Are the British the best trained army in the world?

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boris the romanian RE:Are the British the best trained army in the world? 4/17/2005 4:36:58 AM

Nope, that honour goes to the Vatican Guard.

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Britain_patriot RE:Are the British the best trained army in the world? 4/18/2005 11:33:22 AM

The vatican guard?

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Ehran RE:Are the British the best trained army in the world? 4/18/2005 11:55:44 AM

the papacy long ago desirous of security in an uncertain world hired a body of swiss troops who at the time were the best mercenaries available in that they were highly competent and best of all unlikely to be bribed by the foe. if you google you should be able to find out the date they hired the swiss but the halberds the vatican guard carry were state of the art at the time. while the vatican guard you see wear their odd uniforms and carry halberds i am fairly sure there are more up to date versions tucked away somewhere in the background should unpleasantness break out.

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ambush RE:Are the British the best trained army in the world? 4/18/2005 3:38:46 PM

I think the Swiss Guard qualifies more as a highly trained security force on the level of law enforcement instead of an "Army". The UK , in my opinion, has the best trained Airborne and Marine forces. The rest of their Amry ceratinly ranks up there among the best.

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PeregrinePike RE:Are the British the best trained army in the world? 4/18/2005 4:42:17 PM

"The UK , in my opinion, has the best trained Airborne and Marine forces. The rest of their Amry ceratinly ranks up there among the best. " -- But the numbers are so small... I mean US Rangers are just as qualified as Para Reg and are probably in the same numbers, however if you compare the Paras with say 82nd AB then you might find a qualitative edge somewhere... but remeber there is a full division of 82nd. Same can probably be said of the Marines... RM is a commando unit, and should rightly be compared with the US Marine Recon or something (I dont know the US equivalant) with similar numbers.... not the entire US Marine Corps.

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southern cross RE:Are the British the best trained army in the world? 4/18/2005 8:06:20 PM

>>>-- But the numbers are so small... <<< size does not in ANY way equal quality.

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ambush RE:Are the British the best trained army in the world? 4/19/2005 1:07:38 AM

Size does indicate quality to a certain extent. It would be great if the selection process for US Army Airborne School and subsequent duty with the 82nd Airborne were as rigorous as selection for the UK?s Parachute Regiment. However it is unlikely that they would graduate the numbers of personnel they think they need it all boils down to the cost of the attrition rate and reaching your authorized manning levels. I say think because the Army uses jump school as a ticket punching school. Personnel, mostly officers, who will never spend a day assigned to a airborne unit will attend the course, get their wings and never strap on a chute again. It looks good in their record but that is about it. There is little reason for an Armor officer to go to jump school. Anybody who has been to US Army Jump School, who is being honest, will tell you it is not particularly demanding. In fact what they spend three weeks teaching could be done in one week. Why Airborne School has more prestige than Air Assault School is beyond me. Air Assault School is not all that difficult either but for my money it was more demanding than jump school. What quality there is in the 82nd is not the result of Airborne School but of the training personnel receive once they are assigned to an airborne unit. But I would argue that there is little in quality that separates the 82nd from units like the 10th Mountain Division or 25th Infantry Division. But it is obvious that the Paras are step above a unit like the Welsh Guards. The Parachute is merely a means of delivery to the battlefield not how you fight on the battlefield. If US Army jump school was limited to those who had actual need to attend the selection process could be more demanding and you would have a higher quality of personnel because attrition costs would be less. Even with in the 82nd division there are those in some support units who have no real need of a pair of jump wings so you could tighten the selection process even more. The Marine Corps and Royal Marines are a different story. Numbers are still the big story here. Sure the Marine Corps would like to have a 30 plus week boot camp like the Commandos Course but they would never get the numbers they need. But unlike Airborne School, Marine basic Training is not some ticket punching exercise everybody who is to be a Marine must go through it. Now it could be argued that a country with the size population of the Untied States cold tighten up standards for both the Marine Corps and Airborne and sill meet it numbers. For Airborne they could because we are only talking one division. Bu tin the Marine Corps we are talking over 150,000 personnel and believe it or not there is political opposition to lengthening Marine Boot Camp. When General Gray was Commandant he tried to lengthen but Congress did not want to shell out more money. General Gray got around this by tacking on some extra training after boot camp by sending all Marines to Infantry Training School after boot camp for 4 weeks of Combat skills training. Above that what they received in boot camp. There is also some, though limited, political pressure of the Marine Corps to adopt co-ed basic training which of course would make it easier not harder. When you add the controversy surrounding recruit deaths the Marine Corps is lucky that its training is as demanding s it is. I do not think the rangers are the equivalent of the Royal Marines or Paras. Not everybody in the Ranger battalion has completed Rangers School were as everybody in the Royal Marines as completed the Commando course. As good as RIP might be I do not think it is on the same level as the Commando course. I would even argue the Infantry Battalion component of a Marine Expeditionary Unit, that has completed its train up prior to deployment, is the equal of a Ranger Battalion. On a day to day basis the ege would go tothe Rnagers becuase they do nto suffer the same personnel turbulance.

