Tactical bushcraft...What does that mean

[jojo]

I was reading the thread on the Spyderco bushcraft knife regarding the problem with the stabilised burr handle, and had a look at the blurb on Proadventure.

Made me think: what does the addition of the word tactical add to the quality, practicality, usefulness of what appears to me a fairly nice looking (expensive) but pretty much run of the mill woodlore clone (ish)

It may be the grumpy/cynical ol' man in me , but I really don't get it, apart from being advertising hype, using language/indirect name dropping to try and increase desirability and put the price up in the process. It must obviously work for these tactics being used.

If I put a bit of olive paracord lanyard on my knives, and call them tactical, will I sell more of them at a higher price???

Please enlighten me...

 

[Tony]

There's not much to be enlightened on it, spyderco thought it was a good thing to say for some reason. In the US it probably means a lot more than here and is easier to associate with knives, here I think we tend to shy away from that more. In regards to the Spyderco bushcraft knife it's a question for spyderco, they're the only ones that know why it was written like that...

 

[FGYT]

think its a marketing slip up associated with Chris Claycombe the main designer i think he did a tactical design a while back and it was mentioned on BB etc seems Spydie blurb writers found it and hes now the 'Tactical Bushcrafter'

ATB

Duncan

 

[korvin karbon]

because it is what wood elf ninja's use

 

[Peter_t]

i too think its mostly an american thing. for example you have a handgun then you smother it with gadgets like lasers, red dot sights and extended magazines and then its a 'tactical' handgun.

all the tactical knives iv seen have been of very poor design. typically they are a quarter inch thick so they won't break, mat black so they don't shine while you sneak up and stick someone and have a tanto style point for who knows reason

i think its for people who like to think they are in the SAS or delta force

im most cases if its labelled as 'tactical' its safe to say its just style over function cr*p



pete

 

[Siberianfury]

i think its just a marketing Gimmik, no such thing in real life.
mabye its a phrase ment to broaden the market of the Spyderco BC knife...

 

[Mesquite]

I asked the same question and here's Chris Claycombes slant on what a tactical bushcrafter is

Tactical bushcrafter
A) A title created by some US marketting bloke , trying to make something sound cooler, by picking up and misconstruing fragments of an old internet thread which, with tongue in cheek, described a black utility type knife as a "tactical" bushcraft knife. The knife being "tactical" not the bushcraft.

Or

B) Britain is a small, densly populated country with little wilderness. In order to practice bushcraft without alerting other people, the practitioner must take "Leave No Trace" to another level. Think "Ninja-Bushcraft"...cunning, silent, invisible, moving like a shadow, leaving nothing but a dusting of wood shavings in their wake. The only sound that betrays their presense is the distant hiss of a Laplander saw or the swiftly muffled thud of a Gransfors. Tactical bushcraft at its best!

 

[Peter_t]

haha very true Mesquite but imo the word tactical is connected to violence rather than just keeping a low profile

pete

 

[Mesquite]

..... but imo the word tactical is connected to violence rather than just keeping a low profile

I'd have to disagree with you on that connection Pete.

To me when I hear the word tactical my immediate connection is to someone gaining a strong postion or or doing clever manuervering to gain the upper hand. It can be applied to games chess and the like where it has a strategic meaning, not violent at all.

 

[jojo]

its mostly an american thing

I am not sure we can pin that to our American friends' Bushcraft door. I do visit a couple of their Bushcraft forums, and they don't seem to be that taken by the tactical thing. Maybe be different in the heavier survival forums, I don't know.

the word tactical is connected to violence

I am not convinced either. I think the word is used more to convey some sense of the perceived quality, the strength and longevity perhaps, associated with military hardware rather the implying violence (sort of, if it's military, it's got to be good)

Personally, I wouldn't buy something solely on the tactical image and it's implications. I wondered though if people did.

I meant this thread to stay nice and civilised though, not to criticize anybody's views, rather to just discuss things in a friendly way.

Soooo, would you be more likely to buy one of my knives if I put a nice paracord lanyard on it, make a nice black square sheath for it and call it tactical?okenest:

 

[FGYT]

nother point of view could be that spyderco knives as a generalisation could be seen as more the Tactical type

the bushcrafter oviously isnt so maybe the use of the word tactical was to help ease it into the line up for spydie fans etc
it was also used to describe Chris the designer not the knife

ATB

Duncan

 

[Melonfish]

To me when I hear the word tactical my immediate connection is to someone gaining a strong postion or or doing clever manuervering to gain the upper hand. It can be applied to games chess and the like where it has a strategic meaning, not violent at all.

Well said that man. In my youth having the tactical advantage was all the rage in tabletop gaming, it was about thinking not violence. Of course in the airsoft world it has its applications, plans, manouvering etc.

