I can't buy the argument that we are "spending too much time on drill", and that this is somehow holding back our soldiering skills. I also dispute the Bland article (which, IIRC, he stated that he wrote as a shyte-disturbing piece...)
When I started my life in a RegF Inf battalion in 1983, battalion drill in DEU w/forage cap was done every Friday morning. The RSM and the CO decided what would be done each week-sometimes squad drill, sometimes officers under separate instruction by thhe QMSI, sometimes drill at battalion level. When we did a battalion ceremonial parade, we worked hard to get ready for it-usually over several days or more for a big one. So,drill was FAR more a regular part of our life in RegF Cbt A units than than its has become today.
Now (and here is the point...) those days are the very days that we look back upon fondly now as the times in which we did more and better training, especially collective training. They were the days of lots of live fire, of generous amounts of battle sim, of cowgut dummies in the "enemy" trenches, and of soldiers who were well versed in winter operations including building winter defences. I believe that we did more field training in the battalions then seems to be the case recently.
Now, if increasing the amount of drill we do would (allegedly...) have such a deleterious effect on us as a combat-ready army, how was it that we did all that drill (wow-a whole morning a week!) and yet did all that field training?
The Army we sent to fight in Korea was the product a far more drill-oriented system than we know today (and in this I include the Special Force soldiers who went first...). Where "drill mentality" became a problem was, IMHO, when the replacement Regular battalions took over from the Special Force and started worrying more about spit and polish trenchlines and so on, than about aggressive patrolling (I am obviously following Johnson's interpretation from A War of Patrols...)
Drill forms a very important part of instilling basic skills in soldiers-not to "replace" thinking, but to clear the mental decks for "real" thinking and ensuring that no matter how scared, tired or confused the soldier is, he can still perform the necessary skills without expending precious mental effort. The CO and his Marines who spoke to us at Edmonton recently about their combat experiences in Fallujah stressed the importance of drilling endlessly on skills, before deployment or when out of the line in theatre. (And, by the way, the USMC are no slackers on the square...). IMHO, teaching drill is a very simple and cost-effective way of training the mind and body to react instinctively both as an individual and as part of a group. It also serves in a very visual way to remind the soldier of the larger group that he is a part of, and its power as a collective.
If we were to adopt a Frederickean approach to drill, in which we spent every waking hour on the square and beat any individual thinking out of soldiers, I could see the argument that drill would damage our ability to function effectively in modern warfare. I'm not suggesting such a stupid COA, nor do I think any of the drill advocates are. Rather, we need to redress the balance by integrating drill into what we are doing in garrison. A high standard of drill, in which regular drill for ALL ranks, with everybody working hard and taking pride in collective sharpness, but forming a part of a balanced training routine, is IMHO a very positive thing, and one that we need right now. As a number of posters have observed, we are IMHO increasingly presenting a shambolic, flabby and amateur image when we are on parade or moving about in large groups.
Cheers