The recent Please help me understand crossbow forms topic lead me to browse the projectile weapons album, when I came across this interesting crossbow. It has what looks like a small spike protruding from the prod. I've never seen or heard of anything like this. Is this a bayonet for the crossbow? Would this have been effective? Has anyone know anything about this?

It may very well function as a simple stake to hold the crossbow in the ground while it is being reloaded. I can very easily see how one could push the it into the ground and hold it steady in place with the foot stirrup while reloading the crossbow. It would make sense if one were using a complex winding or reloading mechanism for a heavy draw weight crossbow. Just my 0.02 cents worth of opinion.

Bryce

Actually looking at it again I would have to say that my idea has more merit since there it is a very long crossbow, there isn't any foot stirup for it, and it appears to have a very long draw length that would require it to be anchored properly to draw.

I'll buy into the stabilizer argument. I hadn't noticed the lack of a stirrup before, and the spike does look a little flimsy if you're going to be facing down an armoured charge. Definitely seems more plausible than the bayonet, which I was having a hard type wrapping my head around anyway. Thanks for the responses, guys.

Not sure what the spike is for but that is a light weight crossbow for hunting birds.

Saw one in a Chicago museum once...never could ID...Might be out of period, but bayonets were actually a persistant tradition of footsoldiers with pikes, the advent of gunpowder doing little to slow it-WW2 English Webley pistols have been known to have bugger pickers attached in some cases.

Sorry for the thread necronomancy, but the discussion just reminds me of a particularly ridiculous fantasy interpretation from a D&D sourcebook:

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