Lucy Kinder / The London Telegraph – 2014-02-17 00:48:02

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10634411/US-army-builds-fake-city-to-shoot-at-during-training.html

US Army Asymmetric Warfare Group
Video by Lt. Col. Sonise Lumbaca

The US Army Asymmetric Warfare Group hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony to celebrate the completion of its Asymmetric Warfare Training Center Jan. 24 at Fort A.P. Hill. Participants included State and local officials from Virginia, representatives from the US Army Corps of Engineers and Training and Doctrine Command, and various others who attended to witness the historic event. The state-of-the-art facility provides a location for the AWG to replicate complex operational environments and develop solutions — which includes exploring adaptive tactics, techniques and procedures.

US Army Builds Fake City
To Shoot at during Training
Lucy Kinder / The London Telegraph

(February 13, 2014) — The US army has built a fake city designed to be used during combat training exercises. The 300-acre ‘town’ includes a five-story embassy, a bank, a school, an underground subway and train station, a mosque, a football stadium, and a helicopter landing zone.

Located in Virginia, the realistic subway station comes complete with subway carriages and the train station has real train carriages. The subway carriages even carry the same logo as the carriages in Washington DC.

There are also bridges and several other structures, which can be transformed into different scenarios. The $96 million is designed to meticulously “replicate complex operational environments and develop solutions.”

The US Army’s Army Asymmetric Warfare Group opened the training centre last month. The unit was created in 2004 to help combat terrorism and reduce the vulnerabilities of the army to emerging threats.

Colonel John P. Petkosek, the commander of the group said of the new training city: “This is the place where we can be creative, where we can come up with solutions for problems that we don’t even know we have yet.

“This is where we’ll look at solutions for the future — material solutions and non-material solutions . . . anything from how you’re going to operate in a subterranean environment to how you dismount a Humvee to avoid an IED strike.

“The things that we do here at this facility will have a direct and lasting impact on our entire army.”

It has taken six years for the site to be developed, including two years of construction.

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