https://www.stripes.com/news/s...ntry-school-1.534745

Soldiers to shoot more, stay longer in infantry school

By JOHN VANDIVER | STARS AND STRIPES
Published: June 26, 2018

The Army will add two more months to infantry school, marking the biggest change to the institution in nearly a half-century in a move the service says is designed to develop a more lethal force.

In July, the Army will extend its one-station unit training from 14 to 22 weeks in a pilot program, so that new recruits will get more weapons and combat training, said Col. Townley R. Hedrick, the commandant of the Army Infantry School, told the Army’s internal news service on Monday.

Between July and October of 2019 the expanded course will be introduced throughout the infantry school, the Army said.

The decision to reform the Army’s training of infantry soldiers came after Defense Secretary Jim Mattis emphasized the need for a more combat-ready ground force. Soldiers will train more with their M4 rifle, the M240 machine gun and the M249 squad automatic weapon, Hedrick said in a statement.

“So across all the infantry weapons, they will get more bullets,” he said. “And they will also shoot more at night, rather than just doing a day familiarization fire.”

For 44 years, infantry school has been a 14-week program that dedicates 10 weeks to basic military training and four weeks to developing special infantry skills. Under the new program, soldiers will receive more field training experience to help them understand how to better maneuver as a squad and conduct day and nighttime operations, the Army said.

An individual day and night land navigation course has been added, which is expected to improve the “mental and physical toughness of soldiers,” Hedrick said.

Also, vehicle training has been extended from one day to a full week to ensure troops can handle their designated combat vehicle, whether it’s a Stryker or a Bradley.

More intensive specialty school training could also soon be on the way for the Army’s armor and engineer schools, which are conducting internal reviews on how to expand initial training, the Army said.

This is awesome. I feel bad for the operations and land/ammo guys, though. That is a significant increase in time and I wonder how they're going to coordinate uses the various ranges and ammo.

Army training will now focus on actual battlefield skills, not social issues

Fighting will now take precedence over dealing with transitioning transgender troops, drug abuse and other issues as the Army seeks to overhaul its training regimen to hone its soldiers’ battlefield skills.

In a series of servicewide memorandums approved by Army Secretary Mark Esper and Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley and obtained by The Washington Times, service leaders are making optional previously mandatory training on issues such as transgender transition and drug abuse. The move, Army leaders argue, is designed to relieve stress on the overburdened troop training regimen and refocus on soldiers’ ability to fight in combat.

“The Army’s regulations and policies that deal with training were pretty settled, and there were not a lot of detractors to it. … It was all the other [training] requirements that we levied on ourselves, or we had levied from other places” that led to the increasingly cumbersome approach to combat readiness, said Col. John O’Grady, chief of the Army’s collective training division.

Those mandated training requirements “served as barriers to maximizing time … to build readiness and lethality” within combat units, he said in an interview. Aside from ending mandatory training programs on transgender troops and drug abuse, courses on media awareness and human trafficking have been eliminated from the mandatory curriculum, the service memorandums state.

Army officials are codifying the new marching orders into servicewide training guidelines and doctrine, which will bring the Army more in line with the Pentagon’s new National Defense Strategy, Col. O’Grady said.

The strategy, which was one of Defense Secretary James N. Mattis’ earliest policy initiatives, shifted away from the George W. Bush and Obama-era strategies dominated by battling extremist groups including al Qaeda, the Taliban and Islamic State, and putting the priority on challenging traditional nation-state rivals such as China and Russia. It also placed a greater emphasis on increasing lethality in conventional combat operations.

Along with scaling back noncombat training mandates, service leaders are also extending the time soldiers spend in infantry training. Soldiers graduating from the nine-week basic training course will now spend an additional two months in “advanced individual training” before heading to their first duty stations.

New soldiers currently spend about six weeks in advanced individual training before deploying. Courses based at Fort Benning, Georgia — dubbed “Home of the Infantry” — will be the first to implement extended training, Military.com reported.

Other previously required training regimens — covering issues such as pre-deployment cultural awareness skills, combat survival and evasion, and dealing with improvised explosive devices — will now be carried out at the discretion of unit commanders.

Empowering commanders

Pushing command-level decision-making processes down to unit-level officers has been a trend for U.S. forces since Mr. Trump took office.

President Trump’s approval of a Pentagon plan last year to allow senior U.S. and coalition commanders in Iraq and Syria to delegate command of American air power down to the tactical level was widely welcomed by many military officers, who chafed at times from the close scrutiny of battlefield decisions under President Obama. The new Army training doctrine reflects a similar spirit of deference, Col. O’Grady said.

“One of the things this did is reinforce to commanders out in the field that you have the authority and responsibility to ensure your units are as highly trained as humanly possible” to carry out combat operations.

