US army builds fake city to shoot at during training

projectvxn
reply to post by stevcolx

 

Oh yeah...You got us!

Just itching to kill my own people and destroy my own home. Go Army!

I must admit that people like him scare me to a degree. Just one second from being unhinged due to all CT and resulting paranoia they ingest. I think that if anyone who will be murdering my fellow citizens, it would be people like that. Oops! wait, they already have. The list is long with craziness and murder.

Of course the DoD is planning on destroying what is left of the country, because we all know how life is oh so much better living on a FOB in a free-fire zone, rather than tree lined streets and decent housing.

Well, I don't know what to say, but that was uncalled for back and forth about who will kill who derailing. Thought we could talk about this, much thanks to those who did contribute in that manner.

If as one member is concerned about the UK paper having information wrong then perhaps their duty would be to write to the paper with the correct information as they have it.

Another, brought up with be priority. Are older "city" (as discussed earlier in replies) facilities non efficient that much that millions have to be spend on another one or more, while the country as a whole is having problems with money, not even to mention the mounting homelessness, job loss, etc.

Other than that I don't see why there is an issue to question what is going on with this city? Is that frowned upon in these official army circles? CT wise this is being discussed around the net, is it wrong to discuss on ATS where, in spirit, deny ignorance is the right thing to do?

Anyway thanks for the contribution.

BABYBULL24
Please tell the Army we will be shooting back...uh just in case they decide to go live!

Good day!

Nothing terrorizes me or saddens me more than the thought of my own military being used to destroy our country. What a sick twist of fate, what a horrifically sick joke this would make of everything we have ever stood for.

It is horrible enough they have succeeded in turning our policeman against us and that Americans fear the police more than the criminals or a foreign threat. For any branch of our military to ever turn on an American citizenry will mark the absolute death and downfall of America.

It will mark the shot heard around the world, the collapse of Statehoods, the beginning of mass panic and the lost of all hope for all peoples around the world. Death will be a constant companion and no one will need to ask for whom the bell tolls.

Why shouldn't the military continue to train in settings like this? Much of modern warfare is fought in an urban setting so why wouldn't they train this way?

The best way to train for the real world is in real world settings. In my job we use real world equipment in real time scenarios to make sure we are prepared, as much as possible, for multiple different types of situations.

I know a chief mechanic at a garage that brings in a car with complex problems a few times a year for his mechanics to diagnose.

Fire departments train with real fire.

What's the issue?

Training for urban operations can be perfectly legitimate. If the arrangements were made properly I wouldn't be opposed to large scale non firing exercises in real US cities to get them used to the immensity of a strange place with a huge population that must be respected.

When some rebel army wants to butcher a stadium full of refugees, we want soldiers who know how fight their way into, take control of, and defend that stadium.

When a helicopter goes down in Mogadishu, we want the rescuers to get there fast without getting lost or killed.

If we go to war with China we want the military to be competent to help us evacuate our cities or to control theirs without accidentally slaughtering civilians wholesale.

That being said, I don't necessarily trust them either and the fact that our citizens are afraid of what a competent military might do with its skills should be a huge red flag that something is wrong in this country.

projectvxn
reply to post by dreamingawake

 

I don't understand why this is a big deal.

The Army is going to have to fight in the streets at some point.

They put in representations of what soldiers might find in an urban theater of war. This is to train on what structures can be shot at and which should be bypassed. Since we are in the middle east and we would probably be encountering things like mosques it would be prudent to know what to look for.

You should see the stuff they got built up at the National Training Center in California. I've done a rotation there. The whole purpose of our training is to train like we fight. So when you guys see stuff like this just remember this:

We are not a feel good organization.

We are here to fight and win wars.

Fighting and winning wars requires lots of training.

We need to build places to train, airspace to fly, and stuff to shoot at and blow up...'cause that's what we do.

yes, but what if....and this is just a hypothetical..an idea..

what if it's part of an overall effort to gradually desensitize soldiers to the idea/concept/possibility of having to operate in/occupy american towns/cities?

drill anything long enough, and it becomes "normal", "familiar", and "second nature"

-shrug- just a thought.

ETA: facilities like this will make it less likely that they'll pick a real location to train, so that means less headlines in the media, and less ability for us to keep an eye on exactly WHAT they're drilling, also less public awareness that the military is training in american urban environments....i agree that training is necessary, but patterning your training facility after an american urban environment is not wise..unless my hypothetical above is indeed the true goal...

dreamingawake

Possible that it's really just training for homeland attacks or is it something more. What say you ATS?

Looks like an upscale MOUT trainer, no biggie. You know these exist already, right? Although not as elaborate as this.

You have to train to fight in urban settings. The more realistic it is, the better. That's why you've been seeing SOCNORTH training in real cities off and on since they went active.

Thanks for the replies.

Bedlam

dreamingawake

Possible that it's really just training for homeland attacks or is it something more. What say you ATS?

Looks like an upscale MOUT trainer, no biggie. You know these exist already, right? Although not as elaborate as this.

You have to train to fight in urban settings. The more realistic it is, the better. That's why you've been seeing SOCNORTH training in real cities off and on since they went active.

I'm aware of these, of course, and as you mentioned, this one being more elaborate. Therein lies the concern, as mentioned earlier by my replies and comments.

reply to post by dreamingawake


A lot of the existing MOUT trainers are sort of like movie sets in that the buildings are just shells. A MOUTland that had real houses, shops and so on adds a lot to the realism.

