one of the big advantages we had in the Gulf War 1991 was GPS. it didn't become fully operational until 1995. I was on submarines in the 80s and 90s we only had rudimentary gps in the 90s and nothing in the 80s. The Tomahawks shot during the Gulf War were all non GPS weapons.
I stand corrected. I assumed that if my buddy had a Garmin III+ in '95ish, the military must have had GPS receivers about a decade before that since the GPS was their deal. My bad. Apologies to the OP for sidetracking...
To get this thread back on topic, I have five Gransfors Bruk products - mini hatchet, wildlife hatchet, hunter's axe, splitting maul, and draw knife - and like them all. Only three of these would be used on a backpacking trip. I've found the mini hatchet to be useful only when small-diameter wood is available. It's light and easy to carry, but not all that useful. The wildlife hatchet, on the other hand, is a lot more useful, but too heavy for most of my trips. The hunter's axe is very effective, but too heavy except for winter trips with a pulk. I've never used the rounded poll on the hunter's axe to skin an animal, and having the rounded poll makes the axe less useful in camp, as it can't be used as a hammer. That axe is the one GB product that I wouldn't buy again. I'd buy the small forest axe instead. I suppose if I regularly hunted brown bear or moose, I might like the rounded poll, but I don't hunt those species, yet (someday!). Oddly enough, I'm leaving for a SE AK black bear hunt this evening, and the hunter's axe didn't make the cut, even though I would have loved giving it a try for skinning. It was quite a challenge getting my bag down to the 50lb airline weight limit, and the axe was too heavy to bring along.
For backpack hunting trips, I'm with some of the others - a sturdy knife for splitting makes the most sense.
Regards,
Scott