Unfortunately, they'll probably get other people killed.
Posted on 02/15/2018 5:53:54 AM PST by MarvinStinson
The U.S. Army will drop its hand grenade competency requirement for graduation from basic training because getting recruits to pass it is taking “too much time” and they’re just not strong enough, Major General Malcolm Frost told reporters on Friday.
Changes to the Army’s Basic Combat Training (BTC) will eliminate the current hand grenade proficiency standards as a requirement for graduation, Military.com reports:
“The new BCT does, however, do away with hand grenade qualification and land navigation course qualification as graduation requirements.”
Discussing the change with reporters, Maj. Gen. Frost explained that training recruits to pass the current requirement was taking too much time:
"What we have found is it is taking far, far too much time. It's taking three to four times as much time ... just to qualify folks on the hand grenade course than we had designated so what is happening is it is taking away from other aspects of training.”
Plus, trainees just aren’t strong enough to throw the grenade far enough away – and simply can’t be taught to properly throw a grenade “if they haven’t thrown growing up” – Maj. Gen. Frost explained:
"We are finding that there are a large number of trainees that come in that quite frankly just physically don't have the capacity to throw a hand grenade 20 to 25 to 30 meters. In 10 weeks, we are on a 48-hour period; you are just not going to be able to teach someone how to throw if they haven't thrown growing up."
Still, the amount of grenade training won’t be reduced – developing enough proficiency to meet the current standards just won’t be required - Maj. Gen. Frost said:
"Just because we took it off as a graduation requirement does not mean they won't be conducting hand grenade or land navigation training."
“They are going to learn all the technical aspects of the hand grenade, and they are going to learn tactical employment and they will throw a live hand grenade.”
As Army Times reports, in order to save time trying to teach trainees to meet requirements, hand grenade training will be blended into other exercises:
“Rather than spend time getting soldiers through the hand grenade and land navigation qualification courses in order to graduate basic, those skills will be incorporated into three new field training exercises, dubbed Hammer, Anvil and Forge.”
Just SMH, SGM....pathetic. And we’re going to invade North Korea? Yeah, right.
Remarkably similar technique to that in #6.
Meanwhile dozens of hours will be spent on sensitivity training so they don’t offend anyone.
Maybe some of those new transsexual soldiers can help out.
So how heavy is a hand grenade? I vaguely remember throwing one in basic.......
More lowering of standards. It is no longer sad and laughable. It is the reality of our weak society.
To quote Thucydides, “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”
We are going to be suffering soon.
JoMa
I wonder if Chinese, North Korean, Iranian and Russian troops train for them??
What happens when they go into combat?
Next will be Small Arms Qualification. We’ll show them a video instead.
These snowflakes are supposed to be the ones to defend us from the NORKS and the Chinky army?
We need to step back about 50 years.
Also dropping Land Navigation Courses?
Have we no Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts anymore?
I forgot, smart parents are taking their kids OUT of those organizations to prevent mental abuse of their children.
But what kind of wussied up course is named Hammer, Anvil and Forge? Straight out of some PR group that watches too many Rambo movies? That thinks the Bourne trilogies are a historical novel?
She is 5’2” 100 pounds inner city, black and looking for a step out of the city crappy world.
Hand grenade? She’ll never need to throw one
Map reading......... ha, ha, ha....give me a break. All those brown lines? Up north? That’s where there are no red necks
14 oz.
Scouts in the military are in OCS
WTF? Over
Comparably, a baseball which is slightly bigger weighs only 5 oz.
Why not fix the root cause of the problem?
-PJ
Unfortunately, they'll probably get other people killed.
Unbelievable. The thing that bugged me most about hand grenade training in Basic was that, despite the grenades being designed specifically to be about the size of a baseball so you could throw it like a baseball, the instructors wanted you to throw it more like a shot-put, because supposedly the spoon might not come off properly otherwise. But everyone in my cycle managed to launch the thing at least 20-30 yards using that technique. To add insult to injury, after we all did our practice throws on the grenade range using the awkward shotput technique, the drill instructors started lobbing out some extra grenades by throwing them like baseballs.
As for dropping land-nav, that’s just stupid. The military just recently did a large-scale exercise testing their ability to function without GPS, so they know they can’t rely on electronics. You can’t jam a map and compass. If it’s taking too long, then they need to look at how they’re teaching it, they need to look at other subjects that could be scaled back to increase the time available, and they should probably look at extending Basic by a couple of days if need be.
a large number of trainees that come in that quite frankly just physically don’t have the capacity to throw a hand grenade 20 to 25 to 30 meters
I am a senior citizen and can Still throw a grenade 25 yards!!
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