Back when boarding actions would require taking the time to reload a muzzle loading pistol a sword was a wonderful tool, you could kill 3-4 guys while they reloaded. Nowadays we can easily carry hundreds of rounds of ammo in magazines that can be swapped out in a few seconds, making a sword kinda pointless.
You mean he didn’t order you to fix bayonets?
For reference sake, when I did my Basic in 1985 (Ft. McClellan, AL, since discontinued as a BCT base), as a not-combat-arms Reservist, we did not do any bayonet or hand-to-hand training. But by the late 80s it had been reinstated into BCT after worries that BCT had gotten too “soft”. From what I gather, during that time period when the Reagan buildup was ramping up, sometimes corners were cut in order to get up the raw numbers (the big $$$ was going into weapons systems).
Indeed. Even back in those dark days of my Basic, I recall that they would create a back-story for some of our field exercises, and one of our guys, Pvt. Norwood, created his own version that went “Intelligence reports that within the 2nd Batallion operating area there has been observed in Range 21 a force of plastic pop-up Commies. Bravo Company is to establish a defensive perimeter and engage any enemy that stands up stupidly at stiff port-arms at various fixed distances in our fire zone.” We were under no illusion or delusion as to how in the real world the other role would be played by a very much live human who, unfortunately, would himself be expected to do whatever it took to take you down first, so ya gotta do what ya gotta do.
I remember reading about a boarding action during ww2, when some British POW’s were rescued at sea aboard a freighter off the coast of Norway, the time I read it , going by memory said that cutlasses were issued for the boarding action.
ymmv
Declan
The U.S. army tried a nuclear-tipped bayonet prototype in the 1950’s, didn’t they?
Yep. It was right after the famous Operation Pop Goes the Weasel atomic BB experiments proved futile. Fortunately for us, those millions of dollars were not wasted; we got a really nice children’s nursery rhyme as a peacetime spin-off from the effort.
No dig… based on my recollection of a TV documentary about how the US military changed it’s training policies for Vietnam.
As I remember it, during WW2 a large proportion of Allied soliders admitted to “shooting high” - ie. deliberately not aiming for the enemy.
For Vietnam the US military altered the way soldiers were trained to instill a sense of dehumanisation in the troops… so they viewed the enemy not as “men” but as “enemy”.
It may all be nonsense, but that’s what I based my comments on - listening to interviews with some troops in Iraq it doesn’t seem that they are able to cope with the idea that “Iraqi” != “gonna shoot me”*
*although is that more to do with the pressures of fighting a guerilla force that hides amongst normal people, as in vietnam?
Military training doesn’t change the fact that you’re human. The military does try to prepare soldiers for the fact that they may one day have to kill another person, or that they may see horrible acts of violence. Any worthwhile military force would at least put some effort into making soldiers that could do these things without suffering serious mental erosion.
However, no amount of training will convince a person that another human isn’t a human being. Even the Nazis who ran the concentration camps, and would purposefully avoid referring to their victims as “people” still knew deep down inside that they were.
Uhm, how do we know what those guards felt deep inside?
[mild hijack]
** BLOOD MAKES THE GRASS GROW! KILL! KILL!**
Was one of the standard “fire up” mantras of our defense back in the football days. In retrospect, it seems sorta funny to have seen the pep squad, cheerleaders, and even parents chanting in unison…but we did have a very good defense.
[/mild hijack]
I never saw any “enemy,” but, after 8 weeks of boot camp, I no longer thought of some of the drill sargeants as human beings.
Is there some reason why it wasn’t possible for anyone to ask the guards about their experiences after the war?