Check Out "Baladia," The 5,000-Acre Fake City Israel Uses To Train For Urban Combat
Miller enters the Tze'Elim Army Base in Southwest Israel, which was designed with the specific purpose of helping soldiers learn the tactics of urban warfare.
City landscapes — such as Gaza's, where the IDF is currently fighting the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas — give an advantage to insurgents whose forces are smaller than a conventional army's, but can still fight from defensive positions on territory that they own.
Since Israel is constantly under threat of attack from terrorist and insurgent groups, it's important for its military to master urban fighting techniques.
Israel's big shift on urban warfare doctrine came in 2002, when the IDF used urban combat techniques to pacify the city of Nablus in the northern West Bank. Rather than using the existing streets to get around, they blasted through walls and traveled between buildings. The mission was heralded as a great success.
In 2005, "Baladia" opened as the center for urban warfare training. Soldiers roam around the premises completing simulated missions to improve their skill set.
The fake city has 600 buildings, and commanders are able to modify the scenery according to future mission needs. Every possible detail is included, down to the street lights.
There is even a mosque that announces the call to prayer five times a day.
Baladia can be changed to look and feel like the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Syria, or Lebanon, so that Israeli soldiers are familiar with the settings they may conceivably be deployed to.
The place is also filled with "booby traps," such as fake bombs and snipers.
Miller joins Israeli soldiers on a mission to "reclaim" the city. They begin five miles away from town, checking for enemies along the way.
The soldiers crawl through the desert, making sure not one patch of brush goes unchecked.
After running across open fields towards the city, Miller and another soldier had to dive and take cover in a trench after an enemy "sniper" began shooting blanks at them.
Instead of using the roads to go from place to place, the soldiers climb over each others shoulders and scale walls, so as to remain minimally visible to the enemy.
As the soldiers enter a building, there is an enemy militant hiding at the top of the stairs. Sometimes, an enemy is separated by less than a meter.
After the Israeli soldier moves quietly up the stairs, he manages to fire at the enemy before he has a chance to react.
Ten or fifteen years ago urban fighting was just for special units," said Sgt. Rafi Shachat, a squad commander. "Now, it's just day-to-day training.
The Israelis know that whatever advantages their training at Baladia gives them over their enemies won't last for long. "All of the organizations we fight against are also progressing," Shachat said.
So after checking out the urban combat training Israeli soldiers go through ...
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