In April, Ranger Class 06-26 became the first class to undergo the school's new bayonet course, a quarter-mile event in which soldiers crawl through tunnels, sprint over open fields, and negotiate barbed wire fence lines. Along the way, soldiers must drive their bayonets into silicone foes toting rubber Kalashnikovs and manning sand-bag machine gun nests. The bayonet course is the last chance for soldiers to demonstrate to their instructors that they are ready "to close the last 100 yards and destroy the enemy."

The other favored US Army hand-to-hand combat weapon is the entrenching tool