The "triangular blade wounds are impossible to heal" myth is a LONG standing one (literally hundreds of years old in Western culture). Itvis ALSO something known *just about as long* by military surgeons as being total bunk. The triangular shaoe is, and always has been, a matter of strength with the minimum amount of material. Now, spike bayonets have another production and maintenance advantages over blade bayonets. You dont have to sharpen or maintain a long edge - and the point can be fairly dull, given the force that will be concentrated behind it. A screwdriver is more than sharp enough to make a good spike bayonet. And as far as breaking bayonets at drill? Yeah, that's a thing, even with *good* metallugy and heat treatment. As a former Drill Sergeant at Fort Benning, prwtty much EVERY cycle I saw run through the bayonet course managed to break a bayonet being weilded by some adrenaline jazzed up Sasquatch of a corn fed private. Heck, I've seen them bend the *rifle barrel* (Thank God we used "rubber duckies" for bayonet training instead of real rifles - a rubber duckie training rifle still has a real M16 rifle barrel and front sight, just one that failed final quality inspection or was pulled from service during a depot rebuild of rifles for having excessive rifling wear.)
A triangular wound is not particularly difficult. Besides a single stab with a Chinese spike bayonet won’t leave a kind of stamped out triangular defect. If I were stuck with a Chinese bayonet that didn’t puncture or lacerate a major organ or a large vessel I would deeply clean the wound and let it heal without surgical intervention. It’s often not a good idea to close a potentially contaminated wound right away.
There's american civil war doctor records which attest to this. Generally speaking bayonet wounds were rare but so long as a major organ isn't pierced the patient's seemed to recover rather well. There's an account of a soldier from that time period being stabbed in one of his lungs and I think he was back to fighting a month or two later.
there's various treaties banning triangular bayonets (geneva convention, of at least some generation?). Triangular wounds have more surface area, and more convoluted paths. If you're bayoneted you're going to die, when you get bayoneted the next few times. So the shape probably doesn't matter that much.
Type 63 was designed because the combination of PLA and SKS with AK was outdated. They wanted the automatic firepower of AK and also wanted a rifle that could kill an enemy with one shot. They realized that the locking method of SKS was not accurate enough, so they used the rotating bolt locking method of AK. They found that the upper cover of AK would emit smoke and irritate the eyes after too much gun oil was applied, so they designed a tight upper cover, which was good in theory, but the design concept was outdated. My elder in the family once participated in the demonstration of Type 63. He was only 28 years old at that time. The team had only experience in imitation, not design.
I really needed an episode tonight. Nice! I read somewhere an anecdote, probably on reddit, a guy knew a guy who was a historical reenactor, during a US revolutionary war reenactment, a guy tripped and stabbed his friend with his triangular musket bayonet, or tripped and stabbed himself with his own bayonet in the leg, cant remember. But he claimed that the doctor said it was no harder to stitch up than any other ordinary stab wound.
There's american civil war doctor records which attest to this. Generally speaking bayonet wounds were rare but so long as a major organ isn't pierced the patient's seemed to recover rather well. There's an account of a soldier from that time period being stabbed in one of his lungs and I think he was back to fighting a month or two later.
Bayonet: "this obviously has to be permanently attached, it is just essential to it's function" Magazine: "oh yeah, this can be quick detacheable, no problem."
When I saw the title my first thought was the PLA strapping an AK-47 and an SKS together to create a combi-weapon, and the Type 63 proving itself superior instead.
A note on having the weight of the bayonet hanging perpetually on the end of the muzzle. You actually want a gun to be muzzle heavy for unsupported shooting, since having the weight there decreases wobble and (in theory at least) makes you shoot it more accurately. Granted the advantage of that may be more than offset by the disruption of barrel harmonics caused by having a hunk of steel flopping around.
I think you’d find Norman Hitchman’s “Operational Requirements for an Infantry Hand Weapon” report (AD-000-346) to be quite informative on not only what else was going through the minds of the US Army Ordnance brass at the same time they were going forward with the M14. Its report influenced the development of the AR-15 and the SPIW, the latter which is about as much a polar opposite as you can get for the M14. I found it utterly fascinating that the two main efforts by US Army Ordnance was the hopelessly conservative M14 and the hopelessly radical SPIW, only for the privately-developed AR-15 (which had Army input in its development) to win out in the end as the longest-serving stopgap weapon. I enjoy this series very much, thanks!
That slop is actually part of the reason why the AK is so reliable, both from a function and construction standpoint. With the tolerances' so loose, it takes some major damage or obstruction to prevent proper function.
i am a witness of the development of this channel lore and im so happy we came to the point were you can use archival footage of your old videos acting as a PLA soldier, im drunk, high and crying RN (?)
While the main reason for the triple spike is structural rigidity, the whole “unstitchable” thing is true. It’s very hard to stitch . I would guess it’s probably easier to pack though. Technically a war crime.
