League Of Augsburg - Fighting Talk

So for battles such as Blenheim and Ramilles, with the socket bayonet presumably being widely available, would infantry have gone into battle with bayonets fixed? Some figure ranges would suggest otherwise.

It is highly unlikely that Battalions would have started the battle with bayonets fitted, even on the arrival of the new socket bayonet. With several armies developing the more effective platoon firing and concentrating on the amount of fire to weaken there opponent, having bayonets fitted would give them a disadvantage by slowing down the time to reload between each shot.

Also when you add into the mix that the first socket bayonets were not very sturdy to start with and that they had a tendency to come away from the muzzle, you would not wont them to be attached to early.

finally, the weight of any fixed bayonet makes it statistically more likely that any shot fired will have a downward trajectory and therefor have less affect.

if you want some detailed information on this I would suggest the folloing books:

Socket Bayonets: A History and Collector's Guide
By Graham Pries
The Anatomy of Victory: Battle Tactics, 1689-1763 by Brent Nosworthy

hope this helps,

Mark

Thanks Mark for such a detailed reply. I am just a bit disappointed as I like the look of fixed bayonets on figures.

I actually like them bayonetless, coming from napoleonics. I always enjoy the look of a firing line with put bayonets.
Saves you a tiny fraction of money as you use less metal paint too.

A discussion we have had amongst our group many times. What is not always apparent is something Mark referred to above - the difficulty of using a ramrod when there is a huge knife adjacent to your hand! Troops would have avoided this risk of injury completely and fixing bayonets would have been an act only undertaken in extremis particularly when most tactics were based on breaking the enemy via controlled fire and not a charge to contact.

Bayonets look great on models but possibly with the exception of Karl XII's Swedes it is likely that they were not as common on the field of battle in this period as gaming models might want us to believe.

Thanks for the replies chaps. I am finding most figure manufacturers accord with your comments. I just noticed many uniform illustrations seem to portray soldiers of the period with fixed bayonets.