An unnerving environment: <> General William Wallace, the Commanding General of the US Army Training and Doctrine Command, told delegates at the 2008 Armor Conference at Fort Knox, Kentucky an 5 May. If current trends continue almost 60% (five billion) of population will live in urban areas by 2030.

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An unnerving environment: <> General William Wallace, the Commanding General of the US Army Training and Doctrine Command, told delegates at the 2008 Armor Conference at Fort Knox, Kentucky an 5 May. If current trends continue almost 60% (five billion) of population will live in urban areas by 2030.

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The Marine Corps System Command (Marcorsyscom), briefing contenders bidding for the Combined Arms Military Operations in Urban Terrain (Camout) contracts, explained that extensive studies by the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory have shown that units trained to operate an integrated combined arms team are more successful within the urban battle spaces and suffer fewer casualties. The US Army and US Marine Corps are investing billions to improve their military operations in urban terrain (Mout) training facilities.

For example, the Camout project will expand the already extensive Mout training facility at the US Marine Corps's Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms, California where brigades participate in 'Mojave Viper', their final collective training exercise before deployment. Under a $ 460 million contract Allied Container Systems will build a primary town consisting of 1500 container (935), concrete (75) and modular (490) buildings which will be used for force-on-force and live-fire training. Scheduled for completion in April 2010 the town will consist of an 'urban core', an 'old town', four 'mixed use' areas and a sports stadium.

Since April 2007 battalions at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina have been using the US Marine Corps' first Mobile Mout facility; the $15 million facility covers 29 acres and consists of 71 buildings (five of with contain 360[degrees] shoot houses), more than 100 automated targets and two tunnel complexes. Marcorsyscom has subsequently awarded $ 30 million in contracts to provide modular Mout training systems at five of more locations on the Atlantic coast, $ 25 million for systems at five or more locations on the Pacific coast and another $ five million for facilities in Hawaii, Okinawa, Guam and other non-US locations. These Home Station Mout facilities will support training up to battalion level.

Important aspects of realistic urban operations training are the role players who act as enemy combatants, civilians, and members of non-governmental organisations, journalists and even foreign-language-speaking friendly forces. In April Marcorsyscom awarded Tatitlek a $ 319 million firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract to provide specialist role players at Twentynine Palms until March 2013. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year.

General Dynamics Information Technology built the US Army's first advanced Mout site at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, Louisiana and has been awarded all of the service's follow-on Mout contracts. The company installed almost 1000 cameras, 350 microphones and more than three million feet of fibre-optic cable, which allows training supervisors to continuously observe, control, and record the conduct of training in real-time. Civilian contractors, such as Cubic, provide 1000 or more role players for the brigade-level exercises which take place each month. Over the past four years General Dynamics Information technology has also fielded Mobile Mout systems at locations in Afghanistan, Kuwait and Iraq. The mobile systems typically consist of one and two story buildings configured in a three to five-...

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