I would love to hear your take on the type 81 . Sounds like they sorted out the problems of the type 63 . They also went to a stamped reciver and caved in to the pistol grip and bayonet removal . Its much softer to shoot than an sks but a bit chunky There isnt much online about it more than suface info , its a shame , i love that rifle
The ‘Australian patrol leader account’ is suspect because Australian troops usually used the L1A1 (a derivative of the FAL/SLR rifle) in Vietnam if they were using 7.62 weapons. They also often used a L1A1 based support weapon rather than the M60. When Australians were using American weapons, it was usually because they lacked a similar weapon of their own- which is why Australian soldiers occasionally used the M16 in 5.56. It seems unusual for an Australian unit to use solely American weaponry, when most Australian units were already equipped with weapons of their own issue.
I do believe the Aussies did use the M60 in the ground role in place of the SLR-based support rifle. I’m uncertain why they couldn’t use more MAG 58s for that role, but I presume it has to do with handling and weight.
If you google image search "23 Section, Long Tan", one of the first results is from the Australian War Memorial archive, and it's a photo taken from the commanders hatch of an ANZAC M113 - And directly in front of him on the deck is an M14. If you look up other images from that battle (which has an almost legendary status in Australia), aside from a handful of L1A1's and the occasional Owen, they seem to be equipped almost exclusively with American weapons. So without knowing where and when this supposedly happened, I'd be hesitant to dismiss it outright - 1st Australia did some pretty weird s**t.
Thanks for these videos. You have educated me about the PLA and I respect the heck out of them, it's very different but much more formidable than I used to think.
Super simple spike bayonet had been around for a fair while before this. This ground triangular version was almost a fancy incarnation of this philosophy.
Tbf the main reason Soviets and similar armies did not use spike bayonets is because bayonets in western armies were almost as much as a tool as a weapon and spike bayonets basically can't be a tool.
@@ravenoferin500 still many armies valued the utility enough to make weaker designs. Most soldiers historically in the Soviet army from my understanding literally just used bayonet blades as back up survival knifes and in that role they excelled. Also bayonet blades are deadlier than spike bayonets however regardless most bayonets will kill if shoved in the stomach or chest it's only when you miss those where the blades advantages in cut and wound size matters.
The Chinese people responsible for small arms procurement may have been very conservative but at least they adopted an intermediate cartridge. The US procurement officers insisted on not only a traditional wood and steel rifle but that it be chambered for a full power .30cal rifle cartridge. They also adopted a 20 round magazine. The rifle had select fire function but the rifle calibre cartridge made fully automatic fire pretty much useless. 45:00 The Australians would have been issued either FAL’s in 7.62X51 NATO or M16’s in 5.56X45. I don’t think they had M14’s. There were a few of the EBR variants in use with the SASR I believe but no M14’s in general Australian issue. I could be wrong though.
I feel this is just overblown out of proportion, americans love to talk about guns and bitch about government and this is where m14 intersects perfectly. 30 cal select fire rifle with 20 round mag isn't that insane when some nations literally did that to garands, nato and neutral block went almost whole cold war with similar rifles be it fal or g3 and it wasn't end of the world. Europeans had just way more recent infantry combat experience than usa but only soviets were free to commit to intermediate cartridge.
One thing that has to be noted is that at that point of time, NATO has adopted 7.62x51 and initially rolled out rifles that had select-fire capability, but walked back on them going full auto for obvious reason. The French stuck to a MAS49/56 rifle until the 70's, and from the perspective of the soldier(not mechanical engineer) it has the same capability as the SKS, but it fires full size rifle cartridge. So realistically what was happening was that the USSR and its satellites were ahead of their time in thinking that yeah these smaller weaker cartridges allow for what became the assault rifle to function, everyone else either discarded the idea of the intermediate cartridge, except with the Chinese who rationalized it in a similar way to the Japanese rationalization for 6.5mm arisaka cartridge - yes it's not as potent but we're small asian people so we can't really do more. The only difference was that the Chinese kept it for longer.
On the stripper clip loading being maintained from the SKS, some versions of the FAL had guides for stripper clips on the receiver and some of the loading tools for the magazines had the guides to recharge them with five-round stripper clips. Even though the concept of the “disposable” box magazine gets tossed around a lot they still represent a significant expense with how much more resource intensive and complex they are versus a stripper clip or en bloc clip
Triangular wounds are not difficult to heal per say, the issue is that stitching requires specific technique and the geometry of the wound can often leave an ugly scar.
I take the reference to the Australian use of the M14 as a function of the translation to Chinese and the back translation into English. The Chinese term may have been merely one that refers to a large ‘battle’ rifle generally and the American back translation assumed it to be the M14.
I imagine they were willing to give up the number of rounds fired for the perceived accuracy. The thinking being 'If your shots are hitting the targets more often, then you don't need to fire as many bullets'. Which would tie into concerns about logistics.
Another advantage of the permanently attached bayonet is that you don't need to produce any extra equipment to hold it, like a bayonet frog, so ideal for those armies who want to save money as every penny helps!
