Troops take part in virtual training in N.M., Texas
Missions recorded to teach soldiers
FORT BLISS, Texas — More than a dozen troops carefully maneuver through overgrown shrubs, firing laser-tag rifles at the enemy as they advance on a compound in the New Mexico desert. Fifty miles away in West Texas, other soldiers in helicopter and tank simulators provide air and ground support for the virtual training exercise.
An Army supervisor watches it all unfold on a computer screen at a Fort Bliss command center. The real mission, however, comes next: A thorough, high-tech review of the soldiers’ tactics.
The exercise is part of a new Army virtual program that records every aspect of training missions so soldiers can use video game-like replay to study how effectively the ground and air forces interacted. The system — a major upgrade over previous platforms that didn’t fully integrate tank and helicopter communications — will be installed at posts across the United States and abroad.
The Integrated Training Environment is designed to cut costs, sharpen soldiers’ ability to interact with various units and allow the military to more quickly train the growing ranks of troops returning from deployment. However, it’s not intended to do away with live training altogether but rather, to better prepare soldiers for real-life training exercises.
“(Training gives soldiers) muscle memory through repetition ... so when we are in Iran, Syria, Africa, it’s going to kick in,” said Sgt. 1st Class Donald Jones, who operated a tank simulator during the exercise.
Officials say the push for more practical training operations comes at a critical time. The Pentagon’s budget faced cuts as high as 13 percent in some of its accounts after Congress couldn’t reach a deal to avert automatic, across-theboard spending cuts.
Mike Casey, spokesman for the Army’s Combined Arms Center-Training program, said it wasn’t immediately clear what impact the acrossthe-board cuts that took effect Friday would have on the program.
By the time the drill is over, the infantry team had fired hundreds of rounds, cleared several buildings and called for artillery support, all of it recorded by ITE. Commanders can see in the replay how ground troops battled through computer-generated artillery fire while tanks battled each other a few miles away.