Shaitan

An oddity. IMO, interesting update on the French M1916 WWI "special artillery" (tank crews) dagger, by way of modern cutlery (the guard being reminiscent of modern "Ek" daggers, for example). Substantially sturdier and beefier than the wartime originals with their rat tail tang and thin sheet metal guards, seems to be very well-made, sheath included; overall, impressive looking, and having a great "feel", though the actual utility/usability of such a dagger is limited by its very nature. Somewhat too bad one cannot apparently dissambly it, as with the originals or the 4-parts F-S daggers, though. I wonder how exactly the tang is looking, hoping for a tapered one stronger than the M1916 made when materials and resources went toward more pressing matters. Still, apart from that minor quibble, an impressive variation on a Great War classic design (again IMO). One might wonder how it went all the way to the East (Mr. Blade also has a dagger very much along these lines), but having seen pictures of similar "issue" knives and trainers, possibly German-captured stocks in early WWII making their way into the Eastern Front furnace, and from there, in turn captured and re-issued by the Red army, to have a tertiary career getting lost in some niche part of the Soviet post-WWII inventory ? Small batches of such WWI daggers were also sent to Poland and Finland in the 20's and late 30's along military procurement, aid & sales IIRC. Anyway, nice, if very indirect, addition to its WWI distant ancestors line-up.