CQC Issues in the Iraqi War.

[arnisador]

From a news story:

All had their weapons jam due to sand kicked up as they traveled from Kuwait.


Riley tried manually loading his M-16 automatic rifle but "realized there were too many of them." "We couldn't even make a bayonet charge," he said.

I find it interesting that this might have been considered! One wonders if bayonet training is of great value these days apart from the aggressiveness training.

Miller said: "A couple of people punched me, a couple of people hit me in the back with sticks."

The villagers "beat us a little, one of them with a stick,"

It's unlikely that fighting back against an armed mob was an option, yet defending oneself from taking significant damage from the stick and empty-hand beatings is itself self-defense (even if one can't fight back). Martial arts/CQC training could play a role here! It isn't all fighting from a distance using projectiles.

 

[yilisifu]

I agree wholeheartedly, but the military doesn't......

Years ago, one of my black belts was a Ranger. Their hand-to-hand training was something less than minimal and we often talked about how an extensive had-to-hand program would be of great benefit to modern soldiers; it would be wonderful for their sense of self-confidence if nothing else...
He taught his platoon our knife defenses which one of his men later used against an unarmed adversary (with great success).

Later, I taught one of the members of Seal Team Six. The self-defense techniques he had been taught were terrible and he was very excited to learn ours. He was later sent off to parts unknown and I never saw him again.

 

[MartialArtist]

With a lot of today's warfare being fought in urban areas, it is essential that one learns hand-to-hand combat in order to subdue and control rowdy civilians. I remember that in Seattle a few years ago, an unarmed mob went ballistic and rubber bullets and tear gas won't always work on everyone (the mob being in the thousands). In Portland, there was one guy who attacked an officer and it took six men to hold him to the ground and cuff him.

 

[theletch1]

Hand to hand training when I was in the Corps was, at best, sporadic and then it was usually only a couple of Judo throws. More of just something to do so that the S-3 could fill a box on a report to Bn.

The more U.S. combat troops are being used as basically riot control in third world countries and now what I think will be a prolonged time in Iraq doing non-combat duty to restore order the more important it becomes to be able to have a non-lethal means of self defense or the ability to control an unruly individual who is attempting to stir up a crowd. I'm all for a butt stroke from an M-16 to the jaw line of an instigator in a crowd behind the five ton with the food but that tends to irritate some folks (not very p.c. ya know). The military still does PT sessions at least three times a week and a lot of guys work out in one way or another more often than that. Why would it be so difficult to make at least one of those sessions a MA session. Granted it would be a problem in the beginning to have enough qualified individuals to train every unit out there but there are enough active duty martial artists that schools could be set up on just about every base there is.

An unaccompanied tour of duty in the Corps is 18 months long. Not enough time to master an art but plenty of time (if it were a school command) to train 5 days a week and get a great grasp on a style. Could make it a secondary MOS. Enough folks from different areas of the service take advantage of a school like that and there would soon be enough "trainers" floating around the ranks to pass on more and more of the knowledge needed. Besides, if we can train the vast majority of military personnel martial arts it should make for a hell of a friday night at all the local bars!!!

 

[yilisifu]

I agree! But the military doesn't, I'm afraid....

 

[Matt Stone]

The Marine Corps is currently working on getting tons of Marines qualified in the new Marine Corps Martial Arts Program. RyuShiKan did some time at MCAS Iwakuni on mainland Japan, and he said their training was pretty impressive.

The Army, however, has yet to jump fully on the bandwagon. About a year ago I heard on E-budo from one of the developers of the Army Combatives program that the Army was in the process of doing something similar to the Marines. But, the last I heard of it was about a year ago...

I am trying to get my office (we're JAG, and rear echelon I know, but that is where forces like the Sadaam Feyadeen were instructed to strike!) to incorporate Pavel Tsatsouline's kettlebell training into our regular PT (after doing KB, regular PT is a joke), and trying to convince them that some kind of regular MA class is a real necessity these days... They aren't buying it so far, though...

