soutie

The one thing that has always bothered me was the training that you are given when in the military.

For instance during my national service we trained for one year ,trench warfare ,conventional etc,we go the Namibia our new CO tells us all what you have learnt forget ,we had to be retrained ,the doctrine used my mechanised
units in the operational area was totally different to that back in South Africa ,

For 2 months we retrained in conventional bush warfare ,there no trenches that we attacked ,loads of foxholes ,why did,nt they just train us in that way of fighting from the beginning,i still cannot get my head around it,

Maxor

Two reasons. 1 the first training basic training is mainly to give you the details and get you used to following orders and teamwork.

Secondly is that different situations call for different tactics and methods.

Initial training is for the most common types of fights historically (which you probably won't be doing) then they assign you somewhere and train you for what you'll actually be doing.

sappersgt

Sappers usually already had a year with the troops before receiving an invitation to Sapper school. Arriving at school we were told we were going to relearn everything we thought we knew!

About a third of Sapper training comprised specialized skills, like mine warfare, demolition, airborne training, etc. The rest and by far the majority consisted of infantry combat training. Battle, ambush, H2H, even grenade drill were different from what the army did. With the same equipment we had different doctrine. This really showed up when we fought with and alongside regular army units.

I guess that was why we got paid twice the base rate for the equivalent rank. Of course doubling the already miserably minimal pay still meant you didn't get paid very much.

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