Plug Bayonets

Plug bayonets date back to between 1650-1700 AD. Sharp and pointy enough for either an effective hand weapon, or plugged into a musket barrel as a pike.

 Before cartridges were invented, users had to measure out quantities of black powder , chew on a piece of cloth till it formed a suitable wad, pour in the powder, pull out a ball of lead , wrap it in the patch of cloth and then ram it down. Then they had to prime the firing pan, make sure the match was lit and all this before they could even aim the weapon. In the early days of musketry, the firing rate could be as low as one shot per minute, so the discovery of a second way to easily arm infantry rapidly spread. These plug bayonets were derived from hunting knives or fighting knives that were fashioned so the handle could be pushed into the barrel after the musket fired.

 In about 1667 they made their appearance as bayonets. In 17th century France, people started to make knives that could be attached to a musket, thereby converting the musket into a sort of spear. There is an old legend that the inhabitants of the French town of Bayonne had run out of gunpowder and bullets during one conflict, and attached their long hunting knives to their muskets, and the word "Bayonet" comes from the name of their town "Bayonne".

The last major US bayonet charge happened during the Korean war, (led by Lewis L. Millet Sr., who won a Medal of Honor for this action), but there have been cases of forces using this tactic well after that.