| Innovative Training for the Modern Battlefield |
| | Welcome to the official web site of Modern Combatives, started in 2002 as a way to promote the efforts, training methods and techniques of the Modern Army Combatives Program as created by Matt Larsen. The goal of Modern Combatives is to build real combative ability by teaching realistic training methods and growing self sustaining indigenous Combatives programs within units and organizations. |
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| COL Rex Applegate WW II era combatives teacher and author of Kill or Get Killed |
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There are a couple of basic tenants of Modern Combatives that are important to understand. The first one is that the winner of the hand-to-hand fight in combat is the one whose buddy shows up first with a gun. This is important thing to remember because it puts combative training in perspective. If you drop an enemy dead at your feet with the Vulcan death touch, and his buddy comes in with a gun, you still lose. As Rex Applegate said in his book Kill or get Killed “Unarmed combat is just what the name implies- a system of fighting intended for use when weapons are not available or when their use is not advisable” Where then does combatives training fit?It must be an integral part of the close quarters fight. Too often “hand-to-hand” is treated as if it were a side note to the actual training. When your weapon malfunctions three feet from the bad guy is no time to start integrating your techniques. Noted Firearms instructor and author Massad Ayoob said it best, “At close range it’s not a shooting contest; it’s a fight.” |
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| Matt Larsen, Creator of the U.S. Army Combatives Program and author of FM 3-25.150 |
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With that in mind, the second tenant is that the defining characteristic of a warrior is the willingness to close with the enemy. We do not win wars because we are better at hand-to-hand combat than the enemy, we do however win wars because of the things it takes to be a good hand-to-hand fighter. Any training plan that does not serve to build this fundamental aggressiveness is actually counter productive. Confidence comes from competence. It is not enough to simply tell soldiers to be aggressive; they must have a faith in their abilities built through hard and arduous training and know that they are going to win; so that when that weapon does malfunction three feet from the bad guy, they will instinctively attack. |
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