Force Ratios (the old 3-to-1 rule)

[JMA]

[snip]
That maybe true, but "being tough" has never been a British Army problem. The problem is ideas and practice, not mental or physical robustness. The British Army got the "getting tough" bit as right as anyone, long ago. No evidence that this is the problem.

This was the reply in response to my:

On the training mentioned, yes, certainly even a local Outward Bound course built early into the the training will do wonders... but a similar strongly military approach in an exotic location away from mommy and daddy with no cell phone reception or Internet will be a life changing experience for 18/9 year olds.

I assume you are the same William F. Owen who wrote Patrol-based infantry doctrine?

If that is so then we are closer to agreement than it appears (unless you just like a good argument

I maintain that the infantryman can no longer just be a bayonet... no matter how tough.

As William F. Owen said:

The PB Soldier must be a robust and determined individual, with a useable level of common sense, and arguably some modern armies do contain a significant percentage of such men, and even women...

...A PB Soldier is taught to navigate and live in the field as an individual. He is required to accomplish tests of navigation in both urban and rural terrain, possibly utilizing not just conventional maps but also aerial photographs and sketches. He must prove himself reliant when isolated and he must achieve a useable basic level of first aid and NBC skills. He is taught individual field craft and stalking in much the same way snipers are traditionally trained, and ultimately, he is taught to shoot under field rather than range conditions.

And yes I agree with that too.

That is why I advocate the kind of individual training I outlined above. See it like a rising tide needing to lift all the ships rather than just cherry-picking the best of the rest and probably underutilising them.

Take your average citizen and mold him to the best of his potential into the kind of individually skilled soldier needed on the modern battlefield. Get them young. Go to your traditional recruiting areas and fund/subsidize their attendance on a normal commercial Outward Bound course while still at school. Threat them like Premiership football clubs academies do their young and promising. Invite them to your Regimental days. Train them up in various proficiencies (like the Boy Scouts) etc etc

Now why Kenya is a good option is that what I would propose for the training at the various levels is because it would probably be problematic in the UK given the lunatic Health and Safety gestapo that exist.

(BTW have you updated that 2006 piece? If so where.)