General: Drop Bayonet From Army Training

[jwinch2]

I saw this on another forum and thought it might spark some interesting discussion here.




General: Drop Bayonet From Army Training
January 28, 2010
The State, Columbia, S.C.
Army basic training needs to get back to basics.

That's the word from Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, who's in charge of overhauling Army training.

Soldiers are taught a number of skills, but don't have the time to master all of them, said Hertling, who's assigned to the Army's Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Monroe, Va.

"We need to make sure that what we're training is a good Soldier we can hand over to their first unit and make sure they're ready for combat," Hertling, deputy commanding general for initial military training, said Wednesday during a visit at Fort Jackson, S.C.

Before the war on terrorism began in 2001, U.S. troops trained to fight a large, mechanized force like the Russian army in the woods and mountains of eastern Europe.

But in recent years, basic training has undergone a number of changes as the Army adapts to an enemy in Afghanistan and Iraq that lives among the general population and travels by pickup and donkey cart.

To prepare Soldiers for today's battlefield, a number of tasks have been added to the 10-week training program and a few have been removed, said Hertling, a former tank commander.

Soldiers are taught a number of skills, but don't have the time to master all of them, said Hertling, who's assigned to the Army's Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Monroe, Va.

"We were teaching Soldiers too much stuff," said Hertling, a veteran of Desert Storm and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The result was a "task paralysis" and loss of focus.

One task Hertling wants to do away with is bayonet training.

In today's wars, there's no reason for Soldiers to learn how to fix bayonets to their rifles and disembowel an enemy combatant, Hertling said. Besides, bayonets don't fit rifles Soldiers carry today, he added.

Hertling, though, conceded that bayonet training is deeply ingrained in the Army culture.

"Some of these ideas would make old infantrymen turn over in their graves," Hertling said.

Hertling also wants combatives or hand-to-hand fighting to de-emphasize grappling or basic wrestling moves. Instead, Soldiers need to learn to fight with their hands and use anything they can grab -- whether it is a knife or stick -- as a weapon, he added.

Recruits need to learn how to use their hands, the St. Louis native said. "A greater majority of recruits have never been in a fistfight," he added.

Fort Jackson is the largest of the Army's five basic training centers. About 40,000 or half of all Soldiers and 80 percent of the women entering the Army each year are trained at the Columbia post.


The author raises some good points but is off on most of it in my view. Also, I have not been trained in the modern Army combatives program as it was put in place after my tour of service was up. I am sure that those who have more direct experience in the system have additional, and perhaps differing views from my own. Anyway, here are my thoughts on this article and statement from the General.


1. In modern times, bayonet training is not about practicality but instilling the mindset of aggression and the visualization of ramming a blade through your opponent in an effort to kill him/her. In a society that increasingly tells people that aggression is wrong and does everything in its power to instill a mindset that is counter to what is needed in the military, anything that can aid this process is a good one.

2. There is a strong need for grappling. Today's soldier is often used in less lethal situations as a method of gathering intelligence or "peace keeping" or even humanitarian efforts. Having options for that soldier to restrain people that does not involving killing them is a very good thing. In addition, if you look at my comments for question number 1, they will apply as well. Grappling skills can usually be trained with with a very low degree of injury. That is a good thing as all the H2H training in the world is a waste if you cannot deploy due to being broke from your training. Finally, just because you do not WANT to end up in a grappling situation, that does not mean you don't need to know what to do if you are taken there against your will. For the basic combatives training, a well-rounded approach is the way to go.

I have no problem with increasing a focus on expedient weapons. Why not?

The thing to remember is that the MACP is more about instilling a warrior mindset and conditioning an aggressive response than it is practicality. If the modern soldier ends up using H2H skills, something either went massively wrong, or it is in very specialized situations. Those units who are more likely to need H2H skills typically seek out instruction that matches their particular needs more closely.

If the author of those statements is so concerned about soldiers not having time to learn all of the skills required to be successful there are far easier ways to fix that. See the following (QUE RANT):

Go to any infantry post in peace time and you will see the following cycle taking place-

1 brigade will be in a training cycle which is typically focused on small group skills and large group field training. This cycle is typically infused with a bunch of stuff that is focused on the leaders rather than the individual solder and includes a bunch of field time in which the leaders get trained and the individual soldier either sits on their asses or walks in endless "movement to daylight, err I mean, contact" scenarios which consists of all of 5 minutes of activity focused on the individual and 5 hours of activity focused on the leadership and NCO's ability to land navigate.

