ISSUES CONFRONTING THE DESIGN OF A NEW BATTLE DRILL TRAINING SYSTEM *

Army units organize their combat training around two programs: (a) indivi-dual soldier training baaed on Soldier's Manual (SM) tasks, and (b) collective training based on their Army Training and Evaluation Program (ARTEP). The ability of units to meet individual and collective training requirements is reduced by shortages of experienced trainers, peacetime garrison/administrative distractions from training, and personnel turbulence (Funk, Johnson, Batzer, Gambell, Vandecaveye and Hiller, 1980). Effective training in the unit training environment depends on the degree to which training and evaluation can be standardized across units, and it depends on the extent to which individual training and collective training can be success-fully integrated. The Chief of Staff of the Army, General Meyer, called for efforts to integrate individual and collective training in his White Paper dated February of 1980, and in a subsequent letter, dated June of 1980, called for efforts to standardize Army training. A standardized training system would, in effect, remove much of the burde