Army Drops Hand Grenade and Land Nav. Competency From Basic Training

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Army Drops Hand Grenade and Land Nav. Competency From Basic Training - AllOutdoor.com


“We are finding that there are a large number of trainees that come in that quite frankly just physically don’t have the capacity to throw a hand grenade 20 to 25 to 30 meters.

In 10 weeks, we are on a 48-hour period; you are just not going to be able to teach someone how to throw if they haven’t thrown growing up.”


And the saddest part of the article:

The whole article is a very interesting read. The part about the new recruits lack discipline and have a sense of entitlement should be a concern.
 
Next up: DoD places hage order to Procter and Gamble to outfit this years' recruits with adult diapers. Nannies will be stationed in all the latrines to show them how to wipe the poo poo off their bumbums
 
Here is a story my late dad use to tell about basic training and the hand grenade requirement

There was a dirt pit, the sargent gave you a grenade, you went into the pit, pulled the pin, threw the grenade, grenade goes boom, and then you handed the pin to the sargent. The day before my dad's unit was suppose to get the training, a recruit was killed when his hand grenade malfunctioned blowing him up in the pit.

My dad was terrified and managed to beg/borrow/steal/buy a hand grenade pin that he put into his pocket. He went into the pit, threw the grenade with the pin intact and handed his extra pin to the sargent. The sargent said "it must have been a dud" and my dad passed the requirement.

Like all of my dad's stories, the truth may have been altered.....
 
Shocking right up there with not much marksmanship training.
Soon combat skills will be replaced with how to talk with your enemy skills.
Maybe its time to just get rid of our standing army altogether and just has a navy protecting our shorelines
 
LandNav too? Disgusting. This ain't your Daddy's Army anymore.
Now they are really gonna need the Marines...
 
Here is a story my late dad use to tell about basic training and the hand grenade requirement

There was a dirt pit, the sargent gave you a grenade, you went into the pit, pulled the pin, threw the grenade, grenade goes boom, and then you handed the pin to the sargent. The day before my dad's unit was suppose to get the training, a recruit was killed when his hand grenade malfunctioned blowing him up in the pit.

My dad was terrified and managed to beg/borrow/steal/buy a hand grenade pin that he put into his pocket. He went into the pit, threw the grenade with the pin intact and handed his extra pin to the sargent. The sargent said "it must have been a dud" and my dad passed the requirement.

Like all of my dad's stories, the truth may have been altered.....

Lol. You need to embellish the story too, for Dad!
Add, that before the training he was on KP Duty and smuggled out a spud, which he threw instead of the grenade.
Then pull a olive-drab mickey from your pocket and say that he gave you that grenade for your 18th birthday... :D
 
If they aren't learning how to use grenades and a basic survival skill like reading a map with a magnetic compass, then just WTF are they doing in basic? A compass, map, with a radio turns even a single infantryman into a potential God among men when support is available over the line.
 
If they aren't learning how to use grenades and a basic survival skill like reading a map with a magnetic compass, then just WTF are they doing in basic? A compass, map, with a radio turns even a single infantryman into a potential God among men when support is available over the line.

They are relying way too much on the electronic shit IMHO.
If my Father was alive (Master Sargent) he'd be off his nut over not teaching these guys basic navigation.
The toys are great if you base it on the assumption that your always going to have it and it's always going to work.
I wouldn't bet my life or a mission off of that assumption.
 
They still teach land nav in the age of GPS?

I thought I was part of the last generation who could call for fire with a 10 digit grid off of a DMA map.
 
GPS denied is a reality - land nav is still needed.

Grenade toss - How much is based on lowering standards so that women can 'excel' in combat roles?
 
In fairness, the BCT MOI is always a moving target. My land nav instruction block was VERY rudimentary in 1994; maybe an hour with an easel. If I hadn’t already known how to land-navigate, I certainly wouldn’t have learned in Basic. LOTS of land nav in AIT, though, but then I was a 13F.

In contrast, BCT was the first and last time I ever had anything to do with hand grenades or bayonets.
 
