War Tomahawk.

This is coolbert:

Door Entry Tool but so much more.

From the article at Strategy Page that weapon peculiar and perhaps even unique [?] to the American military the war tomahawk makes a comeback!

"Tomahawks And Sharpened Shovel"

"The SOCOM [Special Operations Command] Tomahawks are mainly Door Entry Tools, but also tomahawks for the 21st century. Using such tools as weapons is nothing new. During the Korean War (1950-53), for example, American troops experienced two years of trench warfare. It was quickly found that a bayonet on the end of a rifle did not work well in hand-to-hand trench fighting. But some troops found that construction tools like axes and entrenching tools (a folding shovel all troops had) worked better. The entrenching tool worked best if you sharpened the edges of the shovel. Some troops got a second entrenching tool that was sharpened and kept handy for trench fighting rather than digging."

From that era of the Great War [WW1] and the legacy of the trench raid those weapons as found to be effective very low tech. As a matter of fact the less technology the better. Cave man warfare indeed at the most primitive level.

Weapons as most useful during a trench raid to include:

* Trench club.
* Trench knife.
* Trench shotgun. [also an American innovation]

That conventional weaponry in addition during a trench raid to include the much favored English Webley .455 revolver and lots of hand grenades.

With regard to the folding shovel I do not believe troops in Korea had such an item in their inventory. The current folding shovel is an innovation ONLY from the time of the end of the Vietnam War onward and not sooner? That shovel as issued to American soldiers in that time prior to and including the Vietnam War a clone of that used by Germans during World War Two.

THE WAR TOMAHAWK HAVING A NATIONAL SERIAL NUMBER [NSN] AND A LEGAL WEAPON OF WAR AS ISSUED TO THE TROOPS IF REQUISITIONED BY THE COMBAT COMMANDER. THE USE OF THE WAR TOMAHAWK DURING THE VIETNAM WAR A CONTROVERSIAL MATTER AND EVEN A SUBJECT OF DISCUSSION AT THE CONGRESSIONAL WINTER SOLDIERS HEARINGS!!

coolbert.