USAF toughens basic training

[jegs2]

From Houston Chronicle

LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE - When a group of U.S. Air Force commanders visited Iraq two years ago, they made some disturbing observations as they watched enlisted airmen working in the war zone.
Many lacked basic combat skills and instincts. Some didn't know how to handle and load their weapons. A few even had their guns taken away as a safety precaution.
Within months, the high command mandated an overhaul of Air Force basic military training, which has been conducted here since 1942. Officials now say they've imposed the most dramatic changes in 60 years in the training's tone and curriculum.
Chief among them is a new, time-consuming emphasis on "warrior ethos," making every airmen capable of self defense in a service with a reputation for being removed from the front lines. The 38,000 trainees per year now spend less time learning to fold T-shirts so they can spend more time learning to wage war.
With 46 deaths recorded among airmen in Iraq — many of them in ground combat roles — trainees are embracing the new approach as a way of improving their survival chances in their almost-certain deployments to the war zone.
Trainee Primo Fiore, 19, of Modesto, Calif., is pleased to be among the first to get more combat training, a regimen started in November. After three weeks, she's proficient enough with her M-16A2 training rifle to demonstrate to reporters how it is quickly disassembled and reassembled. Before arriving, her experience with weapons was quite limited, she said.
"A BB gun when I was little. That's about it," Fiore said recently.
'Getting used to it'
That's more exposure to weapons than trainee Amanda Reed of Burlington Township, N.J., had before arriving for basic training, which now features rifle-handling from the outset.
"I'm getting used to it. We still haven't fired them — we do that next week," she said. Her family wasn't aware of the new push for combat training, but "when I told them I was learning to use an M-16, my younger brother was very enthusiastic about that."
Like many recruits, Reed joined the Air Force with the notion that it wouldn't be as perilous as other service branches.
"I still think that the Air Force isn't as dangerous as the Army or Marines," Reed said.

[Medic]

This as the Army makes easier the conditions in it's own BCT. (to my knowledge the standards have not been lowered)

Kudos to the Air Force, the Army's got it ass-backwards.

[sparrowtm]

Good for those USAF-recruits. I remember how jealous I was during my time in the Luftwaffe-boot camp. While we were primarily trained on how to use the G36 and personal sidearms, the army guys got to try out all the "cool" stuff.

But ground forces who do not know how to handle basic infantry weaponry? Sounds like a hoax or a really bad training schedule.

[Sea Skimmer]

But ground forces who do not know how to handle basic infantry weaponry? Sounds like a hoax or a really bad training schedule.

USAF base security troops are equipped and train with a variety of heavy weapons and light armored vehicles. No one else in the USAF besides pararescue jumpers is suppose to be involved in ground combat, the reality if Iraq has simply intruded into that premise. Even in the US Army, before the Iraq war it was possible to meet all yearly requirements for firing your rifle with only 174 rounds fired at various qualifications, assuming you weren’t an infantryman and most soldiers aren’t.

This as the Army makes easier the conditions in it's own BCT. (to my knowledge the standards have not been lowered)

Kudos to the Air Force, the Army's got it ass-backwards.

You seem to have missed the memo about technology making all pervious war fighting tactics, such as training, totally obsolete. All the future force shall need is twenty thousand civilian contractors to keep each mobile tactical data-overmatch computer running. This system will simply ‘know’ the enemy out of existence using eighty trillion dollars worth of sensors and a liquid helium cooled processor

[Golan III]

I'm pretty sure that shooting more than 100 rounds every 30 months would do a lot more good for weapons training, than additional Air Force gayness in the already hyper-gay Basic Training environment over an extended period of time. This "additional training" consists of being issed a blue-colored non-firing pseuo-weapon, that does have parts to it (they got rid of the rubber ducky, yay) for you to learn how to field-strip in 3 seconds in the dark. I'm not sure if the new program requires them to go to the range to actually shoot more than once, but I doubt it.

Keep in mind, once out of Basic, you don't fire a weapon for another 30 months. Only Security Forces, Combat Contol, TACPs, *maybe* Combat Weather, PJs, and OSI train on weapons more often than that. LIke I said, firing more than once every 3 years would do a world of good. And maybe even training on something else besides just the M-4/16 or M-9...

