Your favorite military issued knife

[BillyBang]

I luckily have zero real world knife fighting experience, so at the risk of speculating and being wrong, it seems to me that optimizing the designs for what amounts to dueling purposes you guys are rightly pointing out can have little to no real world implications.

Who you calling a sissy?     j/k 

I agree. What I know/read about fighting/combat and what I'll ever have to use is
(hopefully) two completely different things. And that can be said for 95% of the population (maybe higher?).

My understanding is that fullers offer better durability for a given weight than a thinner blade with the same overall amount of steel. With swords this would have been all kinds of important, especially before spring steel became readily available, and thus they were very popular in ancient times. With knives, I think it becomes a fairly questionably needed feature unless you are really going crazy trying to reduce weight, optimize strength and perhaps balance edge retention with flexibility when picking out your steel and heat treating process.

That comment was made in response to the notch cut into my Kukri not the fuller on the Ka-bar.
 

Correct, referring to the "hoof print" near the handle.

[Venom00]

Correct, referring to the "hoof print" near the handle.

Then I do not understand you comment as that is not a fuller.

[BillyBang]

I was just agreeing with your comment, that we were talking about the hoof print, not the fuller.

[xtriggerman]

 Of the many different blade flavors out there, one stands out in my experiences. First let me say back in 79 when I went to a full time gunsmith school, it was imperative we students learned how to sharpen ower wood chisels so we could inlet actions and such with the utmost precision. So what constitutes a razor...RAZOR sharp edge has always been a blade design of interest.
  Now, that said, in the 80's at some point my brother bought an original Hitler youth knife for 25 bucks with part of the bakelite handle missing. So he gave it to me to make a new pair of wood grips. As I reconditioned the knife, I was really impressed by the super straight cut taper of the Solingen blade. The taper starts at the top edge and is flat to the edge of a somewhat wide blade profile. These thin feather edge profiles are not much on heavy durability as you would find on modern designs but let me tell you if you want sharp, THIS is one issue knife that is at the top of the pack as far as I know. This knife will virtually match an old fashion straight edge shaver. If you go to about 3:00 on this vid, you will see the blade profile I'm talking about. I'v never seen any mil spec knife like it. Granted, it was issued to youth & not front line troops but I bet there were a crap load of troops careering this knife into conflict.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWN6d5w4S3A

[Michigander]

I haven't handled a Hitler youth knife in years, and even then I'm fairly certain it was a fake, but going by that video it looks like the spines were more than thick enough to account for good durability, at least so long as they were made out of good springy and properly tempered steel, though I haven't been able to figure out what the steel was by googling it, and perhaps there was a ton of variation in blade steels among the different makers? It's a curious subject, how many of them got the edges chipped in field use, kind of like the F/S knives known for breaking the tips when GI's went to open canned rations. One thing is quite certain, that design must have served them very well for its intended role as a scouting sort of knife.

Nice!
Now if only I had a larger forge. 

I just ordered enough karowool to build a sword forge. This could get interesting. 

[docbuckhead]

Ontario  Mk 3 Mod 0

Why? 

I have one, left to me by a friend, that used it, in harm's way during the late 1960's.