At the McKenna facility at Fort Benning, the Army can put anyone from recruits to experienced soldiers through urban combat simulations. The facility has its own small village into which it sends teams of soldiers to practice assaults in urban neighborhoods.
McKenna's technology is designed to monitor everything that the soldiers do during such an exercise, allowing commanders to understand how their teams perform and to monitor exactly how everyone moved and what they did.
This is an aerial two-dimensional view of the village that shows a scenario in progress (this was from a previous exercise). Each number represents a soldier in the exercise, and by watching it unfold, commanders can see how each soldier is moving, where they're going, and how they're working along with other members of their team.
Commanders can also see how "enemies" respond to the assaults, all of which helps them understand how to make such urban assaults in places like Iraq and Afghanistan easier, less dangerous, and more efficient.
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Photo by Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com
