Hey Guys,  I just typed a small novel (below) about JRTC and thought I send
it out, it's answerin a question a friend asked about how the simulated
comabt stuff works and has an example at the end.




Excellent question (about what makes the bad guys run away during an
exercise).


The Army paid Grumman a shitload of cash to make "laser tag" stuff for us.

It's called MILES and if you ever see a picture of an army unit on an
exercise you will see that the soldier is wearing a harness over his normal
Load Bearing Vest(LBV), the harness has four receptors on the front and four
on the back, in addition there is a doughnut shaped belt of receptors that
goes on the kevlar helmet.  Vehicles also have receptors mounted to them,
every thing from HMMV's to the tanks to the helicopters.

Our weapons systems have transmitters on them, it'll look like a little box
mounted on the front of the weapon, the box has a pressure sensor so every
time the gas from a blank round firing hits it it fires a laser beam down
range.  If the laser beam strikes a receptor the guys harness will emit this
God awful high pitched whine that lets everyone know he is down/dead.
AT-4's and Dragons (bazooka like anti-armor weapons) are simulated by what
are called Vipers, same weight, same size, except it fires a big powerful
laser that will be strong enough to activate an enemy tanks MILES.  The
armor vehicles MILES game is pretty neat.  There are two types of kills on a
tank, a Mobility kill, and a critical kill.  If the Viper or other weapon
doesn't have a solid hit on a sensor in a critical area, a mobility kill
will result which means the explosion just blew the trak of the vehicle but
its' radios and weapons still work.  A critical kill means, the vehicle and
all inside are dead dead dead.  If a tank gets a critical kill the MILES
gear will actually shut the vehicle down and kill its radios.  The guy will
just be drivin along and then he will hear over his radio a females voice
say, "Critical kill" and the only thing that will work on the vehicle after
that are the brakes.

So, direct fire weapons systems are pretty easy to replicate, target wears a
receptor, shooter fires a transmitter.

Indirect fire weapons though are a bit more difficult,  whereas before the
shooter always had eyes on the target and thus could directly place a laser
beam on target, artillery often shoots targets that no one directly see.

There are two ways around this.   At the National Training Center (NTC)
where they do all the armor against armor training, they have the MILES 2000
system.  You have an armored motorized rifle company(MRC) sitting at point
X,  I have an observer 15Km away who, with optics can see your
MRC, my FO calls in a fire mission, based on the target description a Bn 3
will be fired (54 rounds fired in 3 volleys as there are only 18 tubes in a
Bn.  The Observer-Controllers (OCs), kinna like referees, will monitor the
Call for Fire from the observer to the tubes, and the OCs will take the fire
mission data and plug it into their big MILES computer which will take into
account any errors the observer may have made and any errors the gun
batteries (instead of Artillery Companies we have artillery Batteries (6
guns)) may have made.  When the gun batteries tell the observer that they
have pulled the trigger, the OCs, who are always listening, will pull the
Miles trigger.  What happens then is a satellite hovering above NTC will
blast down a laser with a footprint large enough to simulate the area 18
artillery rounds would take up, it will do this 3 times to simulate all 3
volleys landing.  Any vehicles caught in this footprint will be assessed as
damaged/destroyed.

At JRTC where the Light Fighters (i.e. no armor assets organic to them)
learn to play,  we don't get no stinkin satellites.  What we do there is,
when a fire mission is called to the guns, the OCs will monitor it and enter
the data in their computers, the computer will take into account any errors
made by the FO and the guns and will spit out a grid coordinate,  this grid
will be passed to a "Fire Marker" which is a crazy guy with a four wheeler,
a GPS, and a god gun (a hand held transmitter that fires a universal kill
laser i.e. men to tanks and aircraft).  I say crazy because these guys are
civilians who get bonuses based on how fast they can get to the target grid.
  Their average response time is 4 1/2 minutes, which is about 3 minutes
longer then it would be in real life so it's not as cool as MILES 2000.  So
you'll see these guys haulin ass through the woods on theses 4 wheelers
tryin to get to their target grids on time, and God help you if he pulls up
into your position and no you can't haul ass if you see one comin your way
cause your OC who is walkin with your unit will zap you on the spot if he
sees you runnin from a fire marker.  I'll close this bad boy with a little
story.

