Live Fire Exercise Shoothouse
Fort Devens, MA

Business Challenge

This project is required to support annual weapons training at Fort Devens with an annual training load of more than 30,000 soldiers. This is one of Fort Devens' most critical training facility requirements, as this range is used to allow a leader to train and test individual soldiers on the skills necessary to identify, engage and defeat targets in an urban live fire scenario with M16 and M4 rifles. Fort Devens supports Army Reserve and National Guard forces as one of the four main power projection platforms. Modern, target-dense training environments are important skill qualifiers for individual soldiers.

Services Provided

• Full discipline architectural and engineering design services
• TC 25-8 training ranges
• CEHNC 1110-1-1 Design Manual for Architect-Engineers
• CEHNC 1110-1-23 Design Manual for Remote Targeted Systems (RETS) ranges     
• AR 210-21 Army Ranges and Training Land Program
• AR 385-63 Range Safety
• Charrette
• 100% design (specifications and construction documents)
• Cost estimates
• Site visits
• Construction services

Results

Full A/E design for this project includes a live fire shoot house, an After Action Review (AAR) building, and an operations/storage building in an area northeast of the Urban Assault Course (UAC) currently under construction in the Reserve Forces Training Area located at Fort Devens, Massachusetts.

The shoot house will have eight separate rooms and two corridors. Inside there will be target/camera outlets, double target outlets and human urban targets. The shoot house will use the standard layout from TC 25-8.

The shoot house will be used to train and evaluate units during live fire exercises. Units will be trained and evaluated on their ability to move tactically (enter and clear a room; enter and clear a building), to engage targets, and practice target discrimination. All targets will be fully automated. The event specific target scenario will be computer driven and scored from the AAR. The range operating system will be fully capable of providing immediate performance feedback to the participants in the AAR building. All of the targetry will be life-like precision targets with reconfigurable plug and play capability.

The AAR building and operations/storage building will function as associated facilities for the shoot house. Both buildings will be based on current standards with modifications to suit site conditions.

The classroom in the AAR building will accommodate 32 soldiers for after action reviews. The control room is equipped with two one-way glazed windows into the classroom for control of presentations. The AAR building will also have full audio-visual recording and replay capability.