Revolutions in IDF Ground Arm

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The technological and organizational revolutions in IDF Ground Arm has been gaining momentum. The multiple changes include a response to the offensive, border-crossing tunnels and to the defensive tunnels. The current evaluation is that within the next two years, the IDF will be able to detect and neutralize most of the attack tunnels dug over the last decade into Israel under the Gaza border, so the more complex challenge would be dealing with Hamas’ thousands of defensive tunnels in the heart of Gaza, according to news.walla.co.il.

A tunnel warfare specialized squad will be established in every infantry platoon, which will be proficient in operating tactical solutions such as sabotaging tunnel shafts, securing and holding those shafts or tagging and signaling them. In order to do so, said squads will receive special weapons and equipment. Moreover, IDF’s Chief of Staff has decided that the newly formed Commando Brigade and IDF’s reconnaissance infantry units will lead the army’s subterranean warfare in times of emergency and war. IDF doesn’t have enough tunnel training facilities for its troops.

Infantrymen will receive new sights for their MTAR rifles. Army snipers will receive new thermal night vision goggles and sights in order to increase their accuracy.  

Among those changes will be the infantry’s transfer from using AT rockets to using Anti-Personnel rockets, to be more lethal when fighting in urban surroundings or when attacking fortified objectives. “An AT rocket that is being launched towards a window can’t get the same level of lethality of an anti-personnel rocket, which was made to do just that,” says a senior army officer.

The Ground Arm will procure more UAVs for maneuvering forces, according to the senior officer, and some of them might have attacking abilities.  

As for basic and advanced training, night-shooting simulators will be built in each brigade’s training base; Live fire shooting ranges will use special sponge targets that can take up to 1000 rounds and can measure shooter’s accuracy instead of the old cardboard targets.

According to the senior officer, during 2018 IDF will be more focused on urban, bushy and wooded training, and the paratroopers’ brigade will be fitted with a training program to prepare it to operate deep behind enemy lines.

According to kan.co.il, researches by IDF’s combat fitness department and IDF’s Chief of Medical Officer’s HQ say that different training is needed in order to make army fighters more fit to deal with the challenges of the battlefield. Training environments will bear more resemblance to fighting in Lebanon, so fighters will be more prepared in fields where they were found unfit during the Second Lebanon War.

Along the new IDF training, there will be a new effort bar that would focus on carrying heavy loads while walking up mountain roads and topographically-complex conditions. The new perception will also be assimilated during training and deployment. “We’ve come to the conclusion that fighters need to strengthen their leg and shoulder muscles and be more proficient in Krav Maga (Contact Fighting – a form of army martial art) and land navigations, which soldiers weren’t good enough at,” says the senior officer, “because the battlefield in Lebanon requires different combat training.”