I don't know if it's the right place to ask...

I'll elucidate. It's far from common especially not in an open battlefield. So don't blow my post out of proportion but hand to hand training was revolutionized by the US when it was deemed invaluable in Vietnam and is for nonlethal crowd and prisoner control or lethal takedowns in a crowd situation where live fire would be a disaster.

As for swords and spears. Well the spear lives on in the bayonet and Kukri's and machete's are still on the battlefield and allegedly used in. action.

Most countries like Germany have no hand to hand whatsoever and that's the growing trend but it's still going strong elsewhere.

The US army has completely eliminated the bayonet from their training.

That said, they proceeded to focus more on hand ot hand and the independent use of the knife/rifle as they've found that soldiers who get jumped in a house WILL use their knife, but rarely if ever have the time or desire to mount the bayonet.

There was some documented use of the sword in China during the 1930's and 1940's during Japan's invasion. Even the people who were enthusiasts about close combat fighting said it was both a stupid idea and a terrible experience when you can avoid it altogether.

There is no use, no place, no reason to bring back dedicated melee combat. Bayonet training can be use to instill a sense of agression, but that's about it.
If soldiers want to practice martial arts on the side, good for them of course.

The only way it would happen in a modern setting would be by agreement of both warring parties. In pistol dueling codes it was often considered unsporting to use rifled pistols, it is not beyond reason that, in an effort to avoid apocalyptic levels of destruction, future societies would treat war as some kind of mass duel in a similar manner. With prescriptions on exactly where they will fight and what materials and weapons are allowed. We already do this to some extent with the Geneva Conventions.

In germany some maniac with a chainsaw ran around. German police combated him with chainmail armor

In Dune, melee weapons are used to kill people with energy shields because bullets travel to fast to pierce it or something.

>We already do this to some extent with the Geneva Conventions.
It's the Hague convention, Geneva is about treatment of prisoners and non-combatants.

iirc, it was anti-kinetic shields, meaning that they could stop anything that went fast enough, so that knives and swords, going somehow slow could pierce them. Stargate did something like that with the goa'uld shields that could be penetrated by arrows, but not by bullets or energy blasts from the staff weapons.

>what could possibly bring back to life the melee combat in modern warfare?
Proliferation of of personal shields. You can't use lasguns around them because if beam touches it creates nuclear explosion.

Why the fuck didnt they just shoot him?

The US marines still train with bayonets as do the infantry in the British Army and Royal Marines and iirc the French.

German police doesn't kill when they don't need to.
I think they caught him alive.

Large scale urban warfare with poor logistics.

People still use knives and physical fighting if they have to though, its just rare because usually you'd never have to do that, soldiers learn judo and bayonet drill and hand to hand combat as standard

A practical application of the Holtzman effect could create a shield that blocks all physical projectiles and objects above a given velocity.

Why wouldn't you just use a combat shotgun for room clearing?

>going somehow slow could pierce them
Because they were set to allow for low velocity to allow for air to pass through them, otherwise you'd suffocate without life support.

They do but sometimes lethal force is unacceptable or you get attacked unexpectedly.

Dude sand worms LMAO

>ywn have Dune tech

why live

Look at riots, they are the closest you could ever get to a modern version of melee combat. With the batons and riot shields vs steel pipe.

Reactive armor: The harder you hit it, the more kinetic energy that gets dispersed, but hitting it softly enough could pierce through the material without triggering the reactive element.

Warfare goes back to being a giant shoving match

People would just make bigger guns.
Reactive armor wont stop artillerry from fucking you up.

Literally Dune.

>Reactive armor wont stop artillerry from fucking you up.
Not always an option, especially in a crowded city where you're trying to minimalize casualties

I find it unlikely that there would be armor that's so advanced yet so shittily designed.

Well if we can imagine body armor strong enough to stop anything short of a 20mm autocannon, we can imagine vehicles which are even more heavily armored, and mechanized warfare that is fast, deadly, and up close and personal.

Of course it's exceedingly unlikely that this kind of set up will happen any time in the near future, I agree that it's a fairly huge stretch. It's just fun to think about

The answer to crowded cities is to bomb harder, then segregate and put everyone into camps, until you have sorted out who is the enemy.

Because either you bomb the civilians because the enemy is hiding among them, or you bomb them because the city is empthy.

Artillery duels are far from uncommon in warfare, it's just that heavy artillery pieces in modern warfare are vulnerable to airstrikes and mechanized infantry, and can't function on their own without infantry/air support. And whatever super advanced armor you can make into a suit of mobile infantry armor, you can strap a lot more of it to a tank or helicopter or shit, even a disposable unmanned drone.

They work great in a combined arms setting, but they're just that, combined arms

...

Should conflicts occur further in cities, melee may increase in commonality, albiet being very short and quick.