The next cycle will be a deployment/readiness cycle. In this cycle soldiers largely sit around packing and re-packing their gear for endless inspections of equipment that was just inspected the day before. They update the same last will that they updated 6 months ago and largely get screwed with by their junior NCO's because they are bored as hell also.

The last 1 will be a chicken-**** 'post work' cycle where they are out picking up trash or serving in meaningless guard duty in places which are already covered by civilian guards or, they get whored out to other units to do their menial work for them. That third rotation typically lasts about third of a year and is a colossal waste of time and manpower. If you simply take that cycle and dedicate it to improvement of individual solider skills you would have all the time you need to develop highly skilled personnel. The military decided, unfortunately, that it would rather use those soldiers in menial labor tasks than train them up during this time. I never saw the finance people out doing trash duty or pulling guard shifts, but they sure as hell had the war fighters out there doing it.

In addition, if you simply take one day of PT a week and dedicate that to maintaining H2H for the remainder of the year than you will not have to worry about skill degredation.

There is so much wasted time and BS that soldiers have to put up with. If they would simply focus on getting rid of that it would fix the entire problem.

[Webmaster]

There is so much wasted time and BS that soldiers have to put up with. If they would simply focus on getting rid of that it would fix the entire problem.
Bravo! That "down-time" could, and should be used constructively for enhancing training on the many skills a soldier needs to learn. H2H and bayonet training needs to remain a part of that.

One of the things that pisses me off about the modern military is this tendency to get rid of training or equipment that has proven to be of use on the battlefield in favor of a more "modern" approach. Not that adaption of new ideas, doctrine and equipment is a bad thing, but it is when you take a narrow view of the current environment and discard those things that don't seem to have a current application. For instance, when the F-4 was developed, it was developed without any guns and pilots were no longer taught dogfighting skills. The days of the dogfight were over said the Generals...until they got to Vietnam and were facing MiGs that were highly maneuverable and able to get into close up "gun fights" with our Phantoms. The F-4 was later retrofitted with a "Gun Pod" so that it could fight with the enemy MiGs and schools like Top Gun were developed to re-teach a skill that had been lost.

The comprehensive skills required of an infantryman are a lot to learn, and not all of those skills will be readily applicable to current battlefield conditions, but that does not mean that during their next deployment it will not be, or that the conditions under which they currently fight won't change.

[Kage-Ronin]

Hertling also wants combatives or hand-to-hand fighting to de-emphasize grappling or basic wrestling moves.

I wonder if General Hertling has read any of the AAR's that involve the use of MACP and specifically those wrestling/grappling moves that saved a soldiers life?

IMNSHO the training should stay as is because it is one of those skill sets that could mean the difference between life and death. At the very least it teaches aggression and promotes the warrior mindset, which in this day and age is not a bad thing.


Jeff C. can elaborate more on this topic and I look forward to hearing his thoughts.

[Webmaster]

Well, it looks like it has happened, and some of the changes to Army Basic look interesting.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9EFS3B00&show_article=1


Army drops bayonets, busts abs in training revamp
Mar 16 01:36 PM US/Eastern
By SUSANNE M. SCHAFER
Associated Press Writer

FORT JACKSON, S.C. (AP) - New soldiers are grunting through the kind of stretches and twists found in "ab blaster" classes at suburban gyms as the Army revamps its basic training regimen for the first time in three decades.

Heeding the advice of Iraq and Afghanistan combat veterans, commanders are dropping five-mile runs and bayonet drills in favor of zigzag sprints and exercises that hone core muscles. Battlefield sergeants say that's the kind of fitness needed to dodge across alleys, walk patrol with heavy packs and body armor or haul a buddy out of a burning vehicle.

Trainers also want to toughen recruits who are often more familiar with Facebook than fistfights.

"Soldiers need to be able to move quickly under load, to be mobile under load, with your body armor, your weapons and your helmet, in a stressful situation," said Frank Palkoska, head of the Army's Fitness School at Fort Jackson, which has worked several years on overhauling the regime.

