The basics of the bayonet attack of the Russian soldier were taught in the days of Alexander Suvorov. Many people today are well aware of his phrase, which has become a proverb: "a bullet is a fool, a bayonet is a fine fellow." This phrase was first published in the manual on combat training of troops, prepared by the famous Russian commander and published under the title "Science of Victory" in 1806. For many years to come, the bayonet attack became a formidable weapon of the Russian soldier, and there were not so many people willing to engage in hand-to-hand combat with it.
In his work Science to Win, Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov urged soldiers and officers to efficiently use the available ammunition. Not surprising when you consider that it took a lot of time to reload muzzle-loading weapons, which was a problem in itself. That is why the renowned commander urged the infantry to shoot accurately, and at the time of the attack, use the bayonet as efficiently as possible. Smooth-bore rifles of that time were never considered a priori rapid-fire, so the bayonet attack was of great importance in battle - a Russian grenadier could kill up to four opponents during a bayonet charge, while hundreds of bullets fired by ordinary infantrymen flew into the milk. The bullets and guns themselves were not as effective as modern small arms, and their effective range was seriously limited.
For a long time, Russian gunsmiths simply did not create mass small arms without the possibility of using a bayonet with them. The bayonet was the infantry's faithful weapon in many wars, the Napoleonic wars were no exception. In battles with French troops, the bayonet more than once helped Russian soldiers gain the upper hand on the battlefield. The pre-revolutionary historian A. I. Koblenz-Cruz described the history of the grenadier Leonty Korennoy, who in 1813, in the battle of Leipzig (Battle of the Nations), entered into a battle with the French as part of a small unit. When his comrades died in battle, Leonty continued to fight alone. In battle, he broke his bayonet, but continued to fight off the enemy with the butt. As a result, he received 18 wounds and fell among the French killed by him. Despite his wounds, Korennoy survived and was taken prisoner. Struck by the courage of the warrior, Napoleon later ordered the release of the brave grenadier from captivity.
Subsequently, with the development of multiply charged and automatic weapons, the role of bayonet attacks decreased. In wars at the end of the 19th century, the number of killed and wounded with the help of cold weapons was extremely small. At the same time, a bayonet attack, in most cases, made it possible to turn the enemy into flight. In fact, not even the use of the bayonet itself began to play the main role, but only the threat of its use. Despite this, enough attention was paid to the techniques of bayonet attack and hand-to-hand combat in many armies of the world, the Red Army was no exception.
In the pre-war years in the Red Army, a sufficient amount of time was devoted to bayonet combat. Teaching servicemen the basics of such a battle was considered an important enough occupation. Bayonet fighting at that time constituted the main part of hand-to-hand combat, which was unequivocally stated in the specialized literature of that time ("Fencing and hand-to-hand combat", KT Bulochko, VK Dobrovolsky, 1940 edition). According to the Manual on preparation for hand-to-hand combat of the Red Army (NPRB-38, Voenizdat, 1938), the main task of bayonet combat was to train servicemen in the most expedient methods of offensive and defense, that is, “to be able at any moment and from different positions to quickly inflict jabs and blows on the enemy, beat off the enemy's weapon and immediately respond with an attack. To be able to apply this or that combat technique in a timely and tactically expedient manner. " Among other things, it was pointed out that bayonet fighting instills in the Red Army fighter the most valuable qualities and skills: quick reaction, agility, endurance and calmness, courage, determination, and so on.
G. Kalachev, one of the theorists of bayonet combat in the USSR, emphasized that a real bayonet attack requires courage from soldiers, the correct direction of strength and speed of reaction in the presence of a state of extreme nervous excitement and, possibly, significant physical fatigue. In view of this, it is required to develop the soldiers physically and maintain their physical development at the highest possible height. To transform the blow into a stronger one and gradually strengthen the muscles, including the legs, all trained fighters must practice and from the very beginning of the training, make attacks at short distances, jump into and jump out of dug trenches.
