I know the article is old.
Anyone served/serving who can comment on this?
- US Army will no longer require recruits to show adequate hand grenade skills
- Change is being made because many enlistees 'can’t throw it far enough'
- Recruits also won't be required to pass land navigation course to graduate
- Army's redesign of Basic Combat Training is aimed at instilling more discipline
- Many on Twitter used the development to attack influx of female enlistees
- But the US Army denied that the change had anything to do with gender
I think the point is to be prepared for anything, AND to pick the best people that can at least pass those tests, because if soldiers known weaknesses are things like can't throw a grenade for shit, enemies can take advantage of that. The throwing grenade drill isn't just about you throwing a grenade at the enemy, but also about you throwing a grenade the enemy has thrown at you. And in a surprise attack war/invasion, we may not have time to train people on the fly, nor enough people to train people. Not to mention that if you don't train your soldiers from the start, and a big war comes along and the enemy targets those who train people, you start losing the capability to train people altogether. if we reached that we needed to start more thoroughly training people only when the SHTF, this poses a problem, because again, if people don't even have the strength to throw a grenade that far, that's an indication in lacking of other abilities. If they can't throw a grenade as far as needed, then how far can they carry another soldier? How many soldiers would die on the battlefield because their buddies can't adequately move them to be evacuated if they're injured? Especially where seconds and minutes matter. The point of a volunteer military is to weed out and pick the better candidates. That's a luxury of peace time, that won't be available if there needs to be a build up during war time. And the more cream of the crop soldiers you have as a starting point, the better, because it means you won't need as many nobodies drafted. Now maybe there's places where we can retool and focus training and remove some of the fat, but I don't think grenades will ever be made obsolete, front line troops always have the possibility of facing them, and as soon as the enemy knows that's an armies weakness, they will exploit it. You may not need to throw a grenade 25 meters to be safe, but the closer it is, the louder it is, don't throw it fast enough and the aftershock rattles troops, rogue shrapnel, loss of hearing, etc. And you also need to have people not have the first time they see a grenade is one that landed next to them from the enemy. It's an oh shit moment either way, but reaction times matter. Grenades don't generally have long fuses, but the further you throw also correlates with how fast you can throw, which means if that fuse is about ready to pop and you hurryingly throw that grenade away from you, every meter it gets before it goes off, can make a difference. Even the difference between hearing damage. Grenades aren't just killing devices, they're also disorientation devices. Being deafened on the battlefield can be very crippling, and the last think you want is people pinned down in the thick of it, unable to see or hear.
I was going to try addressing all your points (which are HILARIOUSLY misinformed), but it's obvious you've never served and have no idea what basic training is like... or what weapons are like.
Well I specifically only touched on grenades. Which is the original topic. I didn't say anything about rifle training. The point is, people should be able to throw a grenade a good distance. Maybe not everyone will ever come across a grenade, or even fire a gun in combat, but they are still in the military, and the military needs all of its people to be capable, because if the military were to ever suffer massive losses, it will need people to pick up the slack, and you don't want that guy picking up the slack to be a guy who couldn't even throw a grenade 10 meters.
The guy filing papers needs to be as reasonably capable as the rest, because if war breaks out and they're under attack, he's no longer just the guy filing papers. He's the guy who has to pick up a gun and fight too, or the guy who replaces the guy who died fighting. The better integrity we have at all levels, the better they will be at taking over duties of the fallen when losses mount up. Otherwise, once you lose a lot of your front line cream of the crop soldiers (with not all of them being soo much cream of the crop, which makes losing easier), all you're left to rely on are the ones who are essentially civilians with a military rank.
There's no excuse to not have a volunteer military be higher quality. if a brutal global war breaks out and a draft comes along, quality requirements are going to drop fast anyways. But the better our military is at that juncture, the better we will fare as a country in the initial conflicts.
If the US is ever invaded and we're down to trench warfare to hold lines, you don't want the guy next to you who can barely throw a grenade with 2 seconds left on the fuse. Grenades have a fragmentation range of about 10 meters. How far do you think a grenade thrown by a weakling will travel in under 2 seconds? Not very far. The farther the better.
And they're not even doing this obstructed. They're doing it in a controlled environment. Person is standing, ready to throw. Now imagine how far you can throw if you're on your knees or laying on the ground. Even the guy who did 30 meters in training, won't do that under those conditions. But that's the point. The people who perform well in training, will likely perform somewhat worse in the real world due to circumstances on the battlefield. So the people who performed poorly, will perform even more poorly in real world situations. So the guy who could barely throw a grenade in training, could actually end up doing more harm than good, whether he's throwing them or dealing with incoming enemy grenades.
Imagine the guy who could barely throw a grenade, lands next to him, he tosses it, only it's such a weak pitch that surprise, he killed 10 people because he's now increased its effectiveness because it airbursts right above friendlies. Or he throws a grenade, doesn't throw it far enough, and not only wastes it, not only gives away his position and others, but maybe also either kills friendlies or at the very least, sets off a big boom next to friendlies.
And grenade throwing says a lot about ability. The guy who can't throw a grenade as far, also probably can't carry a gun and other equipment for as long. Lacking in capability in one area, can indicate lacking in many other areas.
You definitely don't want these people dealing with grenades when you're standing next to them: https://youtu.be/Eh8QYoD0n2s?t=143
And you wouldn't even want them in the military in the first place.