Combat Development Experimentation Center 1962 US Army; Fort Hunter Liggett, California; The Big Picture TV-524

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'Just behind the Coastal Range of Central California, the U.S. Army has a new 250,000 acre natural laboratory where all sorts of military concepts for possible future conflict are tested and evaluated by the latest principles of scientific research. At the Hunter Liggett Military Reservation, top scientists and top soldiers first create, then supervise a series of controlled combat experiments to determine which organizational structures, which weapons and materiel, which tactics and techniques might be most effective in the years ahead. In this unusual THE BIG PICTURE, you will see simulated battle successes, defeats and casualties being recorded in a distant control center almost as soon as they take place on the testing ground. You will see how infra-red rays simulate artillery shells. You will see everything from walkie-talkies to electronic computers being employed to make certain that we are prepared and able to face any kind of warfare that tomorrow might bring.'

Originally a public domain film from the National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Hunter_Liggett

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Fort Hunter Liggett (US Army Garrison, Fort Hunter Liggett (USAG, FHL)), named after General Hunter Liggett in 1941, is a United States Army fort in southern Monterey County, California, about 250 miles (400 km) north of Los Angeles and 150 miles (240 km) south of San Francisco. The fort is primarily used as a training facility, where activities such as field maneuvers and live fire exercises are performed. It is roughly 25 miles northwest of Camp Roberts, California...

In 1925, William Randolph Hearst's Piedmont Land and Cattle Company bought Rancho Milpitas and neighboring Rancho Los Ojitos (Little Springs) ) from the James Brown Cattle Company. The government purchased Hearst's properties plus Rancho El Piojo (The Louse), Rancho San Miguelito de Trinidad, and two-thirds of Rancho Pleyto. It added other private holdings as well. This surrounded the small unincorporated town of Jolon, which remains today in a significantly diminished form from its heyday.

The base is about 25 miles (40 km) southwest of King City and about 86 miles (138 km) south of old Fort Ord on the Monterey Peninsula. In general, the installation is bounded on the north by the Salinas Valley, on the east by the foothills of the Santa Lucia Mountains, on the south by the Monterey/San Luis Obispo county line and on the west by approximately 55 miles (89 km) of Los Padres National Forest. The highest mountain in the area is Junipero Serra Peak. At 5,862 feet (1,787 m), it is visible toward the north and has a fairly good road leading to the summit. The peak was formerly known as Santa Lucia and local long-time residents still call it by that name. In winter it is sometimes cloaked with a white mantle of snow.

The fort is named for Lt. Gen. Hunter Liggett, a commander and chief of staff under General John J. Pershing during World War l.

Fort Hunter Liggett was under the authority of Camp Roberts, California, to the southeast, until 1952, when it became a sub-installation of Fort Ord. From the 1970s through the early 1990s, the base served two purposes — as a training area for the 7th Light Infantry Division (based at Fort Ord), and as the home for the Training and Experimentation Command (USACDEC) (usually abbreviated as CDEC and later as TEC). The mission of CDEC was to evaluate new Army and Marine Corps weapons systems by providing a simulated Soviet Mechanized Rifle Company to act as the "OPFOR", or opposing forces. By this method, the Sgt. York anti-aircraft gun was found to have serious flaws, while the Marine's Light Armored Vehicle was validated...

Base Realignment and Closure impact

In its 2005 Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) recommendations, the Department of Defense recommended relocating the 91st Division from Parks Reserve Forces Training Area to Hunter Liggett. In 2007, the Army created the Combat Support Training Center at Fort Hunter Liggett...

Significant training infrastructure improvements were made including several Tactical Training Bases (TTBs - analogous to Forward Operating Bases), a wired "shoot-house", improvements to the hardened landing strip capable of handling larger Air Force transport planes, and a 7-mile live-fire convoy course, the US Army's only such training area capable of handing 360-degree fire up to .50 caliber...