Solution: Realistic Training Environments

351st SWTS Forward Operating Base

  • Location: Southwest, USA
  • Facility Size: 4.6 Acres

Preparing for the future fight in an austere, realistic training environment.

The 351st SWTS is pioneering the future of training for the Air Force. The future fight will require a soldier that is holistically trained; one that has on-the-ground experience before facing real-world threats. As part of its overall training modernization, the 351st has constructed a new Forward Operating Base (FOB). The FOB seeks to aid warfighters in their training journey by providing real-time, real-world scenarios that require students to simultaneously engage his or her physical and cognitive abilities.

The FOB focuses on providing an efficient real-world site that supports extended exercises where highly realistic missions can be conducted. Students live at this site for days or weeks at a time, conducting various missions utilizing extensive tactics including technical rescue and emergency lifesaving skills. In the past, these exercises have been conducted using condemned old buildings with a variety of safety and health concerns for instructors and students.

This comprehensive facility includes a student compound for up to 60 students, an instructor compound, a field hospital, a field classroom, a helicopter landing zone, and a vehicle storage unit. This unique facility is also constructed almost entirely from shipping containers set on concrete piers.

Austere training sites like the FOB are often needed quickly to meet rapidly evolving demands. By utilizing modular container units, the facility’s construction timelines and cost were reduced when compared to traditional construction methods. Because of this, the FOB also had only a minimal real property impact.

This project, sponsored by the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), was undertaken via an Other Transaction Authority (OTA) innovation contract. The facility development contract with Improve Group was intended to develop a protype facility which would be used to investigate and validate successful approaches to integrating human performance and technical skills training.

Tour the project

This forward operating base (FOB) focuses on providing an efficient real-world site that supports extended exercises where highly realistic missions can be conducted.

Students live at this site for days or weeks at a time, conducting various missions utilizing extensive tactics, technical rescue emergency lifesaving skills.

FOB-scan
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