Tactical Knife

What is a tactical knife? Anyone who has an interest in knives—collector, hobbyist, aficionado of the blade, knifemaker, or user—knows that there is, and has been for some years, a tactical knife fever gripping the industry. But how do we define a tactical knife to distinguish it from all other knives? Can we define it?

A friend who’s not into knives recently asked me, “What is a tactical knife?” I had a hard time answering him. I mumbled a bit and finally said that a tactical knife is a kind of survival knife but not exactly that. He then asked me to define a survival knife. Well, then we were off to the races. The answer to that question would fill another book. Finally, I gave him the classic definition of a survival knife: it is the knife you have with you when you have to survive. I suppose that could also be the definition of a tactical knife: the knife you have with you when you really need one, when things go bump in the night, your car slides off the edge of a cliff, an earthquake hits and your building starts crumbling around you, or they’re coming through the wire and you’re out of ammo. This, of course, means that a tactical knife could be any knife. So what are the qualities of the ideal survival or tactical knife, and what are the differences between, say, a paring knife and a tactical knife?

I decided to ask people I knew in the knife community, as well as those I knew in what could be referred to as the tactical community. Here are some of the answers I received:

A collection of small tactical knives favored by the same people who used the Minox camera and KGB pocket watch in the photo.

“A tactical knife is a knife that fits a specific role according to its use.”

“The knife you have in your hand when some son of a b**** is coming at you.”

“A tactical knife is one you can take to war that will survive in the worst possible environment and under the hardest use.”

“It’s like a survival knife, something you can depend on when something bad happens.”

“Tactical is just a marketing name knifemakers came up with to sell knives.”

“It’s a meaningless term. Any knife can be a tactical knife depending on how you use it.”

“My Swiss Army Knife is the best tactical knife there is. I can do anything with it.”

A selection of Janbiyas and other tactical knives from the seventeenth century found in the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul.

I couldn’t find two people in the knife community who agreed with one another. Only a few of my acquaintances in the tactical community—active military, civilian covert operators, and the like—had any idea what I was talking about. It mostly seemed that people in the knife community and those who read knife magazines or spend time on the Internet on knife related forums were familiar with the term tactical knife. Many of us seem to think we know what a tactical knife is, but when pushed to define the term, we can’t agree. It’s kind of like the famous statement on obscenity: I can’t define it, “but I know it when I see it.”

Given that the term gets tossed around quite a bit, and that I agreed to write a book with the title The Tactical Knife, I wanted to pin down the meaning of the term. I’ve got a pretty good idea of what constitutes a knife, and I thought I knew the definition of tactical. But I decided to check a couple of dictionaries to make sure. Here is what I found:

• done or made for the purpose of trying to achieve an immediate or short-term aim

• showing skillful planning in order to accomplish something

• used or made to support limited military operations

• undertaken or for use in support of other military and naval operations

• characterized by adroitness, ingenuity, or skill

A tactical nineteenth century Kris, sheath, and small pouch taken in trade by the author in Indonesia.

A tactical Kindjal and dagger from the Caucasus, nineteenth century, with sterling silver scabbards.

So are we talking about knives that are used in support of military operations or those that can be characterized as having the qualities of adroitness, ingenuity, or at least having features that would support such qualities? Possibly. Sort of. But maybe not exclusively.

Judging by many of today’s offerings—from factories, custom makers, magazine articles, and Internet postings—one might think that a tactical knife only had to be black and have serrations or saw teeth—as some said—to be tactical. But there’s a good deal more to it than that.

In general, a tactical knife differs from an ordinary knife in that it is designed to be used in extreme situations. Some examples are wilderness or urban survival, to build an emergency shelter, to rip through a locked fire door, to cut your way out of a car sinking in a river, or as a defensive weapon. It is sort of a combination utility and survival tool and emergency weapon. Sometimes I think a tactical knife is any knife used to solve a problem. I’ll go out on a limb with my current working definition:

A tactical knife is an all-purpose knife useful for everyday tasks according to your needs, but it also will serve as an emergency tool or weapon in extreme situations.

In my view, a tactical knife is not a special purpose tool—such as a wood worker’s carving knife—or a purpose-designed weapon—such as the Fairbairn–Sykes dagger. Nor does a tactical knife have to be black, have saw teeth, or have a tanto point.

I think one of the reasons for our confusion on this topic is that so many functions—as well as knives designed for those functions—overlap. Any knife, after all, is a multiuse tool, and any knife can be used as a weapon. As a wise friend once said, “Any knife is of many uses. You can cut your bread. You can cut your neighbor.” It seems to me that within my definition of tactical knives, there are four distinct subcategories: wilderness survival knives, urban survival knives, combat or fighting knives, and knives suitable for war. Even though there is some overlap, each of these categories has its own requirements and special needs. However, each can have a combination of features that will allow it, to a certain extent, to serve the needs of the other categories.

For example, a wilderness survival knife needs to excel at woodcraft, field dress game and foraged food, and be comfortable to work with for extended periods; sometimes, in the event no other tool is available, it must be sturdy enough to baton or chop. An urban survival knife needs to be tough enough to use as an emergency escape device from an earthquake shattered structure or a building on fire. A combat knife must be suitable for hand-to-hand combat. A war knife must be able to stand up to the hardest usage and worst possible conditions. Sometimes, but not often, all these functions can come together in one knife.

I don’t think I have the final word on this topic, so we’ll allow for other definitions and continue to explore this question in the following pages. However, this definition will serve to get us started. As an aside, there’s nothing really new about tactical knives. The accompanying photos show a selection of tactical knives that span centuries and continents.

In this book, we’ll review the history of the tactical knife, discuss standards for field testing tactical knives, and review some of the current and recent offerings in the tactical knife field, all of which have been used extensively, often over a period of years, by me and by friends. These acquaintances come from a wide variety of backgrounds. Some are former special operations people; others are active duty military, para-military, covert operators and clandestine agents, butchers and chefs who use knives all day everyday, professional wilderness survival instructors, scholars of the knife who work in the field regularly, and my students of wilderness and urban survival, escape and evasion, and martial arts. I listen carefully and analyze the input from these folks, and I have found their contributions to be valuable.

Often I ask this wide range of people The Question—the question that knife people frequently ask each other, the question I am most often asked by students and other interested parties, “If I could only have one knife, which is the best knife?” There is no easy answer to that question. But we’re going to spend a good bit of this book exploring it and will come back to it from time to time.

Some of the stories included herein might be considered war stories. They are not intended to promote an interest in violence or to titillate. I have found that stories are often the best teaching tools and what people remember long after all the dry data has faded from the mind. A note about the stories: they’re all true. Either I personally experienced them, or people whose word I trust related them to me. For narrative continuity, I have stretched a bit here and trimmed a bit there, but I changed nothing of substance except names and locations to provide a level of discretion.