The Military Operations on Urban Terrain (MOUT) facility at The Basic School (TBS) looked like one of those one-horse town affairs in a Western movie. The concrete structures that represent houses, temples, market places and other staples of Middle Eastern urban life overlook the dusty streets, which lay quiet in between. The only part missing was the desiccated sphere of a tumbleweed rolling across the empty lot.
Outside MOUT Town, in the tree line, a platoon of Marines waited to attack, while inside the buildings that constitute this retro-Western tableau, another platoon waited to counterattack.
Nearly 300 officers in first platoon, Company D, at The Basic School were part of MOUT training Oct. 8 at TBS.
MOUT presents challenges to Marines that do not exist within the bounds of conventional warfare.
“When you’re fighting in the tree line in a conventional war scenario, everything is two dimensional,” said Capt. Tim F. Riemann, the primary instructor for MOUT training at TBS. “It’s very linear. The enemy is in front of you and you attack them. With urban warfare, you have different levels. You’ve added a third dimension.”
With its sometimes complex systems of alleyways, tunnels and multi-story buildings, the urban environment introduces new considerations into ground fighting, such as a concept known as the “geometry of fire.”
It’s simply understanding what the round you fire is capable of, as well as the consequences if you miss your target, explained Riemann. A misplaced shot can ricochet, puncture a wall or even hit someone or something you didn’t intend to hit.
The students, many of whom joined the Marine Corps with preconceived notions of going to fight in places like Fallujah, Ramadi and Baghdad, look forward to the MOUT portion of their training.
“This is the fight they’re getting ready for,” said Riemann. “It’s not very hard to motivate them once they get out here.”
The training the students receive is not expected to make each officer an expert on urban fighting, pointed out Riemann. Instead, each student learns what amounts to a basic foundation in the principles of urban operations, from entry and breeching techniques when they encounter a locked door to conducting street patrols as a squad, all the way up to the platoon level.
“The conduct of MOUT operations forces you to take a step up intellectually,” said 2nd Lt. David Ryan, a native of Bellevue. “You have to think strategically while at the same time winning the hearts and minds of the civilian population with whom you interact.
“This is the most realistic training we’ve had yet,” he Ryan.
“Everything you do here makes you more confident as a leader,” said 2nd Lt. Becca Burgess, a New York native, now a squad leader with Company D. Burgess led a squad of Marines during MOUT exercises where first platoon was placed in defensive positions around the training facility and had to fend off attacks from other platoons in Company D.
“We learned all the basics in the past five months on how Marines fight,” began Burgess, “and then we come here to this urban environment where everything we’ve learned gets a lot more complicated because of the terrain, which forces us to communicate and act very quickly.”
As the long day waned, lieutenants lay on the ground in a platoon formation, reclining against their assault packs and cleaning their weapons. It was evident that the benefit of the day’s training was equally shared by all.
Lance Cpl. Lucas G. Lowe can be contacted at lucas.lowe@usmc.mil.
