Mout: Fort Sill expands urban operations training.

Army operations in the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) emphasize military operations in urban terrain (MOUT), and schoolhouses and home station should do the same, in terms of discussions, training and resource allocations. To prepare Soldiers for GWOT, Fort Sill, Oklahoma, has transformed and expanded its MOUT training and facilities.

This year at Fort Sill, Initial Entry Training (IET), Basic Officer's Leader Course II (BOLC II) and mobilization preparation training all modified their support plans to better prepare leaders and Soldiers for MOUT challenges.

Commensurate with this training focus, Fort Sill built robust new training facilities. Some of these facilities are now in use, such as the recent BOLC II expansion of Liberty City, a modularly constructed building-clearing MOUT site. Others, such as the new Urban Assault Course north of Kerr Hill, will open this summer.

Liberty City. The 30th Field Artillery Regiment (FAR) designed and built a large expansion of Liberty City for BOLC II. Construction began in November 2005, and the city opened for operations in February 2006. The expansion involved input from the entire cadre, from company commanders to platoon mentors.

The plan laid out a bold three-story, $500,000 facility. Construction centered around eight 40-foot military vans (MILVANs) built in sections off site and brought in on flatbeds. The most recent additions are a town mosque with minaret and safety railings on the highest points of the buildings.

The new complex features a labyrinth of buildings and staircases to make navigation through the city a greater training challenge. Some parts of rooms are accessible only through tunnels hidden behind furniture. Other buildings outside the walls simulate a street or market place and are well suited for conducting presence patrols.

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In Week Five of BOLC II training, the officers practice room-clearing techniques as part of a three-day exercise. The central courtyard is perfect for four-man teams to rehearse entering and clearing rooms through both corner and center doors.

On Day One, officers rotate between breaching practice, moving within a building and entering/clearing a room. On Day Two, platoons rotate through multiple room clearings, presence patrols and advanced rifle marksmanship (ARM). Then the platoons attack to secure a building, engage in advanced-firing, quick-fire techniques and target discrimination on Day Three. The officers also conduct a force-on-force exercise that includes fighting against an eight-man well trained opposing force (OPFOR) while simultaneously practicing hallway, stairwell and staircase clearing plus seizing a priority human target from the city.

By the summer of 2006, the site will train 50 percent of all new officers entering the Army. Five companies of 220 officers will train in urban operations at this Fort Sill site, starting in June 2006.

IET Soldiers also train at Liberty City. Each battery selects Soldiers well into IET to demonstrate the urban operations situational-training exercise (STX) lane to Day-One recruits. After new recruits have completed their urban operations training in IET, the best are handpicked to demonstrate the urban operations lane to a class of new recruits.

The initial entry Soldier is on the cutting edge in terms of modern equipment. He wears the new Army combat uniform (ACU) and is equipped with the Interceptor body armor system (IBAS). To prepare for current operating environment (COE) operations, all Soldiers now undergo both day and night ARM training using M16A4 rifles equipped with the M68 close combat optic (CCO). Each Soldier fires live wearing PVS-7 night-vision goggles (NVGs) and weapons equipped with AN/PAC-4 lasers.

Arranged in a U-shape with a central gravel roadway, Liberty City consists of five clusters of MILVANs stacked and arranged as one- and two-story buildings. Walls adorned with Arabic writing surround the buildings. The city includes 100 doors and windows that open at all angles with corridors and internal and external staircases scattered throughout the facility. The insides of the buildings contain furniture to create a complex and realistic environment. Destroyed hulks and cement barriers lay outside the city to provide cover.

The Field Artillery Training Center (FATC), Fort Sill, built and opened Liberty City in 2005. The site can accommodate up to platoon-sized elements of IET Soldiers in a rotation of up to 256 Soldiers per day.

Freedom Town. In June 2005, IET Soldiers began conducting convoy and patrol missions to this wooded village. Soldiers identify suspected enemy weapons and ammunition caches and react to improvised explosive devices (IEDs) throughout the town. Squads also receive missions to deliver humanitarian rations and conduct presence patrols. Soldiers receive evaluations on the tasks of manning a checkpoint, reacting to news media, conducting vehicle searches and providing first aid. In July 2005, the school placed a crashed helicopter near the south gate of the town for Soldiers to train on rescuing a downed pilot.

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The FATC continues to improve and modify the town's facilities and layout to enhance IET training.

Camp Eagle. The NCO Academy's Warrior Leader Course (WLC), Basic NCO Course (BNCOC) and Advanced NCO Course (ANCOC) each conduct a 96-hour STX during Week Three at Camp Eagle. The STX focuses on the COE.

A major part of the STX is the student-conducted MOUT training. The students rotate through squad leader and team leader positions and conduct several dry-fire rehearsal missions before training with blank ammunition. The students plan, coordinate and conduct all aspects of their missions.