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PeregrinePike RE:Are the British the best trained army in the world? 4/19/2005 9:25:25 AM

"size does not in ANY way equal quality." -- Size does constrain quality interms of training resources that can/are be allocated.

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PeregrinePike RE:Are the British the best trained army in the world? - ambush 4/19/2005 9:32:12 AM

I equated Rangers to Paras... under the assumption that all Rangers have been to Rangers course. So who (or what percentage) of a Ranger battalion is exempt from going to Ranger course? I honestly dont know a thing about the Marine Recon, but still equated them to RM commandos out of a blind guess by the numbers and roles (of which I know of, but still cant remember if they come under SOCOM or not?)

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AlbanyRifles RE:Are the British the best trained army in the world? - ambush 4/19/2005 10:55:40 AM

In the Ranger battalion, everyone sergeant and above are Ranger qualified...most Specialist are Ranger qualified or get to Ranger school. They are trying to push more privates to go. But remember, unlike the Paras or others, an enlisted man in the Ranger Redgiment is on a 3 year enlistment. Now as far as Airborne School as such, the US Army Airborne School is responsible for training all airborne qualified personnel in the US military, not just the Army and not just the 82d Airborne. There is a certain economy of scale with the size of the school.....and since the Army personnel policy states once you are airborne qulaified you are eligible for an airborne assignment some folks go who may need it in the future. Efficient? Maybe not, but it works.

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ambush RE:Are the British the best trained army in the world? - ambush 4/19/2005 10:57:21 AM

I think one of the big diffrences between the Paras and Royal Marines compared to the Rangers and Force Reconis that Paras and Royal Marines have already been through a Qualifiactions course when they reach theri unit while the Rangers and Force Recon more or less train and qualify their people once they get them. It goes without saying which systemi s better. Nobody in the battalions are really exempt from Ranger School . It is that they are not all eligible to attend. Attendance to Ranger school is of course subject to course availability. It varies upon the needs of the Army but used to be restricted to E-4s (Corporals/Spec4 )and above. I think the rank restriction has been lifted. Also it all depends how many people the Ranger Units can afford to send to the course and still meet operational commitments. Ranger School is more of a leadership of under stress course, which uses patrolling under different environments as its main instructional tool. Most people attending the course already know the fundamentals of what they teach their but have never had to apply them under such stressful conditions. To me it would be ideal if all Combat Arms NCOs and Officers had to go through Ranger School, but attrition and numbers would never permit that. As a side note, you do not have to be jump qualified to attend Ranger School, I graduated in 1980 as a ?leg? Marine. When the US Army created the Light Infantry Divisions the desire was to have all the Combat Unit Officers and NCOs be ranger Qualified. The budget constraints of the 90s put and end to that. The Ranger Regiment does run a RIP, Ranger Indoctrination Program, which was sort of a mini Ranger School for members of the unit. Conventional wisdom was that if you could make it through RIP you could probably make it through Ranger School. So if you equate RIP with PARA selection course I guess you could call them equal but I have no idea how RIP is even being run now. Below is a link to the qualifications to attend Ranger School. Keep in mind they are the minimums and I strongly recommend and individual be able to exceed them. Force Recon is a different animal and I cannot speak to how it is now structured or run but can only tell you about 2nd Force Recon in the early 80s. First of off Reconnaissance was not a primary MOS back then but a secondary so there was no career advancement or promotion structure to support it. The argument was there were not enough Marines in recon to support a promotion system. If you managed to stay with the unit 3 years you were doing good. Also we lost about 1/3rd of our NCOs every year to either Recruiting Duty or Drill Instructor Duty. We called it the NFL draft and it really hurt us when you figured it took about a year to get a person trained up. Joining Force Recon was voluntary for those assigned to Recon platoons ?grunts and radio operators. But all our support personnel were assigned-clerks, cooks, etc and were not required to meet the same standards since they really did not go on missions. If I remember the minimum standards were 1st class on the PFT, a swim test (500 meters ?), and a 110 (?) GT score. These tests were administered when you reported to the unit. We also got screen every graduating class from Infantry Training School at Geiger for two people. There was not a standard training qualification program for Force Recon at that time. By TO&E I think we were authorized six recon platoons with three 4 man recon teams and platoon leadership. At best I think we had 4 platoons and one of these was always a new one being formed up and trained. There was no formal Force Recon School. We sent personnel to courses as they became available. We tried to send platoons as a whole to Amphibious Reconnaissance School (ARS). We sent individuals to the Army Jump School, Pathfinder, Jump Master, Halo and Ranger School and on rare occasions even to the SF course. Depending on what course was available and the individuals GT score we also sent to either the Navy?s Scuba School or the SF Scuba School. Because of operations commitments and the limited availability of some schools there was a wide variance in the training of personnel at that time. While almost everybody went to ARS if you had been to Ranger School you might not get to go to ARS. They tried to get everybody jump qualified but we did not come close to getting everybody dive qualified. Of course back then Force Recon was sort of a stepchild that nobody really knew what to do with. They liked having it around but were not really sure how to employ us. Things have changed for the better now I guess since Reconnaissance can now be a primary MOS and Force Recon was actually a partner in running the Special Forces Water Infiltration course. link

