| Online: | |
| Visits: | |
| Stories: |
| Story Views | |
| Now: | |
| Last Hour: | |
| Last 24 Hours: | |
| Total: | |
Survival Blades – Part 2, by R.H.
Glass-breaking is a function about which I keep hearing but don’t fully understand outside a military situation. I assume it refers to evacuating a car after an accident or other emergency. My problem with this is that almost nobody wears their survival knife on the way to and from work. If the knife is in the trunk with your BOB, how is it going to help? In a military scenario, I can see rescuing aircrew from a downed chopper; however, that situation is very different from what we’re likely to face. In the military, you have your gear on your person so your knife will be handy. Aircraft canopies are made of a plexiglass material, so I doubt it breaks like glass anyway. Egress from an automobile in an emergency would need to be executed with whatever is anchored within reach of the driver, which probably means something fixed to the dashboard or in a console compartment. Given the limited room involved, the tool will not likely be a survival knife. More likely, a folding blade knife with a “glass-break” tip on the handle or similar tool will be used. Therefore, I see this as a survival function but not the function of a survival knife, if you can see the difference.
Defending yourself with a knife is a subject well beyond this article. A couple of points for new folks: First, you must understand that in a fight, the guy who has trained and practiced will beat the guy who hasn’t, period. The weapoon is immaterial. If you have never had any training in this area, you might want to get some. If you have had some training, then you already know the general parameters of the weapon on which you trained. Use that weapon. Familiarity and muscle memory will beat new and cool every time. Will a kukhri beat a Bowie? That’s the wrong question! Which guy knows what he’s doing better? So, either find a knife you like and get trained on that weapon or get some general training and then get a weapon which fits your training. Back in the day, bigger was better. That’s not so today, based on your training.
The subject of defense would not be complete without discussing the improvised spear. What I refer to here is lashing or otherwise affixing your knife to a sapling pole to create an ad-hoc spear. Since no one I know practices spear techniques for defense against people, I will defer to our previous discussion. The practical side of this I can see would be defense against animals. Wild hogs are thick and ugly where I live. If I had to face a hog without a firearm, a spear would be my next choice. I can see a similar issue in areas with big cats or wolves. My concern with the concept is the actual lashing. Many knives have touted their abilities as spears. Most have holes at various points to enable lashing to a pole.
Source: http://survivalblog.com/survival-blades-part-2-by-r-h/
