Revamped basic focuses on marksmanship - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Revamped basic focuses on marksmanship

COLUMBIA, S.C. — A new generation of flabby recruits, and lessons learned during eight years of war, have led to a comprehensive overhaul of basic training.

The reshaped 10-week course reduces the amount of physical stress on recruits — fewer pushups and shorter foot marches — and increases marksmanship. And adds more sleep.

The training revolution, designed to transition the millennial generation of young American volunteers into soldiers, will be launched at installations throughout the Army over the next few months.

The impending changes reverberating through the Army’s training community are the culmination of a holistic review of initial military training that began about five years ago, according to Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, Training and Doctrine Command’s deputy commanding general for Initial Military Training.

Hertling said he believes it is a good time to transition to a new training system given the improving situation in Iraq, the intensifying fight in Afghanistan and the arrival of a new type of trainee who is technologically savvy but fitness-challenged.

“The generation of young people coming into the Army now have tremendous talents in terms of being able to team well, communicate well and not take mindless orders without asking why,” Hertling said.

“The major problem is that they are coming to us in [worse] physical shape than their predecessors.

“This has nothing to do with who we are recruiting today. It’s just a reflection of what’s going on in American society right now,” Hertling said.

The ambitious agenda of change unveiled here at the service’s annual Initial Military Training forum calls for:

• A new basic combat training program that retains the 10-week format of the current system, but that places additional emphasis on marksmanship, combatives, physical fitness, values and culture.

• A sharp reduction in the number of core soldiering skills, called warrior tasks and battle drills, to support Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey’s training dictum that soldiers “do a few key tasks well ... and then prepare to adapt to the situation.”

While the new alignment of tasks and drills recommended to Casey in early March are included in the new basic training program, they also will be taught in operational units and will be addressed in the various professional development courses of the officer and NCO education systems.

• A standardized basic rifle marksmanship strategy that requires soldiers to become proficient, comfortable and knowledgeable about their weapon before moving on to advanced training and combat familiarization fire.

Under this new strategy, infantry trainees will fire 730 rounds, and non-infantry trainees 500 rounds. They now fire about 300 rounds.

• A standardized physical readiness training program that strives to improve the fitness of a generally less fit generation of trainees without pushing them so hard that they sustain stress fractures and other serious injuries.

Hertling said the attrition rate in the past few years has been between 10 and 15 percent, and many of those have been from stress fractures and other medical problems.

The program’s goal is to gradually increase the fitness of trainees so they will be ready for a more rigorous regimen of PT when they reach the operational force.

• The fielding of a new combatives program for 1.2 million soldiers of the active and reserve components, regardless of gender and military occupational specialty.

Like the new physical readiness training, the Modern Army Combatives program will build skills from basic to complex and will be based on lessons learned from the combat theater.

Lessons planned for basic officer and enlisted training include fighting with a rifle, employing a bayonet or knife, reacting to contact from the front, reacting to contact from the rear, pummeling for neck control, knee strikes and defense against knee strikes.

“I think leaders in the first 10 years of the 21st century were committed to improving the training system but, at the same time, were focused on the war and meeting the demands of the operational force, which in turn resulted in more things being added to what we were training,” Hertling said.

“All these additions, by a lot of well-meaning people, were made without really taking a holistic approach to the process,” said Hertling, a former commander of 1st Armored Division in Europe and Iraq. “If the physical fitness of America’s youth does not improve, then it will be a major national security issue within 10 years.”

Physical fitness training

In revamping the PT program, and developing a standardized curriculum for trainees and operational soldiers in garrison and deployed status, the Army has tried to strike a balance between improving capability while decreasing injuries.

“If you break a young man or woman in basic training, they will have to be recycled, and probably never really will become fit,” Hertling said.

He added, “We are seeing more stress fractures, a greater body fat percentage and a decline in the ability of many new soldiers to perform one minute of pushups, one minute of sit-ups and make a one-mile run.”

Frank Palkoska, director of the Army Physical Fitness School at Fort Jackson, S.C., said an upcoming revision to the Army Physical Readiness Training manual will dictate “a proper progression of exercises to prevent injury and possibly a lifetime of problems.”

The classic military foot march provides a good example of how the Army wants to work trainees toward fitness progressively, and then improve and maintain fitness once they leave the training.

During the “toughening phase” of the new strategy, marches for initial entry soldiers will progress from two to 15 kilometers.

The “sustainment phase” of the strategy envisions that soldiers training for deployment, or in available status, conduct marches of 10 to 30 kilometers. During reset, the standard for marches will be 10 kilometers or less.

Drills and tasks

In moving toward implementation of all major components of the new training system by July 1, TRADOC has asked Casey to approve a new alignment of core soldiering skills that will sharply reduce the current menu of 32 warrior tasks and 11 battle drills.

If Casey approves the proposal, there will be 15 warrior skills and four battle drills taught in basic training, in units and in professional development courses.

The new agenda is less prescriptive and more adaptable to the requirements of a soldier’s specialty or combat functional area.

For example, under the previous menu of warrior tasks, soldiers received training not only in basic rifle marksmanship, but also on the operation of three machine guns — the M240B medium machine gun, the M249 squad automatic weapon and the M2 .50-caliber heavy machine gun.

“If someone calls me to the fight, I am going to have a weapon, and for most soldiers that will not be the .50-caliber machine gun,” Hertling said.

Research shows that after basic training, only one out of every 70 soldiers will have an occasion to use the M2 .50-caliber.

“What soldiers need to do is stay proficient in their assigned weapon,” Hertling said.

“The warrior skills and battle drills we have recommended to the chief form the basis of soldiering, and they are in line with Gen. Casey’s training strategy of doing a few tasks well,” he said. “Don’t try and be a jack-of-all-trades.”

Basic rifle marksmanship

Describing BRM as “the most contentious issue” he has encountered since becoming chief of initial military training in September 2009, Hertling said the changes being made to this most basic of soldiering skills “are much more than an attempt to get soldiers qualified.”

“Qualified is not enough. We want soldiers to truly understand their weapon, know what they are doing with it, and be able to knock down targets,” he said. “Qualification is still important, but the ability to become one with your weapon, not be afraid of it, and use it almost as an extension of your body, is critical.”

There is a debate over when a soldier should learn to shoot wearing combat gear, early or late in the training, and how many rounds should be fired during basic training.

Under the new strategy, trainees will not fire with combat gear and rifle optics until after they have developed a comfort level with the weapon and have fired for record.

“As soon as they have earned that marksmanship badge, then the trainers can start piling on the equipment and show them what combat is like,” Hertling said.

That phase of the training is called Advanced Rifle Marksmanship, and it is designed to teach soldiers how to shoot on the move, from behind barriers and with optics at different ranges.