I captured and carried, for a couple of months, a 1967 Polish AK-47 I took in 1968. I also had an SKS carbine.The Polish AK was a beautifully made. But the AK wasn't all that accurate and didn't have an impressive knock down power. It was also pretty heavy, as was the ammo. I also had a Type 56 carbine and a Type 56 assault rifle. There was no comparison between the two groups. The Type-56s were very crude and looked they like they had been made on somebody's kitchen table, which they may well have been.
if every educator was this inspiringly enthusiastic I wouldn't have dropped out of college lol, I never envisioned I'd sit and watch nearly hour long videos about China's SKS fetish
The more I learn, the more questions I have. What was the minimum age of soldiers in the PLA? The US Army and USMC is 17. Other armies are younger. I experienced shortages in training ammunition during the late Seventies and early Eighties during the Hollow Army years. The annual training ammunition allotted for service, support and reserve soldiers was 49 rifle cartridges per year with some soldiers going as long as 30 months between firing their rifles for qualification. A famous Marine fired his rifle for qualification just two times from 1956 to 1959 and that radar operator's experience was far from unique. Despite having less projectile energy, the SKS was the tactical equivalent of the M1 Garand Rifle and the Type 63 was tactically equivalent to the M14 Rifle. Both M1 and M14 had textbook maximum effective ranges of 500 yards/460 meters. The more Professor Jason talks about the Type 63, the more it resembles the M14. For example, as late as 1964 the M1 Rifles in service were generally more accurate and more reliable than the M14--it takes time to perfect the manufacturing process.
The British no9 Rifle was to combine the rifle and smg into one weapon. Just as the PLA desired. The American M14 attempted to combine the rifle and the LMG (BAR) into one weapon. So the American M14 was not similar to the Type 63.
In 1936 the M1 "GARAND" Rifle was adopted to replace both BAR and M1903 Springfield Rifle--and the Thompson Submachine Gun. The M14 "replaced" rifle, automatic rifle, submachine gun--and the M1/M2 Carbine (a weapon that replaced most pistols in the infantry regiment starting in 1942, along with the submachine gun and many rifles, too). See a pattern? Improve the rifle, replace the automatic rifle ("light machine gun"), and especially get shed of that damned submachine gun. Those replacements didn't work for some strange reason--Reality.
The earliest Soviet SKS’s have pig sticker bayonets. I wonder if the PLA’s design is the same as the Soviet one, or it’s designed differently for more serious bayonet fighting as you say.
Yes trianglar bayonets are more difficult to treat because with a flat blade wound you pull two sides together and stitch. A trianglar wound is very difficult to do that with.
The 30-40rpm ideal rof of the Type 56 SKS was demonstrated in the 1964 propaganda film "Reporting to Chairman Mao (向毛主席汇报)". Two riflemen considered the best shooters in their unit, demonstrated they could both hit 40 lined-up chest targets at 150m range with 40 rounds within a minute, including reloads. It's definitely questionable in a real combat scenario when you don't have a prepared position with spare ammo placed next to the rifle instead of in the pouches.
Having 20rnd mags for our ARs is not a bad thing. Yes, I primarily have the 30rnd mags, but I do keep a couple 20 rnd just in case. Another great lecture Professor, thank you!
So no type 63 modernization into a marksman rifle like the Americans did with their M14s mod 0 during the second Iraq War? The PLA probably still have some in reserve. In an alternate universe I'd imagine the perfect type 63 paired with the type 80 machine pistol and the older PLA officers reflecting their glory days of fighting the Japanese invaders with their modernized Mauser C96 clones.
No matter how good Peter Kokalis was knowledgeable or good shooter, it doesn't mean he was right. A lot of the times, shooters are using techniques they are accustomed from their previous experience. And sometimes, those techniques are just wrong for the another type of weapon. Every time I see some guy from the US firing full auto APS pistol with mounted stock, I know he'll have a piss poor results on the paper. Simply, they are using modern day two hand combat grip instead proper one...
The general obsession with the bayonet is one of those things that I will never understand as a rational individual. Armies keep detailed stats on these kinds of things, and they've known since WWI that bayonets account for almost no kills. Even with fighting devolved into hand to hand, soldiers prefered to use spades, clubs, daggers, and even brass knuckles. In the memoirs of Ernst Junger (Storm of Steel) and All Quiet on the Western Front, they discounted the value of the bayonet entirely. And yet... in 2024, armies around the world, including China and the US, still require bayonet lugs on their service rifle designs.
That's because bayonets provide a psychological effect. The US army conducted research on willingnes of afghan civillians to cooperate with soldier requests, they found that bayonetts had a higher cooperation rate than no bayonetts.
Type 56 kalashnikovs are milled recievers. According to Ian Hoge you forge an 11 lb (5 kg) block and cut away about 80% of it. For a poor nation with limited steel production ditching a milled ak for anything else makes sense
Was their doctrine really that bayonet centric that ammo was seen as a luxury? They didn't do that in Korea. Perhaps they still expected their soldiers to shoot their enemy first but finish them off with an immediate stabbing, instead of shooting them repeatedly like Western armies. This would encourage their soldiers to get in close and cause panic as well as neutralize their enemy's fire superiority at intermediate range.
