Extreme training

[bdickens]

That isn't training, it's abuse.

I'm sure I'd be grateful for such "abuse" if it helped me survive combat.

Well, it won't.

[MadMonkey]

That isn't training, it's abuse.

I'm sure I'd be grateful for such "abuse" if it helped me survive combat.

Well, it won't.

How so? Do you think a Marine would perform better or worse if they weren't put through stressful training in boot? That soldier was being pushed, he had rounds going off next to him, his arms were tired, he was having to manipulate his weapon, and he was being shouted at. That's about as close as you can get to realism that I've seen so far, even though he probably wasn't afraid for his life.

If you can make it through training like that, I'm 100% positive that you'd be better prepared for a real combat situation. The only overly dangerous moment I saw was when the student lost control of his muzzle (at about 23 seconds in).

[MadMonkey]

*snip*

Then we'll agree to disagree. I'm sure that soldier would appreciate your high opinion of him though

Edit: the South African Police Special Task Force was mentioned in the comments of that video. I started looking around and found that even in the RECRUITING selection process, live ammunition (even grenades and explosives) is always used. Looks like intense stuff, glad they have the guts to go so far. I work with an ex-SA police officer... I'll have to ask him about this. They even have SAS members trying to get in. Pretty elite crew IMHO.

[fm2]

While it might appear extreme, it's actually pretty tame .... but overall my belief is that stress-inoculation is extremely valuable training.

I agree Andy.

We need to consider our perspective when viewing and think about what we are training for.

If we get tired, insulted, stressed, and/or flustered etc... we need to work so that the resulting challenges (delayed reaction, poor gun handling, degraded accuracy, etc...) are minimized. There's a high probability we'll need to deal with these physical and emotional issues when we need to perform.