Quote Originally Posted by JMA View Post
But just as we had "approach march" or "march and shoot" exercises to test the fitness for battle levels of the soldiers there should be a measure to test this in todays army. But it is yet another training question mark. It is strength and fitness which we can now add to question marks about marksmanship. To this we add question marks about tactical nous where platoons and companies patrol vast areas of open ground either as instructed or by choice and then we are left with the minor ractics ability. The prognosis is not good.
Well I cannot speak for the US, but the UK infantry are probably just as fit and just as robust as in past times. The same is probably true for their shooting.

..... but there are a number of pressing questions to be asked about UK infantry training, if only because what we did "back in the old days" was not good, and we might still be doing the same things today. IMO, a lot can be simplified. In my Kingdom, infantry training would be different from today and nothing like the bad old days.
I remember a diagram of the human body front and rear where the areas of wounds by percentage were indicated. I am wondering if they have such stats on Afghanistan already? And any which relate to wounds and injuries which have been avoided through the use of body armour?
For the UK, there is masses of data on every injury from Iraq and A'Stan, and it's all used to inform body armour design.
IMO, there are some sensible questions to be asked about body armour, especially the ballistic standards in relation to aerial density, and coverage.