Why does Arma 3 NOT have a melee weapon of some kind?

[PapaValhalla]

It's simply not realistic to not have a knife to use, there is so many times when i am playing KOTH where i run out of ammo, and am scavenging for guns, and end up finding bad guys looking the other way, i could slit their throat and then grab their guns and gear, and use it on their own men!

But because of there being no knife, instead you have to either scavenge, or hope your team is coordinated enough to give you an EVAC so you can re-arm at base.

A knife is something you get in the military, so why not in a military game? specially one as simulator and realistic as arma, there should be a CQB mechanic of some kind.

[Caelo de Vorago]

Well, from my discussions with actual soldiers, past and present (WW2 to Iraq basically). Only one man has ever more or less "stealth" killed an enemy, and he was actually special forces.

The two men who have killed a man in melee fighting was actually a WW2 soviet who bayoneted a man, and the second was a guy who beat the ♥♥♥♥ out of a VC with his bare hands.

A knife is something you pretty much NEVER use in the military, a pistol is used more often.

When you get into a situation where you COULD use a knife, chances are it's too late and you're already fist-fighting. With ArmA, the system would be as clunky as it is in DayZ, both the mod and standalone. There's no way aside from making a small minigame of time events for ArmA to properly captured hand to hand fighting.

So why implement a useless feature? The minimum I could think of is a rifle-butt, but even then it'd be useless in actual combat, it's only useful in Life servers for cops and whatnot.

So having a working knife in ArmA would make it EVEN LESS realistic because of how clunky and ♥♥♥♥♥♥ the animations and combat would be. It'd really be just whoever's net is either fastest or slowest wins, and you run around in circles, which is NOT how real melee fighting works

References:
- HEMA practictioner (myself and many friends)
- Large military family, as well as many military friends who have server in wars from WW2 to fighting ISIS.

[0022]

Originally posted by Nakashimataika:

Well, from my discussions with actual soldiers, past and present (WW2 to Iraq basically). Only one man has ever more or less "stealth" killed an enemy, and he was actually special forces.

The two men who have killed a man in melee fighting was actually a WW2 soviet who bayoneted a man, and the second was a guy who beat the ♥♥♥♥ out of a VC with his bare hands.

A knife is something you pretty much NEVER use in the military, a pistol is used more often.

When you get into a situation where you COULD use a knife, chances are it's too late and you're already fist-fighting. With ArmA, the system would be as clunky as it is in DayZ, both the mod and standalone. There's no way aside from making a small minigame of time events for ArmA to properly captured hand to hand fighting.

So why implement a useless feature? The minimum I could think of is a rifle-butt, but even then it'd be useless in actual combat, it's only useful in Life servers for cops and whatnot.

So having a working knife in ArmA would make it EVEN LESS realistic because of how clunky and ♥♥♥♥♥♥ the animations and combat would be. It'd really be just whoever's net is either fastest or slowest wins, and you run around in circles, which is NOT how real melee fighting works

References:
- HEMA practictioner (myself and many friends)
- Large military family, as well as many military friends who have server in wars from WW2 to fighting ISIS.

+1

[DropnFbombs]

If you're close enough to the enemy that you need a knife, something went really, really wrong. That or CQB hell, and no, you want to shoot not stab. There's a reason you have a gun that can accurately hit a man from 300m out and a team (if not squad, platoon, company, hell combined arms) next to you. So yeah, that's why it's not there. Honeslty the most likely scenario if you accidentally got into reaching range of the enemy is that you push them as hard as you can and shoot them in the face (well, center mast, or pretty much anywhere) as fast as possible.

Source: was a US Army Infantryman for 4 years. Never saw combat (being shot at and not being able to shoot back because you can't see the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ who's shooting at you while you're on a convoy doesn't count, nor do rockets), but I'm telling you, despite having some cold steel knife I bought at the PX, it would be a cold day in hell before I'd go for my knife. You stay by your guys, you shoot the enemy. We train and fight using teamwork, and in theory that keeps us from having to do anything more than a cold shoulder or butt stroke and your buddy shooting the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ before he can react. Shouldn't even get that far, should be on the ground an you're walking over him because he's already out of the fight.

I'm not saying I'm opposed to melee, just saying this is a combined arms with focus on Infantry kind of deal. So, that's why, because in general given what this game is representing, it doesn't have melee.