The good news is that the gayest shit of all, folding your goddam t-shirts into 6-inch squares of perfection, has been abolished - now they simply roll them up, like the Navy. So they can now focus on yelling at you on how shittily you stacked your rifles in a pyramid so you can dig sandbags or whatever, the diameter of this pyramid is exactly 3 feet and .75 of an inch, and the established standard is 3 feet, blah blah blah.

[sparrowtm]

USAF base security troops are equipped and train with a variety of heavy weapons and light armored vehicles. No one else in the USAF besides pararescue jumpers is suppose to be involved in ground combat, the reality if Iraq has simply intruded into that premise. Even in the US Army, before the Iraq war it was possible to meet all yearly requirements for firing your rifle with only 174 rounds fired at various qualifications, assuming you weren’t an infantryman and most soldiers aren’t.

Understood. Still, shouldn't each and every soldier who is sent into a crisis region receive some sort of adapted training prior to his actual deployment? Of course, that would be costly, especially since we're talking about massive numbers of personnel - but in Germany at least, every soldier who is deployed in say - Afghanistan or former Yugoslavia - receives training in how to deal with hostage situations, riots and has to prove he is capable of handling standard issue guns. This is mandatory for infantrymen as well as supply personnel.

[Sephirius]

[Aaron]

Understood. Still, shouldn't each and every soldier who is sent into a crisis region receive some sort of adapted training prior to his actual deployment? Of course, that would be costly, especially since we're talking about massive numbers of personnel - but in Germany at least, every soldier who is deployed in say - Afghanistan or former Yugoslavia - receives training in how to deal with hostage situations, riots and has to prove he is capable of handling standard issue guns. This is mandatory for infantrymen as well as supply personnel.

This is what the Canadian Forces does, we do 6 months of "work up" training before the deployment. This includes more intensive weapons training, and training specific to the particular deployment, including briefings on local culture. So you don't accidently piss off the locals who all carry RPGs and want to put a hole in your carrier.

On the weapons side of the house everyone gets training on the pistol, C-7, C-9, C-6, M72, Carl Gustav and Claymores plus grenades both hand thrown and the launcher whose name I have forgotten. Plus you get riot training as well as a smattering of training on various other subjects. I have often wondered whether the US does this or if they just toss their guys in the meatgrinder and hope for the best.

[Beowulf]

I'm pretty sure that shooting more than 100 rounds every 30 months would do a lot more good for weapons training, than additional Air Force gayness in the already hyper-gay Basic Training environment over an extended period of time. This "additional training" consists of being issed a blue-colored non-firing pseuo-weapon, that does have parts to it (they got rid of the rubber ducky, yay) for you to learn how to field-strip in 3 seconds in the dark. I'm not sure if the new program requires them to go to the range to actually shoot more than once, but I doubt it.

Keep in mind, once out of Basic, you don't fire a weapon for another 30 months. Only Security Forces, Combat Contol, TACPs, *maybe* Combat Weather, PJs, and OSI train on weapons more often than that. LIke I said, firing more than once every 3 years would do a world of good. And maybe even training on something else besides just the M-4/16 or M-9...

The good news is that the gayest shit of all, folding your goddam t-shirts into 6-inch squares of perfection, has been abolished - now they simply roll them up, like the Navy. So they can now focus on yelling at you on how shittily you stacked your rifles in a pyramid so you can dig sandbags or whatever, the diameter of this pyramid is exactly 3 feet and .75 of an inch, and the established standard is 3 feet, blah blah blah.

I could have sworn it's only 80 rds fired at basic.

[Wicked Pilot]

I wouldn't say training is getting tougher, it's just being redesigned around more important objectives. It's a welcome change that recruits are spending more time learning the M-16 than learning how to fold underwear as it was before.

[Golan III]

[QUOTE=BeoWulf]I could have sworn it's only 80 rds fired at basic.[/QUOTE]

It was...however, now you have to shoot with your gas mask on as well, adding the additional 20 rounds - 10 for practice, 10 for score. Not quite sure that's part of the Basic Training weapons qual or not, it wasn't when I went through, but it's definitely part of the 30-month re-qual cycle now.