Gulf legacy: emulating the battlefield

High-technology training of US military personnel, which demonstrated its value in the Persian Gulf War, is described. The two largest training facilities, the Army's National Training Center (NTC) at Fort Irwin, California and the Air Force's Fighter Weapons School at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, run training programs created in response to training deficiencies exposed during the Vietnam War. Throughout the Gulf War, Nellis' Fighter Weapons School hosted two major exercises emphasizing targets and tactics used by Iraq. The exercises, dubbed Desert Flag, were intended to train follow-on air crews in case of a protracted war. Desert Flag was a modification of Nellis' standard training, against Soviet-style tactics, which encompasses all aspects of modern air warfare. NTC's nerve system is the multipole integrated laser engagement system (Miles), a US $100 million, range-wide network that monitors and records all action during the force-on-force training. All of NTC's high desert terrain, its collection of Soviet-style armor, and even the skills of its Opfor (opposing force) troops are being programmed into a series of Darpa-designed simulators operated by the Army.<
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