Quote Originally Posted by Polarbear1605 View Post
Standard US Marine requirement is a battalion to move 24 miles in eight hours with field marching pack, flak jacket, helmet, T/O weapon...approximately 55- 60 lbs and no ammo. Many foot sore Marines the next day...
Agreed. I'd be curious to see what percentage of our combat arms units (even infantry) would be able to conduct ongoing, high-intensity combat operations after covering 20-30 miles a day on foot for a couple weeks. I strongly suspect it would be a much lower percentage than in armies of a century ago, due to lack of real acclimatization/foot hardening.

Based on two weeks training with Royal Marines, I will say they do a lot more of that than we do, at least during entry-level training. And Patrick Hennessey's book mentions how all Sandhurst cadets conduct Exercise Long Reach, a 36 hour, 80 km march over hilly terrain.