Of bolo rush & bolomen

[migueldiaz]

Originally Posted by freebooter

Knife VS gun, I beleive very effective and more so in days of old looking at that holster. I beleive there are police stats you could draw from here too, from memory a man with a knife could be 20 feet away and rush an officer an would be upon him before the officer could draw and shoot..... Gav

That's a very appropriate analogy, Gav. Thanks

Here in Manila, there's a story about a rookie policeman who tried apprehending from a distance, a petty criminal armed with a knife. Long story short -- the criminal poised to attack, then the policeman fired several rounds with his pistol but wasn't able to make any hit due to extreme stress, and the policeman ended up being butchered by the criminal.

I think though that the story is apocryphal. But maybe it's not entirely fictitious either.

Here's a more factual recap about such firearm vs. blade encounters, from the last chapter of Vic Hurley's Jungle Patrol (1938) --

In summing up the campaigns of the Philippine Constabulary [its early officers pictured below, with Capt. Henry Allen (folded arms)], a discussion of the weapons at hand or the marksmanship of the men is not sufficient to explain the greatness of these jungle campaigners. The point involved is their terrain of battle.

The rifle and the revolver and even the machine gun lose much of their authority in dense jungle. The visibility is poor and the firing range exceedingly short. The number of rounds a man can fire is limited; too quickly, the combat reaches close quarters. With a Krag rifle and a .45 Colt revolver, every Constabulary soldier of the later days had a potential firing possibility of eleven shots without reloading. He was often outnumbered twenty to one, or more than twenty to one. The principle of the campaigns involved, not the destructive possibilities of the eleven shots at his command; to be considered most was that grim element of time. In the face of a sudden bolo rush, the police often had time, for but two or three shots before the action was man to man. And against impossible odds.

For bruising shoulder-to-shoulder work, the native weapons remain the best in that jungle scene that developed them. At close quarters, the Moro kris or the pulajan talibong have destructive qualities not surpassed by the modern automatic pistol or the sub-machine gun.

The passage of a high-velocity bullet through the body is killing but not immediately fatal; sometimes, in the heat of battle, men can remain on their feet, desperately wounded, for a lengthy period of time. But the last despairing swing of a bolo blade, in the hands of a dead man riddled with bullets, could be deadly ...

The other Hurley book on swords vs. firearms, is of course Swish of the Kris (1936). The entire book can be read from here.