"We geared all of our calisthenics, all of our running movements, all of our warrior skills, so soldiers can become stronger, more powerful and more speed driven," Palkoska said. The exercises are part of the first major overhaul in Army basic fitness training since men and women began training together in 1980, he said.

The new plan is being expanded this month at the Army's four other basic training installations—Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., Fort Sill, Okla., Fort Benning, Ga., and Fort Knox, Ky.

Drill sergeants with experience in the current wars are credited with urging the Army to change training, in particular to build up core muscle strength. One of them is 1st Sgt. Michael Todd, a veteran of seven deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

On a recent training day Todd was spinning recruits around to give them the feel of rolling out of a tumbled Humvee. Then he tossed on the ground pugil sticks made of plastic pipe and foam, forcing trainees to crawl for their weapons before they pounded away on each other.

"They have to understand hand-to-hand combat, to use something other than their weapon, a piece of wood, a knife, anything they can pick up," Todd said.

The new training also uses "more calisthenics to build core body power, strength and agility," Palkoska said in an office bedecked with 60-year-old black and white photos of World War II-era mass exercise drills. Over the 10 weeks of basic, a strict schedule of exercises is done on a varied sequence of days so muscles rest, recover and strengthen.

Another aim is to toughen recruits from a more obese and sedentary generation, trainers said.

Many recruits didn't have physical education in elementary, middle or high school and therefore tend to lack bone and muscle strength. When they ditch diets replete with soda and fast food for healthier meals and physical training, they drop excess weight and build stronger muscles and denser bones, Palkoska said.

Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling of the Army's Training and Doctrine Command, the three-star general in charge of revamping all aspects of initial training, said his overall goal is to drop outmoded drills and focus on what soldiers need today and in the future.

Bayonet drills had continued for decades, even though soldiers no longer carry the blades on their automatic rifles. Hertling ordered the drills dropped.

"We have to make the training relevant to the conditions on the modern battlefield," Hertling said during a visit to Fort Jackson in January.

The general said the current generation has computer skills and a knowledge base vital to a modern fighting force. He foresees soldiers using specially equipped cell phones to retrieve information on the battlefield to help repair a truck or carry out an emergency lifesaving medical technique.

But they need to learn how to fight.

"Most of these soldiers have never been in a fistfight or any kind of a physical confrontation. They are stunned when they get smacked in the face," said Capt. Scott Sewell, overseeing almost 190 trainees in their third week of training. "We are trying to get them to act, to think like warriors."

For hours, Sewell and his drill sergeants urge on helmeted trainees as they whale away at each other with pugil sticks, landing head and body blows until one falls flat on the ground. As a victor slams away at his flattened foe, a drill sergeant whistles the fight to a halt.

"This is the funnest day I've had since I've been here!" said 21-year-old Pvt. Brendon Rhyne, of Rutherford County, N.C., after being beaten to the ground. "It makes you physically tough. Builds you up on the insides mentally, too."

The Marine Corps is also applying war lessons to its physical training, adopting a new combat fitness test that replicates the rigor of combat. The test, which is required once a year, has Marines running sprints, lifting 30-pound ammunition cans over their heads for a couple of minutes and completing a 300-yard obstacle course that includes carrying a mock wounded Marine and throwing a mock grenade.

Capt. Kenny Fleming, a 10-year-Army veteran looking after a group of Fort Jackson trainees, said men and women learn exercises that prepare them to do something on the battlefield such as throw a grenade, or lunge and pick a buddy off the ground. Experience in Iraq has shown that women need the same skills because they come under fire, too, even if they are formally barred from combat roles.

"All their exercises are related to something they will do out in the field," Fleming said, pointing out "back bridge" exercises designed to hone abdominal muscles where soldiers lift hips and one leg off the ground and hold it steady.

"This will help their core muscles, which they could use when they stabilize their body for shooting their weapon, or any kind of lifting, pulling, or something like grabbing a buddy out of a tank hatch," Fleming said.

Fleming said those who had some sort of sports in high school can easily pick up on the training, while those who didn't have to be brought along. One hefty soldier in a recent company he trained dropped 45 pounds and learned to blast out 100 push-ups and 70 sit-ups, he said.

"We just have to take the soldier who's used to sitting on the couch playing video games and get them out there to do it," Fleming said.