Eliminating mandatory training for transgender troops wades into the ongoing policy debate between the White House and federal courts over transgender troops in the ranks. Judge Marsha Pechman of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington this month became the latest judge to block Mr. Trump’s ban on transgender troops in the military.

Army officials say the decision to eliminate mandatory training for transgender troops was not made for ideological reasons, but because the effort had already run its course.

“Transgender training is complete across the Total Army,” one of the service memorandums states.

The initial push for mandatory training on transgender troops was to educate older officers and senior noncommissioned officers unfamiliar or uncomfortable with transgender troops, an Army official said. Younger, junior officers and newly enlisted soldiers do not require the same level of education on transgender issues.

But critics say Army leaders are doing a disservice to transgender soldiers and their units by canceling the mandatory training.

Army leaders engaged in a vigorous debate “balancing pros and cons and prioritizing what you expect” from the new training policies, particularly focused on transgender and other social issues, Col. O’Grady said.

While any decision was bound to spark debate, “I would offer [Mr. Esper] is probably pretty savvy on all of those decisions,” he added.

quote:

Originally posted by BamaJeepster:
a greater emphasis on increasing lethality in conventional combat operations.

What?!?! In the Army?!?!

This is a good move, and overdue. Elections have consequences!

You mean political correctness, tolerance and diversity are not what determines the winner and the loser in battle?

quote:

Originally posted by BamaJeepster:
Army training will now focus on actual battlefield skills

What a concept! Letting the ARMY...be THE ARMY!

Exit the Army of Obama; enter the Army of Trump.

And the WINNING continues.

Great news.

Nice.

This is great. My son went through basic three years ago and said the firearms portion was very lacking. He was glad I had him shooting at an early age.

quote:

Originally posted by JohnnyD:
And the WINNING continues.

Agreed, Johnny!!

I'm just spiff-balling here, but this winning extends well beyond just the Army. Think of all the manufacturers of gun-related goods that this positively affects. Ammo factories/workers, gun cleaning supplies, target manufacturers, smokeless powder factories, primer manufacturers, and on and on and on. It's amazing how ONE THING has a true trickle-down effect on making that ONE THING successful. THIS...is capitalism!!!

quote:

Originally posted by 229DAK:
Exit the Army of Obama; enter the Army of Trump.

Not to inject politics into this but under Obama, the "mandatory training" for non-combat related things increased each year...

Earlier this year we received memos eliminated a lot of mandatory training that had nothing to do with combat. It also eliminated online SERE training. Yeah, you read that right, we did SERE training online...

OK...I'll be the numb-nut to ask just how in the "F" do you train for...
SURVIVAL
EVASION
RESISTANCE
ESCAPE...

ON-LINE?!?!? Play "Call of Duty" or "Battlefield"??? WTF??? Whoever created the CBT for that HAD to be laughing the entire time!

What's even more amazing is that O-dipshits generals just sat there nodding their heads like the sycophant yes-boys they are and AGREED to this idiotic, inane idea! Jesus H. Christ on a popsicle stick!!!

Thank you JESUS for Pres. Donald J. Trump and Gen. James N. Mattis!!!!!

quote:

Also, vehicle training has been extended from one day to a full week to ensure troops can handle their designated combat vehicle, whether it’s a Stryker or a Bradley.

I cannot believe only one day for vehicle training. That was crazy.

quote:

Originally posted by erj_pilot:
OK...I'll be the numb-nut to ask just how in the "F" do you train for...
SURVIVAL
EVASION
RESISTANCE
ESCAPE...

We asked the same thing...

Big Army wanted it so we did it. Biggest waste of a 1 hour block of time ever.

quote:

Originally posted by Scoutmaster:
You mean political correctness, tolerance and diversity are not what determines the winner and the loser in battle?

Well if you have political correctness, tolerance and diversity we are already winners and what happens on the battlefield doesn't count.....at least according to the Leftist Elites of the Obummer Era.

This is the second time I have written this today but thank God for DJT and Mad Dog Mattis!!!

Thank you for posting this! I didn't expect much when I clicked the thread, but an additional 2 months is huge!

I went through infantry OSUT in 1992. I'm still in and for my whole career I have only seen the shift away from combat training to all the other mandatory briefings having nothing to do with combat stuffed into the same amount of training time available.

'bout time the tide turned!

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:

quote:

Originally posted by BamaJeepster:
Army training will now focus on actual battlefield skills

What a concept! Letting the ARMY...be THE ARMY THE USMC!

FIFY

Seriously, good news! As former Army, I always felt more emphasis was needed on combat arms, with less time spent on crap like classes on keeping a checkbook (no joke).

Are they going to increase the weapons training for non-infantry soldiers as well?