Entrenching tool

Julius Caesar, as well as other ancient writers, documented the use of spades and other digging implements as important tools of war.

Being too long and heavy to be transported by individual soldiers, entrenching shovels and spades were normally carried in the supply carts (logistics train) of a military column; only pioneer or engineer troops typically carried spades or shovels as part of their individual equipment.

"[6] In 1870, the U.S. Army introduced the trowel bayonet, intended for individual soldiers as both a weapon and an entrenching tool.

[7][8][6] This was followed by the development of separate trowel and spade tools, small one-hand implements that could be carried as part of a soldier's individual equipment.

The next year it was adopted by the much bigger Austrian Army, and Linnemann founded a factory in Vienna to produce his spade.

[13] (In Nancy Mitford's 1945 novel, The Pursuit of Love, there hangs over the chimney-piece an entrenching tool "with which, in 1915, Uncle Matthew had whacked to death eight Germans one by one as they crawled out of a dug-out.

Like all individual entrenching tools, they were designed to be easily carried as part of an infantry soldier's standard pack equipment.

During the Second World War, entrenchment tools were used in close quarters combat between German and Soviet forces, notably in the brutal hand-to-hand fighting during the Battle of Stalingrad.

The Glock Feldspaten (field spade) features a hardened metal spade blade that can be locked in 3 positions for digging, shoveling, and chopping, and a telescopic handle made out of fiberglass-reinforced nylon containing a 175 mm (6.9 in) long hardened metal sawblade.