My stupid players wanted to do a bayonet charge on some cowardly people hunkered down in a makeshift trench.

What effects on morale and how would this be handled during initiative? Charge move and stabbing action is basically what will happened - but nothing so far I read in the rules.

throw a land mine in the next time they want to try something like that. if your feeling nice give them some sort of spot check.

Have to admit, the psychological effect of being the guys on the receiving end has to be a negative impact. I know I'd be thrown off by seeing a group of crazy people charging me with bayonettes!

Give the guys on the receiving end a threat condition, from "the enemy is obviously irrational/insane"

The group of PCs in this example maybe insane, but the few times in history that bayonet charges were carried out, it seems in my humble opinion that pure bravery stood on one side or the other in a bayonet charge. Prime examples being Little Roundtop during the Battle of Gettysburg, and what I have heard was the last ordered bayonet charge in US military history in Korea. The other thing about bayonet charges to me it seems they are 'the last gasp' thing to do. Your unit has one or two rounds left for rifles and the only thing left is to "Fix Bayonets!" then "Charge!"

If these guys went against any group before a certain level of stress and fatigue has occurred in the enemy, I would see a hail of gunfire, popped claymores and bouncing betties and assorted grenades and there is a pile of critically injured and dead lying where the charge was stopped. Yes the effort would affect morale and maybe even carry the position but I would not want to give any odds on the charging forces survival.

heard rumors that the marines did one a few years ago. with great effect.

Pretty sure the British did one a few years back too with great success:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1138046/posts

I did say the people morale were already broken... they are probably out of ammo or wounded.

Yes, but they are under cover. I'd still give better chances of the bayonet charge getting shot up in a hail of wildly inaccurate fire.

Especially if there's any understanding whatsoever of FPFs and FPLs (final protective fires and final protective lines, respectively).

This is a quote on bayonet charges:

and

NICE!! I like these leonpoi! What is/are the source(s)?

I'm not convinced that bayonet charges are going to be "crazy" ideas in the post-2013 world. Ammo is sparse, and Northern Alliance troops used cavalry charges fairly successfully back during the Afghanistan invasion anyway. A lot of combat is going to be between scavenging groups in cities, so I can easily see combatants keeping bayonets attached for when they round a corner and run face first into a man from another gang. A group with decent communications could probably make a charge work.. machinegun or automatic rifle fire to suppress, and a second group with rifles, bayonets and grenades to assault. GPMGs are going to be few and far between. Heck, a lot of groups aren't even going to have long guns.

2013 would see a lot of the more pure WWII-era tactics return.

It's a book that was brought up in another post (about prisoners I think) and which apparently was used as a reference for the psychology rules in tw2103.

it's called "On Killing" by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman and I'm finding it a pretty interesting read. It's more of a thesis on the history of soldier's effectiveness in killing with a focus on the psychological cost of and conditioning required for killing. When you read it you'll wonder how the pcs can ever engage in combat with the intent to kill and come out unscathed (unless they fall into the 2% category of militarised sociopaths).

I just read that, great book. However by the time you finish it you will realize that they could engage in combat, though maybe no to kill. A bayonet charge is disturbing as it involves a thrusting weapon, which is more traumatic than a slashing or chopping attack. So the psycological trauma could go either way.

I think that the qoutes may even be in the book i am not sure though.

you're right, I was only 1/2 way when I made that post - it shows that they would even kill but not be real happy about it in the short-term or the long-term. The rpg the burning wheel makes you make a "morale" test whenever you stab or kill someone, with bonuses if you've killed before etc. When you look at it it's probably the correct approach but pcs might resent not having control over their players after killing someone.

Great article that necessitates a resurrection of this topic.

I was sitting in front of a TV with a bunch of guys from my unit in '97 when Nablus experienced one of its perenial Palestinian Parties... one of the video snippets was about three seconds of four militamen charging down a street. From rear to front, they were armed with an AK, an RPD, a pistol of some sort, and the leader had a friggin' scimitar. Honestly, all our eyes were drawn to the scimitar as the scariest weapon involved, regardless of the actual practicalities.

Personally, I'd say there'd be a hefty morale modifier if someone actually got within twenty feet with a fixed bayonet.

Oh, and for those of you who believe the bayonet is outdated, it's still a very real part of basic training. Of course, the DI telling you that the easiest way to remove your target from your bayonet is to fire a round to knock him free is... confusing. Why I'd start getting stabby with a round in the chamber is beyond me.

