The Bowie knife is a characteristic large-bladed combat and utility knife with a crossguard. The name is derived from Jim Bowie, a 19th century Texan revolutionary and frontiersman, whose legendary - and almost certainly heavily fictionalized - knife fighting skills relied on the use of knives of this particular design.[1]
Characteristics[]
The Bowie knife has a large clip-point blade and a riveted brown handle. Small contact marks mar the edge, and streaks of what appears to be blood can be seen running across the sides of the blade and the hilt. The blade is stamped with the serial number 02280.
The Bowie knife's special attack is "Dirt-nap" in V.A.T.S., which does 80% damage at the cost of 12 action points.
The Bowie Knife's special VATS attack Dirt-Nap would have had more depth to it on release if it weren't for an oversight. In the GECK, there is an unused actor effect, NVDLC04BowieKnifeVATSAE, that if were correctly assigned, would've allowed the player to perform non-lethal, stealth takedowns in VATS, as long as they were sneaking and undetected. The stealth takedown would be limited to all non-robot cretures only, and a message box would appear every time it was used, displaying whether the attack was successful, a failure or performed on a robot. If performed successfully, the enemy would be hit with 1000 points of Fatigue damage, knocking them out. Oddly, in the messages the Dirt-Nap attack is called the "Let's Dance" attack.
The Bowie knife is a knife popularized by Colonel James Bowie in the early 19th century.
Giving someone a "dirt-nap" (the knife's special V.A.T.S. attack) is mobster slang killing someone, similar to "sleeping with the fishes". The term "dirt-nap" is used many times by Set in Fallout.