509th ABN training video -- urban warfare

[Kite]

I found this fascinating and thought it might have some relevance to this game. The video depicts US forces training for deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan. You will notice that everyone, including the noncombatants, are wearing the hit detection vests.

Iraqi Combat Simulation

(20.2 MB Streaming)

9 min 1 sec

Once your at the site, hit the back button link on the page to see more of his videos, if interested. There's one about Stryker teams training as well.

[John Kettler]

The Kite,

I found the first one informative and fairly easy to follow, but the Stryker video was all but incomprehensible, with headache inducing fast cuts.

Judging from the music, the Stryker force was as lambs to the slaughter by OPFOR, but the resolution of that wasn't at all clear to me. In fact, looks like the opposite happened.

Regards,

John Kettler

[LGMB]

Coolio video!

Training soldiers to fight against civilians is the next logical step in the evolution of modern combat.

Soon they're won't even be "soldiers" anymore, just "armed civilians".

[tiny_tanker]

That looked to be a very accurate portrayal of how the iraqi insurgents operate. Everyone should go through that training before they head over.

[Yardstick]

F@#K Geronimo! Those guys spend way too much time mastering the MILES game. JRTC is anything but realistic, you get a bunch of PVTs and tell them to act like Iraqi civilians and they f..k it all up, to the point that you just want to beat joe's ass. Half of those guys have no idea what it is like overseas, so the completely screw up the role-play part of it which makes it a real pain in the ass for the rotational units to get any good training.

Just my 2 cents.

[SgtMuhammed]

As former OPFOR I totally agree with you. You just can't replicate the civilian side because the entire OPFOR part is scripted. Either BLUEFOR has a chance to succeed or they have no chance you are not dealing with real people with real needs and concerns. Plus you can't really do anything to the OPFOR. The whole situation lacks any real stakes and both sides know it.

[PLM2]

I played OPFOR at NTC, I dont think they go far enough.

The best they can come up with is some small villages made out of conexes with plywood interiors? Knowing the Army, these probably cost millions of dollars a piece.

MILES gear is completely worthless, they dont take the time to zero it and they also didnt give us (at least the OPFOR) additional batteries. So you're running off the same 9 volt battery for 3 weeks, the MILES gear people i talked to that came to repair things said they should be switched every 2-3 days. I cant stress how worthless MILES gear is. I would be surprised if a single MILES gear was set off by a laser the whole time, the only ones that went off were from observers setting them off with their observer laser guns

We had roles and families we had t memorize while playing OPFOR but the whole time it never had any revelance. We definately weren't trained properly to play OPFOR. People stationed at Fort Irwin were either constantly in the mindset of causing trouble for OPFOR in any way possible at all times, or did it in stupid ways. They didnt seem proffessional at what they were doing at all.

I remember one time I was detained in a FOB EPW area and it came under assault by less than 10 OPFOR. Despite everything getting thrown at them they somehow managed to penetrate to the EPW area which made almost no sense considering the volume of firing that was going on. I hear BLUFOR complain a lot that OPFOR is invincible. Considering the battery problem and heavily biased, inexperienced people observing and calling the shots, **** never wound up remotely realistic.

Blanks are too quiet and sometimes someones MILES gear would go off randomly while patrolling a village and nobody would know if it was a sniper or another MILES gear mishap.

We weren't briefed on a lot of things. You'd be playing a sniper and get shot at by an A-10 flying overhead and have no idea whats going on. Observers would show up only when something is going to happen and did not live in the villages, so everyone knew it.

They had IED missions on the roads and such with civlian vehicles but they had absolutely no "valid" civilian traffic, so BLUFOR knew if you were on the road, you were on a mission.

The only good that I can say is the fact that they brought in real Arab-speaking Iraqi-American contractors to live in the villages with us to add immersion

[ June 20, 2007, 06:54 AM: Message edited by: PLM2 ]

[Kite]

I have zero experience here so I'm not going to pretend. I appreciate everyone's input so far. I thought it was fascinating that such training was happening even if, so far, it's not ideal. I think some of the psychological aspects are very helpful.

I wonder if the battery situation was intentional to make training numbers look better/worse. Or perhaps they wanted all soldiers to fire more often. Again, I'm just speculating.

Seeing some of the training scenarios made me anxious to play this game.

The other videos there are very frenetic. Not knowing anything other than what I saw on the video, I could never pass judgment on how combat effective these guys are.

[Yardstick]

The Iraqis at NTC are cool. It's nice to have the interaction and see that my rusty Arabic still works. I know what your saying PLM2, last time I was there Blackhorse hit our FOB with about a SQD and some how managed to make it all the way to the BIF and bust the EPWs out. Real world, they all would have been waxed outside the wire but, whatever.

[ChrisND]

I've only been to Graf (During the rainy season too, first time I have ever seen horizontal rain), and although there was plenty wrong I still think it was better than nothing.

I utterly loath MILES gear. Absolutely worthless and old to boot. I would often "die" jumping out of the humvee, the shock of hitting the ground would set my gear off. The lsaer box on the end of the rifles is a POS, gets loose and then you can't hit anything. When you have to jury rig the damned equipment just to make it work a quarter of the time, there is something wrong.

[ June 20, 2007, 10:19 AM: Message edited by: Normal Dude ]

[SgtMuhammed]

They had all kinds of replacement systems for MILES but they decided to spend the money on other things.

[LGMB]

Why don't they just train with Airsoft?

[SgtMuhammed]

Range.

They have all kinds of small paintball type rounds but they are too worried about people getting boo-boos in training so they don't use them.

[LGMB]

Airsoft fires plastic BBs. At fairly high muzzle velocities too...

They had all kinds of replacement systems for MILES

Such as?

[SgtMuhammed]

I know, I own several Airsoft weapons. Well my sons do. Neat toys but not very useful.

There were several systems that used better sensors and lasers that were housed in the reciever that I got to play around with when I worked for Raytheon but the Army didn't buy them because they didn't want to spend the money to replace the millions of MILES sets. They also had a computer system that basically networked the vehicles and aided in resolving engagements insead of allowing an APC to hid behind a bush.

[cassh]

USMC uber-paintball ammo - stopped Marines 'John Wayneing' during training - you move and maneouvre tactically like you might in combat when you know some MF of a training-paintball round might tag you. Genius, but only good in close-quarter MOUT training.

[ChrisND]

Already used in the army, but mostly among SOF units for, as you say, MOUT training.

[sage2]

Originally posted by LGMB:

Airsoft fires plastic BBs. At fairly high muzzle velocities too...

I recall that, with a .25g bb, and the max fps you could geneate safely (around 500), you'd get about a 75 ft effective range. Any past that and the shots would hook everywhere. Additionally, the hits quickly get too light to feel.

Surprised to hear that the MILES gear is so horked.

[sage2]

Originally posted by cassh:

USMC uber-paintball ammo - stopped Marines 'John Wayneing' during training - you move and maneouvre tactically like you might in combat when you know some MF of a training-paintball round might tag you. Genius, but only good in close-quarter MOUT training.

Ow. Guess he forgot to wear 'protection'.

[SgtMuhammed]

Originally posted by Normal Dude:

Already used in the army, but mostly among SOF units for, as you say, MOUT training.

We got to use it when I was OPFOR in Hohenfels when the Rangers stopped by to play. It should be more widely used. MOUT is the worst case scenario so training in it benefits everything else. Moving under fire when you actually appreciate not getting hit is always a good thing to learn.