Gambarimasu.
:asian: :tank: :asian:

 

[MartialArtist]

It really all depends for our US military.

As a cadet from USMA, we did a lot of boxing, wrestling, and lots of martial arts classes that were grouped as just normal self-defense classes. Yeah, the self-defense program was basically a watered down version of everything, and it's real simple, but that's the point. You're not trying to be an expert hand-to-hand fighter, you can practice at another time. Ironically, I was not in the infantry branch... I majored in CS and took the IT field of study. Yet, I recieved much more combat training than the enlisted men.

A lot of the elite forces do a lot of hand-to-hand combat training, but it all depends. A Maine recon or a Navy SEAL... Who needs more hand-to-hand combat? Who needs what more than that? The Army Special Forces has an extensive language program, more so than say, a Ranger.

But one thing... EVERYONE can benefit from more MA training.

 

[arnisador]

Thread moved.

-Arnisador
-MT Admin-

 

[MartialArtsGuy]

When I was in the navy I had no (0) H2H training. None at all. Well not including bar fights but thats another story. No I was not involved in that many and I NEVER started one.

 

[arnisador]

Are bar fights another story? I say, sailors get in them disproportionately because of the nature of saling from port o port--no slam against sailors is intended here--and it's a matter of health and safety for them!

 

[MartialArtsGuy]

arnisador

I'm not sure what you mean. Could you please share your theory?

 

[arnisador]

Do sailors need self-defense training? For combat, perhaps not. For peacetime, they are apt to have shore leave in strange cities where they will be seen as obvious targets by local criminals. I think a sailor's greatest need for self-defense training is probably for protection in peacetime, not in wartime--and I think this is a legitimate need. How many sailors do you know who have a story of being mugged or having had a fight picked with them while in port? I worked for the Dept. of the Navy for three years (a civilian in a very military environment) and I heard them all the time.

 

[MartialArtsGuy]

You have a point, I agree. Learning some martial arts could have given us something to do at sea. I personally practiced but I was the only one that I knew of who was into martial arts.

In my experience the fights mostly started because ego mixed with alcohol and sailors can be a loud and rough bunch anyway while on liberty.

I remember an incident where 2 locals near rota spain tried to rob these two drunk sailors from my ship with a little knife. Well once again the beer muscles kicked in and fortunately for the sailors, luck was on their side because some how they were able to rough these two guys up with only one of them suffering a minor slice to the right arm.

I used to wonder how those people got into it so often. If I was ever involved it was because I was pulled in somehow. I was only involved with four fights during my enlistment. One was with a drunk marine, one at boot camp, and two in spain. Come to think of it, there were alot of fights in Spain, while our ship was moored there.

As far as combat training went. There was very little. I trained with a beretta 9mm a few times and an M-16 once. We had some chemical/biological (cbr) attack training, water survival and a good amount of shipboard fire fighting. Thats it though.

 

[KennethKu]

Late to the thread. Anyhow. The REALITY was, in that incident where the supply convoy was attacked, suffering death and capture, the ambushed troops were LAMPCHOP for the Iraqis. They were UNDERTRAINED, totally unprepared to fight for their lives. They OUTNUMBERED the enemies and quess what, they turned tails and ran!! with their sissy pant captain in the lead, outrunning his men and women in cowardice!! But you won't hear about the truth from the media. All you hear is all this BS about how gloriously courageous these heroes were. yeah, really..... (At least Colin Power got it right in saying that,"Unless otherwise proven, the men in the field are always right." If you want to know the truth, get it from those who were there.)

Back in the old days, we have kitchen crews, supply clerks picking up rifles to the aid of pin down frontline troops. We have convoy escorts defending their charge to the death because the men at the front depended on the convoy getting through. These days, we still have exceptionally well trained REMFs (real echelon mofo's) doing thankless job, going beyond the call of duty. But we have seriously undertrained many of them to face combat duties. When we as a nation, put them in harm's way so irresponsibly, their blood is on the hands of the political leadership, past and present.