Do you have any additional information on the seemingly experimental stamped steel receiver Type 56 sks's or the FRP stocks (Also called "jungle stocks")? Forgotten weapons has a video on the stamped receiver ones but I was wondering if you had any more info since you spoke chinese. Also there's an excellent channel on the collecting side of the SKS called "Triangle 26". He has an excellent video series on the type 56 sks. Also as an aside, here's the fastest SKS reload that I've seen. I don't know the context other than it's chinese female in some sort of training capacity for a propaganda film probably in the earlier 1960's but the reload is at 4:25. th-cam.com/video/-9XNqK1agco/w-d-xo.html
It would be nice if Prpfessor Clower can give a history lesson on Panama Canal in Chinese, because the spox of the Chinese foreign ministey apparently doesn't know.
12:15 "let's put a detachable magazine and full auto capability and optic readiness in the M1 Garand, and put a bipod for the LMG version, and we'llkeep the same factories and tools" It didn't worked well 😂 As far as I know, the Steyr AUG is one of the best and single platform to achieve both SMG, Assault Rifle, DMR and SAW in one platform. Yes, we can argue about AR 15s avaible in 9mm and different shapes, or the AK families (Saiga 9, 12, etc), but it is/was quite revolutionary that with a single barrel swap you can do 3 roles, and that the modification to a 9mm SMG is easily made by trained troop or the armorer. But well, Steyr came out with this concept *20 years* later, with better tech, world leading polymer usages (and still to this day, ex: Noctua, Glock), kinda more money (but still the political will to cut cost with an universal gun) and a real invasion threat at the gate. Nice try China, but at least they didnt tried to standardise on a full power cartrigde like 308/7.62x54r/8x57Js unlike the US,
Australian surgeon: These wounds could have only been produced by a world class industrial superpower. Australian solder: Yes; I could feel myself questioning capitalism as the withering, but not excessive fire struck all around me. It is only because we ran like dogs to our American masters that we still live.
Great vid my favorite so far. The discussion of the stripper guide could have been from the US Army, USMC M 14 or Commonwealth nations FAL Next I read translated captured North Vietnamese soldiers personal letters from October November 1965 that mentioned soldiers ditching bayonets on the Ho Chi Minn trail. As they were carrying extra amounts of rice ammunition and even mortar rounds as they marched. This was in addition to the their heavy personal load
Any firearm with a sheet metal receiver is doomed to shake itself to death and be rendered irrepairable within 15k rounds on the top end. The rivet holes oval out and the trunnions walk themselves out of headspace or the body stretches/warps and the guide rails no longer line up properly.
Well enough for countries like the Soviet Union but countries like Finland that could not maintain the industry they eventually dropped the stamped design. That said from the AKM onwards the trunnions are machined.
You know what is so good about capitalism? You're so rich that you don't need to compromise. You can have an engine so powerful, fuel so abundant, it can make a brick take off, vertically.
Wow never clicked faster, almost as fast as a crew served SKS.
this is a quality joke
@@iancarter649Russian 7.62 anti drone ammo?
So you scroll and i click?
The "triangular blade wounds are impossible to heal" myth is a LONG standing one (literally hundreds of years old in Western culture). Itvis ALSO something known *just about as long* by military surgeons as being total bunk. The triangular shaoe is, and always has been, a matter of strength with the minimum amount of material.
Now, spike bayonets have another production and maintenance advantages over blade bayonets. You dont have to sharpen or maintain a long edge - and the point can be fairly dull, given the force that will be concentrated behind it. A screwdriver is more than sharp enough to make a good spike bayonet.
And as far as breaking bayonets at drill? Yeah, that's a thing, even with *good* metallugy and heat treatment. As a former Drill Sergeant at Fort Benning, prwtty much EVERY cycle I saw run through the bayonet course managed to break a bayonet being weilded by some adrenaline jazzed up Sasquatch of a corn fed private. Heck, I've seen them bend the *rifle barrel* (Thank God we used "rubber duckies" for bayonet training instead of real rifles - a rubber duckie training rifle still has a real M16 rifle barrel and front sight, just one that failed final quality inspection or was pulled from service during a depot rebuild of rifles for having excessive rifling wear.)
A triangular wound is not particularly difficult. Besides a single stab with a Chinese spike bayonet won’t leave a kind of stamped out triangular defect. If I were stuck with a Chinese bayonet that didn’t puncture or lacerate a major organ or a large vessel I would deeply clean the wound and let it heal without surgical intervention. It’s often not a good idea to close a potentially contaminated wound right away.
There's american civil war doctor records which attest to this. Generally speaking bayonet wounds were rare but so long as a major organ isn't pierced the patient's seemed to recover rather well. There's an account of a soldier from that time period being stabbed in one of his lungs and I think he was back to fighting a month or two later.
So much for the "historian"
@@RazorsharpLT He did not claim it was true. He mentioned the myth and shrugged.
there's various treaties banning triangular bayonets (geneva convention, of at least some generation?). Triangular wounds have more surface area, and more convoluted paths.
If you're bayoneted you're going to die, when you get bayoneted the next few times. So the shape probably doesn't matter that much.
If Ian McCullen from Forgotten Weapons is known as "Gun Jesus" what nickname can we come up with for Jason Clow??..."Rifle Mao" ?
