Kabars in a novel

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GEM

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So I'm reading a novel. The hero's father is charged with murder. The father was a Marine. He was known to have a VietNam era Kabar. The victim was killed and it was said to be a Kabar that did it because of the wound being from a serrated edge. Oh, that's interesting. Authors - ??
 
Ka-bar was one of many makers of the field knife now known by that name. As noted, blade serration was not a feature of that pattern. I am pretty sure it would not be possible to distinguish between a GI field knife, a Buck 119 or one of hundreds of knock-offs of either, and there are so many of them around it would have little probative value.
 
Oh, that's interesting. Authors - ??
I assume this an ironic tongue in cheek question about the remarkable ignorance of authors that can't be bothered to search "Vietnam era Kabar"?

KNIFE, COMBAT, MARK 2 military specification MIL-K-20227 is the specification for the post WWII to 1974 USN MK 2. No serrations were in the spec. Serrated "KaBars" showed up in commercial versions in the late 1990s or early 2000s.

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I assume this an ironic tongue in cheek question about the remarkable ignorance of authors that can't be bothered to search "Vietnam era Kabar"?

KNIFE, COMBAT, MARK 2 military specification MIL-K-20227 is the specification for the post WWII to 1974 USN MK 2. No serrations were in the spec. Serrated "KaBars" showed up in commercial versions in the late 1990s or early 2000s.

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Thanks. The author was loading his hero’s Glock with dum dum bullets! Lol
 
If there were a stab wound to a meaty bit like the thigh it my be possible to get a rough Idea of blade size and shape. Perhaps ID a “type” of knife and rule out others.

When at SF&F Cons and at writers seminars I have tried to impress on writers and would be writers that if they screw up up on easy to find weapons info they risk being seen as dolts not worth reading. So get with someone that can tell you re your manuscript “your baby stinks and is ugly, too” before someone pays money for your book …. once…. then encourages others not to waste money one your day dreams.

sometimes you just can not help it though.

A friend could not go to Scotland and Walk the Ground for a book and so she discribed a road going up the west side of a river just befor a bridge between a fair sized town and an obscure village. We checked this on two printed maps that were all we could find (in a college town with a major university) of a scale that showed the road….. and a reader wrote from Scotland enraged she put the road on the wrongside of the river that he drives over every day!

Mind you the woman that trusted the maps was often kidded about being an Expert in Victorian Grout for the amount of research she did…. but a fan (from an obscure village in Scotland) caught her in an error!

-kBob
 
it my be possible to get a rough Idea of blade size and shape
We did tests a few decades ago at the Body Farm and found it was easy enough to determine minimun sizes, but estimating actual size was pretty unreliable. Details on shape generably turned out to be unreliable as well due to the variable elastic nature of tissue. Wide vs narrow, sure. Drop vs Clip, nope. Serrated vs unserrated, :scrutiny:
 
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Novel: An invented prose narrative of significant length and complexity that deals imaginatively with human experience.

Sounds like he or she nailed it.
 
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