At the high end of Australian defence capabilities are jet fighters, armoured vehicles, warships and submarines. At the other end are soldiers’ personal weapons including knives.
Australian soldiers are now carrying a new fighting knife, the F7 H2HFW Nomad Mk4, a double-edged dagger produced by Brisbane company Zu Bladeworx, founded by Matt Lucarnus in 2016.
This is a black Ceracoated knife with a 100mm blade machined from a solid billet of A2 steel and featuring a non-slip handle and retention ring.
Lucarnus isn’t an ex-serviceman, though both grandfathers served in World War 2. After university, he worked as a banker and stockbroker, with an interest in bladeware.
“I was always interested in knives,” he told ADM.
“I looked into ways to manufacture them in Australia because it wasn’t really done here any more. It started out as a hobby business just for mates in 2012.
“In 2014 I moved to Malta - my wife is Maltese - and worked over there for a while in financial markets.”
Returning to Australia, they settled in Brisbane and decided to make his hobby a full-time business. In 2016, he received an order for combat knives from soldiers in the 1st Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment (1RAR).
That was for 150 “live” blades and 600 training knives. At the same time, he also produced a small number of blades for the School of Infantry.
“We continued to make retail product after that. Then in 2018 we did Land Forces and met up with CASG and a few others who were starting to talk about bringing in a new combat knife to replace the bayonets.”
Australian soldiers have a long association with bayonets, manufactured in Lithgow to attach initially to SMLE rifles in two world wars and subsequently to SLR rifles in Vietnam and beyond.
For the Army’s new Steyr rifles, Australia purchased some 30,000 M7 and M9 bayonets from the US. These were Australian soldiers’ defacto combat knife.
Following the drawdown from Afghanistan, the ADF sought to refresh its combat weapons through project Land 159.
Tranche 1 of that project, now Land 300, selected a number of new weapons including a new handgun, new shotgun and a new combat knife. All have been rolled out across the ADF over the last couple of years.
One issue was a fresh emphasis on training soldiers for hand-to-hand combat. That was pioneered by former Commando Paul Cale who created the army combatant program.
“We had already been making knives for Paul,” he said.
“We went through the (Land 159) bidding process which took a long time. We were successful. In 2022 we started manufacturing. We made 6500 live blades and just under 10,000 training blades and 17,000 cases to suit.”
These are made 100 per cent in Brisbane by Zu Bladeworx and its three production partners.
There were a number of other knife contenders, though in line with defence tender practices, the losers were never revealed, other than that none were Australian.
Though there are many custom blade makers in Australia, Zu Bladeworx is the only large scale manufacturer.
Combat knives are perhaps the only lethal military item also available to the general public, though with some caveats.
State and territory knife laws may permit a person to possess such a knife, though it may not be legal to carry them in public.
The price starts around $500, which is not exorbitant for enthusiastic collectors.
“We have a very large retail following, not only from Australia. About half our product goes to America,” he said.
“The funny thing with knives is you can never have too many.”