Chairman Clow? The Comrade?
@benjaminbrunson4539 yep that's It! The Great Helmsman Chairman Clow!
Professor 56
Comrade Professor 56.
Commisar 56
Ah-ha! It’s the return of “The Spear That Can, on Occasion, in an Emergency, Shoot.”
Now with new, improved Magical Arsenic!
Type 63 was designed because the combination of PLA and SKS with AK was outdated. They wanted the automatic firepower of AK and also wanted a rifle that could kill an enemy with one shot. They realized that the locking method of SKS was not accurate enough, so they used the rotating bolt locking method of AK. They found that the upper cover of AK would emit smoke and irritate the eyes after too much gun oil was applied, so they designed a tight upper cover, which was good in theory, but the design concept was outdated.
My elder in the family once participated in the demonstration of Type 63. He was only 28 years old at that time. The team had only experience in imitation, not design.
I really needed an episode tonight. Nice!
I read somewhere an anecdote, probably on reddit, a guy knew a guy who was a historical reenactor, during a US revolutionary war reenactment, a guy tripped and stabbed his friend with his triangular musket bayonet, or tripped and stabbed himself with his own bayonet in the leg, cant remember. But he claimed that the doctor said it was no harder to stitch up than any other ordinary stab wound.
Yeah, just requires two separate stitches instead of one.
There's american civil war doctor records which attest to this. Generally speaking bayonet wounds were rare but so long as a major organ isn't pierced the patient's seemed to recover rather well. There's an account of a soldier from that time period being stabbed in one of his lungs and I think he was back to fighting a month or two later.
Bayonet: "this obviously has to be permanently attached, it is just essential to it's function"
Magazine: "oh yeah, this can be quick detacheable, no problem."
This guy should do a podcast/livestream with Ian McCollum.
The gun nerd levels would go off the charts I would love that, would be great publicity too.
I would like this
Inrage too!
NO LIVESTREAMS.
@@mojrimibnharb4584 NO MERCY
When I saw the title my first thought was the PLA strapping an AK-47 and an SKS together to create a combi-weapon, and the Type 63 proving itself superior instead.
You have to divide by 2!
Right Orky that dakka would be.
A note on having the weight of the bayonet hanging perpetually on the end of the muzzle. You actually want a gun to be muzzle heavy for unsupported shooting, since having the weight there decreases wobble and (in theory at least) makes you shoot it more accurately. Granted the advantage of that may be more than offset by the disruption of barrel harmonics caused by having a hunk of steel flopping around.
Pay attention comrades, this Comrade lifts!
I think you’d find Norman Hitchman’s “Operational Requirements for an Infantry Hand Weapon” report (AD-000-346) to be quite informative on not only what else was going through the minds of the US Army Ordnance brass at the same time they were going forward with the M14. Its report influenced the development of the AR-15 and the SPIW, the latter which is about as much a polar opposite as you can get for the M14.
I found it utterly fascinating that the two main efforts by US Army Ordnance was the hopelessly conservative M14 and the hopelessly radical SPIW, only for the privately-developed AR-15 (which had Army input in its development) to win out in the end as the longest-serving stopgap weapon.
I enjoy this series very much, thanks!
I hope we get an episode about the ceremonial SKS models that China made. 😊
Your wish = my command!
Just wanted to sleep peacefully and my Chinese army instructor drops this video 😁
That slop is actually part of the reason why the AK is so reliable, both from a function and construction standpoint. With the tolerances' so loose, it takes some major damage or obstruction to prevent proper function.
And that it also minimized QC issues was no small consolation price.
These are my most anticipated releases right now. 49 minutes c:
what a unique channel. love this series!
I'm so glad you found us!
i am a witness of the development of this channel lore and im so happy we came to the point were you can use archival footage of your old videos acting as a PLA soldier, im drunk, high and crying RN (?)
love this! thank you for these excellent and engaging videos
While the main reason for the triple spike is structural rigidity, the whole “unstitchable” thing is true. It’s very hard to stitch . I would guess it’s probably easier to pack though. Technically a war crime.
I would love to hear your take on the type 81 . Sounds like they sorted out the problems of the type 63 . They also went to a stamped reciver and caved in to the pistol grip and bayonet removal .
Its much softer to shoot than an sks but a bit chunky
There isnt much online about it more than suface info , its a shame , i love that rifle
Yes!
The ‘Australian patrol leader account’ is suspect because Australian troops usually used the L1A1 (a derivative of the FAL/SLR rifle) in Vietnam if they were using 7.62 weapons. They also often used a L1A1 based support weapon rather than the M60. When Australians were using American weapons, it was usually because they lacked a similar weapon of their own- which is why Australian soldiers occasionally used the M16 in 5.56.
It seems unusual for an Australian unit to use solely American weaponry, when most Australian units were already equipped with weapons of their own issue.
M16s were usually issued in quantities intended as a replacement for the submachinegun
I do believe the Aussies did use the M60 in the ground role in place of the SLR-based support rifle. I’m uncertain why they couldn’t use more MAG 58s for that role, but I presume it has to do with handling and weight.
