Marines Live Fire Training

March 10, 2010 - 1:39 PM

by: Rick Leventhal

Marines with the 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion (1st LAR) out of Camp Pendleton, CA will soon be deploying to Afghanistan to join the surge in the fight against the Taliban (the details of their travel is classified).
Before they ship out, every Marine headed to a combat zone gets 30 days of live fire training at 29 Palms Air Ground Combat Center in the California desert, roughly 180 miles east of Los Angeles. The "Mojave Viper Exercises" are a combined-arms dress rehearsal for war, involving all platforms of Marine assets. In other words, they use infantry, Light Armored Vehicles, Tanks, Howitzer Cannons, attack helicopters and fixed wing fighters and bombers in offensive and defensive operations against an "enemy" (empty structures, vehicle hulks and other targets) in urban and rural environments in an expansive area closely resembling conditions in the middle east.

At 932 square miles, 29 Palms is the largest live-fire training base in the world. It's bigger than the state of Rhode Island. It's so large you could fit every other Marine base within it's borders, yet only 7 of it's square miles are built up so instructors say you could fire a 155mm Howitzer cannon in any direction and not hit anything besides desert.


Jerod was involved in these exercises. You can click the following link to watch the video.
http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/03/10/exclusive-marines-live-fire-training/?action=late-new