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By giving us your email, you are opting in to the Early Bird Brief. “There’s really no comparison of this range to others,” he said. The space and obstacles, having 180 Marines maneuvering through an open area, in the tree line, across trenches gives Marines the whole training package. McCullar told Marine Corps Times that he and his range design team got to work with a kind of clean slate. New technology acquired in recent years includes robot targets that can be controlled and even programmed to move more realistically, reacting to fire and moving to different locations, even mounting “counterattacks” against Marine units.
Robotic targets line Camp Lejeune’s range G-36, which opened Dec. 12. (Courtesy Ralph Petroff)
14 Dec 2020
After years of training and qualifying on traditional ranges with stationary targets, the Marine Corps has turned a new page in warfare with the certification of a sophisticated range of the future aboard Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.
Designed for company-size live-fire exercises, Range Golf-36 features, among other things, trenches, surrounding woods that would provide cover for the enemy, and a design explicitly intended to incorporate lifelike robotic targets that can dodge, change direction, shout and even charge the attacking Marine Corps force. The range also features targets in areas obstructed by terrain features such as trees and grass tufts, designed to be destroyed by rockets.