In this episode of MWI’s Urban Warfare Project Podcast, John Spencer is joined by Rob Taylor. He is the company director of 4GD, a UK-based organization that specializes in developing unique close-combat training facilities—what the company calls “SmartFacilities”—and the future of urban warfare training.
In the conversation, Taylor describes how his interest in developing urban warfare training sites was sparked after his time as a Royal Marine. He also explains the current status of the tiered systems of training environments that his company provides, the challenges of providing realistic multi-echelon urban warfare environments, and how the physical aspects of training can be integrated into synthetic environments—what he calls “integrated reality.”
A video showing some of the 4GD products discussed during the episode can be seen here.
Image credit: Spc. Jordan Buck, US Army
With the risk of being way too far outside the box:
– Build a somewhat cheaper environment with underground structures, then wreck it now and again with artillery or combat engineers to mix things up
– Have a training city where you offer free housing for whoever is willing to put up with the constant military training, shooting with blanks etc. (then it has to be alive, and might even generate some taxes)