[DropnFbombs]

Hey, and just for fun:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RHg0f5Nq4c

Also, the Russians, they do this song up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhPZYSmjc3M

[PapaValhalla]

v.v im just saying, it would be nice to have SOMETHING to kill someone when you run out of ammo, stealth play is a tactic as well, you do flank enemies a lot in TKOH if you have a coordinated team. And also realisticly, there are situations where hand to hand combat would be a REAL situation on a real battefield, like clearing buildings. Sure your knife is not the first thing you think about, but it will be the second thing.

And like i said, i have had soooo many times where i am in the fight so long that i run out of ammo, and when i cant find any bodies to scavenge if we hold the zone and no one is flying in or out because we are all in the zone, it's impossible to go re-arm. So given the scenario you find yourself behind someone, it would be extremely excellent to have a melee function along the lines that battefield has, it also has a counter function. People don't use the knife to have 1 on 1 knife fights, they use the knife when they find themselves behind an enemy.

I think you guys just assumed i wanted knife warefare, and that's not the case, like i said, in battlefield the knife is only used when you find yourself out of ammo, or behind enemies, it's not even used for "Stealth kills" it's a just in case tool. If you knife someone from behind, they can't counter, but if you try to knife them in the front they have an option to counter.

Believe it or not, i find myself behind enemies A LOT, mostly because i play TKOH so much, and i have found myself really craving that knife when i run out of ammo, i even get so desperate as to throw a grenade right under their feet if i have one.

BUT i do see how it would be an issue with Arma, because of how choppy and non fluent this game is, it would probably be pretty clunky and bad, it's a shame they can't do what battlefield did, i love their knife system. Maybe the next arma might have better smoother animations and will allow for a knife system.

[DropnFbombs]

I'm telling you, we never bothered training with melee outside of basic and "combatives" which is more a morale thing than useful (we don't even wear full gear when training, or use any useful strikes. Could be useful in a bar brawl though). Seriously if you are out of ammo, look for bodies and take their gear. Grab the enemies weapon, use it.

Also yes, flank. That's what we train.

Check this ♥♥♥♥ out:

https://www13.shu.edu/offices/rotc/upload/FM-7-8.pdf

7-7 for mechanized, but similar ♥♥♥♥. You want to make contact, supress the enemy, flank them. It gets more involved but yeah flank the ♥♥♥♥ out of them. It works great in this game as it should.

Edit:

Switched "gun" to "weapon" (as it should be) and dont' worry about most of the 7-8 other than the battle drills, that's where the meat is.

[Caelo de Vorago]

Hell, even in history was melee combat the most FEARED thing on the battlefield.

Because think about it, you're a single man in the front row of a few hundred men, in front of you, a mass of a few hundred men with sharp, shiny metal bits on the end of sticks are running straight at you.

Most bayonet charges were to break enemy morale to show the "Hey, I'm willing to stab you to win" type tactics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKRa966S5Dc

[DropnFbombs]

OK, just realized the 7-8 is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sideways, so here's my quick tutorial on a squad attack. Oh, also that 2 by 2 thing you see/hear in the movies, think of it as 4 by 4 when it comes to a squad, it's bounding overwatch or something. Bacially you move forward while your buddies cover you, then you cover them as they bound. I don't think this game does that. In fact that's my biggest complaint with this game; the AI isn't good at doing anything other than finding cover and engagng IF you try to lead it. It will flank you though if you're dumb enough to stand in one spot.

Anyway, here's the drunken gist:

You (squad leader) and your 8 buddies (9 total with you) are walking through the woods in a wedge because for some reason it's just your squad. You have 4 guys (team) in a wedge in front, 4 guys in a wedge in the rear, and you doing what you do (managing the teams). We'll call the front team Alpha and the rear team Bravo.

Alpha starts getting shot at from the front. Immediatly they find cover and call "enemy, front, x meters (x being the distance, we'll say 25 so we don't tire out Bravo team). So you, assuming you were hanging out with Bravo team suddenly go "OH ♥♥♥♥, ENEMY, FRONT, 25m!" Bravo is going to get down where they are and wait for you to come back because you're going up to Alpha to see what the ♥♥♥♥ is going on.