One thing to bear in mind here is that 75% of Soldiers in the Army will never see a grenade EVEN WHEN DEPLOYED TO A COMBAT THEATER.

Trust me.....the infantry soldiers will be trained to throw a grenade.

Don't get me wrong.....it is still a problem that the majority of new recruits can't do it......but for the vast majority of soldiers they would have never seen another live grenade after basic anyway.
 
I'm sure that the 75th Ranger Regiment will continue to teach both... blindfolded.
There 5 "combat support or combat service support" soldiers for every trigger puller in the Army. The infantry will still be training in live grenades trust me.
 
GPS denied is a reality - land nav is still needed.

Grenade toss - How much is based on lowering standards so that women can 'excel' in combat roles?
It's also a fact that most Soldiers in non combat mos will never ever see a live grenade after basic anyway.
 
General population is less fit than they used to be. Seems like they should extend basic or tighten enlisting standards, but not sure if that would be practical.

At least with officers, combat arms MOS are seen as prestigious and competition is high for these assignments. PT scores are high.

Not sure what they can do about doughy enlisting men though.
 
How are they gonna tell the 2nd LTs they are lost?!

We did map and compass land nav every year in the USMC until I got out in 2014. In fact I read recently the Marine Corps is doubling down on it. Never touched a GPS until we got the BFTs in Afghanistan.

Marines don't use grenades until SOI. We also did a grenade range a few years later... its not exactly rocket science. We did get more practice on the M203s and as a CAAT platoon of course the Mk19s as well. In fact we shot Marks with HEDP quite a bit.

Mike
 
Sorry, but has anyone here ever done a landnav course with a bunch of confused future 2LTs? It's hysterical to watch. Now I was friends with a lot of them, but I wouldn't trust them with a map and compass.

For the record, I finished the course third, but only because I stopped to dick around with the guys at my last waypoint who, like me, were smart enough to know that if we got back too early the sergeant running the course was gonna send us back out with a new set of waypoints. I already had my Orienteering merit badge in Boy Scouts, I didn't need to go wade through the f***ing creek again after putting on the only spare pair of dry socks I had with me.

The map and compass are typically given to the sergeant who actually knows how to use them. No one trusts a private or a 2LT with a map.
 
In fairness, the BCT MOI is always a moving target. My land nav instruction block was VERY rudimentary in 1994; maybe an hour with an easel. If I hadn’t already known how to land-navigate, I certainly wouldn’t have learned in Basic. LOTS of land nav in AIT, though, but then I was a 13F.

In contrast, BCT was the first and last time I ever had anything to do with hand grenades or bayonets.

We had to find coffee cans staked to the ground with map and compass (80's before GPS) day and night miles apart. Each can had a code to write down to prove you found it. Granted this was a more advanced course after basic.
 
I remember when we were at MWTC they sent a bunch of 2nd lts who were basically on hold waiting for their IOC class seats to open up. They got us pretty "lost" and one of our PFCs who was an avid outdoorsman physically grabbed the map from one of these idiots and told them to follow him. Our actual company commander who wasnt too thrilled to be babysitting these non-fully trained 2nd lts that we'd never see again just laughed.

This ranks up there with the dumbest thing the good idea fairy has come up with.

Mike
 
I'm sure that the 75th Ranger Regiment will continue to teach both... blindfolded.

I pray that Regiment will always be Regiment. Good old fashioned pain and discipline and very high standards to not only pass selection, but to succeed and exceed the standards daily or get RFS’d.

I just heard the other day that Ranger students who are accepted to RASP01 are now required to sign an NDA upon acceptance. Smart, keep everything close hold and stay out of the spotlight so they’re left alone to do things the right way.
 
It was a bitch navigating across a three canopy jungle using a 1:50,000 topo map. Needless to say, there was no GPS in 67/68.

It was even more difficult flying and navigating at nap-of-the-earth altitudes which sometimes became necessary when the VC and NVA (albeit rarely) had their .51 cal anti-aircraft setups working properly. I hope today's military folk fully appreciate the magic of GPS navigation!
 
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