In the movies, Green Beret/SEAL/SAS/Spetsnaz/MI-6 assassin Steelhard McBadass encounters an enemy sentry. With an audible, SHING! McBadass pulls his knife, draws back his calloused hand, then lets fly. The blade whirs through the air, then THUNKS! deeply into the sentry’s chest.

Soundlessly, the witless minion tumbles over the railing in front of him, and falls fifty feet from his guard post, landing in a crumpled heap at McBadass’ feet. The grizzled assassin looks down at the lifeless corpse and quips, “I guess he got the point.”

——

In real life, not so much. While very dangerous to play with, in a combat situation, throwing knives are little more than a nuisance. They’re much less lethal than a firearm, and they have a much shorter range. When compared to a firearm, the amount of training to use them effectively is exponentially longer. Not only can they be defeated by body armor, but they even have trouble with heavy clothing (Look up parkas, gambesons and padded jacks.) Also, why would you want to throw your weapon away?

Here’s what’s most likely to happen. You throw your knife at a sentry. It either wounds him — non-lethally — or it bounces off. In either case, he curses, then yells for help. Seconds later, you die in a hail of automatic weapons fire. The End. Roll credits.

Some of you might be thinking, “But… but… a throwing knife is silent! I’ll take out the sentry like a ninja, and no one’ll be the wiser.”

Well, someone has already come up with an answer to that:

This is the De Lisle carbine. Designed and produced by the very sneaky, British bastard William Godfray de Lisle during the Second World War. It was a suppressed, bolt action that fired subsonic ammunition. It gave off no visible muzzle flash and produced only 85.5 dB of noise when fired, making it inaudible at a distance of 50 yards (46 m).