Knife/Bad Company 2

"Ideal for close quarters when the 'continuum of force' has been reduced to hand to hand combat. For optimum performance, the leading edge, 'pointy end', should be applied to the enemy and thrust into vital regions. This should be repeated as necessary."

- In-game description

The Combat Knife is a weapon featured in Battlefield: Bad Company 2.

Singleplayer
The knife is the first usable weapon in the game, and can be equipped on three occasions. The first time is after the opening cutscene of Operation Aurora where the player loses their Thompson, the player pulls out the knife and kills a Japanese guard with it. Soon after, the player receives a Type 100 and the combat knife can no longer be equipped as a standalone.

The second time is at the beginning of the mission Upriver, when the player must use the combat knife to quietly take out a sentry at an outpost overlooking a Bolivian Militia base without raising the alarm. The third time it is used is in the beginning of Airborne, where the player is equipped with a combat knife again, this time in order to kill a Russian soldier.

The player immediately picks up the soldier's AKS-74U, however, and can no longer equip the knife as a standalone weapon. Throughout most of the campaign, the player can only use the knife in an attack sequence.

Multiplayer
The Combat Knife is the standard melee weapon, usable by all kits. When using the knife on an enemy within its range, roughly five feet, it will cause the player to lunge forward against the enemy and perform a stabbing attack. An attack without an enemy target will instead cause the player to slash with the knife.

It will kill an enemy player in a single strike but the weapon can be heard when utilized as the player often yells and makes a distinct noise. Players can kill certain enemies in vehicles if they are in an exposed position.

The knife is also a useful tool for knocking away certain destructible barriers, such as windows, fences, barbed wire, wooden doors, wooden railings, and many other light physical barriers in the player's path.

When players knife an enemy player in the game, they receive that player's dog tags as an award. These appear as bronze, silver or golden dog tags, depending on the victim's rank, with their name written below them. There are also several awards related to knife kills which the player can acquire. The dog tags from all of a player's past victims can be viewed in the Main Menu, providing a running tally of how many individual dog tags players have acquired as well as player-specific ones.