fighters vs. tacticals, what can you teach me?

[kevin - the professor]

I would like to start by saying I don't want to offend anyone or cause any trouble.

"Tactical" is a modern marketing concept, created to sell stuff. It doesn't really mean anything. I recognize the difference in strategy versus tactics and therefore strategic versus tactical in military parlance, but you have to understand that these terms were originally created by people trying to sell things to the military. It still comes back to sales gimmicks.

Fighting knives - 2 kinds. The knife you have handy when you realize you are in a fight or need to be in a fight, or a knife that is made specifically for killing other human beings. For this, I think history should be our guide. The people of the Bronze Age until now have been just as smart as we are. However, they had more time to put into labor than we do, and their lives depended upon their edged weapons. There are some beautiful, artful, and honestly tested designs from every culture that left a spot on a map. These form the domain of fighting knives, for me (and yes - I am Texan, and the Bowie legacy is among these).

I am sort of biased I guess - I just don't like the term, "tactical." It seems to much like a knife version of, "Happy Meal," to me.

Please realize I am not criticizing anyone, and love to see modern takes on knives, too. Just saying that there is a huge legacy of fighting knives to pull from.

 

[SHOKR]

I am sort of biased I guess - I just don't like the term, "tactical." It seems to much like a knife version of, "Happy Meal," to me.

LOL

i think you are right Kevin, the more i read and understand on the subject the more i realize tactical can fit anything designed for a specific task!! i mean no one calls a hunting knife 'tactical', but technically its tactical, designed to fit the requirements of a hunter, cutting, skinning, etc.

generally i hate labeling things, and dislike the fact that we as humans tend to want to give everything a name, but alas, when selling/communicating i sometimes need to label a knife, be it to make things easier, target someone, or sort of a disclaimer (i havent sold any but i have seen enough stupid situations in life to know someone might come back to knife maker with a hunting knife complaining that it 'broke' while he was trying to pry open his car door)

 

[Coondog]

Well, if I may take a stab ( yeah I know.....old/bad pun ) and for what it's worth, a "fighter" would be used for just that. Designed to slash,hack and penetrate into the human body to inflict as much damage as possible.
The "tactical" would be able to cut of course but would also need to be able to pry open windows or cut wire and in general take more abuse than the fighter. My 2 cents.