How to Get the Sledgehammer in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War

With the release of Season One in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War comes the opportunity to acquire new weapons like the Groza assault rifle and the Sledgehammer melee weapon.

While weapons like the Groza are relatively straightforward to acquire in that it’s tied to Battle Pass progress, acquiring the Sledgehammer requires some additional effort and time.

To help simplify everything, we’ve put together a quick guide explaining how to get the Sledgehammer in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War.

How to Get the Sledgehammer in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War

In Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, the Sledgehammer is a melee weapon that looks — you guessed it — like a sledgehammer. To get it, you’ll need to complete a tricky little challenge using the Combat Knife.

Specifically, the details on unlocking the Sledgehammer note that players can unlock the weapon by doing the following: 

“Using the Combat Knife, kill two or more players rapidly in fifteen different matches.” 

With that in mind, you’ll need to have the Combat Knife equipped as your secondary weapon and will need to stab two or more players “rapidly” which basically means back to back. Stab one, then quickly turn around and stab a second foe. 

As for the best ways to go about this, we completed the challenge by playing Free-For-All matches and attempting the Combat Knife challenge in smaller, close-quarters maps. For example, we earned a solid number of melee kills in Nuketown ‘84, Raid, and The Pines. 

You can also attempt to use the Combat Knife on larger maps with a lot of clustered buildings and corridors that put you in close proximity to other players like Armada or Moscow. The center building in Armada is often contested by multiple players, as are some of the center buildings featured in the Moscow map. 

Play these maps often enough, and you’ll get a sense as to where enemy players tend to congregate. 

When talking about the best build to use to maximize your success with the Combat Knife, we recommend having the Stimshot equipped to help give yourself a boost in the event you take damage from one or more players. 

Meanwhile, if you want to camp inside a building, using the Field Mic can help alert you to the sound of incoming players and can help you ready up and prepare to strike. As for Perks, we’ve listed the best Perk build when it comes to completing Combat Knife challenges in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War.

• Wildcard: Perk Greed

• Tracker

• Ninja

• Ghost

• Quartermaster

• Tactical Mask

• Flak Jacket

With the Wildcard called Perk Greed, you’re able to equip an extra Perk from each Perk category. Tracker is useful as it’ll allow you to follow the footsteps of other players, often without them knowing you’re tailing them. 

Adding to this is Ninja which allows you to move silently and Ghost which prevents you from being revealed by Spy Planes on the map. Speaking of the Stimshot earlier, Quartermaster allows for Tactical and Lethal equipment to recharge over a period of 25 seconds. With this, you’ll be able to recharge things like your Stimshot faster. 

To help keep yourself alive as you run through the map stabbing people, you should consider the Tactical Mask and Flak Jacket Perks. With Tactical Mask, you’ve got maximized resistance to stun grenades and flashbangs, you’re also immune to gas. With Flak Jacket, you’ll take less damage from explosives and Molotovs. 

If you think about it, you’re like a cockroach with a Combat Knife when using this build as you can survive explosions, shrug off stun grenades, and quickly give yourself a boost with your Stimshot as needed. 

Once you complete the challenge by killing two or more enemies rapidly in fifteen matches, you’ll unlock the Sledgehammer melee weapon, and will earn 1,000 XP. 

Related: How to Get the MAC-10 in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War