Training Rifle and Protective Equipment

While being taught the bayonet, soldiers often fenced with each other to apply their newly learned skills with the weapon. Soldiers who engaged in this practice donned several pieces of equipment designed to keep them as safe as possible. A thick padded canvas jerkin was worn over a regular uniform to help soften the blows of a blunted training bayonet. A series of buckles were used to secure to jerkin at the collar, midsection, and crotch. The gauntlets worn were composed of canvas gloves, lined with cotton batting, and hard fiber board or leather cuffs that extended to the elbow to further protect the trainee. The mask is composed of a steel mesh cage surrounding the head and a thick canvas bib. Covering all but the back of a wearer’s head, a soldier’s entire neck, head, and both collar bones are covered by the mask. It is affixed to a soldier’s head by a leather strap that is wrapped around the back of the mask and buckled onto the right side. The same outfit was also used for sabre fencing between officers and some enlisted men.

So that a soldier could get a sense of the weight and feel of a actual rifle, training rifles were often converted from older, decommissioned weapons. The Springfield M1884 Trap-door Carbine was one such conversion and, when made into a training rifle, closely approximated the weight and feel of the Springfield M1903 rifle most Doughboy’s would find themselves using on the battlefield. A leather training bayonet could be affixed to the end of the training rifle in the same way as an actual bayonet.

A wooden facsimile of a bayoneted rifle, capped with a leather pad to help reduce the force of impact, at times also stood in for the actual weapon during training and fencing. The facsimile weighs nearly the same as an actual rifle with a bayonet attached and helped the soldier get used to carrying and drilling with such a weapon.

From the Collections of the
First Division Museum at Cantigny