The Urban Target Complex (UTC) - "Yodaville"

Major Floyd Usry, USMC

The Urban Target Complex (UTC), also known as "Yodaville", is in R2301 West (N32 26 16, W114 19 54) located in Yuma Arizona. It was designed as an urban close air support (CAS) target complex built to provide a realistic simulation of urban or built up areas for Marine aviation to train.

The resource sponsor was the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory (MCWL) and the project officer was Major Floyd Usry of Marine Aviation and Weapons Training Squadron One (MAWTS-1). The project construction unit was Marine Wing Support Squadron (MWSS) 371. MWSS 371 commenced construction in September 1998 and completed construction in June 1999 at a cost of $500,000.

The UTC has 178 buildings, 131 personnel targets, 31 vehicle targets and is equipped with streetlights. There are four Tactical Air Control Party sites around the periphery/

The UTC has three instrumentation systems:

a. A Weapons Impact Scoring System (WISS) which optically measures miss distance of ordnance delivery relative to a specific aim-point.
b. A No Drop Bomb Scoring System (NDBS) which, when tied into the Tactical Aircrew Training System (TACTS), receives signals from a specifically equipped fixed wing aircraft indicating ordnance delivery, determines the impact point of simulated ordnance drop.
c. A Virtual Interactive Targets (VIT) which determines the collateral damage and fratricide effects of a specific ordnance delivery based on either manual input or automatic feed from WISS or TACTS data.

Notes for Ground and Aviation Units:

Live delivery of airborne light and heavy inert ordnance and ground based light inert ordnance is authorized and conducted.

Upon Completion of the Urban CAS Assessment the UTC will be open to authorized Department of Defense users upon request approval.

The range is currently available to all USMC units with assigned tactical area control parties or who perform CAS (Marine Attack Squadrons, Marine Fighter Attack Squadrons, Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadrons).

The range, however, is reserved for the exclusive use of MAWTS-1 until the end of the assessment.

Units who have utilized the range since June 1999 include 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance (LAR) Battalion, 3rd LAR Battalion, 1st Battalion 4th Marine Regiment, 3rd Battalion 5th Marine Regiment, 2nd Ranger Battalion, Marine Aircraft Group 39, Marine Aircraft Group 13, Marine Aircraft Group 11, and Marine Aircraft Group 31.

The MAWTS-1 POC for Yodaville is Captain James Adams, MAWTS-1, Aviation Development Tactics and Evaluation Department, Phone: DSN: 951-3681, COM: (520) 341-3681.

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