Training is simple and not overly time consuming -- it just requires a lot of work.
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Originally Posted by
Pete
Range Cards...seem like a good idea but they'd take several days to teach to privates, not just an hour or two.
Not so. You can teach most kids how to do a range card in a half hour. See below (the graphic is from FM 21-75). The problem is that it is a cognitive skill and you have to initially use it often to embed, retain and improve the capability -- and that means supervision, which is work for trainers and leaders (therefor it gets sluffed...).
No insult or slam intended but your comment is indicative of an attitude that is entirely too prevalent in the US Army; "... take several days to teach to privates..." That attitude colors too much of what we do and it is a holdover from the days of the Draft when we took in a slew of Cat III and IV folks and dumbed down our training to cope with people who should not have been in the Army in the first place (McNamara has a LOT to answer for... :mad:). Those day are long gone -- since the mid 80s -- and we have failed for over 30 years to adapt personnel and training polices to reflect that. :rolleyes:
Most Privates are capable of doing far more than they are allowed to do and there are too many Officers and NCOs who do not wish to accept that fact because they have become annointed and risen above the primoridal slime. Very counterproductive attitude. The civilian educators, multi-degreed folks who believe they are above anointed and who often spout quite flawed theories of human cognition and learning have not helped the Army in this...
I'll also note that in the wider Army, most UNITS are capable of doing far more than they are allowed to do. Excessive control is a bug, not a feature.
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A few years ago when I was looking at the unofficial British army Ar*se website I was struck by how detailed British army schools are for guys in troop units who attend them in temporary duty statuses... but they seem to have more doctrine and techniques than can be taught during a reasonable period of time.
The British and all the Commonwealth Armies do a far better job of teaching the basics than do we. Far, far better. They have schools for everything and it works. Their secret is low overhead and the NCOs do it; our solution calls for more overhead than Instructors and we underemploy Officers to run things -- they seek to be overemployed and do more things and the whole thing spins out of control so we scrub the School...
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We dumbed down Infantry training in World War II to shorten things-- we taught that one element puts fire on the objective and another goes around and finds a flank -- because we couldn't afford to train people for longer periods of time. The Germans got fancy about tactics -- they had three-element attacks in 1918 but I don't know how long it took to teach them. My impression is that they used mobile training teams to teach combat units that were on rest breaks in rear areas.
That's an important point and it is glossed over quite often. Good training takes time. At the height of WW II, the Germans were still taking almost six month to train entry tankers and their competence was a significant factor in the length of WW II. We short change training to (a) save money to buy techno solutions to improve poor capability caused by undertraining and (b) save time. Fallacious logic, that time saved translates to less competence after joining a unit and excessive casualties due to under trained troops.
We also 'train' a lot of things that add nothing to military competence and we use troops in training for little details and garrison housekeeping, things that do not exist in combat.
We foster the absolutely stupid mantra that "We cannot afford to train people for more than their next job." Ludicrous. Most new Pvts will become team or even Squad leaders before they go to BNCOC (or whatever inane name we've hung on the course now) and most entering 2LTs will command Co / By / Trp before they go to an Advanced Course / Career (bad name...) Course.
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Tactical training can reach the point where there simply aren't enough hours in the day, and something has to go.
Strongly disagree. For the combat arms absolutely nothing is more important than that tactical training, there's plenty of time to do it right -- we're just too lazy and impatient to do it right and we're unwilling to demand the repetition and tedium of drill to build muscle memory and conditioned response because the 'trainers' don't like it and the 'senior leaders' think it will inhibit Recruiting. It will to a slight extent but you shouldn't really want most of those so inhibited in any event...
Army Rank Structure: "Old King Cole"
The following is from my Dad's copy of the Army Song Book compiled by the Adjutant General's Office and published by the War Department in 1941. There is circumstantial evidence that this song was stolen from the British Army during the First World War, just like the the Field Artillery slogan about "Lending dignity to what otherwise be an unseemly brawl" was apparently copied from the British Cavalry during that war.
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"The Army's gone to hell," said the generals;
"What's my next command?" said the colonels;
"Where're my boots and spurs?" said the majors;
"We want ten days' leave," said the captains;
"We do all the work," said the shavetails;
"Right by squads, squads right," said the sergeants;
"One two, one two, one," said the corporals;
"Beer, beer, beer," said the privates,
"Merry men are we
There's none so fair as can compare
With the Fighting Infantry."
