The new Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) is a truly terrible idea. The Army decided to overhaul its long-standing PT test in order to improve individual fitness for combat and reduce musculoskeletal injuries, which are certainly legitimate objectives. But the new test will create far more problems than it solves, and could actually increase some types of injuries.
I trusted the Army about the validity of the new tests, but as the article points out, the specialized equipment and vastly increased time needed to carry out the tests is a real problem. And reserve components will have even more problems. That aspect worried me. The existing test has the advantage of needing zero equipment to carry out.
And there are other problems. So do check it out. The authors make a good case.
The Army has a point that the old test doesn't really test the kind of physical requirements that experience on battlefields shows are needed. The new test is supposed to correct that.
That's good.
But only a tiny fraction of Army troops are actually combat troops who would be required to execute those battlefield physical tasks. Is it really wise to force all troops to train for what only combat infantry are going to face?
The test itself recognizes this by having three levels of achievement based on job types.
So why bother making the entire Army meet the new test?
I think I'm settling on a view that the old test should be the standard Army-wide standard for physical fitness while infantry units should have the supplemental standard from the new test on top of the standard test.
I mean really, in practice infantry have done that. Does anybody really think that infantry aren't already in better shape than signal soldiers (that was my job) despite the common standard? And I have no doubt that special forces train to even higher standards already.
Focusing the new test on infantry would limit the needs for equipment across the entire million-plus Total Army to just a smaller part that needs those standards to meet the physical needs of a modern battlefield.
As the Army gains experience, perhaps it could expand the test to more troops. But I suspect the Army is asking for a lot of test failures if this new test is kept for the entire Army.