The reference to an M14 in Australian service may very well have been something lost in translation somewhere.
possibly the FAL was lumped into the M14 identification as they thought they were similar
If you google image search "23 Section, Long Tan", one of the first results is from the Australian War Memorial archive, and it's a photo taken from the commanders hatch of an ANZAC M113 - And directly in front of him on the deck is an M14. If you look up other images from that battle (which has an almost legendary status in Australia), aside from a handful of L1A1's and the occasional Owen, they seem to be equipped almost exclusively with American weapons. So without knowing where and when this supposedly happened, I'd be hesitant to dismiss it outright - 1st Australia did some pretty weird s**t.
5:06 is Prof. Clower singing "Adagio for Strings?" in this epic bayonet charge clip?
Thanks for these videos. You have educated me about the PLA and I respect the heck out of them, it's very different but much more formidable than I used to think.
Super simple spike bayonet had been around for a fair while before this. This ground triangular version was almost a fancy incarnation of this philosophy.
Tbf the main reason Soviets and similar armies did not use spike bayonets is because bayonets in western armies were almost as much as a tool as a weapon and spike bayonets basically can't be a tool.
@@parkerlong2658A knife style has only as many uses as an infantryman can think of. Only dwarfed by the myriad ways of breaking them.
@@ravenoferin500 still many armies valued the utility enough to make weaker designs.
Most soldiers historically in the Soviet army from my understanding literally just used bayonet blades as back up survival knifes and in that role they excelled.
Also bayonet blades are deadlier than spike bayonets however regardless most bayonets will kill if shoved in the stomach or chest it's only when you miss those where the blades advantages in cut and wound size matters.
23:47 The Type 63 rifle--aka: "the spear of destiny!" : )
We kept reinventing the wheel, there's the Rifle-5, Type 63, Rifle 5 upgraded version, Type 66-136, and other intermediate fossils
The Chinese people responsible for small arms procurement may have been very conservative but at least they adopted an intermediate cartridge. The US procurement officers insisted on not only a traditional wood and steel rifle but that it be chambered for a full power .30cal rifle cartridge. They also adopted a 20 round magazine. The rifle had select fire function but the rifle calibre cartridge made fully automatic fire pretty much useless.
45:00 The Australians would have been issued either FAL’s in 7.62X51 NATO or M16’s in 5.56X45. I don’t think they had M14’s. There were a few of the EBR variants in use with the SASR I believe but no M14’s in general Australian issue. I could be wrong though.
I feel this is just overblown out of proportion, americans love to talk about guns and bitch about government and this is where m14 intersects perfectly.
30 cal select fire rifle with 20 round mag isn't that insane when some nations literally did that to garands, nato and neutral block went almost whole cold war with similar rifles be it fal or g3 and it wasn't end of the world.
Europeans had just way more recent infantry combat experience than usa but only soviets were free to commit to intermediate cartridge.
One thing that has to be noted is that at that point of time, NATO has adopted 7.62x51 and initially rolled out rifles that had select-fire capability, but walked back on them going full auto for obvious reason. The French stuck to a MAS49/56 rifle until the 70's, and from the perspective of the soldier(not mechanical engineer) it has the same capability as the SKS, but it fires full size rifle cartridge.
So realistically what was happening was that the USSR and its satellites were ahead of their time in thinking that yeah these smaller weaker cartridges allow for what became the assault rifle to function, everyone else either discarded the idea of the intermediate cartridge, except with the Chinese who rationalized it in a similar way to the Japanese rationalization for 6.5mm arisaka cartridge - yes it's not as potent but we're small asian people so we can't really do more. The only difference was that the Chinese kept it for longer.
On the stripper clip loading being maintained from the SKS, some versions of the FAL had guides for stripper clips on the receiver and some of the loading tools for the magazines had the guides to recharge them with five-round stripper clips. Even though the concept of the “disposable” box magazine gets tossed around a lot they still represent a significant expense with how much more resource intensive and complex they are versus a stripper clip or en bloc clip
当那一天来临 except it's the day about the Type 63 🎆🎆
You suddenly realize that no two Type 63s in the squad look the same
Waiting for the next video on the type 63, on the edge of my seat, I very much am!
As a gear nerd, I would love to see a video about PLA load bearing equipment, personal field gear, uniforms and winter equipment.
Triangular wounds are not difficult to heal per say, the issue is that stitching requires specific technique and the geometry of the wound can often leave an ugly scar.
Australians didn’t use M14s
Been catching up on your great stuff , excellent work
Thank you so much for your kind words. I'll work hard to hold your interest all the way til the end!
Splendly informative as always.
Excellent video as always Prof. Clower!
:D thank you Jason!
7:50 this idea is so freacking heavy metal, I love it 😂
I take the reference to the Australian use of the M14 as a function of the translation to Chinese and the back translation into English. The Chinese term may have been merely one that refers to a large ‘battle’ rifle generally and the American back translation assumed it to be the M14.
Very professional analisys.
Australia didn't use m14 in vietnam, or at all. They had the SLR, which is a version of the FN FAL.
