ASSAULT COURSES

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 29, 29 October 1942, Page 6

ASSAULT COURSES

Conditioning Men For Battle NEW ZEALAND AND BRITISH STANDARDS Assault course training in New Zealand, from the observations of a representative of “The Dominion” at a Wellington district mobilization camp recently, is nothing like as severe as set in England, but it is a step in the right direction. A description of a typical course follows. From a trench the men go over the top and clumber under a 15-inch high obstacle. Then, on they go to bayonet dummies, over a six feet wall and into more dummies awaiting the steel thrusts. A trench three feet across has to be jumped and a charge made up a ramp with a five-feet drop on the other side. Here are more dummies, upright and prone, to represent the fleeing enemy, and they are bayoneted as the men go through on to a shell-holed area. Clear of this they lire five rounds rapid at the retreating foe. The whole course is approximately GO yards, severe enough for recruits and a wind-opener for anyone, but by no means tough enough for fullytrained and fit soldiers. Here is a brief outline of an assault course at a British weapon training school. Besides the toughening aspect it is aimed to ensure that a man’s fighting spirit will be so developed that when the unforgiving moment comes, there will be no mistake about it. First day on an assault course at the Southern Command Weapon Training School, England, the soldier does a sixmile run in full equipment. Baek from this he charges over an obstacle course ending with a 60ft. rope climb. This is only a preliminary to give a man a sort of fighting second wind. He is then taken on to a platform and told to jump. If he does that without hesitation, the next step is to test his under-fire reaction. Advancing Under Fire. With his fellows —this is still on the first day—he is marched ou to a sandy beach. In the sand dunes, on one side, are mounted Bren guns, tommy guns and anti-tank rifles, and a squad stands by with rifles and grenades. Those taking the assault course are dressed into line at right angles to the line of fire. The order to advance is given, and at the same moment the dime-concealed machineguns and rifles open up. As the men walk slowly and steadily forward, the bullets churn up the sand a few paces behind and in front. Hand grenades, made of bakelite instead of metal (for safety), but still dangerous, explode all round. After 250 yards of this the order comes to fall flat. As the troops drop bullets sing overhead and throw up fountains of dust close by. Up they get again and go through another 250 yards of the same treatment as before. And when the first “cease Are” is given, a start is' made all over again with the same routine. That is ■only the first day. Next time out the men make a second 14ft. jump, this time into a pit filled with smoke so that they do not know what they are jumping into. There are more training runs in full gear, each a little longer than the last. The men get the taste of letting go with magazines full of live rounds, lobbing across a well-timed grenade, slapping down a human-looking target with a stomach shot from a revolver, and then at close range with the fighting knife. Then there Is more of the assault course. The men push off with the reservoir obstacle. Loaded down with pack, pouches, tin hat, rifle and bayonet, they scramble down a steep slope into the muddy ooze on the reservoir edge and then into deep water. At the other side there is a set of 20ft. rope ladders on a perpendicular wall. This negotiated, there is no time to get the water out of boots and clothes. The men must rush on, oft the wall into a heap of bramble, over hedges, through ditches and networks of barbed wire, and across a pole balanced over a pit of barbed wire. Next, they fall into a tank trap while explosive charges belch up turf and stones all around. First man out is heaved up by his fellows and the last pulled up by a rifle. At the Enemy’s Throat. But it is not all over. A trip wire upsets the advancing men and the explosion of grenades almost lifts them up again. By then ahey are nearly at the enemy’s throat —at the top of a hill ahead is a tow of sandbags swinging on poles. These “dispatched,” the men get down at the rifle range to lire five carefully-aimed rounds at a target. However they tremble, they must somehow steady themselves for this shoot.

That over, they unfix bayonets, sling rilles on their bucks and make a COft. rope climb up a cliff face. Even that is not the lot. Those taking part nijist then double back to the starting point. The test is as gruelling as human endurance can stand. But in some extraordinary way it charges men up like a battery with the will to go out and tight It is almost needless to mention that this kind of training gets a man into superb physical condition; if it did not he would not last the course. After three weeks of this training the men are able to round off their sebooling with a 60-mile march. Then they are conditioned for victory. As stated before, assault training in New Zealand has not been developed to this pitch, but a start has been made and the men are interested. In one divisional camp visited recently by “The Dominion” men who had no recreational facilities built their own assault course to give them energy-build-ing exercise outside ordinary training hours.

Assault courses, self-constructed, have also been seen in other camps. They are not the last word in endurance tests, but they will harden men up to tackle the improvements in New Zealand assault courses which will no doubt be carried out.