New center simulates big boom enhances training
Channel: Norfolk District Army Corps
Date: 2012-02-29

(Nat Sound Simulators)

While it looks like the next first-person shooter game to hit the market, these computer-based training aids are only one small part of the newest Regional Training Facility at Fort A.P. Hill, in Virginia. 

The newly completed 49,000-square-foot Training Support Center allows the Army to store and issue gear, as well as provide shooting and forward observation simulators to support the training of an estimated 100,000 military personnel per year.

(simulator nat pop)

Lt. Col. Jack Haefner -- It is used as a means for Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, interagency folks to come here and get trained, with simulators and training aids to help increase the effectiveness of their training.

One of the new features offered by the facility is what staff members here call the retail area, which puts many of the training aids on display so planners can see and order items for their next training exercise.

Roger Satterwhite -  They just can't believe it, the retail area, the stuff they get to see now that they didn't even know we had. 

Items range from clothing appropriate for countries in which the service members will be operating, to the latest in combat training gear, to...

Satterwhite - We have suicide vests; we have a briefcase that is a bomb that you can set off.

 And even

(Nat Pop Ribbon Exploding)

Improvised Explosive devices, all designed to give those who train here the most realistic scenarios possible.

Satterwhite -- I've been waiting a long time and was beginning to wonder if I wasn't going to see it before I retire, but we got it and we're proud of it.
 
Proud of a facility which brings the installation into the 21st century and provides for a better trained war fighter. 

From Fort AP Hill, Patrick Bloodgood.