Army drops bayonets, busts abs in training revamp

[geronimotwo]

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

FORT JACKSON, S.C. – At 5 a.m. on the Army's largest training base, soldiers grunt through the kinds of stretches, body twists and bent-leg raises that might be seen in an "ab blaster" class at a suburban gym.

Adapting to battlefield experience in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Army is revamping its basic training regimen for the first time in three decades by nixing five-mile runs and bayonet drills in favor of zigzag sprints and honing core muscles.

Trainers hope the switch will better prepare soldiers physically for the pace of combat, with its sudden dashes and rolling gun battles. They also want to toughen recruits who are often more familiar with Facebook than fistfights.

The exercises are part of the first major overhaul in Army basic fitness training since men and women began training together in 1980, said Frank Palkoska, head of the Army's Fitness School at Fort Jackson, which has worked several years on overhauling the service's fitness regime.

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.

"We don't run five miles in combat, but you run across the street every day," Palkoska said, adding, "I'm not training long-distance runners. I'm training warriors" who must shuttle back and forth across a back alley.

Drill sergeants with combat experience in the current wars are credited with urging the Army to change training, in particular to build up core muscle strength to walk patrols with heavy packs and body armor or to haul a buddy out of a burning vehicle.

One of those experienced drill sergeants 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.

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.

good to see them training for the current job at hand.


"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."

that would have been my attitude as well.

[roo_ster]

I enjoyed the heck out of bayonet training and the pugil sticks.

Thing is, if they are keeping the pugil sticks, that transfers well to rifle & bayonet.

[taurusowner]

All that stuff is kinda meant for fighting with heavy wooden rifles that don't carry much ammo.  With that, learning to use the rifle as a club, and the bayonet as a spear or pike is a smart tactic.  But with light small polymer rifles, hundreds and hundreds of rounds in quick magazines available to the shooter, and most of the fighting taking place with vehicle support, the bayonet/pugil training loses some of it's pertinence.

[darius]

All that stuff is kinda meant for fighting with heavy wooden rifles that don't carry much ammo.  With that, learning to use the rifle as a club, and the bayonet as a spear or pike is a smart tactic.  But with light small polymer rifles, hundreds and hundreds of rounds in quick magazines available to the shooter, and most of the fighting taking place with vehicle support, the bayonet/pugil training loses some of it's pertinence.

The faithful old Garand M1 weighed about 9 pounds and was fairly long.  If yoy couldn't shoot someone you could club him to death with it.  Something tells me that an M16 is too short for good bayonet work.

[darius]

The faithful old Garand M1 weighed about 9 pounds and was fairly long.  If yoy couldn't shoot someone you could club him to death with it.  Something tells me that an M16 is too short for good bayonet work. The M1 only holds 8 rounds but it will kill at 1,000 yards.  I have a reconditioned one myself and have never zeroed it in. When I had a little farm I got it to protect the livestock from bobcats, pumas, and coyotes. The varmints must have seen me coming because they never showed up again after I bought that old cannon.
 
I used to use it during veteran's services as part of the firing squad.  We shot blanks and the fire would shoot out of mine over a foot because I did not use a blank adapter. Those old babies will really bark.

[AJ Dual]

I've got a Colt AR-15 that came with A2 furniture on it.

I know darn well that your average human skull would come apart well before the rifle would in a "percussive stress testing" exercise.   Now that it has a Magpul telescoping stock on it, it's a bit more "fragile", but still way tougher than my face, or anyone else's.

And any plastic/metallic object in your hands is better to strike someone with than bare hands. It extends your reach, it increases the mass of the swing, and is harder than your own flesh and bones. And it's a good reflex to learn for CQB/MOUT where being thrust into hand-to-hand might be a surprise to the combatants on both sides of the war. Even if you've got ammo, you might not be able to bring the muzzle to bear.

Just because an M4 is not as good a poleaxe as an M14, a Garand, or Springfield does not mean it's not a good idea to get the muscle-memory to smack someone with it in unforeseen circumstances.

[HankB]

On an M4 carbine, the bayonet lug is well back from the muzzle on the bottom of the gas block - the blade on a standard bayonet won't extend far past the muzzle. So sticking the bad guy might just make him mad. (Even if he did eventually bleed out.)

[41magsnub]

There have been bayonet charges in Iraq and Afghanistan of late.  They are not common, but they are called for sometimes.

[Viking]

There have been bayonet charges in Iraq and Afghanistan of late.  They are not common, but they are called for sometimes.

.
And the Brits are even ballsier, considering that they do their occasional bayonet charges with bullpup rifles .

[lupinus]

Glad to see them revamping in a way that make perfect sense. Bayonets are rarely if ever used in combat anymore, though I think i did hear about one event by the Brits a few years ago. Even so, I somehow doubt it's much called for or needed in modern warfare. The whole point of a bayonet originally was to move in and finish off the enemy after weakening them with a few rounds of musket fire. It essentially turned their weapon into a pike and used the same concept (infantry softening the enemy like before charging to finish them off) that had be in use since the Romans with the Pilum. In an age where most everyone but perhaps a designated marksman has a fully automatic weapon they are near pointless. That doesn't mean I think it's a tool that should be out of the toolbox but it's certainly fine to move the tool to a more out of the way storage compartment.

Though I don't know I agree with doing away with the long distance running. It builds stamina that is good to have. That and if the vehicles are out I'd rather think being conditioned to jog long distances and cover lots of ground on foot would be a rather useful skill to have.

[BridgeRunner]

Does this mean that the running forums will no longer be inundated regularly with military guys trying desperately to shave three minutes off their mile time in a week?

Core training is good.  It is a royal pain in the ass, and not as much fun, in my humble opinion, as things like distance running, but core strength not only enhances all kinds of other activities, but also make one much more injury-resistant.  This, I would think, is very valuable in a combat setting.

[BobR]

Core training is good

Very good as a matter of fact. Why do you think the guys in BUD/S training spend so much time at the surf line doing flutter kicks?

bob

[wmenorr67]

Now if they would just update the APFT to do away with the situps they way they are currently done.  The Army a long time ago said that the current situp way was incorrect and caused issues but they still haven't changed it.  Plus now a days I can't run for two miles much for time, like I could 20 years ago, but I can still put on a ruck and hump it all day long across the field.

[geronimotwo]

Though I don't know I agree with doing away with the long distance running. It builds stamina that is good to have. That and if the vehicles are out I'd rather think being conditioned to jog long distances and cover lots of ground on foot would be a rather useful skill to have.

i was surprised to see the running go byebye as well. i've always considered that to be a workout essential.

[Devonai]

As a graduate of Infantry school down at Fort Benning, I can't disagree enough with the elimination of bayonet training.  The important lesson is to instill fighting spirit, not necessarily the finer points of sticking a blade in someone's face.  The most aggressive training I got down there was on the bayonet range.  It was one day out of seventeen weeks, anyway.  We spent more time policing up tiny scraps of trash around the barracks than we did training with the bayonet.

And what the heck are they going to call the final ruck march???

Five mile runs are a good idea, I don't care what your job is in the military.  I'm content to run three milers on my own time, but I don't have any problem passing the APFT.