Army Wants Extended Training for Armor, Engineers, Other Combat Jobs

By Matthew Cox

The commander of the U.S. Army's Maneuver Center of Excellence said Wednesday that basic training programs for combat arms specialties such as armor and engineers will soon start a pilot program similar to the one that is extending Infantry one station unit training to 22 weeks.

About 400 recruits are now in their seventh week of the pilot at Fort Benning, Georgia that is adding eight weeks to the traditional 14-week infantry OSUT.

Once that pilot program is complete, Army officials will begin extending other combat arms OSUT programs, Maj. Gen. Gary Brito, the commander of MCOE at Benning, told an audience at the Association of the United States Army's Sept. 5 Aviation Hot Topic event.

"It started with infantry; now we will begin a pilot with armor one station unit training at the beginning of next calendar year," Brito said. "We also have some guidance from [Training and Doctrine Command] to do the same thing with the engineers at Fort Leonard Wood [Missouri].

"This could expand, and it most likely will, to some of the other combat MOSs over the next couple of years, to transform out to 22 weeks for all."

Recruits in infantry OSUT traditionally go through nine weeks of Basic Combat Training and about four-and-a-half weeks of infantry advanced individual training. The pilot adds eight weeks of training time to hone marksmanship, land navigation and other key combat skills.

"The guidance to the team is ... you have 22 weeks now to build and do the best land navigation you can do; you have 22 weeks now to have the best marksmanship training that you can do," Brito said.

Full article: https://www.military.com/daily-news/2018/09/05/army-wants-extended-training-armor-engineers-other-combat-jobs.html