Israeli Army Revamps Training Regimen
Plans Advanced Simulators; New Underground Training City
By Barbara Opall-Rome 8:19 a.m. EST November 27, 2015
http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/training-simulation/2015/11/27/israeli-army-revamps-training-regimen/76302824/

TEL AVIV — From surging procurement of advanced simulators to a massive new
urban training base with underground facilities for anti-tunnel warfare, the
Israeli Army is changing the way it prepares for high-intensity, maneuvering
battle.

Managed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Ground Forces Command and funded
in part from US military grant aid, training initiatives include development
and construction of a sprawling new base in the Golan Heights where all
echelons will hone combined arms urban and subterranean maneuvering skills.

Named after a tributary of the Jordan River, the Snir training base is
actually “a city on top of a city, with all the sophisticated
instrumentation and life-fire opportunities needed to train all echelons for
all scenarios … on the surface and under the surface,” Maj. Gen. Guy Zur,
Ground Forces commander, said.

Inspired by the US Army’s National Training Center in Fort Irwin,
California, the Snir facility is expected to be much larger and more
advanced than the IDF’s 13-year-old MALA Urban Operations facility in the
Negev Desert.

“We’re in a very dynamic development process, and I hope that by the end of
2017, it will be fully operational,” Zur said. “We’re building a huge
infrastructure and also a downsized version with everything we need to
simulate a big city.”

Plans call for initial units to begin training at the new facility as early
as next year. In recent months, sources said Israeli contractors supported
by the US Army Corps of Engineers have dug out tunnels designed to replicate
the underground labyrinth that Hamas used to great effect against Israel in
the Gaza war that began in July 2014.

The new facility will be supported by a broad spectrum of simulators and
entire areas devoted to live-fire training. Many of those simulators, said
Zur, will be integrated with data from the Israel Air Force.

“We need to train the way we fight,” he said.

Brig. Gen. Einav Shalev, head of Ground Force training and doctrine, said
long-term plans also call for Snir to be supported by more than 10 companies
of red team operatives, whose job is to challenge Israeli maneuvering forces
through terror tunnel-based ambushes and other methods of guerrilla warfare.

“Imagine tanks or armored vehicles maneuvering through the streets, which
are suddenly confronted by 30 to 40 guys acting as well-armed terrorists.
Those are the conditions we intend to create at Snir,” one officer said.

Shalev said the new underground training city is just one, albeit the most
ambitious, of Israeli facilities being built or upgraded for advanced
training.

In a Nov. 23 interview, Shalev said Ground Forces is completing its first
comprehensive restructuring of live-fire test ranges since 1998, with some
slated for closure and others designated for physical and technological
upgrades.

“In the Golan Heights, we’re dedicating tens of millions [of shekels] on
what bases to evacuate and what bases to expand. In parallel, we’re building
a lot of new structures, which we’ll disperse to those built up bases,” the
officer said. “When you travel around the country, you’ll notice that
tractors are everywhere. It’s all part of our multiyear plan to elevate
training and simulation to new heights."

Another major initiative, tested recently under a pilot program with Elbit
Systems, is an advanced Mission Training Center (MTC) for multi-echelon
integrated brigade training. Israel’s venerable 7th Brigade was the
first-ever IDF brigade to train on the MTC in a recent three-day combined
arms exercise aimed at enhancing readiness in complex combat scenarios.

It was the first time, officers said, that IDF infantry, armor, artillery,
combat engineering and other elements participated in a computer-generated
combined arms battle, with support from combat aircraft, helicopters, UAVs,
forward observation units and more.

Developed and deployed in less than five months at a base in southern
Israel, the Elbit MTC marks “a revolution in the world of simulators,”
Shalev said.

“It’s the first time since the establishment of the IDF that we’ve been able
to train from platoon all the way up to brigade level in live operational
scenarios, with many other elements integrated into the training. This is a
world we have not yet learned.”

Now on loan to the IDF, Army officers said they hope and expect to receive
funds in the upcoming five-year plan to make the facility a permanent
fixture in their revamped training regimen.

“If we go to this capability, I plan to send three to five brigades there
next year, each for five-day exercises. It will significantly enhance our
readiness,” the officer said.

But beyond the technology and physical infrastructure, Shalev said enhanced
readiness ultimately depends on the frequency of quality training.

It starts with expanded training for conscripts, who, beginning this month,
will spend a full year of their mandatory 32-month service in a combination
of live and simulated exercises.

It extends to IDF combat-essential reserve forces, which, for the first time
since the establishment of the Jewish state, have begun training for two
full weeks once every three years. Under a plan awaiting final approval by
Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, IDF chief of staff, Ground Forces Command will train
fewer forces in a much more persistent and intensive manner.

Starting this year, officers say the IDF is cutting tens of thousands of
reservists from its rosters in order to free up resources for much more
intensive training of only those it intends to call up to war.

According to Shalev, the revamped training program would essentially convert
“a not insignificant number” of reserve brigades to the level of active-duty
brigades, ready for combat at very short notice.

“The IDF is based on its reserve forces, and this is the first year we’re
implementing a program to exploit the maximum from routinized and extended
training,” he said.

Under the plan, combat essential reservists will train in three-year cycles:
two weeks in the first year; one week in the second year; followed in the
third year by either three weeks on operational duty — which allows the Army
to relieve active duty units sent to their own training — or one week of
embedded cooperation with other combat disciplines.

Shalev cautioned that the budget is not yet approved to implement this on a
massive scale, but that tens of companies and battalions have already begun
training according to this schedule.

“We need to wait for final approvals, but this chief of staff is dedicated
to a new type and pace of training that will put the IDF in an altogether
different place than it has ever been before,” he said.

Email: bopallrome@defensenews.com

Twitter: @OpallRome