The army is in the process of updating its decades-old traditional bayonet training with a program focusing on hand-to-hand combat to equip soldiers with more practical skills critical for survival on the battlefield, a senior military official said yesterday.
Ministry of National Defense (MND) Major General Liu Sheen-mo (劉慎謨), who is in charge of training, said military instructors at the Army Infantry Training Command’s Sports Science Center are studying the US military’s hand-to-hand closed-quarters combat program and will use it as a base when updating Taiwan’s decades-old bayonet program.
The ultimate goal is to come up with a new training program that would enable a soldier to use handheld weapons or a knife to take down a rival, which should significantly increase the soldier’s chances of survival, Liu told reporters during a media briefing.
Photo courtesy of the Penghu Defense Command via CNA
Liu made the comments in response to questions about the army’s replacement for the military’s traditional bayonet training that had been in place since 1965.
The new defense head last week pledged that it would be updated.
Speaking during a legislative session on Thursday last week, Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said that traditional bayonet training is ceremonial and more of a formality with very little practical use in close combat.
The decision to scrap the outdated program was made to allow troops to focus more on practical training sessions and enhance their defense capabilities, Koo said.
The traditional program was established in 1965 by combining US and Japanese styles of bayonet charge practices, but over the years, experts have criticized its practical use in close combat on the battlefield.
Koo, the nation’s first civilian defense head in a decade, has also announced that other decades-old traditions in the armed forces would be scrapped. This includes goose-stepping and overseas travel restrictions for military personnel.
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