Due to the different age groups and branches on here, I'm curious what Combatives were taught and your opinion about them?

When I joined the Army was teaching the stuff you see in the old WW2 combatives manuals. Hip toss, knife disarm, a few other things that look good on paper. When I got to RIP we were learning what would be the future of Army Combatives. Matt Larson taught us what would become level one. But, what the Army took a week to learn, he taught us in about theee hours. It was a lot more brutal and less refined. It was practiced throughout the 75th Regiment and once a year they would fly instructors in from the Gracie academy in Brazil to teach our best fighters who would pass on what they learned.

I rejoined the Army in 2004 and everyone was getting certified in level one in Basic. The Army had a big push on combatives, and a few injuries later commanders stopped doing it for PT. That’s when the Army eliminated Level 4 and made level 3 only available at the school house in Benning.

A few years after that USASOC gets interested in something called SOCP from Greg Thompson. It’s definitely an evolution that makes sense. What Matt Larson was looking for was an effective, easy to learn, hand to hand system to replace the old hand to hand, and what he developed was revolutionary at the time. With his background in Martial Arts and karate it makes sense that he would lean towards something empty handed for when you’re unarmed. It’s still an extremely effective empty hand program considering how much you can progress without spending significant amounts of time on it. SOCP was an evolution that brought more weapons and was geared towards the door kicker entering a room. A situation that has a lot more applicability to the USASOC community.

I’ve been pretty impressed with the whole evolution. 22 years ago when I joined, Basic training was doing pugilist sticks and bayonet course for combat training. Five years later and we have a working combatives program. For the previous 50 years it remained unchanged. We’ve come a long way in a little time and we’re still evolving

The Marine Corps taught us hand to hand combat sufficient to kill the enemy. The key is to keep all your skills current so that you are fully prepared for the fog of war.

I was an experienced martial artist when I joined in 1982, the stuff the Army taught at the time was out of the WWII Era Combatives. I always thought that it was as much about getting people who hadn't ever been in a physical conflict used to making contact and getting hit as teaching real skills, although most of the stuff was very basic. The Gracie style stuff was just coming in when I was getting out, but it did revolutionize combatives as much as it did Mixed Martial Arts.

Now the real and ugly truth of unarmed combat. If you don't train with it constantly, you will not maintain the skill level to use if effectively. When I was very active in the Martial Arts, I was training 20+ hours a week, which put me in the skilled amateur level. My buddy and I used to go down to the local gym that trained the areas Full Contact fighters that were either pro or going pro and get into the ring as sparring partners. Like I said, Mike and I were both training what most people would a lot, but 3 rounds with one of these guys would show you just how much difference training makes. Having some 20 year old that has worked out 6 hours a day for the last 3 years roundhouse you and you feel it the next day no matter how many pads you wear.

While level 1 is effective for a one on one fight, the situation in combat is often fluid. Now, I'm in my late 40s, the last thing I want to do is roll around on the ground and get mud stomped by me opponents buddies.
On my own time, I learned Shaolin Kempo, Aikido, Jeet Kun Do, Gracie and Goshinryu Jiu Jitsu, Western Boxing and Muay Thai. In a real fight, Muay Thai and/or Boxing is what I would use. Its easy to learn and easy to practice. A well practiced combo takes a lot of fire out of an opponent.
My main objection to the Army approach to combative is the simple fact that it is muscle memory and if techniques are not practiced are lost.
Another point brought up in fighting system that was competing to be the Army combative system, many martial arts require fine motor skills. When you are in the middle of fight or flight(bpm 180+), gross motor skills are likely to be your only option.
While I would love to learn everything, its best to keep it simple.

When I started it was called hand to hand combat, later years we were given combatives training which was a form of mixed martial arts I think 2005, and in 2014 combatives was taught again for our deployment.

In 1993, my Basic Training called it "Hand to Hand Combat Training." It consisted of throws and grapples. We were told to not use them in a fight because we would probably get our butts kicked.

At the Academy, in the late 90's... we were given very "basic" instruction in boxing, grappling, etc. Some folks (like me) did club level boxing or marital arts. It was pretty vanilla "Mc-Dojo" stuff. Didn't see anything like that again until I was introduced to the Marine Corps combatives system through voluntary training with embarked units... it seemed more "intense". Going through Ft. Riley in the mid-2000s, I experienced the Army version, and it honestly seemed closer to very basic BJJ (at least at the "core"), with other things added in for practicality. As a civilian, I train combining some BJJ, Krav, and Muay Thai, all geared for "street" scenarios, and incorporating weapons. Personally, I've found these to be much more "intense" (this may have a lot to do with being twenty years older too though!). I'm a VERY long way from being an "expert"... but as a "mediocre Jack of all Trades", my sense is that a civilian who trains 3+ days a week for ten years in serious BJJ is going to fare much better in a one-on-one ground fight against the average junior infantry Solider or Marine. However, the thing to remember is that as warfighters, we're being trained to predominantly fight within a unit. I could be wrong... put I'd bet on any five U.S. infantrymen who'd trained together for a year, and were fully-armed/equipped... up against any ten "individuals" who didn't know how to coordinate, for most CQB scenarios.

Diddly squat was taught when I first came in 1994. Then I went to grad school in 2005, and when I hit the regular army again in 2007 seemed like everyone was level 2 certified but me.

I was one of the first cycles of Recruits at Parris Island to do the complete Tan Belt MCMAP Training. That consisted of basic strikes, kicks, break falls, and the like. Fast forward to 2009 after 2 subsequent training levels MCMAP and the MACP Level 1 as a Soldier seemed counterintuitive. Pretty much every fight starts on the feet. The philosophy of training ground fighting techniques first over debilitating strikes, joint manipulation, and throws was very foreign.

Basics in my day- basic Judo, holds, neck breakers, knive fights. Later on and a S# that was Taikawn-do belt holder, and had serious lessons for PT. I all can in handy when crap got too damn close.