[Andy Sykes]

You will also find hundreds of photos of British Soldiers without bayonets fixed.
Since the introduction of Battle Drill circa 1940 and even before, the practice of always having bayonets fixed was unusual.

It would be quite common for a Platoon to have members with Bayonets fixed or not fixed. In actuality manuals only called for Bayonets to be fixed by the Rifle Group of a section as it prepared for the final assault stage in an attack. So at full strength just 7 guys in a Platoon attack. Other reasons for attachment were patrol or sentry duty .)

This stands today, you only fix bayonets as a fireteam for final assault in a modern 4 man team that means one bloke the others cant fix bayonets on their weapons. (They just shoot or grenade the enemy.)

Yes some units may have given a general Fix Bayonets to bolster morale and pep up the unit for a general advance but it was not universal and it was not in the manuals, it was a hangover.

And yes a lot of those photos are propangda.

The practice of adding weight to the end of a barrel to increase accuracy-group tightening is old hat. Ballistic science has been pretty exact for at least 140 years.
When soldiers refer to attaching a bayonet making them inaccurate they mean it affects there MPI: where there bullets impact in relation to the point they are aiming at.
This is dependant on quite a few factors, sighting, sight radius, ammunition ballistics etc..
(Some nations zeroed their SA with bayonets fixed eg WW2 Soviets, they were well aware as was every WW2 army of the accuracy benefit and just as scientific as modern man without the technology. They were also thinking of still facing Cavalry.)
Whether the affixing of a bayonet adversely effects the MPI is dependant on all these factors.
But if we address the subject matter the SMLE with bayonet, and contemporary ammo: MVII Ball. At 200 yards the MPI would be 18 inches above the aim point. Added to the stress of combat- that’s missing a lot. He wouldn’t even be able to adjust his sights to compensate, their lowest setting was 200y, the advice was aim low.
Incidentally the N0.4 with aperture sight was zeroed with the bayonet spike bayonet fixed the difference was negligible. So it depends on the weapon and how its sighted etc..

The thing about attached bayonets is that they add weight to the weapon. Rifles are heavy enough, once you start toting one about, firing it offhand, snap shooting, that little bit of accuracy gained is lost and the extra weight becomes counter productive. And it is only a little bit of accuracy in field terms not worth bothering about. Otherwise military arms would have had muzzle weights for years just like target weapons.
The bayonet gets entangled on everything and is generally a pain in the backside. It does not aid in rapid engagement of targets, however smooth it swings. Modern western armies have generally moved to lighter shorter barrelled weapons because they are better at engaging targets swiftly. (A trend started with the SMLE.) Nobody regularly sticks bayonets on them.
It continued affixed in service by some nations because they hadn’t caught up with changing times. As early as 1917 traditionalists were, in the British Army, complaining that men were making to much use of LMGs, Hand Grenades and shooting the enemy at close quarters instead of relying on the bayonet….
If somebody is contemplating fixing a bayonet to Sniper Rifles, I hope their not doing it with Tax payers money.
There’s plenty the British forces need, a more useless thing I cant imagine.

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