Is the new zealand army well trained?

Answer 1

The NZ army is a small army that trains along the conventional form of warfare but with a natural tendency for unconventional warfare. This is due to it's heritage and history from the Maori wars though to the bush rangers.

The training provided for the individual soldier in the NZ Army surpass many of the countries in Europe and the USA. This is mainly due to the size of the army with smaller numbers per an instructor. This allows more time to be spent developing the individual soldiers skills. However, the limited funding provided by the NZ Government has meant a lot of the equipment carried or used by soldiers were old or sub standard compared to other NATO or US units especially though the 70's - 90's. This has lead to a ' Adapt , improvise and overcome' mentality a mentality that is fostered though all corps in the NZ army and benefited all that have served in the NZ forces by providing a flexible, think outside the box mentality. A commonality sheared with the ' No.8 wire' attitude of Kiwis.

The Adapt, improvise and overcome attitude of the NZ soldier when working overseas on deployment with the UN or on Excise has made the NZ soldier both feared and admired by other armies especially when it came to equipment left laying around. Anything 'shiny' would vanish without a trance only to re- appear as part of the NZer's inventory, for example - 2 x US Army Hummers painted white with a black KIWI on the side magically appeared 1 day or the 2 X M113 APC that were 'borrowed' from a neighbouring UN Battalion that had left the APC's sitting around doing nothing or the 150 metal plates used for Black Hawk landing pads magically disappeared and re- appeared as part of foot path system used in a NZ camp - Adapt, overcome - master your environment.

An increase in active deployments overseas has seen NZ soldiers serve with the UN in Somalia, Bosnia (90's) and the conflict in East timor Islands. Now recently the war in Iraq and Afghanistan has brought about a change in the NZ Governments attitude with increase funding and a drive to update equipment to support it's troops when serving overseas.

The NZ Army of to day is still small,but, it is a proud highly trained modern army whom individual soldiers are trained to fight in many different environments and to adapt, overcome and win as a individual or as part of a team.

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