Building Sustainable Training Environments
Any Scenario any Environment
Building Sustainable Training Environments
Any Scenario any Environment
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Military strategists and pundits alike often refer to warfare in terms of three domains — namely land, sea, and air. In each of these venues, armed combatants struggle to defeat their adversaries and open a path to the political objectives that drive a conflict. However, a fourth domain is often overlooked in discussions of warfare, one that has been utilized as a means of covert approach toward enemy forces for thousands of years, and has recently been utilized to great asymmetric effect against some of the most powerful conventional forces on earth. This forgotten domain is the use of underground tunneling, as a means to create a subterranean axis of advance. While it might not share the glamor of other domains, it has often been used to decisive effect throughout the recorded history of human conflict. Traditionally, tunnels have mostly been used as a means to approach and threaten fortified positions. An ancient besieging force might have begun tunneling operations in the hopes of bypassing a fortifications walls, and launching a direct attack upon the interior, achieving surprise by the sudden emergence of warriors in an area previously considered immune from attack.
More common was the effort to open a space under protective walls or towers, a process called "sapping". The tunnel diggers shored up the foundations of the target area with dry wood planks until a prearranged time, at which the wood was ignited, causing a collapse of the newly unsupported wall. The resulting breach was then stormed by infantry, who hoped to pour through the opening and overwhelm the defenders before the gap could be plugged.
American troops attacking Al Qaeda positions and pursuing Osama bin Laden in 2002 discovered a massive tunnel complex connecting the natural Tora Bora cave formations in Afghanistan. These tunnels boasted hospital facilities, massive storerooms, sophisticated electronic communications gear, and a climate control system capable of filtering chemical contaminants. The effort to capture and destroy the tunnels was a tactical success but a strategic failure, as most of the Al Qaeda fighters and all of the senior leaders escaped while a handful held off coalition attackers. Very little useful intelligence was captured when the coalition troops finally broke through, and much like the effort against the Cu Chi complex near Saigon, they contented themselves to collapse and seal off portions of the tunnels before abandoning the area. Unsurprisingly, enemy forces quickly reoccupied much of the region.
Tunnel warfare has recently come to the attention of western militaries due to its usage in the recurrent fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Hamas, founded in 1987, has always utilized tunnels as an efficient means of smuggling and infiltration. Israel has largely tolerated the tunnels existence because it seemed too costly to destroy them. After Hamas seized power as the formal government in Gaza, Israel enacted a blockade of items deemed contraband in Gaza, including construction materials likely to support tunnel construction. In particular, the importation of concrete was tightly controlled. A decision that provoked substantial derision in the international community. Regardless of such condemnation, Israel retained the restrictions as a key security measure. Tunnels also crossed the border into Egypt, where a 2011 revolution brought Mohamed Morsi to power. Morsi's administration proved very sympathetic to Hamas, but was overthrown by the military in 2013. General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi ordered military engineers to flood the tunnels with raw sewage, making them completely unusable without a shot being fired. When a series of incidents triggered a renewed Israeli invasion of Gaza in 2014, one of the key objectives soon became the destruction or severe degradation of the tunnels under Gaza, particularly those crossing into Israel. The tunnels proved far larger, deeper, and longer than expected. Their stable construction made them all but impervious to airstrikes. Thus, any effort to collapse the tunnels required Israeli ground troops to enter them and place detonation charges inside. Naturally, Hamas resisted such advances using every means available, including traps, ambushes, and efforts to control the narrative of the fighting in the world press. Although the tactical moves inflicted some casualties upon the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) troops, the propaganda campaign failed. Discoveries of missile caches used to attack Israeli civilians, as well as the capture of Hamas commandos armed with restraints and sedatives, who admitted to a plan to kidnap civilian hostages, massively undermined the campaign. After seven weeks, the two sides agreed to a cease-fire, although Israel continues both the blockade and the effort to collapse existing tunnels.
If irregular warfare remains common in the next few decades, as it has been for many recent conflicts. Tunnels are likely to play an increasingly important role. Dominant conventional powers, most notably the United States, have a massive informational advantage provided by aerial surveillance. One way to offset some of the effects of this information dominance is to simply conceal activities, particularly underground. Tunnels can create a defensive nightmare for attackers, and negate many of the advantages held by a technologically superior conventional force. The process of clearing and destroying a tunnel network is expensive, time consuming, and likely to inflict many more casualties than an engagement above ground. Tunnels also offer a dual usage in peacetime in that they provide infiltration and smuggling routes. If the entrances and layout of the tunnels can be kept secret, their existence creates a major security threat.
Many of the most effective countermeasures against tunnels have been used for centuries. If a specific perimeter needs to be defended against tunneling such as the Mexican border, it is theoretically possible to create a deep ditch that would force tunnelers to dig through solid bedrock to reach their goals. Backed up by acoustic and seismic sensors, this passive defense can detect many of the tunneling efforts. Maintaining effective surveillance over areas suspected to have active tunnel digging can also help by checking for signs of soil being deposited in large quantities. Blockades and embargoes can limit the importation of heavy equipment. Ground penetrating radar has a limited ability to detect underground excavations. In the end, though tunneling has been used for the simple reason that it works, and as such, it is unlikely to go away in the near future. It is not usually the first choice of methods, due to the time and resource requirements, but it tends to be a very effective, if slow, approach to military operations.
TNT
The use of the TSM tactical tunnel (TSM T&T), in support of military tunnel operations is the perfect product to support this training. The line infantry and special operators conduct TTP's (Tactics, Techniques and Procedures) on tunnel clearing operations. Majority of this area of training is considered Military Operations on Urbanized Terrain (MOUT) and Close Quarters Battle (CQB). You can find tunnel clearing in the military manual MCWP 3-35.3 Chapter 29.
The TSM T&T will provide a live fire product for the first time on any military range INCONUS, it will support any size entrance, depth, width, length and height. Internally it will have various capabilities, weapons caches, enemy intelligence cells, drugs, ammunition locations, hostages, human trafficking locations, high value target personnel, enemy medical areas, booby traps, force on force capabilities using (SIMS), rail systems, various connecting tunnels, and the ability to enter into a building (TSM) from underground. All of these are TTP's within the training scope of work prior to deployment into the Area of Operations (AO).
Military units that are in need of the TSM T&T are NSW (Naval Special Warfare), Marine Raiders, Force Reconnaissance, ANGLICO (Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company), 1st Special Forces Operations Detachment-Delta, and DEVGRU.
Supporting Federal Agencies who work side by side with special military operators: DEA, Border Patrol, DIA, ATF and the DOJ.
V/R
TSM
High Performance Concrete
The ability to mimic any environment