As squads of U.S. Marines shuffled through a sophisticated indoor combat trainer next door, construction crews outside kicked up topsoil and raised building walls for a new training village at Camp Pendleton, Calif.

Like the prototype Infantry Immersion Trainer beside it, this fledgling village of 200 one- and two-story buildings is built with the Afghanistan war in mind. It will feature virtual role players whose computer-generated interactive images will project onto multiple walls in at least 20 of the buildings, said site manager George Bush, who works for Marine Corps Systems Command’s program manager for training systems. Ten more buildings will be wired for the computer projection systems, in case extra funding comes through, Bush said.

The Corps plans to expand some of its urban combat trainers at other bases, including Marine Corps Base Hawaii, by incorporating such simulation. Camp Pendleton’s IIT will be the largest. A similar training village at Camp Lejeune, N.C., could provide the foundation for a broader initiative, called a Squad Immersive Training Environment, which mixes live and virtual training to create something called “augmented reality.”

Ultimately, it could become mandatory training during units’ event-packed predeployment schedules, although access to the IIT happens now only when their schedules and the trainer’s allow.

While it accommodates one or two dismounted rifle squad-sized units at a time, the expanded trainer will enable at least three squads to operate as combined arms for day or night training. Streets and paths are built wide enough to accommodate Humvees, Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles and M1 Abrams tanks, if needed, Bush said.

The village will include mud-covered concrete buildings made with movable modular walls and floors as well as shipping containers converted into vendor shops and outbuildings. It will replicate places in Afghanistan and offer larger markets, a mosque, schools, bicycle repair shops and other elements of the semirural life Marines encounter downrange.

Like the typical Afghan village, homes and buildings have dirt floors and are surrounded by high walls. Many doorways are shorter than found in standard Western homes. Marines will traverse narrow, walled-in paths between buildings, a maze effect that can lead to dead-ends. Planners developed the village’s design using photographs from actual places.

— Gidget Fuentes