S.Amdt. 4315

SA 4315. Mr. PETERS (for himself and Ms. Stabenow) submitted an
amendment intended to be proposed by him to the bill S. 2943, to
authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2017 for military activities
of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for
defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe military
personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for other purposes; which
was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

At the end of subtitle I of title X, add the following:

SEC. 1097. REPORT ON MILITARY TRAINING FOR OPERATIONS IN
DENSELY POPULATED URBAN TERRAIN.

(a) Findings.--Congress makes the following findings:
(1) Despite years of contingency operations in densely
populated urban areas, the United States Armed Forces
continue to rely on crude mock-ups of city blocks for urban
training.
(2) Current urban training complexes do not offer
sufficient capability to train or exercise joint, combined
arms or large units in a dense urban landscape of tall
buildings and other obstacles inhabited by millions of
people.
(3) Combat units from all military services train in
facilities that are significantly smaller and less complex
than the real-world urban environments of today and of the
megacity challenges anticipated in the future.
(4) The military services have identified the training gap,
but do not have the resources or funding to invest in the
development of massive cities with the infrastructure and
obstacles that would be encountered during a contingency in
dense urban environments.
(5) In 2015, the Chief of Staff of the Army published
guidance to subordinate organizations to continue to develop
concepts and capabilities related to all aspects of the dense
urban terrain challenge.
(6) The United States Army Training and Doctrine Command
(TRADOC) was directed to assume the leadership for the
development of solutions to address the myriad of challenges
operating in dense urban terrain, including requirements for
the developing an urban studies program to increase
operational leader understanding of urban environments,
advancing material solutions for current and future megacity
challenges, and improving urban systems modeling
capabilities.
(b) Report.--
(1) In general.--Not later than February 1, 2017, the
Secretary of Defense shall submit to the congressional
defense committees a report on plans and initiatives to
enhance existing urban training concepts, capabilities, and
facilities, and to provide for new training opportunities
that will more closely resemble large, dense, heavily
populated urban environments. The report should include
specific efforts to provide for a realistic environment for
the training of large units with joint assets and recently
fielded technologies to exercise new tactics, techniques, and
procedures, including consideration of anticipated urban
military operations in or near the littoral environment and
maritime domain as well as the cyber domain.
(2) Form.--The report required under paragraph (1) may be
submitted in classified or unclassified form.
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