Question by Midn 3/c X: How long does it take to train a member of the Russian Infantry and Chinese Infantry?
for example a US Marine goes through 13 weeks of boot followed by another 8-9 weeks at infantry training which equals up to 21-22 weeks of total training to be fully trained (not including trainings with the unit or anything)
how long does it take a member of the Russian infantry and Chinese Infantry to be trained up?
Answers and Views:
Answer by paul s
like the US military the training time varies depending on what unit the recruit is going into, for instance, airborne and naval infantry (marines) will naturally receive longer training.
on average their training is shorter than US training, there are a number of factors in this, some are purely practical and some a reflection on the leaderships view of their own infantry’s role and life expectancy.
some of the factors why their training is on average shorter
1) they use fair less equipment, and much of their equipment is far simpler than what a like-for-like US infantryman would be trained in, (i.e they have little or no personal comms set-up, simpler to maintain basic weapons and are not expected in battle to use their initiative as much as a western infantryman is, so training times on equipment and small unit battle tactics is reduced)
2) basic infantry in both armies (Russia and China) are not given highly priority in either armies military doctrines.
both view the infantry as a support arm of the ‘heavy units’ and as such infantry are viewed as an expendable commodity, that can be used to soak up the enemies fire allowing the ‘teeth units’ a chance to close and overwhelm the enemy.
3) funding, training an individual infantryman is expensive, some armies view their infantry as the most important part of their army (UK in particular, and fund their training accordingly)
other like Russia and China, view armour, artillery etc, as the most important part of their ground forces so funds go to these units first and everyone else gets whats left. (why spend lots of money on people who are purely there to get shot at)
Russia can turn out a trained basic rifleman in about 8 weeks,
while this may not appear too great, the thing to consider is each infantryman is trained to do a very limited and specific task, so as long as that task is being done they are perfectly fine and will cause anyone problems, the problem for them begin when they have to go off task,
lack of flexibility and adaptability.
as stated previously more specialist infantry units will receive for longer training, not only in their own units specialisation, (i.e parachuting, amphibious operations) but because they are considered the ‘elite’ they also get more training on a wider range of tasks and skills
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!
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