Is Road Marching a dying Art?

Is Road Marching a dying Art?

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Duty Honor Country

Duty Honor Country

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I have seen a few changes with the Army in my short break in service. Now adays, we do a lot less road marching. The 101st 20km road march standard has eased from 3 hours to 4 hours. We soldiers also call our division the 101st "truck assault division."

I have heard people say that road marching is being useless in this day of driving from place to place. The counter to this argument is Somalia. Tell the veterans of the Mogadishu Mile that road marching is useless.
 
Doody,
I can't speak about other armies, but in asia the Indian, Pakistani and PLA armies have a lot of route marches. In facts with our armies there is heavy emphasis on this, the fact that the troops get vehicles to move to front lines is just a matter of convenience.
 
They do have a lot of marching here but the ones that go on for several days have been cancelled mostly I think. The problem was that the recruits would be sleep walking and they'd just sleep walk themselves off a cliff. True story.
 
This type of excercise died out after ww2. The nazis loved this stuff since it would make soldiers more obedient and let people see how efficient their troops are. After tanks and jets stole the show, people figured that marching is an art best left to those who need to actually use it, like the national guard during parades.

Because marching is nice for show, but in guerilla warfare, it makes nice targets for the vietcong/contras/nationalists/kurds/taliban/terrorists/insurgents/residnets of montana to pick off.
 
Uh, I think you have a serious confusion of the difference between a parade and a route step road march.
 
Marching is still very practical.
It makes the troops more used to the load they have to carry, it increases strength and endurance both physical and mental.
Marching still has its place.
The most recent incident where marching was used as a major mobility option was in the Falklands where helicopter operations were risky due to the Argie air force. So teh British troops just marched across bad terrain and reached their objectives, surprising the Argentines.
 
i'm saying that unless you're willing to use trucks for long and medium distance trips only , no one's going to want to road march because they have vehicles.
 
marching is an essential training tool in my opinion, strength, obedience establishing bonds with your team. should it always be used in combat, I'm not sure I've never been there.
 
There still is a place on the modern battlefield for soldiers to be able to carry their "house" on their backs for long distances. Therefore you will find that all Armies would still do intensive route marches and so on. But what about other forms of transport? I hear you say. Well you cannot always depend on them and if you do "Murphys Law of Combat" will come into play. Route Marching, Humping,Tabbing or what ever you want to call it promotes mental and physical toughness within soldiers.
 
We do a lot, Even our mech battalions have a lot of dismounted roles, so rucksack marching is very common...
 
We do a lot of pack marches (full marching order). It's great for fitness, morale etc. It's seen as being better to have troops who can walk 40km with a pack, and get a ride as a point of convinience if available, rather than having soldiers who know nothing but mechanised transport and then get stuck having to march. From what I've seen of the of the US it army, it seems they are becoming heavily mechanised, and if they are fading out route marching as a staple of the army diet, then it will be to their detriment.
 
God Im going to have to do shite loads of that for the next 32 weeks :shock:

ah well, once you get into it its good fun :lol:
 
Road marches still do have their place. You can't always count on transport vehicles, as many people have already said. When worse comes to worse, the Black Cadillacs are the best thing you have to bring yourself from Point A to Point B.
 
Well, changes have to be made..

Soldiers shouldn't be walking on the road when there are SO MANY VEHICLES available nowadays...

Less emphasis on route march
;)
 
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