"Oh shit, there I was" (all good 'war' stories gotta start with this).
We had started the first phase of the rotation, "Entry into the Box" (the
box is the JRTC engagement area) at 2300hrs the previous night and had
fought our way 7 Km SW hand railing a road, identifying mine/wire obstacles
and eliminating the Observers over watching them.  It was 0800 the next
morning and we were dead f-kin tired and had finally reached our main
objective which was a road inter-section in a semi wooded area just to the
south of the main air field that the rest of the Brigade Combat Team (BCT)
was gonna use to lift in the rest of the support assets.  There was a BIG
triangular berm area just off the road, basically the dirt walls were 10 ft
tall 50 yard long.  We moved out of the tree line and occupied it cause at
the time it looked like it would be super easy to defend, which was good
cause we needed to hole up for a bit and catch out breath, plus our COLT
team (Combat Observer Laser Team = mounted (on a HMMVV) FO's with Laser
designators to guide Copperheads and Hellfire missiles, basically vehicle
killers) and Bradley support vehicles had just 'discovered' (BOOM) a mine
field at the intersection, this was happening as we were occupying the berm.
  So we detached a small element to go evac the Casualties from the
vehicles, the 1SG and a couple of joes. 3 min later the 1SG and his team
were nailed by anti-personnel mines surrounding the mine field while trying
to aid the wounded inside the vehicles.  At the same time a "Civilian" truck
with two redneck lookin females showed up like they were fixin to drive
right on through the road so we had to send a few guys out of the berm to
stop/search the vehicle (at JRTC they employ real civilian actors to portray
Civilians on the Battlefield or COBs, because in real life there are COBs
and we gotta know how to deal with them and accomplish our mission at the
same time).  So we got the 1SG and a couple of guys down at the obstacle, a
COB truck right outside the berm when the CO decides to go check on the
obstacle.  By this time we had been in this BIG berm (read TRP (Target
Reference Point or somethin the enemy probably has his guns laid on just
waitin for some morons to park their sad tired asses in there long enough to
get a mission off)) for like 15 minutes when sure enough off in the distance
we hear this vrrrrrm getting steadily louder and louder.  We were so tired
we were basically denying the obvious, "there's no way he's headed for us,
please God don't let him be headed for us" basically you had an entire
company in a 100 yard radius which is about the same size as a 82mm mortar
impact area.  So there we are listening to this 4 wheeler get closer and
closer and basically all we can do is start to get all our gear back on and
get ready to HAUL ass.  Of course we can't legally run until the first round
impacts.  So this guys comes tearin down the road, shoots off the road and
pulls SMACK DAB into the middle of the berm, jumps off his bike and starts
UNLOADING with air burst Arty Simulators (basically a little flare gun that
pops 1/4 sticks of TNT up 40 ft into the air to simulate incoming rounds.
Note: these are only used when the grid is so accurate that using ground
burst simulators would pose a hazard to troops).  Basically what this told
us is that we were setup, the baddies were just waitin for us cause the
rounds were accurate on the first volley and needed no adjustment.  So yeah,
this joker is poppin off airburst TNT, after the first burst I yelled
INCOMING and got up and hauled ASS.  Luckily I was close to the exit and
started movin out FAST, because between airbursts the Fire Marker was just
sweeping left to right with the God gun as guys were scramblin tryin to get
out.  I got out of the Berm and just kept runnin a good 200M because I'm
Artillery and I know what the burst radius is on these suckers.  I looked
back and saw the Infantry guys stoppin at a tree just outside the berm.
Since there were no visible Real life ground bursts they thought they were
safe.  As I was yellin at them to keep movin an OC came out and just whacked
em all (16 guys).  As the rest of the people who made it out were still
runnin, about 25 of us and we were all now 150-200M North of the berm,
scattered all over hell.  Little bunches of 5-6 guys runnin to trees and
collapsing.  Just as the last of the living made it out of the berm, we hear
this vehicle come tearing outta the trees about 50M to our left and from
lower ground.  Sure enough it's a DsHKA (read Dishka, basically a 50 Cal on
a friggin truck bed),  so there this fucker is lighting us up from the left
and enemy 82mm Mortar fire blastin our tail ends.  Since the DsHKA was a
high payoff TGT I was immediately on my net sreamin "Holy Shit we got a
DsHKA here, Grid 785436 HELLLLPPPP!!!"  At the same time we got Infantry
guys tryin to suppress the joker on the back of truck with their M4's while
trying to get two Vipers together (we were told by the OC's that the only
thing they've ever seen kill vehicle here with was two Vipers fired at the
same section of the vehicle at exactly the same time)  but the Viper teams
were scattered all over hell.  All this happened within about 30 seconds,
the CO had seen us come tearin outta the Berm and heard the DsHKA light up
so he was on his net talkin to the Kiowa's (scout helicopters but they're
armed).  So we're pinned down, trying to suppress this truck while dodgin 50
Cal laser blasts (since its just MILES a blade of grass can deflect the
laser).  FINALLY the Kiowas show up (actually they got there respectably
fast only 2-3 minutes) chase the bastard down and smash him with their
hellfires.  With 30 of 65 guys dead, and one DsHKA down, we were ready to
get a little rest and then start huntin the mortar and other 2 DsHKAs that
were supposed to be in the area.

Basically we got the shit ambushed outta us, it was really a pretty nice
setup on the enemies part.  We were stupid enough to setup in an obvious
terrain feature, one that was no doubt on the Enemy's target lists.  So when
the mortar rounds started droppin and we started pouring out of the berm
there the 50 cal was waitin to mow down whoever didn't get killed by the
Arty.

Anyways, that's one of my JRTC stories and subsequently one of the largest
e-mails I've ever written. So I'm gonna forward it to the rest of the guys.

Welp, its about time to go get my drink on, talk to y'all later.

LAWLER,OUT.

 >Hell, I thought Consultants had a lotta acronyms.....Hey when you guys go
>through these exercises, what makes someone high tail out of an attack
>stance...i.e. I know you're not firing live rounds at one another, so how
>do they simulate real life scenarios?  Also, in concerns with deer hunting,
>I'll be headed down to Junction (our lease) to pull a trophy this weekend.
>I'll probably freeze my ass off, but I've had my deer picked out since
>Sept.  Later.
>
>Dickey
>
>
>
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