Posted on 03/16/2010 4:35:47 PM PDT by rawhide
FORT JACKSON, S.C. (Adapting to battlefield experience, the Army nixes 5-mile runs and bayonet drills in favor of zigzag sprints and honing core muscles. )
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at ajc.com ...
The Crossfit Insurgency (How the Army learned about the benefits of Crossfit style training)
http://www.crossfit.com/journal/library/47_06_CF_insurgency.pdf
Yeah.
Seems to me the british have been notorious for using up a lot of their own soldiers in bayonet charges over the last century.
I have been doing crossfit for 2 years now. It’s a great training methodolgy providing you have good trainers. The owner of our gym is Recon vet. He’s in Irag now on contract and has a makeshift gyn overthere now...
I’m at a fitness level now that is better than when I was 25 and that was 20 years ago!. It’s not the be all, end all of fitness methodolgies but it’s effective. I’ve seen many an ego crushed in the middle of a workout.
I won’t argue with your points about the use of bayonets in Iraq, but let’s be serious here . . . the bayonet, for all intents and purposes, was shown to be obsolete as a military weapon as far back as the Civil War!
I seem to remember bayonet training had also been dropped during the mid to late 1970’s only to be brought back in the 1980’s.
bmflr
Lost in all this was the comment that schools no longer require PT. Start raising wimps early and you will dilute the warrior mentality.
How could it be obsolete since the Civil War if it continues to be used in every war as an irreplaceable tool of last resort, and as an irreplaceable tool called a knife? If anything it should be better designed so that soldiers are not driven to carry multiple knives.
There is no reason that the military could not design a popular combat knife that could double as a bayonet.
There was a bayonet charge down Henry Hill that was darn successful.
When deployed, you can barely live without it.
Loved it so much that I bought one after I got out.
“... it was advantage to have big soldiers
who could make good use of the bayonet,
but nowadays the cannon does everything
and the infantry often cannot get to grips with cold steel...”
- Frederick the Great
“I wanted to put the fear of God into the enemy. I could see some dead bodies and eight blokes, some scrambling for their weapons. Ive never seen such a look of fear in anyones eyes before. Im over six feet; I was covered in sweat, angry, red in the face, charging in with a bayonet and screaming my head off. You would be scared, too.”
Corporal Brian Wood
Princess of Waless Royal Regiment
After digging a 70s era AR15 out of the rack for examination...I must seriously wonder if the stock would still be attached to the receiver after the first butt-stroke.
My guess the reason bayonet training is being eliminated in Basic is the female recruits. Ever see a female attack with a bayonet in basic?
I was armor. Is there bayonet training infantry AIT?
Look at this, now they even make a special bayonet for general officers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWeEDrMVlag
Bayonet training is essential; if one is to become a warrior, one must learn well “the spirit of the bayonet”. It is a comforting accessory, with many uses, an excellent dagger for hand-to-hand combat, and adversaries melt before the aggressive presentation of cold steel. When I was in the Army in “Nam, I told myself that if I ever got stuck by a bayonet, it would be in the ass.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.