You get up there, or behind that tree since bullets are flying, and shout "Hey Alpha team leader, what's going on". He says "I'm being shot at you ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, what are you going to do about it." Now at this point Alpha has been flinging as many bullets as they can down range at the enemy to suppress them, thus gaining fire superiority. That means those jack asses that started shooting at Alpha have their heads down and are probably looking for a way out. You, squad leader, look to see where the enemy, look left and right, look where you can flank.

You know you can't flank to the left because there's, I don't know, a protected species of squirrel eating popcorn and watching the fight, so you look to flank to the right. You go back to Bravo, find the team leader, and say "Hey, we're going right."

So, you and Bravo team go right while Alpha is laying down fire to keep the enemy down. You work your way up until you are 90 degrees or so with the enemy (in a perfect world). At this point you'd give Alpha the signal to shift fire. They're going to start shooting to the left so that they don't shoot you or Bravo as you all run throught the enemy shooting everyone.

You all run through the enemy shooting everyone. You then tell Alpha to lift fire. At this point Bravo is pulling guard, Alpha is coming up, there's a ready check to see if any one has been shot, ensuring you have ammo, maybe someone dealt the the guys you just killed, sure I missed some steps.

Anyway Arma can't recreate that so it doens't matter. Point is flank and shoot, shoot and flank, don't worry about stabbing anyone.

[Patrick .V]

I guess you guys have no idea what you talk about.

Every soldier has got a knife.
And how many died by melee is hard to tell, cause there was no guy writing down every single meele kill with a f**king video camera.

In war, politics dont matter, survival does.
If the enemy is 1m infron of you, dont use a gun.
CCF if the enemy is within 2m.

Im just saying that the guy who decides to use a knife in a 1 v 1 situation will win over a guy that uses a pistol or rifle.
How ?

Well if Knife is 2 meters away he could charge and stab faster than the guy with rifle aiming his gun OR knife throw.

[Heavy Metal Nuts]

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about never using knife ...I just watched 13 hours the movie and looked into the true story there case guy going into house full of hostiles going room to room shooting and 3 times he had to use the knife because he was jumped or too cramped ....

There are many stories of SAS sneaking and stabbing enemy while they sleep ..
If ever listen to SAS stories ..They even have ways to kill people in there sleep or close that wont disscuss how because its brutal even the SAS guys hate to talk about how some have had to kill close because the means of how they did it is savage on verge mass murder style
...

Many of them sas talk about hand to hand combat is far more common then soliders would think because that how close the SAS like to get to there targets

[PapaValhalla]

AHAH SEE! Lynx and Hermit understand :D every soldier has a knife, wether they are forced to use it is up to them, and up to the situation they get put into, crowded CQB buildings are just hand to hand waiting to happen! Ide want a knife on me regardless of if i was going to use it, because if i needed it and didn't have it id'e be ♥♥♥♥♥♥.

Ide rather have a knife and not need it, than need a knife, and not have it. (same applies to guns huehue)

So besides technical reasons of the game not really being able to handle a knife system, there is no other excuse, honestly they should figure it out, it would be amazing. again the point is not Knife Warfare, the point is to have a knife when you run out of ammo, at least you have SOMETHING till you can either find ammo, or a weapon, or get a evac. Wether you use it is up to you, i find myself in lots of spots where the enemy team parachutes ALL AROUND ME and i need to silently take out a couple of them, or even knife one because i need their gear and ammo >:D

Nothing greater than using the enemies weapon on their own team MWUAHAHAHA

[L. Kilo]

So basically what you are looking for is a suppressed sidearm/backup weapon.

[GBee]

Originally posted by Lynx(x_x):

I guess you guys have no idea what you talk about.

Every soldier has got a knife.

And yet you have real, professional soldiers in this thread telling you that it's completely unrealistic that you'd ever use a knife in combat?

Knives are generally issued to soldiers for purposes other than killing, not all armies even bother to give their troops knives and if they do, they wouldn't be suitable for combat but for cutting rope, food, wire etc. The British army prefers to equip their combat troops with a sidearm.

[Sgt Smash]

Special ops soldiers are still being trained in knife combat all around the world!

[Sgt Smash]

ive seen documentaries on tv about the sas where they have had to got in to compounds/houses to get vip's without trying to shoot a single round to not risk enemy killing the vip's! Your on about regular soldiers!

BTW ive seen that video before and its not what im on about!