Students learn how to approach a building, avoid cross-linear danger areas and react to possible IED scenarios. Once the students reach a building, they configure into a four-man room clearing "stack," check for booby traps and maintain constant security. Students then move from room to room clearing closets, cubby holes and attic spaces. The small group leaders coach and critique them, and the students conduct an after-action review (AAR) for each run-through.

Once the students have trained properly, they conduct the mission with blanks in their rifles, running through all the tasks again. This time, the OPFOR is involved, and as the students clear each room, they must deal with force-on-force and possibly civilians on the battlefield. During all blank missions, small group leaders use smoke grenades and artillery simulators to increase the realism but always focus on the students' safety.

The benefit of the STX is that it allows those students who have already experienced combat to share their lessons learned with students who eventually will lead young Soldiers into harm's way. After all the training is finished, the students get a feel for real-world combat with the missions combined into a single mission.

Live- and Blank-Fire "Shoot Houses." The 4th Brigade, 75th Division (Training Support) conducts post-mobilization training of Army Reserve and National Guard Soldiers and active duty Air Force Airmen preparing to deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan through Fort Sill. These units come to train at Fort Sill from across the continental United States. As part of the prescribed training for these units, the brigade provides short-range marksmanship and close-quarters combat training, led primarily by the brigade's 1-289 Training Support Battalion out of Houston, Texas, known as Task Force Liberty.

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The training takes place on a facility on the East Range where the Soldiers and Airmen learn techniques for target discrimination and reflexive fire under day and night conditions and also train on techniques for day and night building clearance. This training uses a number of structures designed to enable the progressive training of the techniques to increasing levels of complexity.

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The capstone event is a live-fire building clearance exercise using a "shoot house" structure designed specifically and safely for this purpose. The Soldiers and Airmen also practice these building-clearance techniques with blanks in low-light conditions using night-vision devices.

Other urban operations training for mobilizing units incorporates the Liberty City complex into scenarios for advanced convoy mission exercises. Future training for these units will also incorporate the Urban Assault Course.

Urban Assault Course. The Army Corps of Engineers has built a new Urban Assault Course on West Range, north of Kerr and McKenzie Hills. The course is an installation range and soon will open to all units. Mobilizing units will have first priority for training on the Urban Assault Course; courses, such as WLC, will have second priority; and then Fort Sill and outside units' training will have third priority.

Work began on this project in February 2005 after six months of planning. The Corps of Engineers completed the Urban Assault Course in February. The main construction of the course cost 2.7 million dollars.

The course trains individual Soldiers, squads and platoons on tasks required to operate within urban areas. It has five stations with fully automated targets. Specific target scenarios are computer event-driven and scored from the Range Operations Center.

At Station 1, the individual and team trainers contain adjoining rooms with interior precision targetry and doors designed to be kicked in and replaced. The squad and platoon trainer at Station 2 is a U-shape along the lines of Liberty City.

Station 3 is a grenadier gunnery trainer with damaged hulks and four bunkers arranged at varying distances. A two-story building with targets is at the end of the station. At Station 3, Soldiers fire M203 rounds at targets arranged in the trainer.

Station 4 is an urban offense/defense building, a large two-story mansion with roof access. Trainees will practice multiple-room clearing and platoon-sized operations at this station. The basement is accessed through a trap door. Station 5 is underground next to Station 4. Station 5's underground clearance facility leads directly to the basement of the urban offense/defense building.

In the future, Liberty City will feature Beamhit, the laser marksmanship training system (LMTS), or similar technologies. BOLC II Soldiers will train at a multi-million dollar FOB north of Liberty City. Mobilizing Soldiers will train at FOB Moway and train for urban operations at the new Urban Assault Course.

Fort Sill is on azimuth to expand training venues for urban operations. We are transforming our facilities to immerse the Soldier in the training he needs to become expert in the tasks he will have to conduct in the COE. Whatever the requirement to train the Soldier, Fort Sill will rise to the occasion.

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Captain Sean D. O'Berry Commands D Battery, 1st Battalion, 79th Field Artillery Brigade (D/1-79 FA) (Initial Entry Training) at the Field Artillery Training Center, Fort Sill, Oklahoma. In his previous assignment, he deployed from March 2003 through March 2004 with the 41st FA Brigade Tactical Operations Center (TOC) during Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) as a Night Operations Officer coordinating the suppression of enemy air defense (SEAD) targets, targets of opportunity and destruction of enemy air defense (DEAD) targets. During Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) I and II, Captain O'Berry was the 41st FA Brigade Liaison Officer (LNO) orchestrating the consolidation of enemy ammunition operations from Ar Ramadi/Al Fallujah from September to March 2004 with the 82nd Airborne Division Artillery and in Baghdad from June to September 2003 with the 1st Armored Division.

By Captain Sean D. O'Berry

Photos by Fred W. Baker III