Experience and Training

A brief contribution:

People talk about "training" as if it is one type 
of thing. There are a number of historical 
incidences where training has killed people. They 
trained for something and then were dropped 
into something bad they hadn't trained for - 
and then their training kicked in and they did 
WORSE. 

Training is good if:
1) It is realistic (train like you fight, maybe 
throw in 1 live round in 100 to make people 
realize "this ain't a hobby")
2) It emphasizes flexibility, initiative, and the 
ability to adapt to new tactical situations
3) It is broad enough to cover as many 
possible scenarios as feasible
4) It gives you a good appreciation for your 
own limits, your own technology, your own 
logistics, and the same for the enemy

Training is bad if:
1) It blindly teaches you to be reactive (in X 
situation, always do Y.... once I find out that is 
how you fight, I exploit that as your adversary). 
2) It isn't realistic (For example, never training 
in unarmed combat with live steel means you 
develop a disrespect for a knife edge and that 
can be very bad)
3) It isn't frequent (you get out of training quite 
fast....). One of the main problems in the units I 
served in or with was a puny training budget. 
Doing 1 trip to the rifle range per year isn't 
enough for an infantry reserve unit. Everyone 
should shoot and engage in section attacks and 
other trade training at least 3-4 times 
throughout the year in the reserves. Better yet, 
once a month! And the training should be 
serious.
4) It trains you into inflexible ways of thinking or 
it trains junior officers and NCOs not to display 
initiative but to wait and wait for higher 
command to micromanage
5) If it trains you in your trade, but with no 
appreciation for the other trades and branches 
that produce the combined arms battle plan - 
for example, having an infantry CO with no real 
clue about artillery employment or fireplans 
coming up with impossible mission objectives 
for the arty that is to support his infantry....

Experience is also something which comes in 
two varieties. 

Good experience:
1) Teaches troops they can win (in the old days, 
commanders conserved troops that they 
wanted to be "elite" and then set them loose on 
weak foes - blooding them and giving them a 
sense of their own power... combine this with 
real training and you eventually have a confident 
powerful unit with traditions of not losing that 
become self fulfilling)
2) Teaches troops what is important to their 
survival and a good operation and what is 
important to have NOT happen
3) Teaches troops how to appreciate the roles 
that other branches and other trades play 
within the combined arms battle
4) Teaches troops how to pick themselves up 
and go on after seeing their buddies blown up 
or shot
5) Conveys experience on how to be better 
soldiers and get the job done faster, safer, and 
more cheaply (in terms of life expended)

Experience is bad if it:
1) Teaches people that the key to survival is not 
fighting to hard but instead finding a safe hidey 
hole or always being in the back rank
2) Teaches people habits oriented entirely 
around personal survival and not efficacy as a 
soldier
3) Destroys morale by inflicting huge casualties 
which gut units
4) Teaches Other Ranks that their officers are 
willing to spend their lives freely and that they 
aren't though of as being worth anything
5) Teaches you that there was a certain way to 
be effective, and then you try to apply that 
same dogmatic method in every case (even 
those where it does not apply). This can be 
disasterous. 

So, it isn't just a matter of training or 
experience. It is a matter of what kind of 
experience, what kind of training, and what kind 
of future challenges you face. 

Add in doctrine of how armies fight wars, some 
of which has been crack-inspired over the 
years, technology (sometimes not appreciated, 
or appreciated by one side far before the other 
side figures it out - Germany, WW2, and fighter 
planes as an example), and cultural issues (how 
much value is placed on a human life? Do you 
get 72 virgins by dying a martyr? etc). 

What do you get from all that? A very 
complicated mix that you can't hope to quantify 
in any ruleset that isn't insane. 

The best approach, IMO, is to look at each 
scenario or campaign and decide what 
limitations or parameters should apply to the 
units involved in that situation. Trying to 
accurately quantify all of these many and varied 
aspects (and if you leave some out, you're 
screwed for any kind of worthwhile result) is an 
effort foredoomed to produce a thick codex of 
rules (anyone for ASW with all the 
supplements?) which border on unplayable 
without an AID or a lawyer....

My 0.02. 

Tomb. 
-----------------------------------------------------------
Thomas Barclay
Instructor, CST 6304 (TCP/IP programming for the Internet)
kaladorn@fox.nstn.ca 
http://fox.nstn.ca/~kaladorn/CST6304
http://stargrunt.ca/tb/CST6304