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MOUT
For those who don't live and breath military acronyms (I don't, that's for sure), MOUT stands for Military Operations on Urban Terrain. I had heard of mock-Arab cities being built in the desert to simulate urban warfare. I never expected to encounter such a thing in person…
On Monday I visited Camp Pendleton, which I found out is preparing marines for this kind of warfare. Much of its terrain is really ideal for mountain and amphibious warfare--the kind of terrain that was ideally suited for training soldiers in WW II and Vietnam. Now they've transformed a gravel pit into a little Arab village, complete with a mosque.
They are stacking shipping containers, icing them with stucco and topping with a star-and-moon! Several poles have cameras to point out which G.I. Joe made a wrong move.
click for a better view-->
I don't know, I think they could have consulted an architect on the mosque, it looks like it came out of Counter-Strike...
2 Comments
nice stop Nick. we're you guided around on a leash or did they let you roam? i would love to see their blueprints for such a village, the level of realism, the details they mimicked and put into this -- for instance, how the fakies send certain messages about the way soldiers are made to perceive the middle east, etc.
you might have seen this one i dont know
http://subtopia.blogspot.com/2008/02/mout-urbanism.html
anyway - dude, live it up!
and i'm also very familiar with that turnstyle noise at the TJ gate, will be cool to see you use that for something.
alright, keep stuffing your pack.
later Nick!
b
Nick, There are design-build teams working on these proposals and projects. We teamed with Disney Imagineteering for a minerette enemy town for driving and shooting simulation settings for the military. Camp Pendleton is currently soliciting proposals for a new LEED Silver Barracks. Pick up a copy of Military Engineering Magazine or check out FEDBIZ OPS. If you are planning on a carreer in architectural journal-ing or marketing, learn to research.
Suzanne von Leuschner
thebuildinghealer@earthlink.net
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