How important it is to train soldiers in the basics of hand-to-hand combat was shown by the battles with the Japanese near Lake Khasan and Khalkhin Gol and the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-40. As a result, the training of Soviet soldiers before the Great Patriotic War was carried out in a single complex, which combined bayonet fighting, throwing grenades and shooting. Later, during the war, especially in urban battles and in the trenches, new experience was obtained and generalized, which made it possible to strengthen the training of soldiers. Approximate tactics of storming enemy fortified areas were described by the Soviet command as follows: “From a distance of 40-50 meters, the attacking infantry must cease fire in order to reach the enemy trenches with a decisive throw. From a distance of 20-25 meters, it is necessary to use hand grenades thrown on the run. Then it is necessary to make a point-blank shot and ensure the defeat of the enemy with melee weapons."
Such training was useful to the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War. Unlike Soviet soldiers, Wehrmacht soldiers in most cases tried to avoid hand-to-hand combat. The experience of the first months of the war showed that in bayonet attacks the Red Army most often prevailed over the enemy soldiers. However, very often such attacks were carried out in 1941 not because of a good life. Often a bayonet strike remained the only chance to break through from the still loosely closed ring of encirclement. The soldiers and commanders of the Red Army who were surrounded sometimes simply did not have ammunition left, which forced them to use a bayonet attack, trying to impose hand-to-hand combat on the enemy where the terrain allowed it.
The Red Army entered the Great Patriotic War with the well-known tetrahedral needle bayonet, which was adopted by the Russian army back in 1870 and was originally adjacent to the Berdan rifles (the famous "Berdanka"), and later in 1891 a modification of the bayonet for the Mosin rifle appeared (no less famous "three-line"). Even later, such a bayonet was used with the Mosin carbine of the 1944 model and the Simonov self-loading carbine of the 1945 model (SKS). In the literature, this bayonet is called the Russian bayonet. In close combat, the Russian bayonet was a formidable weapon. The tip of the bayonet was sharpened in the shape of a screwdriver. The injuries inflicted by the tetrahedral needle bayonet were heavier than those that could be inflicted with a bayonet knife. The depth of the wound was greater, and the entrance hole was smaller, for this reason, the wound was accompanied by severe internal bleeding. Therefore, such a bayonet was even condemned as an inhumane weapon, but it is hardly worth talking about the humanity of a bayonet in military conflicts that claimed tens of millions of lives. Among other things, the needle-like shape of the Russian bayonet reduced the chance of getting stuck in the enemy's body and increased the penetrating power, which was necessary to confidently defeat the enemy, even if he was wrapped up in winter uniforms from head to toe.
Russian tetrahedral needle bayonet for the Mosin rifle
Recalling their European campaigns, the Wehrmacht soldiers, in conversations with each other or in letters sent to Germany, voiced the idea that those who did not fight the Russians in hand-to-hand combat did not see a real war. Artillery shelling, bombing, skirmishes, tank attacks, marches through impassable mud, cold and hunger could not be compared with the fierce and short hand-to-hand fighting, in which it was extremely difficult to survive. They especially remembered the fierce hand-to-hand fighting and close combat in the ruins of Stalingrad, where the struggle was literally for individual houses and floors in these houses, and the path traveled in a day could be measured not only by meters, but also by the corpses of dead soldiers.
During the Great Patriotic War, the soldiers and officers of the Red Army were deservedly known as a formidable force in hand-to-hand combat. But the experience of the war itself demonstrated a significant decrease in the role of the bayonet during hand-to-hand combat. Practice has shown that Soviet soldiers used knives and sapper shovels more efficiently and successfully. The increasing distribution of automatic weapons in the infantry also played an important role. For example, submachine guns, which were massively used by Soviet soldiers during the war years, did not receive bayonets (although they were supposed to), practice showed that short bursts at close range were much more effective.
After the end of the Great Patriotic War, the first Soviet serial machine gun - the famous AK, which was put into service in 1949, was equipped with a new model of melee weapons - a bayonet knife. The army understood perfectly well that the soldier would still need cold weapons, but multifunctional and compact. The bayonet-knife was intended to defeat enemy soldiers in close combat, for this he could either adjoin a machine gun, or, on the contrary, be used by a fighter as a regular knife. At the same time, the bayonet-knife received a blade shape, and in the future its functionality expanded mainly towards household use. Figuratively speaking, of the three roles "bayonet - knife - tool", preference was given to the latter two. Real bayonet attacks have forever remained on the pages of history textbooks, documentaries and feature films, but hand-to-hand combat has not gone anywhere. In the Russian army, as in the armies of most countries of the world, a sufficient share of attention is still paid to it in the training of military personnel.
