Edged and bladed weapons

Bladed and edged weapons[1] are types of melee weapons used throughout history for combat, hunting, and ceremonies. Bladed weapons include swords, daggers, knives, and bayonets. Edged weapons are used to cut, hack, and slash, and, depending on the weapon, also to thrust and stab. Not all swords, daggers, knives, and bayonets have blades, but points intended for thrusting or stabbing, rather than cutting, hacking, or slashing, which includes weapons such as pikes and lances. Other dedicated edged weapons include battleaxes and poleaxes.[2]

Many edged agricultural tools such as machetes, hatchets, axes, sickles, and scythes, have been used as improvised weapons by peasantry, militia, or irregular forces – particularly as an expedient for defence.

Edged weapons and blades are associated with the premodern age but continue to be used in modern armies. Combat knives and knife bayonets are used for close combat or stealth operations and are issued as a secondary or sidearm.[3] Modern bayonets are often intended to be used in a dual role as both a combat knife and knife bayonet.[4] Improvised and dedicated edged weapons were extensively used in trench warfare of the First World War such as Entrenching tools being modified to take an edge and be used as melee weapons.[5][6]

See also

References
  1. An edge tool is defined as a tool with a cutting edge. A blade is the flat cutting part of a sword, knife, etc. It is also a synonym for a sword. The Macquarie Dictionary (1st ed), Macquarie Library, Sydney, 1981.
  2. Spear-heads, arrow-heads, and some other types of thrown weapons may have sharpened edges but are not generally considered edged weapons.
  3. Peterson, Harold L., Daggers and Fighting Knives of the Western World, Courier Dover Publications, ISBN 0-486-41743-3, ISBN 978-0-486-41743-1 (2001), p. 80: "Right at the outset trench knives were introduced by both sides during World War I, so that the common soldier was once again equipped with a knife designed primarily for combat."
  4. Brayley, Martin, Bayonets: An Illustrated History, Iola, WI: Krause Publications, ISBN 0-87349-870-4, ISBN 978-0-87349-870-8 (2004), pp. 9-10, 83-85
  5. Beith, Ian H. (Capt.), Modern Battle Tactics: Address Delivered April 9, 1917, National Service (June 1917), pp. 325, 328
  6. Ian Drury (1995). German Stormtrooper 1914–18. Osprey Publishing. p. 61. ISBN 978-1-85532-372-8.
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