Of bolo rush & bolomen

[Gavin Nugent]

Originally Posted by migueldiaz

Just how effective is the bolo vs. firearms? ... as stupid as the question may sound

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

[trenchwarfare]

A bit of a twist, on "Bolo Men". Only these guys were on the other side. For those who may not know, their Model 1903 rifles are sporting the rare model 1915 bolo bayonet. Click on the thumbnail in the upper left-hand corner. http://images.google.com/imgres?imgu...DN%26um%3D1the

[migueldiaz]

Originally Posted by trenchwarfare

A bit of a twist, on "Bolo Men". Only these guys were on the other side. For those who may not know, their Model 1903 rifles are sporting the rare model 1915 bolo bayonet. Click on the thumbnail in the upper left-hand corner. http://images.google.com/imgres?imgu...DN%26um%3D1the

Thanks for the comment!

And I've always thought that such a huge bayonet must have meant that the Moro trooper used a barong!

[migueldiaz]

The other way of implementing a bolo rush is by using the cover of darkness.

Here's another related New York Times article:

[migueldiaz]

Another article (same thing, use of the cover of darkness):

[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.

[Berkley]

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

Quite correct:

take a common training scenario: an edged-weapon suspect charges toward an officer from a distance of 21 feet. Using averages, the attacker's first stride is at about 3 mph. But accelerating, he can reach a speed of 12 mph or more and cover 21 feet in about 1.7 seconds in about 5 steps. Considering that the average officer requires about 1.5 seconds to draw and fire one round from a Level 2 holster (not even allowing for his initial reaction time), his disadvantage in this situation is made crystal clear.

-Force Science News

[migueldiaz]

Originally Posted by Berkley

Quite correct:
-Force Science News

Thanks! I love this kind of analysis ... quantified ... and thus very specific and can be conclusive

[migueldiaz]

By the way, in the modern Philippine military, poor shots in a marksmanship class are jokingly assigned the rank of "boloman"!

The idea of course is to move away from that informal rank as quickly as possible ...

Photo below shows Phil. Marines in Patikul, Sulu.

[migueldiaz]

Going back to the topic of blades used by bolomen as documented in old photos, so far I've not stumbled into other pics.

In John Foreman's "The Philippine Islands" (1906), there's these two photos (below) of "Christian" and "Moro" blades. But it didn't say whether these are capture pieces.

Obviously though, the center Moro sword is not a capture piece -- the photo's caption is: Weapons of the Moros. (Left) “Bárong”; (right) “Kris”; (centre) The Sultan of Suluʼs dress sword, presented to the author by His Excellency.

The caption of the other photo is: Bowie-knives and Weapons of the Christian Natives. Central figure—“Talibon.” The others—Bowie-knives (Sp. Bolo, Tag. Guloc).

[KuKulzA28]

Just out of curiosity (I hope I'm not off-topic), are the majority of non-tourist Talibon made after the fall of the Spanish rule in PI? I am wondering because I remember reading of a Spanish law forbidding Filipinos from owning bolos with points to them, one of their measures to stamp out armed resistance.

[trenchwarfare]

The "NO POINT" rule must have been in effect in all of Spains colonial holdings. The Collins Co. sample boards show many examples of all types of machetes, with clipped points. All are from Cuban, Central, and South American contracts. Don't know about the Philippines contracts. Most of that market was filled by Germany, and other European cutlers. I don't know why they bothered. Lots of African machetes are pointless, but they manage to work each other over pretty good anyway.

[Dimasalang]

Originally Posted by KuKulzA28

Just out of curiosity (I hope I'm not off-topic), are the majority of non-tourist Talibon made after the fall of the Spanish rule in PI? I am wondering because I remember reading of a Spanish law forbidding Filipinos from owning bolos with points to them, one of their measures to stamp out armed resistance.

One must keep in mind and make note, when Spain ruled the Philippines for +300 years, they DID NOT control the entire Philippine Islands(in reality it was close to 60%). If they did, the entire Moro population would of been wiped out and/or converted to Catholics; it was cannon law to convert everyone and Spain did not allow freedom of religion in their territories, well there were some exceptions but very few. Mindanao and Sulu were major hot regions of constant religious conflicts...these areas were never under full control and Spain never felt it priority to completely dominate such regions in timbuktu(prior to the opening of the suez canal). You will never see a Kris, Barong, Kampilan with the tip cut; these were weapons meant for warfare and not farming...and their wide availability(even today) shows how little Spain had in control of southern Philippines. It is mentioned that the ruling Spanish class only made up about 3% of the entire population. Other rural areas were also not controlled by Spanish authorities, this included areas in Christian dominated islands as well. Mountain regions and extreme tribal ethnic groups like the igorots and aetas in Luzon are examples(all were highlanders)...the Pulahan group for instance are categorized under the mountain region, and prospered well near the fall of the Spanish rule in the Philippines. Even today in this era, the Philippine government can not get full control of groups running around in the mountains or rural areas of the Philippines...the Abu Sayyaf and the NPAs are both prime examples of how tough it is to control military factions in their own country. If it is this tough today, imagine how tough it was 100 years ago.

By the way, nice work Miguel! Keep it coming!