Gravity Knife German

German gravity knives was not only armed units of the airborne troops , but also the flying personnel of the Luftwaffe and tank units of the Wehrmacht.

In the literature knife the knife Commissar often referred to as combat knives. However, there is no real evidence of its use in hand-to-hand combat. In addition, like all knives with a frontal ejection of the OTF blade (out-the-front), it had a strong backlash of the blade. In General, the knife-slinger was used by the military primarily as a convenient multifunctional tool. Moreover, the combat knife "Luftwaffe kampfmesser M42"was also in service with the paratroopers.

In his book "Combat knives of special forces", a well-known specialist in the field of cold weapons Dietmar Pohl writes that when asked about the use of this knife in hand-to-hand combat, veterans of the German airborne forces could not remember a single such case. Most likely, this use of the copmesser took place only during the famous operation "mercury" in Crete. However, this was dictated by extraordinary circumstances. Due to bad weather and strong air defense resistance, some of the paratroopers were thrown directly over enemy positions, and they had to engage immediately after landing, carrying only a pistol and a sling cutter (losses during the operation amounted to 3,637 paratroopers out of 8,500 who took part in it).