Top-of-the-Line Equipment Helps Train Troops at Marseilles Training Center

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MARSEILLES, IL (03/04/2011)(readMedia)-- As enemy tactics evolve overseas, training must evolve at home to ensure Soldiers enter the battlefield with the right tools to complete the mission.

Marseilles Training Center (MTC) has provided troops an edge overseas for years by implementing immersive, realistic training lanes and has just procured a few more tools that will provide more authentic training than ever before.

"The goal of the training site is to give the Soldier the most realistic training available," said Sgt. Andrew Prentice of Streator, the MTC training aids, devices, simulators and simulations coordinator.

Until now, Soldiers have used paintball guns to train in team and squad tactics at MTC. While useful, using paintball has its flaws, said Prentice.

"We want our warfighters to develop good habits in training...., and good muscle memory of using their own weapon systems," said Prentice.

To accomplish this, MTC has acquired 160 Ultimate Training Munitions conversion kits for the M-16 and M-4 rifles, 42 9mm pistol kits and 20 for the M-249 Squad Automatic Weapon.

"What the (close combat mission capability kit) conversions do is allow Soldiers to enter a training scenario with their own assigned weapon instead of using a paintball marker," he said.

The kits allow the use of man marker rounds, which use a cosmetic wax to mark targets and are as reliable and accurate as real rounds, even allowing Soldiers to zero their weapons with the kits.

"From my limited experience with these rounds, I am very impressed," said Prentice. "I have fired quite a few of these rounds with no weapons issues."

In addition to the new conversion kits for individual weapons, MTC has also acquired some very advanced improvised explosive device (IED) simulators, Prentice said.

The Pacific Coast Systems Fox is a roadside bomb simulator that fires six simultaneous pyrotechnic rounds to provide a large, yet safe, simulated explosion in a device small enough to be carried by one man.

The 155/2 Joint Artillery Counter-IED Trainer provides a pyrotechnic IED simulator housed inside a 155mm artillery shell. which, according to Pacific Coast Systems, can be daisy chained. It replicates multiple detonation methods seen on the battlefield, such as remote-control, victim operated and command wire detonated.

IEDs hidden in 155mm rounds are common in both Iraq and Afghanistan, so this device will give Soldiers an opportunity to familiarize themselves before they deploy. The 155mm rounds are frequently used as IEDs in Iraq, but in Afghanistan they are more commonly found as unexploded ordnance. Because of the versatility of the system, the simulators at MTC can meet any and all mission requirements.

MTC has also acquired the Under Vehicle Explosive Device, which can simulate an IED buried underground.

All of the IED simulators use M30 pyrotechnic rounds already found in the Army's inventory system.

The simulators will be used in both mounted and dismounted training lanes, said Prentice.

"These give good visual and audible cues that an IED has gone off," he said.

Prentice said these new simulators are not just cool new toys for Soldiers to play with; they are realistic life-saving training tools.

"I believe that training has become more realistic than it has been in the past. I think that our Soldiers expect it to be," he said. "I think that combat readiness can only be attributed to good commanders that utilize every aspect or opportunity to effectively train their troops."

Pacific North Coast Systems will provide training for MTC trainers this spring and they aim to start using the new equipment this summer, said Prentice.

The mission of MTC is to provide military organizations, up to battalion size, the best environment for conducting individual and collective training and has recently seen upwards of 80,000 servicemembers per year come through its lanes, Prentice said.

"All of the new IED simulators and training aids at Marseilles are going to give Illinois Army National Guard commanders the opportunity to add that one ingredient to training that is of the utmost importance: realism," said Capt. Joseph Poquette of Downers Grove, MTC commander.

"Without this, the Soldier has to learn the hard way and we can't have that. Soldiers have access to some of the most high-tech and top-of-the-line simulators that the Army and private sectors have to offer in order to ensure that we meet our mission of providing the best training possible," Poquette said.

Photos: Photo by Sgt. Adam Fischman, Illinois National Guard Public Affairs/ Sgt. Andrew Prentice of Streator, Marseilles Training Center Training Aids, Devices, Simulators and Simulations Coordinator, displays some of the simulation munitions used in training scenarios. These simulated explosive materials provide an explosion large enough to make a training scenario seem as realistic as possible without injuring anyone.

Story by Sgt. Keith S. Vanklompenberg, 139th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment

For high resolution photos, please contact the Illinois National Guard Public Affairs Office at ngilstaffpao@ng.army.mil

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