be the most popular, but the Fairbairn-Sykes commando knife is likely to be with us for a very long time. As mentioned above, not a great all-around utility knife, but for the purpose of making fatal holes in some poor shmoe's kidneys it is unsurpassed.
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Jaqhama
Adventurer
Date Joined Oct 2007
Total Posts : 530
| Posted 7/18/2008 4:20 AM (GMT -5) | | |
Have a stab at this website:
http://www.agrussell.com/
The K-bar is a good choice though.
It's been manufactured by other companies apart from just K-bar themselves.
And for the latest in military high tech weaponry:
http://www.heckler-koch.de/Products
Gives you an idea of the direction in which modern combat rifles are travelling.
Shorter, longer magazines, lighter weight etc etc.
You can read some of my stories here:
Swamp Story. Down South. Florida Haze.Wild Justice...
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Jaqhama
Adventurer
Date Joined Oct 2007
Total Posts : 530
| Posted 7/18/2008 3:13 PM (GMT -5) | |
SJHigbee said...Wow! Jaqhama - thank you so much for the links! It will certainly be a major help & make my sojourn in the combat zone of military sci-fi FAR easier to negotiate...
My pleasure.
I really enjoy military sci-fi stories. Written a few short ones myself.
Feel free to send me sample copies if you need a reader.
Cheers: Jaq.
You can read some of my stories here: Swamp Story. Down South. Florida Haze.Wild Justice...
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SJHigbee
Acolyte
Date Joined Mar 2008
Total Posts : 217
| Posted 7/19/2008 11:32 AM (GMT -5) | | | | |
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Jaqhama
Adventurer
Date Joined Oct 2007
Total Posts : 530
| Posted 7/19/2008 2:44 PM (GMT -5) | |
SJHigbee said...Thanks very much for the offer - I will be taking you up on that in due course...
Cool.
I've but recently read all the Richard Morgan Altered Carbon books. David Gunn's Deaths Head. (who some people think is Morgan writing with a different prose under a different name) I ordered Deaths Heads book two tonight.
I guess I've read most of the military sci-fi stories over the years...although there's heaps of new titles popping up these days.
Mil sci-fi is getting very popular.
Good luck mate.
I look forward to reading something of yours in the near future.
I see you're from Ringwood. My Aunty used to have a house on Penn Common.
I was born in Southsea, Portsmouth.
I miss the country...but not the weather.
You can read some of my stories here:
Swamp Story. Down South. Florida Haze.Wild Justice...
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Jaqhama
Adventurer
Date Joined Oct 2007
Total Posts : 530
| Posted 8/3/2008 12:35 PM (GMT -5) | |
SJHigbee said...Hi Jaqhama, You know you kindly offered to read my work and make sure that the military stuff makes sense? Well... I've got the first 5 chapters finished. They're still very rough round the edges - clearly 1st draft stuff - but I'd really appreciate your input. Have you got an e-mail I can use?
my username at yahoo dot com
Put Military Story Draft in the subject title, or something similar.
My spambot is efficent. 
Sometimes overly so. Hungry lil' bugger.
You can read some of my stories here: Swamp Story. Down South. Florida Haze.Wild Justice...
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erazmus
Master
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 4557
| Posted 10/24/2008 3:07 PM (GMT -5) | | As someone mentioned before, the answer to this is rooted in the culture your story is set in. That said, USA military forces have tended to use a bowie style blade, seven to nine inches long, since before the turn of the 20th century. The actual make isn't very important because it hasn't been very consistent. Ka-Bar and several other manufacturers got contracted to produce the Marine corps fighting knife in the forties and fifties and still make a model today, but most soldiers who thought they were going to actually use their knives for killing things have had their own personal ideas about what they needed, and in every major mobilization in US history custom makers and semi-custom manufacturers have done booming business. Before the gulf wars (both of them) popular military knife maker Randall knives put its civilian work on an as available basis and fast tracked military orders, with priority given to APO and war zone delivery addresses. They were still working on those when the wars ended.
I like the larger-bladed bowie with an in-line stabbing point, sharped false edge and straight, heavy duty primary edge. Its is a superior tool and fine weapon. It will not do some things a Kukri will, but will do most things better. Knives like it have served American soldiers since the war of 1812 and no matter what direction well meaning theorists (such as myself) have pushed for, the actual soldiers have come back to this design over and over again.
The work of soldiers hasn't changed very much in the last few thousand years, and the design of a soldiers knife isn't likely to change much either.
Mike
Michael D. Turner
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Rob Mancebo
Adept
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 987
| Posted 10/24/2008 3:36 PM (GMT -5) | |
erazmus said...
I like the larger-bladed bowie with an in-line stabbing point, sharped false edge and straight, heavy duty primary edge. Its is a superior tool and fine weapon. It will not do some things a Kukri will, but will do most things better.
Mike
- Exactly.
- As a mechanized scout, I actually carried both--which tended to give folks outside our unit reason for pause.  But then I was also the guy that made everyone's weapons work--Machineguns can be cranky--so our own brass left me alone. (%$#@! crazy Scouts!)
- I found both to have many uses. I used the Ka-bar more on a daily basis, but I didn't want to give up the cutting power of the kukri. Most scouts carried either a MarkII Gerber or a bowie-style knife. Regular infantrymen made do with whatever bayonet they were issued. As a Scout--who might be cut-off from the main force at any time--an extra knife of prefrence gave you a warm feeling of companionship.
The Wastelander
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erazmus
Master
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 4557
| Posted 10/24/2008 3:48 PM (GMT -5) | | I think the Kukri is also a wonderful tool and an amazing weapon, but few Americans, even soldiers, are emotionally equipped to employ it as a weapon, even most soldiers. Charging in close and hacking the enemy into pieces, while effective, just isn't what we expect from our soldiers today. It would, in fact, be a disaster, no matter how the combat turned out. The folks at home, and especially the news-folks guiding the coverage, just wouldn't accept such tactics.
Its okay to blow the crap out of people from afar, where you get the just and unjust equally but keep your hand clean. Chopping people into chutney at a range where you can tell a badguy from a six-year-old girl but get parts of him all over your uniform is just unacceptable.
Mike
Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
"Dutchman Rescue"in Continuum SF #6
www.continuumsciencefiction.com/orders.htm
"An Incident at Black Tongue Tavern" in _Bash Down the Door and Slice Open the Badguy_ from Fantasist Enterprises:
www.fantasistent.com/books/anthologies/BASH.php
"Pink Plastic Flamingos" in Big Pulp
www.bigpulp.com/m.html
"Stains" in Tales of the Talisman 3-1 www.zianet.com/hadrosaur/index.html
"Morning Coffee" in Every Day Fiction
www.everydayfiction.com/morning-coffee-by-michael-d-turner/
"The Jewel Below" in Flashing Swords
flashingswords.sfreader.com/issues/issue8/vol2-iss8-05.htm
"Happy Landings" in Every Day Fiction
www.everydayfiction.com/happy-landings-by-michael-d-turner/
"Teller of Tales" in Every day Fiction
www.everydayfiction.com/teller-of-tales-by-michael-d-turner/
Read "Silver Shells" In Every Day Fiction
www.everydayfiction.com/silver-shells-by-michael-d-turner/ | | Back to Top | | |
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