There are several reason for bayonet training, two big ones being it instills a "warrior attitude" and aggressiveness, and second, it allows for relatively silent assaults if performed in the field properly, especially against an enemy with no bayonet training. One of the disadvantages being the bayonet throws the accuracy of the weapon off a little, but may not be enough to factor in game-wise.
But bayonet charges are unnerving to say the least. A friend of my father commanded a company during the fighting withdrawal in Korea. A column of Chinese "volunteers" stretching back as far as the eye could see coming at his position. So cold the M1's had a chance of freezing up. He was told to "hold the pass" while the main body pulled back. The only reason they survived was better training and tactics than the Chinese, some of the Chinese didn't even have rifles, they just picked one up after someone else dropped one. But it was unnerving to see that much shiny steel coming at him. He had set up .30 cals in a crossfire and had barrells of napalm with charges strapped to them set up on the hillsides of the pass. He had a ROK company watching his right flank, a US one on his left. They just kept killing Chinese. Don't believe they made it to bayonet range though, so they don't work well against a prepared and motivated defender.
They held the pass. Didn't get any commendations, you don't get medals during a retreat.

Which validates my FPF and FPL comment from way back when.

Sorry. You guys can argue the validity of the bayonet all you want. Bottom line, it comes down to opinion. For me:

1. My dad taught me not to take a knife to a gunfight.
2. If I run out of ammo, I'd rather have a knife in my hand, than stuck on the end of a carbine.
3. By law, you're not allowed to sharpen a bayonet (despite being issued with a whetstone), so I prefer my personal combat knife.
4. When I run out of everything else, I'll use whatever I can get my hands on, be it an enemy weapon, a buddy's weapon, my combat knife, a bayonet, a pen, or a big honkin' rock.

That, gentlemen, is my truth of the bayonet. YMMV.

I don't think anyone is advocating the return of the bayonet charge or the close-order drill in the mountains of Afghanistan, or Iraq's cities, but I think it has some merit in Twilight. That Brit account tells me that bayonets are powerful psychological weapons against just about anybody, and reasonably effective against untrained combatants. After the bombs fall, ammo is worth it's weight in gold, so it may be just as effective to run an opponent off an objective by fixing blades and charging them as it would be to load up and spend half of your limited munitions on them.

Again, I think the effectiveness of relatively primitive tactics in limited-resource environments is demonstrated in some of the early tactics of Afghanistan's Northern Alliance, when the initial CIA SAD teams linked up with them, before SOCOM started putting in teams. Fighters used cavalry charges fairly effectively against other warlords to conserve Kalashnikov ammunition, which they had no capability to produce themselves. Yeah, against proper modern or post-modern forces, you're going to get decimated, but 2013 is a pretty far cry from conventional warfare.

In a world where ammunition is growing scare, bayonets are probably going to grow more useful. Look at some of the hard fought battles of Vietnam, bayonets and entrenching tools became deadly weapons again as bullets ran low and darkness diminished the usefulness of firearms.

A while back I did have the PCs attack with bayonets but it was because of stealth. The riflemen attached bayonets and the MG gunner just used his fists (very high unarmed). They could have gone in guns blazing but chose to be stealthy. Unfortunately they stuffed up their die rolls and it degenerated into close range pistol shooting and room clearing.

Fun though.

Why is that? Is that part of the Geneva Connventions?
I have never heard of that, but I'm not an expert.

Yep. I got my ass in a sling when I was a Spec 4 armorer and the BN XO walked into my Arms Room and caught me sharpening them.

Well, I guess I got my Company XO's ass in a sling for doing it, but you know what they say...

"Sh!t rolls downhill."

Bayonets are weapons that don't fall neatly into what the Geneva Conventions like. Bayonet wounds, compared to firearms, are typically more brutal, where you die slowly as a result of the wound, instead of quickly from the trauma. The fact that no one ever legally loses the right to defend themselves makes it impossible to BAN bayonets outright, modifying weapons to improve their wounding quality is illegal.

Again, it is a really fuzzy area.

And the Geneva Conventions aren't what cover weapons so much. It's the Hague Conventions.

However, in common conversation, both are rolled into the more famous Geneva Conventions. I'd wager that eight out of ten people don't even know that there are a completely separate set of conventions.

I've gotten too many blank looks when bringing up Hague to even bother anymore.

You can always throw in the Geneva Protocol to the Hague Convention and really see people's eyes glaze over.

And then, to confuse them, tell them the US isn't party to the Hague Conventions but follows them anyway.