I imagine they were willing to give up the number of rounds fired for the perceived accuracy. The thinking being 'If your shots are hitting the targets more often, then you don't need to fire as many bullets'. Which would tie into concerns about logistics.
Another advantage of the permanently attached bayonet is that you don't need to produce any extra equipment to hold it, like a bayonet frog, so ideal for those armies who want to save money as every penny helps!
I captured and carried, for a couple of months, a 1967 Polish AK-47 I took in 1968. I also had an SKS carbine.The Polish AK was a beautifully made. But the AK wasn't all that accurate and didn't have an impressive knock down power. It was also pretty heavy, as was the ammo. I also had a Type 56 carbine and a Type 56 assault rifle. There was no comparison between the two groups. The Type-56s were very crude and looked they like they had been made on somebody's kitchen table, which they may well have been.
Which game was this ?
The bayonet on an SKS makes a great monopod.
if every educator was this inspiringly enthusiastic I wouldn't have dropped out of college lol, I never envisioned I'd sit and watch nearly hour long videos about China's SKS fetish
The more I learn, the more questions I have.
What was the minimum age of soldiers in the PLA? The US Army and USMC is 17. Other armies are younger.
I experienced shortages in training ammunition during the late Seventies and early Eighties during the Hollow Army years. The annual training ammunition allotted for service, support and reserve soldiers was 49 rifle cartridges per year with some soldiers going as long as 30 months between firing their rifles for qualification. A famous Marine fired his rifle for qualification just two times from 1956 to 1959 and that radar operator's experience was far from unique.
Despite having less projectile energy, the SKS was the tactical equivalent of the M1 Garand Rifle and the Type 63 was tactically equivalent to the M14 Rifle. Both M1 and M14 had textbook maximum effective ranges of 500 yards/460 meters. The more Professor Jason talks about the Type 63, the more it resembles the M14. For example, as late as 1964 the M1 Rifles in service were generally more accurate and more reliable than the M14--it takes time to perfect the manufacturing process.
The British no9 Rifle was to combine the rifle and smg into one weapon. Just as the PLA desired. The American M14 attempted to combine the rifle and the LMG (BAR) into one weapon. So the American M14 was not similar to the Type 63.
In 1936 the M1 "GARAND" Rifle was adopted to replace both BAR and M1903 Springfield Rifle--and the Thompson Submachine Gun. The M14 "replaced" rifle, automatic rifle, submachine gun--and the M1/M2 Carbine (a weapon that replaced most pistols in the infantry regiment starting in 1942, along with the submachine gun and many rifles, too).
See a pattern? Improve the rifle, replace the automatic rifle ("light machine gun"), and especially get shed of that damned submachine gun. Those replacements didn't work for some strange reason--Reality.
The earliest Soviet SKS’s have pig sticker bayonets. I wonder if the PLA’s design is the same as the Soviet one, or it’s designed differently for more serious bayonet fighting as you say.
They probably looked at their type 53 carbine bayonets and said "why not just do that"
Yes trianglar bayonets are more difficult to treat because with a flat blade wound you pull two sides together and stitch. A trianglar wound is very difficult to do that with.
Superb content
Collab with Forgotten Weapons and C & Rsenal fo sho!
There's definitely something funny about the PLA considering an assault rifle to be too much submachinegun for them.
The 30-40rpm ideal rof of the Type 56 SKS was demonstrated in the 1964 propaganda film "Reporting to Chairman Mao (向毛主席汇报)". Two riflemen considered the best shooters in their unit, demonstrated they could both hit 40 lined-up chest targets at 150m range with 40 rounds within a minute, including reloads. It's definitely questionable in a real combat scenario when you don't have a prepared position with spare ammo placed next to the rifle instead of in the pouches.
A nice beefy episode thank you very much sir.
Having 20rnd mags for our ARs is not a bad thing. Yes, I primarily have the 30rnd mags, but I do keep a couple 20 rnd just in case.
Another great lecture Professor, thank you!
I'm delighted as always to have you, @spacedredd!
PSA needs to make a semi auto type 63 for the American market .
Are you going to cover modern PLA close combat weapons (QBZ-191, QBZ-03, etc) eventually on this channel?
The story at the end of the Australian squad using M-14’s is also questionable
That hat... that glorious hat :D Who gets to wear a hat like that?
When you said half pistol grip I think you meant Thumb hole stock.
So no type 63 modernization into a marksman rifle like the Americans did with their M14s mod 0 during the second Iraq War? The PLA probably still have some in reserve. In an alternate universe I'd imagine the perfect type 63 paired with the type 80 machine pistol and the older PLA officers reflecting their glory days of fighting the Japanese invaders with their modernized Mauser C96 clones.
No matter how good Peter Kokalis was knowledgeable or good shooter, it doesn't mean he was right. A lot of the times, shooters are using techniques they are accustomed from their previous experience. And sometimes, those techniques are just wrong for the another type of weapon. Every time I see some guy from the US firing full auto APS pistol with mounted stock, I know he'll have a piss poor results on the paper. Simply, they are using modern day two hand combat grip instead proper one...
