war training center

War Training Center - The US Army has completed a 300-acre training ground, a small town to be shot and blasted in preparation for battle.

The asymmetric warfare training center at Fort AP Hill, Virginia, cost $96 million and is designed to "reproduce complex operational environments", according to the Army Asymmetric Warfare Group, which "owns" the site. 'coaching.

War Training Center

In addition to the usual firing ranges and administrative facilities, the AWTC has a number of large-scale structures including a five-story embassy, ​​bank, school, subway station, train station, heliport, a bridge, and more.

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Video footage from the opening ceremony in January shows the church, but it is unclear if it is one of the academic structures. All of the buildings look very realistic, especially compared to other urban schools that rely on simple, generic structures - often plywood.

A screenshot of a press release produced by Asymmetric Warfare Group's PR department showing the AWTC subway station. A WMATA logo is seen on one of the subway cars. military picture

For example, subway cars purchased directly from the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, or even logos, are designed to look like them. Real wagons are also available at the air terminal.

This installation corresponds to the mission of the asymmetric warfare group. AWG assisted the military in countering improvised explosive devices in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2006. Since then, the group's responsibilities have expanded. It helps develop doctrine and training to fight terrorism, protect critical infrastructure such as power grids, and deal with weapons of mass destruction.

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AWG has also helped train foreign teams. For example, in 2012, this group worked with the Lebanese special operations forces.

At a ceremony in January, Colonel John Petkosek – the commander of the AWG – underscored this broader mission. "It's a place where we can be creative and you can come up with solutions to problems we don't yet have."

Undoubtedly, other units also benefit from unique conditions. Special operations forces especially like to train in places that simulate real battlefields. For the past several months, Fort AP Hill has hosted exercises for Army Special Forces and Marines.

It's even possible that a structure built for the AWTC was used during a Marine Corps exercise in November that included the defense of a fake embassy.

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From drones to AKs, high tech to low politics, we explore how and why we fight above and below the brutal world of training for an uncertain military future in California. The military training center at Fort Irvine, Calif., is full of Middle Eastern mockery. towns. But when the US military mission in Afghanistan ends, how will this institution change?

Soldiers assigned to the 30th Combat Team of the 30th Heavy Brigade of the 120th Armored Battalion participate in a desert exercise in 2009 at the Fort Irwin National Training Center. Gerry Broome/AP Hide caption

Soldiers assigned to the 120th Weapons Battalion, 30th Heavy Brigade Combat Team participate in a 2009 desert exercise at the National Training Center in Fort Irvine, California.

In the middle of the Mojave Desert, between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, there is a place that looks like Afghanistan.

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There are villages with houses, shops, mosques and markets. But it's all just a facade. The area is actually a US Army installation, Fort Irwin National Training Center. If you want to see how the decade-long battle fundamentally changed the way the United States prepares its troops for war, this is where you come.

As the US combat mission in Afghanistan draws to a close, Arun Rath visits the base to find out how the end of the wars will change the mission there.

Colonel Cameron Cantlon commands the Army's 3rd Cavalry Regiment, which trains at Fort Irwin before its final deployment to Afghanistan. Many soldiers describe parts of the desert that are indistinguishable from Afghanistan. A red sign at the checkpoint reads "Danger - live fire in progress".

The base is huge and has miles of areas with false names. Goat Mountain is one of several fictional villages used for live and loose fire training at the National Training Center here.

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"We practice getting in and out of buildings, getting in and out of rooms in those buildings...it's a little training ground," Cantlon says.

The exercises are part of what is called a full-scale combat simulation. They use training dummies to simulate casualties in combat scenarios and even hire amputees.

"When the soldiers respond, they come to the scene [and] they're people in uniform and they're screaming in pain," Cantlon said. "And it feels totally real. You can't beat that kind of training. It's tough...but better to be here the first time than the first time."

Cantlon's troops are also preparing for a deadly situation for soldiers and civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan: clearing a structure containing a mixture of civilians and combatants. The stakes are incredibly high: don't hesitate and you could die; If you shoot the key, you could kill the child. The special training is a response to what the military calls an "insider threat," Cantlon said.

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“[He] trains soldiers to move quickly from a normal situation to a situation where they have to defend themselves,” he says.

For this exercise, the soldiers clear a one-story house on top of a hill. It's supposed to be an office where soldiers are sent to talk to the locals and then ambushed. The situation suddenly escalated and the shooting resumed. The soldiers inspect all the rooms, cross the office and shoot the mannequins.

Like a Hollywood set, the building has no fourth wall or roof, so exercises can be filmed and re-watched. After they finish cleaning the building, they chat and start again and again. Each team will do this drill at least four times until it becomes second nature.

This training is tailored to the specific situations these soldiers will face in Afghanistan: from realistic villages and towns to challenging terrain and bloody battles.

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The fictional villages at the National Training Center in Fort Irvine, Calif., are designed to simulate the urban environment soldiers might encounter in Afghanistan. Rebecca Herscher/hide caption

The fictional villages at the National Training Center in Fort Irvine, Calif., are designed to simulate the urban environment soldiers might encounter in Afghanistan.

Major General Ted Martin, commander of the center, explains that the training center has changed a lot since September 11, 2001.

“Towns and Villages is a direct result of lessons learned from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan,” says Martin. "You have to learn to fight in an urban environment and also to live together in peace."

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As the United States moves beyond this specific conflict, Martin said, the training center villages and towns will remain, but will be reassigned as needed.

"They look a bit like cities in the Middle East. It doesn't matter, we can change the names of the cities," he says.

But it takes more than a name change. The cities are filled with mosques and inscriptions written in Arabic everywhere. Afghans were recruited to play the role of local people, village elders and insurgents living in fake towns and cities. Renovating this sprawling fortress and turning it into something other than an ultra-realistic desert training ground can be expensive.

Even without new real-world conflict, some formation changes have already begun, Gen. Martin said. Now that the last brigade deployed to Afghanistan is complete, Fort Irwin is focusing on the tactics of tomorrow.

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"We have to prepare for an uncertain future," he says. "If we see a new enemy tactic, we try to teach it here. Do you think a brigade combat team should be worried about cyber warfare? Yes. So we're training now and I never would have thought 10 years ago. do it."

The military training budget is in the billions of dollars, but it is shrinking. Last year, sequestration cuts forced the National Training Center to cancel nearly a quarter of its training rotations, and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced the military would be significantly reduced in the years coming.

Todd Harrison, a military budget analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, says he sees no evidence the military is actually conducting targeted training as Hagel suggests. In fact, he sees training centers like Fort Irwin returning to more in-depth traditional training despite budget cuts.

“They call it full-spectrum operations, so they train soldiers for all kinds of contingencies,” Harrison said. "I think in the years to come, with limited funding, we need to focus this training on more feasible scenarios... specialty,

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