KA-BAR: The Next Generation Of The Ultimate Fighting Knife

Rating:
Summary: A fair amount of padding; it could have been better
Review: Frankly, I read this fairly quickly; it isn't difficult reading. It also reads quickly if you skim over the fairly large chunks of biography, the promotion of past publications, the guys in special ops that Mr. Walker knows and the whose who in knife and sheath making. (I have to wonder about how the taxpayer's money is spent when seemingly at government expense Mr. Walker, while TDY as a reservist to Panama, carries out some of his knife testing in Limon Bay to encounter Gruber fish "with only spear guns." But, hey, if Uncle Sam can spend gazillions of bucks on roads that go to nowhere...)
Anyhow, lots of big pics of Ka-Bars courtesy of Ka-Bar. It would have been nice having fewer of those (they get a tad repetitive) and more of the testing of the Ka-Bar, which is what the book is supposed to be about. Lots of letters from Ka-Bar and the Ka-Bar project consultant which, I guess, is ok but adds up to a certain amount of additional padding. The appendix is the "original brochure" which is nice (more padding). I suppose that the original brochure didn't feature complete detail drawings but that would have been nice. Included ad drawings with numbered parts cry out for more detail, cross sections, miscellaneous dimensions.
But I'm being overly picky. The bottom line is that the Next Generation Ka-Bar is a knife with a lot of thought given to the materials and design and I'm sure it's every bit as good and probably better than the original. Mr. Walker's book; well, it costs more from Paladin. Glad I got it through Amazon...

Rating:
Summary: A fair amount of padding; it could have been better
Review: Frankly, I read this fairly quickly; it isn't difficult reading. It also reads quickly if you skim over the fairly large chunks of biography, the promotion of past publications, the guys in special ops that Mr. Walker knows and the whose who in knife and sheath making. (I have to wonder about how the taxpayer's money is spent when seemingly at government expense Mr. Walker, while TDY as a reservist to Panama, carries out some of his knife testing in Limon Bay to encounter Gruber fish "with only spear guns." But, hey, if Uncle Sam can spend gazillions of bucks on roads that go to nowhere...)
Anyhow, lots of big pics of Ka-Bars courtesy of Ka-Bar. It would have been nice having fewer of those (they get a tad repetitive) and more of the testing of the Ka-Bar, which is what the book is supposed to be about. Lots of letters from Ka-Bar and the Ka-Bar project consultant which, I guess, is ok but adds up to a certain amount of additional padding. The appendix is the "original brochure" which is nice (more padding). I suppose that the original brochure didn't feature complete detail drawings but that would have been nice. Included ad drawings with numbered parts cry out for more detail, cross sections, miscellaneous dimensions.
But I'm being overly picky. The bottom line is that the Next Generation Ka-Bar is a knife with a lot of thought given to the materials and design and I'm sure it's every bit as good and probably better than the original. Mr. Walker's book; well, it costs more from Paladin. Glad I got it through Amazon...

Rating:
Summary: The definitive treatise on the world's best combat knife
Review: The KA-BAR Fighting/Utility Knife is the most widely recognized and popular combat knife to ever be produced in the United States. Introduced on November 24, 1942, the KA-BAR has performed with an unsurpassed lethal effectiveness on the battlefields of Europe, the South Pacific, Korea, Southeast Asia, Central America, and the Middle East. In 1995, the KA-BAR company decided to update this venerable combat weapon. KA-BAR: The Next Generation Of The Ultimate Fighting Knife is the detailed story of that project and provides the military buff with an insider view of the historic redesign process as it chronicles the exacting design criteria, cutting-edge materials, extensive factory tests, and exhaustive real-life field tests. KA-BAR is the definitive treatise on the world's most effective combat knife and its transformation to meet and excel in the battlefield conditions of the 21st century.