February 2017, the REF partnered with Asymmetric Warfare Group and 307th Brigade Engineer Battalion at the Muscatatuck Urban Training Complex, North Vernon, Ind., for a weeklong subterranean training event, which culminated with an exercise involving commercial and government off-the-shelf technologies. The results from the exercise will help inform the Total Force, solve the capability gaps of operating in a subterranean environment, and equip a future unit operating in dense and urban terrain.
Way overdue. We should be rotating Engineer battalions, especially in the Reserve and National Guard, through the training facilities that the 911th Engineer Company uses, and spreading that wealth of knowledge and experience throughout the force. At a minimum, every Engineer unit needs to have a qualified cadre of personnel trained in this skill area, and be able to respond when we lose the city(ies) we’re going to lose in the next century. As well, the specialized gear and equipment they will need should be stockpiled in secure, classified locations near major conurbations. Same way we ought to be stockpiling things like ROWPU units, and a host of other stuff for when the smelly stuff hits the fans…
We got bored once, on a CPX, and started templating what a really major disaster relief effort would look like, for something like Los Angeles losing ground communications with the rest of the state, a city getting nuked, or the tectonic plate off the Pacific Northwest letting go and turning everything west of I-5 into wobbly jello. The results were not, I repeat, not pretty; we’re only doing disaster prep with a very benign disaster in mind, one that doesn’t take out an entire region or a major urban area. We should, if we’ve got the brains God gave a duck, be changing that.
Anyone know what that 8-wheeled platform vehicle is..?
ARGO – 8