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Worcester RE:A UK army at 1/2 the size of the US Marines Corps...they should be well trained! 4/19/2005 3:52:31 PM

1. The British army is 1/2 the US Marine Corps... 2. The British army + the whole RAF have fewer troops, tanks, helos and jet aircraft than the US Marines... 3. The US Army is 5 times the size of the US Marines...i.e 10 times the size of the British Army or collectively, 12 times the size... ....damn well hope they're well trained! Few enough of them... any smaller and they can all share the same classroom!

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ambush RE:A UK army at 1/2 the size of the US Marines Corps...they should be well trained! 4/19/2005 4:33:18 PM

Ture to a certain extent but if you are nto willing to invest in the training of even a relatively small force then numbers mean nothing Instead of large number of poorly trained mariens/soldiers you have a samll number of them. The US population base is such that it could probably handle the attrition of training all individuals the 8 Marine active duty Infantry Regiments to the same Standard of a Royal Marines. But the increased cost would be enourmous and even worse was it would change the character of the Marine Corps-that of the shared expeience of all Marines of a single basic training and a philosphy that all Marines are riflemen. I do not think that the advantage of "Commmando" training the Infantry outweighs the "shared origin". I do believe that Infantry training in both the Marine Corps and Army is too short and should be doubled. You could however tighten up Airborne trainingg and make the 82nd more selective since so many people now go to jump school only as a ticket punching exercise. The Army also lacks the shared experience of a common boot camp with the non-combat arms personnel going to co-ed basic training/summer camp. This means there could be a higher selection standard for personnel being assigned to the Parachute Infantry, COmbat Engineer and Artillery units. The obstacle to this is of course the costs associated with attrition and that fact that fewer armor and AG officers wil be able to run around with jump wings while assigned to the 1st Cav Div.

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Worcester RE:Are the British the best trained army in the world? 4/19/2005 6:22:25 PM

I was being fascwtious. There is no doubt the Brits spend more time and money on training - basic, advanced, exercise - than anyone else. But I had a point. The Brits have taken the professional concept to the nth degree...they trully believe in fighting as a "come as you are" force which explains 6 months for army infantry and marine commando basic training...because the new trained recruit goes straight into combat. We in the US have always had a problem with the pure professional force because:- (a) we still believe in national mobilization (why else do we bother still having the draft arrangements?) (b) local vested interests support the reserve structure (National Guard etc) (c) too many industrial interests in equipment, rather than troop quality; (d) too many generals want to micromanage troops - better communications mean more command interference; (e) lack of delegation to squad/platoon commanders because of lack of experience and a "rigid" command structure (f) we cant ensure the recruits (the US army simply doesn't enjoy the same social prestige in the US that the Brit army enjoys in the UK) If we really train a professional field army - which is what we may get out of Iraq - the 10% who are doing the fighting might just start to wonder what the rest of the bureacracy are doing. And the military bureacrats (including quite a few field generals) should be worried...very, very worried.

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ambush RE:Are the British the best trained army in the world? 4/19/2005 7:28:22 PM

>>If we really train a professional field army - which is what we may get out of Iraq - the 10% who are doing the fighting might just start to wonder what the rest of the bureacracy are doing. And the military bureacrats (including quite a few field generals) should be worried...very, very worried.<< While there is still a lot of fat in the Army remember there is a rule of thumb that for every deployed unit you need three or four more in the rotation.: One that just completed the deployment and is in a rest and recovery phase, another training up for the deployment and maybe another in the on deck circle. Remember you also have units o air alert (2 Marine Battalions) the 82nd has units on alert status. You also cannot pull everybody out of Korea. We also still have Marine Expeditionary Units on their regular deployments. We also have b people still in Afghanistan as well as Djibouti, Philippines, Columbia and the Balkans. Of course we do not need 20,000 people assigned to the Pentagon or so many Generals. Do we really need so many Headquarters units like 5th Army Headquarters? When was the last time we deployed and Army? Of course some of this is supposed to addressed by the reforms Rumsfeld is trying to implement.

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