As for Adding "Tactical" onto something, TBH it is a way of making it "Cool" no other reason
it happens alot in the airsoft world, everything is suddenly "tactical" or "Tacticool" as they call it.
unfortunatly the word bushcraft appears to be going the same way, if you want to sell something online thats remotely outdoorsy it gets the word bushcraft thrown onto it and its instantly kewler then it was 5 mins ago.

 

[C_Claycomb]

There really isn't anything worth discussing on this.

It was a screw up by whoever writes blurb for Spyderco. As Mesquite quoted...

"...misconstruing fragments of an old internet thread which, with tongue in cheek, described a black utility type knife as a "tactical" bushcraft knife. The knife being "tactical" not the bushcraft."

At no time during the design process, nor in correspondence with Spyderco, was the knife that they produced ever refered to as tactical, and no one ever suggested that there was anything "tactical" about bushcraft either. I don't even think that it was an attempt to make it sound cooler, or more appealling. I think that it was just someone being told they had to come up with some words about a subject they didn't know much about and them just going off to search the Net for inspiration

The whole blurb for the knife was created without reference to, or contact with, anyone from the BCUK. Clearly, had anyone asked us, or me in particular, we could have put them straight on quite a few points. Not least of which being getting the spelling for my name right

 

[Mesquite]

Actually people have the wrong idea about the knife being referred to as tactical....it's actually Chris who was being described by Spyderco as a tactical bushcrafter

Spyderco's version of a Bushcraft knife is a result of a three-fold collaboration between Tactical Bushcrafter Chris Claycombe, a Bushcraft website called BushcraftUK.com and Spyderco ...

So Chris, in answer to my original question as to what was a tactical bushcrafter, gave us the best description of what it is

B) Britain is a small, densly populated country with little wilderness. In order to practice bushcraft without alerting other people, the practitioner must take "Leave No Trace" to another level. Think "Ninja-Bushcraft"...cunning, silent, invisible, moving like a shadow, leaving nothing but a dusting of wood shavings in their wake. The only sound that betrays their presense is the distant hiss of a Laplander saw or the swiftly muffled thud of a Gransfors. Tactical bushcraft at its best!

End of the day all credit to Chris and BcUK for the development of the knife, it's just a shame it had the problems with the handle.

 

[Siberianfury]

to me the word "tactical" refers to military and combat equipment, as jojo said the knife looks more like a woodlore than a tactical knife.
i think its a marketing ploy, tactical kit seems to be fairly popular in the states.

 

[jojo]

Oh blimey! I obviously had my non-PC, non-sensitive jack boots on this morning..

Mind you, you could argue, if you have Tactical Bushcrafters, you also have to have tactical bushcraft..okenest:

Obviously not the best example to use. Never mind. Forget about it gentlemen.. I was not trying to start a war..
Won't mention it again!

 

[helixpteron]

When I first saw this description , and the discussion on BF, I was curious as to what on earth they were referring to with the use of that term.

I didn't think it fair to ask on here as it may have come across as disrespectful, besides, its between C.C. and Spyderco.

 

[C_Claycomb]

No worries. Its just kind of embarassing, it made me want to cringe the first time I read it... . I reckon this is only about the third time someone has actually asked.

Maybe I need a version of that quote as my sig line?

 

[oetzi]

"Tactical" IMO means taking a crowbar, giving it an edge, painting it dark grey and selling it for a premium.
But then I am a grumpy old fart
If this term really applies to this particular knife, I dont know. probably just some marketing blurb.

 

[Martyn]

It's a nonesense term.

Traditionally it was a term borrowed from mainly US the law enforcement and military arena, to infer some kind of special operations, SWAT, SEAL, SAS type of design, that presumably made it better for their needs. It has replaced "combat" as the ubiquitous term for fighting knives, being a little more PC and a little less aggressive. What does it mean? Who knows, it's just a buzz word that gets thrown around all over the place, designed primarily to appeal to the machismo of young males. The word "tactical" just gets slapped onto anything when the manufacturers want to tickle the gonads of a particular market. The US market is a little different to ours and this kind of marketing blurb appeals to them more than us. As Chris says, there is really nothing to talk about, it was included as part of some badly researched blurb to promote the knife to people that generally seem to like those kinds of words. In the UK the term is often viewed as silly, comical and a little immature, a cultural difference that obviously slipped passed Spyderco at the time of writing. I'm sure if the copy writers realised that "tactical bushcrafter" wouldn't get more than a snigger in the UK, they would have used some other term. But if you consider that many in the US dont really get bushcraft and connect more readily with E&E and paramilitary survivalism etc, then perhaps you can see where it comes from. There are probably some who think the best "bushcraft" knife should be black powder coated S30v tanto, with a kraton handle and ballistic sheath.

Ignore it, it's meaningless advertising blurb from a different culture. I'm sure you can probably buy tactical toothpaste if you really look for it.