Topic: Army drops bayonets, busts abs in training revamp

[-Skeletor-]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_new_basic_training

Army drops bayonets, busts abs in training revamp
By SUSANNE M. SCHAFER, Associated Press Writer Susanne M. Schafer, Associated Press Writer – 44 mins ago

FORT JACKSON, S.C. – 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.
 

[MaDB0Y_021]

Well that's cool!
Do we have someting similar to that in the Cdn Army? So far, I haven't seen something like that in Basic and CAP

[-Skeletor-]

Well that's cool!
Do we have someting similar to that in the Cdn Army? So far, I haven't seen something like that in Basic and CAP

Have something like what?  Ab/core works outs? Yes we do those on course and unit PT....  As for the bayonet being taught in Basic.. it was on mine and we stabbed the dummy, etc  that was awhile ago, so I'm not sure if it is still taught on BMQ and SQ/BMQ-Land. AFAIK DP1 Infantry/BIQ still do the bayonet assualt course, etc.  I haven't used my bayonet once since I've been in Battalion though.

[LineJumper]

Bayonet is still taught in the CQCB portion of training.

[Haggis]

As for the bayonet being taught in Basic.. it was on mine and we stabbed the dummy, etc  that was awhile ago, so I'm not sure if it is still taught on BMQ and SQ/BMQ-Land.

Although not part of the BMQ/BMOQ QS, bayonet drills are taught at CFLRS.  This was reintroduced in mid 2008 as part of the PT programme.

[MaDB0Y_021]

Yeah, I learnt bayonets in Basic training and ab/core workouts were done in PTs as well... It just that from the article, what they do to their young recruits seems so freaking hardcore... I'd have liked to do some hand to hand combat in Basic, though..

[Old Sweat]

If I recall correctly, when I was CFLO Tradoc in the early-eighties, the Tradoc Chief of Staff announced at a weekly staff meeting that the Secretary of the Army (civilian head of the Department of the Army) had ordered bayonet training reinstated during basic/advanced individual training.

[-Skeletor-]

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/03/army_basic_031510w/

Revamped basic focuses on marksmanship

By Jim Tice - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Mar 15, 2010 15:49:34 EDT
   
COLUMBIA, S.C. — A new generation of flabby recruits, and lessons learned during eight years of war, have led to a comprehensive overhaul of basic training.

The reshaped 10-week course reduces the amount of physical stress on recruits — fewer pushups and shorter foot marches — and increases marksmanship. And adds more sleep.

The training revolution, designed to transition the millennial generation of young American volunteers into soldiers, will be launched at installations throughout the Army over the next few months.

The impending changes reverberating through the Army’s training community are the culmination of a holistic review of initial military training that began about five years ago, according to Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, Training and Doctrine Command’s deputy commanding general for Initial Military Training.

Hertling said he believes it is a good time to transition to a new training system given the improving situation in Iraq, the intensifying fight in Afghanistan and the arrival of a new type of trainee who is technologically savvy but fitness-challenged.

“The generation of young people coming into the Army now have tremendous talents in terms of being able to team well, communicate well and not take mindless orders without asking why,” Hertling said.

“The major problem is that they are coming to us in [worse] physical shape than their predecessors.

“This has nothing to do with who we are recruiting today. It’s just a reflection of what’s going on in American society right now,” Hertling said.

The ambitious agenda of change unveiled here at the service’s annual Initial Military Training forum calls for:

• A new basic combat training program that retains the 10-week format of the current system, but that places additional emphasis on marksmanship, combatives, physical fitness, values and culture.

• A sharp reduction in the number of core soldiering skills, called warrior tasks and battle drills, to support Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey’s training dictum that soldiers “do a few key tasks well ... and then prepare to adapt to the situation.”

While the new alignment of tasks and drills recommended to Casey in early March are included in the new basic training program, they also will be taught in operational units and will be addressed in the various professional development courses of the officer and NCO education systems.

• A standardized basic rifle marksmanship strategy that requires soldiers to become proficient, comfortable and knowledgeable about their weapon before moving on to advanced training and combat familiarization fire.

Under this new strategy, infantry trainees will fire 730 rounds, and non-infantry trainees 500 rounds. They now fire about 300 rounds.

• A standardized physical readiness training program that strives to improve the fitness of a generally less fit generation of trainees without pushing them so hard that they sustain stress fractures and other serious injuries.

Hertling said the attrition rate in the past few years has been between 10 and 15 percent, and many of those have been from stress fractures and other medical problems.

The program’s goal is to gradually increase the fitness of trainees so they will be ready for a more rigorous regimen of PT when they reach the operational force.

