Lately, it seems that you can have anything in a "tactical" offering: knives, hats, pants, flashlights, ball point pens for Christ's sake. Probably my iPhone is a tactical unit unbeknownst to me. Some things are actually tactical and some aren't.
The first "tactical" fighter, the Fokker Eindecker
The Eindecker was purposely designed in 1915 to apply tactical operations against an enemy force - to shoot down enemy aircraft using a synchronized machine gun. The other items are just things.
Things actually become "tactical" when used in a tactical way. A ball peen hammer can be a tactical instrument. Or not. Depending.
Tactical, definitions of:
of or relating to combat tactics: as
a. (1) of or occurring at the battlefront, (2) using of being weapons or forces employed at the battlefront, (3) of or relating to small-scale actions serving a larger purpose, (4) made or carried out with only a limited or immediate end in view.
I've been looking at new folding knives for everyday, general use, commonly called "edc" knives by the literati of knives. It's hard to find one that isn't also referred to as "tactical" in some way. I've also seen tactical shirts, pants, jackets, boots, flashlights, walking sticks and can openers. It's become almost silly the way marketeers will slap the word "tactical" on practically anything. And, raise the the price a few points as well.
Take a basic folding knife with a frame lock and a three inch drop point blade. This would be a basic all around knife suitable for slicing potatoes, string, cardboard, deer skin, wood or punching through drywall. Put on some high-grip scales, add some serrations and a black coating, and shazam! you have a tactical knife worth considerably more in purchasing dollars and prestige for the tactically-minded male who buys it.
I think the "tactical" mindset has gone way far over the edge. I see videos instructing what appear to be normal people in three day courses of advanced handgunning, or example, that, at some significant expense to the participants, prepare them for the zombie apocalypse. Why? I would say that in a real zombie apocalypse, a handgun would be the least effective gun I'd want to get my hands on.
So called gear "reviewers" truck themselves and their buddies out into the desert, gear up in all sorts of camo clothing, vests, ammo carriers, helmets, gogggles, gloves, knives, flashlights, carbines, pistols and knives and video themselves blasting the crap out of various targets they've hauled along with them. It is pretty obvious that they are playing at being military "operators" preparing for the apocalypse. Any apocalypse will do as long as it comes pretty soon before they get too old to play.
Tactics, both actions and gear, are best left to the military. Any study of military history shows that tactics tend to get modified and invented in action anyway. Wearing tactical pants and toting a tactical knife won't get you any real advantages other than make you feel like you are someone you aren't.
But, this "tactical" craze won't peak anytime soon I'm afraid. There is too much money to be made with it. We will just have to hunker down and get through it the best we can, separating the acutal useful stuff from the "tactical".
That's my tactic.
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