The Army’s training and simulation program office in Orlando, Fla., recently
shipped several new trainers to be used by soldiers in Afghanistan and Kuwait.
These deployable trainers will help soldiers maintain the war-fighting skills
during down time from real-world operations, said officials.
Units based at Bagram Air Base, in Afghanistan and Camp Doha in Kuwait will
receive urban-warfare training systems that replicate the facilities where they
typically rehearse city fights.
Deployable MOUT (military operations in urban terrain) facilities are made
out of shipping containers, explained Col. Robert Reyenga, Army program manager
for training devices. His office shipped the trainers in March.
The 40-foot containers are stacked to simulate buildings, he explained. “They
are consistent with fixed MOUT facilities.”
The basic setup is for a platoon to train. But it can be expanded by adding
more containers. A platoon set includes three to five buildings and a separate
area for the after-action review, said Reyenga.
In Kuwait, for example, the containers replicate the type of housing found
in that region. In Afghanistan, they are made to resemble “compounds,”
Reyenga said. A family, for example, will build a compound on one to five acres,
consisting of a mud wall and several houses within the mud wall. Members of
the family live in different huts. “We will fabricate the containers to
replicate the compounds,” he said.
In the training containers, soldiers can practice live demolition for breaching.
The walls are lined with plywood, to support live fire and force-on-force training
with blank rounds and laser-tag systems. “There is a limited amount of
battlefield effects,” Reyenga said. But the containers, although rudimentary,
have windows and stair wells, to make the training realistic.
During reconnaissance missions in suspected enemy compounds, U.S. soldiers
in Afghanistan often encounter false floors with weapons caches and holes in
the ground, or a trap door with a rug over it. “We’ll put that in
the trainer,” Reyenga said.
In the months ahead, he said, “we’ll assess whether there are requirements
in other places as well.”
Soldiers on the front lines also will receive seven new marksmanship trainers
called Engagement Skills Trainer 2000. Four will go to units in Afghanistan
and three to Kuwait. The trainer originally was requested by the 18th Airborne
Corps.
The EST 2000 is the Army’s “only validated marksmanship”
trainer that can replicate every type of small arm that the Army uses today,
said Lt. Col. Joseph A. Giunta Jr., product manager for ground combat tactical
trainers.
Each system has an instructor-operator station, a high-resolution projector,
a detection system, air compressor, screen, cables and hoses to connect to lane-position
weapon boxes.
The EST is not just for individual marksmanship training, Giunta said. It is
used for collective training (squad tactics) and decision-making skills. Military
police trainees, for example, are exposed to various scenarios where they must
decide whether to shoot or not.
The system replicates 14 different terrains and simulates all types of weather,
said Giunta.
So far, the Army has bought 157 trainers, most of which are in the United States.
The goal is to have 1,104 by 2009.
The manufacturer of the trainer, ECC Corp., in Orlando, Fla., will receive
a $35 million order in 2004 for 230 systems.