• The fielding of a new combatives program for 1.2 million soldiers of the active and reserve components, regardless of gender and military occupational specialty.

Like the new physical readiness training, the Modern Army Combatives program will build skills from basic to complex and will be based on lessons learned from the combat theater.

Lessons planned for basic officer and enlisted training include fighting with a rifle, employing a bayonet or knife, reacting to contact from the front, reacting to contact from the rear, pummeling for neck control, knee strikes and defense against knee strikes.

“I think leaders in the first 10 years of the 21st century were committed to improving the training system but, at the same time, were focused on the war and meeting the demands of the operational force, which in turn resulted in more things being added to what we were training,” Hertling said.

“All these additions, by a lot of well-meaning people, were made without really taking a holistic approach to the process,” said Hertling, a former commander of 1st Armored Division in Europe and Iraq. “If the physical fitness of America’s youth does not improve, then it will be a major national security issue within 10 years.”

Physical fitness training
In revamping the PT program, and developing a standardized curriculum for trainees and operational soldiers in garrison and deployed status, the Army has tried to strike a balance between improving capability while decreasing injuries.

“If you break a young man or woman in basic training, they will have to be recycled, and probably never really will become fit,” Hertling said.

He added, “We are seeing more stress fractures, a greater body fat percentage and a decline in the ability of many new soldiers to perform one minute of pushups, one minute of sit-ups and make a one-mile run.”

Frank Palkoska, director of the Army Physical Fitness School at Fort Jackson, S.C., said an upcoming revision to the Army Physical Readiness Training manual will dictate “a proper progression of exercises to prevent injury and possibly a lifetime of problems.”

The classic military foot march provides a good example of how the Army wants to work trainees toward fitness progressively, and then improve and maintain fitness once they leave the training.

During the “toughening phase” of the new strategy, marches for initial entry soldiers will progress from two to 15 kilometers.

The “sustainment phase” of the strategy envisions that soldiers training for deployment, or in available status, conduct marches of 10 to 30 kilometers. During reset, the standard for marches will be 10 kilometers or less.

Drills and tasks
In moving toward implementation of all major components of the new training system by July 1, TRADOC has asked Casey to approve a new alignment of core soldiering skills that will sharply reduce the current menu of 32 warrior tasks and 11 battle drills.

If Casey approves the proposal, there will be 15 warrior skills and four battle drills taught in basic training, in units and in professional development courses.

The new agenda is less prescriptive and more adaptable to the requirements of a soldier’s specialty or combat functional area.

For example, under the previous menu of warrior tasks, soldiers received training not only in basic rifle marksmanship, but also on the operation of three machine guns — the M240B medium machine gun, the M249 squad automatic weapon and the M2 .50-caliber heavy machine gun.

“If someone calls me to the fight, I am going to have a weapon, and for most soldiers that will not be the .50-caliber machine gun,” Hertling said.

Research shows that after basic training, only one out of every 70 soldiers will have an occasion to use the M2 .50-caliber.

“What soldiers need to do is stay proficient in their assigned weapon,” Hertling said.

“The warrior skills and battle drills we have recommended to the chief form the basis of soldiering, and they are in line with Gen. Casey’s training strategy of doing a few tasks well,” he said. “Don’t try and be a jack-of-all-trades.”

Basic rifle marksmanship
Describing BRM as “the most contentious issue” he has encountered since becoming chief of initial military training in September 2009, Hertling said the changes being made to this most basic of soldiering skills “are much more than an attempt to get soldiers qualified.”

“Qualified is not enough. We want soldiers to truly understand their weapon, know what they are doing with it, and be able to knock down targets,” he said. “Qualification is still important, but the ability to become one with your weapon, not be afraid of it, and use it almost as an extension of your body, is critical.”

There is a debate over when a soldier should learn to shoot wearing combat gear, early or late in the training, and how many rounds should be fired during basic training.

Under the new strategy, trainees will not fire with combat gear and rifle optics until after they have developed a comfort level with the weapon and have fired for record.

“As soon as they have earned that marksmanship badge, then the trainers can start piling on the equipment and show them what combat is like,” Hertling said.

That phase of the training is called Advanced Rifle Marksmanship, and it is designed to teach soldiers how to shoot on the move, from behind barriers and with optics at different ranges.

[LineJumper]

Another good post Skeletor.

[MaDB0Y_021]

Nice article, Skeletor

[daftandbarmy]

10 weeks of basic training? That's about 1/2 of what it takes to produce someone who will not wind up acting like cannon fodder, right?

[LineJumper]

10 weeks of basic training? That's about 1/2 of what it takes to produce someone who will not wind up acting like cannon fodder, right?

Cornwallis was 10 weeks.