S Depot Loop

Fort Irwin, CA 92310 Visit Website

An isolated site in the Mojave Desert, this base has offered a testing and training ground for troops for decades, far away from civilization. Roughly the size of Rhode Island, the National Training center provides simulated battlefield training for departing troops, who spend three weeks on site before heading overseas. The center contains more than a dozen fake cities, including faux Afghani and Iraqi villages, and, due to both the restricted airspace and uncluttered electromagnetic spectrum, freedom to operate without any interference. Fort Irwin will also soon become the Department of Defense’s largest solar installation with the completion of a massive $2 billion project, expected to finish by 2020. It's not the first example of mock cities being used for combat training by the military; a fake Vietnam village was constructed on the Marine base at Quantico in the '60s.