Hey what happened to the patriotic Chinese verbiage , all in Mandarin episode?
The general obsession with the bayonet is one of those things that I will never understand as a rational individual.
Armies keep detailed stats on these kinds of things, and they've known since WWI that bayonets account for almost no kills. Even with fighting devolved into hand to hand, soldiers prefered to use spades, clubs, daggers, and even brass knuckles. In the memoirs of Ernst Junger (Storm of Steel) and All Quiet on the Western Front, they discounted the value of the bayonet entirely.
And yet... in 2024, armies around the world, including China and the US, still require bayonet lugs on their service rifle designs.
That's because bayonets provide a psychological effect. The US army conducted research on willingnes of afghan civillians to cooperate with soldier requests, they found that bayonetts had a higher cooperation rate than no bayonetts.
Why am I so interested in this?
Type 56 kalashnikovs are milled recievers. According to Ian Hoge you forge an 11 lb (5 kg) block and cut away about 80% of it. For a poor nation with limited steel production ditching a milled ak for anything else makes sense
Was their doctrine really that bayonet centric that ammo was seen as a luxury? They didn't do that in Korea. Perhaps they still expected their soldiers to shoot their enemy first but finish them off with an immediate stabbing, instead of shooting them repeatedly like Western armies. This would encourage their soldiers to get in close and cause panic as well as neutralize their enemy's fire superiority at intermediate range.
Yes! Christmas comes early!!!! : )
Why don't you cite your sources for the research you do for these videos?
don't be so modest. you are surely better with a bayonet than anyone
6:47 that’s not everyone so a picture would’ve been nice so we can see what you’re talking about
Copyright restrictions kill me on stuff like this. There was literally no uncopyrighted photo of one that I could get hold of!
@@Type56_Ordnance_Dept F
Do you have any additional information on the seemingly experimental stamped steel receiver Type 56 sks's or the FRP stocks (Also called "jungle stocks")? Forgotten weapons has a video on the stamped receiver ones but I was wondering if you had any more info since you spoke chinese. Also there's an excellent channel on the collecting side of the SKS called "Triangle 26". He has an excellent video series on the type 56 sks. Also as an aside, here's the fastest SKS reload that I've seen. I don't know the context other than it's chinese female in some sort of training capacity for a propaganda film probably in the earlier 1960's but the reload is at 4:25.
th-cam.com/video/-9XNqK1agco/w-d-xo.html
Their logic is beyond dumb
woohoo! another 50 minute video!!
Im almost positive the aussies carried inch pattern FALs the story sounds more than slightly BS
It would be nice if Prpfessor Clower can give a history lesson on Panama Canal in Chinese, because the spox of the Chinese foreign ministey apparently doesn't know.
12:15 "let's put a detachable magazine and full auto capability and optic readiness in the M1 Garand, and put a bipod for the LMG version, and we'llkeep the same factories and tools"
It didn't worked well 😂
As far as I know, the Steyr AUG is one of the best and single platform to achieve both SMG, Assault Rifle, DMR and SAW in one platform.
Yes, we can argue about AR 15s avaible in 9mm and different shapes, or the AK families (Saiga 9, 12, etc), but it is/was quite revolutionary that with a single barrel swap you can do 3 roles, and that the modification to a 9mm SMG is easily made by trained troop or the armorer.
But well, Steyr came out with this concept *20 years* later, with better tech, world leading polymer usages (and still to this day, ex: Noctua, Glock), kinda more money (but still the political will to cut cost with an universal gun) and a real invasion threat at the gate.
Nice try China, but at least they didnt tried to standardise on a full power cartrigde like 308/7.62x54r/8x57Js unlike the US,
Australian surgeon: These wounds could have only been produced by a world class industrial superpower.
Australian solder: Yes; I could feel myself questioning capitalism as the withering, but not excessive fire struck all around me. It is only because we ran like dogs to our American masters that we still live.
Ruger calls it the "Mini-Thirty"...
Great vid my favorite so far. The discussion of the stripper guide could have been from the US Army, USMC M 14 or Commonwealth nations FAL Next I read translated captured North Vietnamese soldiers personal letters from October November 1965 that mentioned soldiers ditching bayonets on the Ho Chi Minn trail. As they were carrying extra amounts of rice ammunition and even mortar rounds as they marched. This was in addition to the their heavy personal load
Any firearm with a sheet metal receiver is doomed to shake itself to death and be rendered irrepairable within 15k rounds on the top end. The rivet holes oval out and the trunnions walk themselves out of headspace or the body stretches/warps and the guide rails no longer line up properly.
Well enough for countries like the Soviet Union but countries like Finland that could not maintain the industry they eventually dropped the stamped design.
That said from the AKM onwards the trunnions are machined.
@@engine4403all trunnions are machined.
Did Bubba see the future, or just re enact another past battle?
5 practice rounds...... emphasis on the bayonet...... so they were using pre-WW1 French Reserves training doctrine?
65th like. 👍
That's like 56. But in reverse.
You know what is so good about capitalism? You're so rich that you don't need to compromise. You can have an engine so powerful, fuel so abundant, it can make a brick take off, vertically.