Army Combatives - Looking for reading material from around the world?

Auror72

New Member
Hi there,

I am a martial arts enthusiast. In addition to practicing martial arts in my everyday life, I am also interested in reading what techniques different Armed forces from around the world choose to teach to their soldiers/Marines. I am not trying to learn these martials arts, in most cases I already know a lot of what is taught simply from doing Muay Thai and my (limited) experience with grappling/wrestling. I'm just interested to know what different countries think is important to learn.

I have a copy of the US Marines MCMAP manual and the US Army combatives manual. Does anyone know if there are any other countries out there that make their unarmed combat manuals freely available? Even if they are in a different language - I can always google translate them.

I have tried looking for the Royal Marines, UK Army, Australian Army unarmed combat manuals but have had no luck.

As an aside, i'm also interested in police unarmed combat manuals if people know of any.
 

Redlands18

Well-Known Member
Hi there,

I am a martial arts enthusiast. In addition to practicing martial arts in my everyday life, I am also interested in reading what techniques different Armed forces from around the world choose to teach to their soldiers/Marines. I am not trying to learn these martials arts, in most cases I already know a lot of what is taught simply from doing Muay Thai and my (limited) experience with grappling/wrestling. I'm just interested to know what different countries think is important to learn.

I have a copy of the US Marines MCMAP manual and the US Army combatives manual. Does anyone know if there are any other countries out there that make their unarmed combat manuals freely available? Even if they are in a different language - I can always google translate them.

I have tried looking for the Royal Marines, UK Army, Australian Army unarmed combat manuals but have had no luck.

As an aside, i'm also interested in police unarmed combat manuals if people know of any.
There is somewhat of fallacy created by Hollywood that SF soldiers are martial arts experts, any who are is due to trg and competition they do in their own time as a sport. Yes they do some unarmed combat trg but that is just one of the many tools of the trade for a SF soldier, they would spend far more time on "armed" trg then they ever would on unarmed trg. And don't forget SF soldiers mainly train to kill, not achieve a black belt. If there is any Australian Army unarmed combat manuals, I never saw them in 20 years.
 

Auror72

New Member
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #3
There is somewhat of fallacy created by Hollywood that SF soldiers are martial arts experts, any who are is due to trg and competition they do in their own time as a sport. Yes they do some unarmed combat trg but that is just one of the many tools of the trade for a SF soldier, they would spend far more time on "armed" trg then they ever would on unarmed trg. And don't forget SF soldiers mainly train to kill, not achieve a black belt. If there is any Australian Army unarmed combat manuals, I never saw them in 20 years.
That is not my thinking at all. I am a martial artist myself and I can tell by the manuals I am reading that the military training is nowhere near as effective as civilian martial arts like Muay Thai, boxing, MMA, and Jiu Jitsu.

I am not wanting to read the manuals because I believe that I can learn martail arts skill from them. I am confident that most of what will be in the manuals will be things I have already learned as part of Muay Thai, Jiu Jitsu and the little bit of wrestling I have done. I am not trying to learn martial arts from the military. I just want to know what techniques the militaries from around the world think are the most important for their soldiers to learn. That does not mean that I think they are correct. I'm just curious about their thoughts.

For example, I can do a triangle choke. I assume this is not a practical technique for a soldier to learn. But if it is taught, i'm curious to know which militaries teach it and why - i'm not trying to learn the triangle choke. I already know it, that is not what is drawing my interest to the subject.
 

Mikeymike

Active Member
For the Australian army I believe they currently use a program called the Army Combative Program (ACP) which came into effect around 2017. Pretty sure it is still the one taught as the recently announced new fighting knife was designed with input from the guy who created the program.

Here are a few articles about the program and how its structured. Unfortunately they don't breakdown the individual curriculum but might help your research.
- kinetic Fighting - article from the company owned by the guy who designed the course and I believe he delivers the program as a contractor
- The Cove - two articles here and here describing the introduction of the program and where it sits within the overall combat program
 

Auror72

New Member
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #6
For the Australian army I believe they currently use a program called the Army Combative Program (ACP) which came into effect around 2017. Pretty sure it is still the one taught as the recently announced new fighting knife was designed with input from the guy who created the program.

Here are a few articles about the program and how its structured. Unfortunately they don't breakdown the individual curriculum but might help your research.
- kinetic Fighting - article from the company owned by the guy who designed the course and I believe he delivers the program as a contractor
- The Cove - two articles here and here describing the introduction of the program and where it sits within the overall combat program
Thanks for that. I really appreciate you going to the effort to include links.

Thank you also to @koxinga for your links. I'm going to have a read over them tonight.
 
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