Military Use
Sand tables have been used for military planning and wargaming for many years as a field expedient, small-scale map, and in training for military actions. In 1890 a Sand table room was built at the Royal Military College of Canada for use in teaching cadets military tactics; this replaced the old sand table room in a pre-college building, in which the weight of the sand had damaged the floor. The use of sand tables increasingly fell out of favour with improved maps, aerial and satellite photography, and later, with digital terrain simulations. Today, virtual and conventional sand tables are used in operations training.
In 1991, "Special Forces teams discovered an elaborate sand-table model of the Iraqi military plan for the defense of Kuwait City. Four huge red arrows from the sea pointed at the coastline of Kuwait City and the huge defensive effort positioned there. Small fences of concertina wire marked the shoreline and models of artillery pieces lined the shore area. Throughout the city were plastic models of other artillery and air defense positions, while thin, red-painted strips of board designated supply routes and main highways."
In 2006, Google Earth users looking at satellite photography of China found a several kilometre large "sand table" scale model, strikingly reminiscent of a mountainous region (Aksai Chin) which China occupies militarily in a disputed zone with India, 2400 km from the model's location. Speculation has been rife that the terrain is used for military exercises of familiarisation.
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virtual sand table for urban warfare operations training
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a sand table in the forward operating base
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US Army 2LTs complete Leader Forge using a sand table
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US Army Patriot Academy students participate in military training using a sand table
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Famous quotes containing the word military:
“In early times every sort of advantage tends to become a military advantage; such is the best way, then, to keep it alive. But the Jewish advantage never did so; beginning in religion, contrary to a thousand analogies, it remained religious. For that we care for them; from that have issued endless consequences.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
“In all sincerity, we offer to the loved ones of all innocent victims over the past 25 years, abject and true remorse. No words of ours will compensate for the intolerable suffering they have undergone during the conflict.”
—Combined Loyalist Military Command. New York Times, p. A12 (October 14, l994)