If this was on RATS I'd tell you more but there is a really effective training setup for certain types of city infrastructure that CAG got for a song. They run SF and CAG through the thing, as well as select allies. They swap roles defending and attacking, parts of it are 'expendable' and are blown up and rebuilt constantly, generally under simulated fire.

It's Hogan's Alley crossed with post 9/11 budgets that really have no budgetary limits in recent years, mixed with the inevitable 'boys and their toys'. This is the result.

A town nicer in appearance than many people actually DO live in around the nation today, and built..as many note here, as one of countless like it. As if we needed one more vs. maybe transporting soldiers and police units to somewhat more distant ones but save 10's of millions. Of course, then people wouldn't have gotten to plan a new 'amusement park' for the guys planning these things out.

Albeit a necessary training center in nature? It's quite surplus in literal need for 'yet another one..', IMO. How many MOUT sites in just how many wild variations do we really need?? There are 190-200 nations in the world..depending on how one counts these things. Do we need one for each distinctly different area, and one of those per region for convenience? Err...

Aren't we the nation with serious budget problems? You'd never think so at times, huh? We just keep building the best with no expense spared............on certain things. (sigh)

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Well, in a way, you DO need different ones. There are different types of city structures, and a lot of the training sites are not very detailed. Also, you can only do Shughart-Gordon so many times before you're sleepwalking through it.

reply to post by Daedalus

what if it's part of an overall effort to gradually desensitize soldiers to the idea/concept/possibility of having to operate in/occupy american towns/cities?

While no threat exists to the US homeland that does not stop the Army from training for that contingency.

If you mean training to fight AGAINST the American people, I have not been part of such training nor have I actually encountered such a training doctrine. That said, should such a training scenario be real, OR the actuality come upon us, I have no doubt that there would be some seriously stupid soldiers out there without the testicular fortitude to say "no".

I am not one of them.

drill anything long enough, and it becomes "normal", "familiar", and "second nature"

-shrug- just a thought.

Yeah that's the whole point. We train for combat, period. We train to kill, blow stuff up, hurt people, and deal with chaos in ways most Americans wouldn't understand. It is what we are asked to do on the behalf of the American people. What we are paid to do by American taxpayer dollars. But don't get things confused. We are not separate from the American people. We are just as American as anyone else. We don't exist in a vacuum of information either-my presence here, along with many other Soldiers, Marines, Sailors, and Airmen should attest to that fact. We are not homogenous, we do not all think alike, share the same opinions, or even follow any order we're given. We are not brainwashed out of our humanity as many here would like to believe. We are, however, different. Our jobs and where those jobs take us, what is asked of us is what makes us different. It is that difference and the lack of understanding what we do, how we do it, and why is what causes the confusion here. Couple that with the "crazy-kill-everything-soldier" type Hollywood has been feeding the American public for decades and you might be able to see where most of this fear comes from.

reply to post by projectvxn


as i stated quite clearly, it was merely a hypothetical. and you need not explain to me what it means to be a soldier, as i already understand all too well...

training is fine....my concern is how much the facility resembles a generic American town....if martial law were to be declared, and the military ordered to occupy towns...well, American towns look very different from Afghan, and Iraqi towns....you're already used to occupying towns there...drill long enough in a hometown environment, and it might be harder for some to hear the voice in the back of their minds, screaming a reminder that they're home...

again, it's only hypothetical, but i believe the concern itself isn't without warrant..

it seems that berry soetero has lost the will of the people. we went through a civil war once but now its north, south east and west, left, right, indifferent. i guess we'll see who survives the fallout

Wrabbit2000
It's Hogan's Alley crossed with post 9/11 budgets that really have no budgetary limits in recent years, mixed with the inevitable 'boys and their toys'. This is the result.

A town nicer in appearance than many people actually DO live in around the nation today, and built..as many note here, as one of countless like it. As if we needed one more vs. maybe transporting soldiers and police units to somewhat more distant ones but save 10's of millions. Of course, then people wouldn't have gotten to plan a new 'amusement park' for the guys planning these things out.

Albeit a necessary training center in nature? It's quite surplus in literal need for 'yet another one..', IMO. How many MOUT sites in just how many wild variations do we really need?? There are 190-200 nations in the world..depending on how one counts these things. Do we need one for each distinctly different area, and one of those per region for convenience? Err...

Aren't we the nation with serious budget problems? You'd never think so at times, huh? We just keep building the best with no expense spared............on certain things. (sigh)

edit on 18-2-2014 by Wrabbit2000 because: (no reason given)

With that in mind, the US govt should just buy up swaths of Detroit to help the city out and start doing some training there. Would save money and maybe some of the money spent could be used on some improvements in the city..

Bedlam

dreamingawake

Possible that it's really just training for homeland attacks or is it something more. What say you ATS?

Looks like an upscale MOUT trainer, no biggie. You know these exist already, right? Although not as elaborate as this.

You have to train to fight in urban settings. The more realistic it is, the better. That's why you've been seeing SOCNORTH training in real cities off and on since they went active.

Fort Irwin has half a dozen fake cities for such training.

jessme
With that in mind, the US govt should just buy up swaths of Detroit to help the city out and start doing some training there. Would save money and maybe some of the money spent could be used on some improvements in the city..

I could see that...except Detroit is probably too run down to be a good training site. Think of the money they'd have to sink into it to rebuild.