Photo By Spc. Nathan Goodall | Soldiers from A Company, 3/4 Infantry Battalion, 170th IBCT, secure the wood line...... read more read more
BAUMHOLDER, Germany – A squad of Infantrymen stand outside a building, their eyes all over the area. They are looking for anything out of place, any movement, any threat, anything and everything.
Infantrymen with A Company, 3rd Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment, 170th Infantry Brigade Combat Team conducted military operations on urban terrain as part of their situational training exercises here in June.
“You’ve gotta be ready to deploy,” said Pvt. Jesse Parks, a radio telephone operator with A Company, 3-4 Infantry. “[Military operations on urban terrain training] is very important. MOUT is a perishable skill.”
The military operations on urban terrain training area here, known as “MOUT City,” is a comprehensive urban training site designed to train Soldiers how to act and react in real life situations. MOUT City is a simulated village similar to what Soldiers will see during deployment in Afghanistan, said Jose Larroy, the chief training support center supervisor with the Baumholder Training Support Center.
The site is outfitted with various furnished buildings, stripped vehicles, a flat-roofed building that units can place snipers on, gates that can be rammed open with a HMMWV, and other features that make it genuinely similar to what kind of areas Soldiers would encounter in Afghanistan, said Larroy.
“I have been to many Training Support Centers throughout Europe,” said Larroy. “And [the MOUT site] in Baumholder is one of the best ones.”
In addition to MOUT City, another advantage of training here is the ability to utilize Soldiers from within the 170th IBCT as an opposing force, or OPFOR. By having more access to the opposing force, commanders can tailor the experience to the needs of their specific unit, said 2nd Lt. John Paul Merson, a Crisfield, Md. native, now a platoon leader with A Company, 3-4 Infantry.
“Brigade internal OPFOR is an excellent training aid,” said Merson. “Commanders know their platoon leaders and what they need to be trained on.”
By utilizing the opposing force as simulated civilians and enemy combatants, the Infantrymen were able to practice how to interact with non-hostile villagers and how to identify and engage enemy threats.
“It gives you a good idea of what you’re going to see downrange, as close as it can be,” said Spc. Steven E. Cherry, a Birmingham, Ala., native, now a gunner with A Company, 3-4 Infantry.
In addition to utilizing the MOUT training site, the Soldiers used Deployable Instrumentation Systems Europe equipment during their training. Baumholder is one of two major sites to use DISE equipment during the month of June.
DISE is a state of the art training aid that provides units with significant technological capabilities. Soldiers, their weapons and vehicles, are outfitted with the system. Their movements and engagements are captured, recorded and played back using the equipment’s GPS technology, said James Meredith, a training instrumentation resource specialist with Training Support Activity Europe of Grafenwoehr.
Everything that gets equipped with DISE is individually tracked so that the recording of an exercise can be played back for review during the exercise or after action review. The ability to comprehensively record the details of an exercise encourages the Soldiers to train realistically and effectively, said Meredith.
MOUT City, the opposing force element, and DISE all aid the Soldiers by providing them with a fully functional, three-dimensional battlefield.
“In a situational training exercise, the elements being trained are put into a situation they may encounter downrange,” said Merson. “The idea behind the training is to make it as realistic, and close to combat, as you possibly can.”
“It’s a training point,” said Parks, a Seattle, Wash. native, who has been with the unit since February. “You’re always kind of picking up on small, little things that you can improve on. As a brand new radio telephone operator I’m learning a ton of stuff, like the way I equip myself, individual Soldier tasks, and tactical rudiments.”
| Date Taken: | 06.08.2010 |
| Date Posted: | 06.25.2010 08:56 |
| Story ID: | 51960 |
| Location: | BAUMHOLDER, DE |
| Web Views: | 188 |
| Downloads: | 114 |
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