The credit of making and designing this knife goes to William Ewart Fairbairn and Eric Anthony Sykes. The fighting knife is known after their names as Fairbairn- Skyes fighting knife. It is a twin edged blade with a foil grip. The fighting knife was designed for the sole purpose of fighting. The vase-like handle gave very strong grip and the blades could easily penetrate in the body causing the person’s death. No other weapon can work in close quarter fighting other than the fighting knife and its sharp stabbing points and good cutting edges make it ideal for attacking and killing the enemy.
Based on the original design the fighting knives came in different patterns where the first pattern of fighting knives came with 6.5 inch blade and a flat area with the ricasso on the top of the blade. The knives which were made under the type 2 pattern had slightly longer blades with wide oval cross guard, knurled pattern grip and round ball. The handles of these knives were stamped “England”.
In the third pattern knives the blades were similar to the pattern two knives with the only difference in the handle that was redesigned to have a ring grip. But it as found that the ring grip most of the time unbalanced the weapon and moreover made it difficult to hold when it was wet. Whatever may be the pattern for the construction of knife but handle had the same foil grip for easy handling options. The Fairbairn- Skyes fighting knives from the time they have been introduced have paved the way for the other designs of the knives.
Fighting Knife Reviews