Out with the Old

Army training: 1943

From the TimesOnline:

It was a decisive weapon on America’s Civil War battlefields, crucial for US troops going over the top of Flanders’ First World War trenches, carried on to the beaches of Normandy in 1944, and used in hand-to-hand combat in the jungles of Vietnam.

Despite such faithful service, however, the US Army has called time on the bayonet by scrapping basic infantry training with a weapon that has become part of army folklore since its introduction to military arsenals in the 16th century.

Although American soldiers do not generally go into battle with bayonets fixed to their M16 or M4 rifles — unlike their British counterparts with their SA80s — bayonet drills have been a vital part of training for decades.

Now they are being scrapped as part of the first significant revamp of the army training regime in three decades.