European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - April 23, 2007, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Monday april 23 2007 stars and stripes pages photos by Seth and stripes above nato troops watch Friday As us soldiers from the 1st Battal Ion 4th infantry regiment conduct counter Roadside bomb training at the Hohenfels Germany joint multinational readiness Center below role players portraying a group of local civilians confront us soldiers us troops counter Roadside bomb exercise offers nato allies tips to use in own training nato personnel listen in As us soldiers Are Given instructions during fridays counter Roadside bomb exercise by Seth Robson stars and stripes Hohenfels soldiers Are con ducting a training session to pass on their methods for countering Roadside bombs to nato allies eager to learn More about the deadly devices placed along the roads of Iraq and Afghanistan on Friday 40 students from 12 nato countries stood on the roofs of two Concrete Block buildings and watched soldiers from the 1st battalion 4th in Fantry regiment react to various types of bombs Dur ing an exercise inside the Box training area it col Rodney Butler a us officer serving with natos Allied land component command in Heidelberg said the nato troops Are learning How americans conduct counter bomb training so they can run similar events for their personnel since the courses started last summer More than 150 foreign personnel have taken part he said the training is important for nato countries since nato commands the coalition forces in Afghanistan he said the nato nations look at us because we have been in me fight longer than some of them especially with our experience in Iraq they Are very interested in How we prepare our soldiers for that Environ ment butter said Over 10 Days the nato troops learn about the operational environment in Afghanistan and the latest tricks used by enemy forces they learn How to develop a situational training exercise and How to in corporate counter bomb training in it he said capt Dan Young an Engineer company Trainer with the joint multinational readiness Center at Hohenfels said the 14 soldiers were told to establish a traffic control Point or top on a Road in the training area to Stop the transportation of the improvised explosive devices and the material used to make them we designed three events one was a single red that they encountered coming to set up the top then they were hit by a vehicle borne red at the top he said he said the final attack involved a Roadside bomb and a Complex ambush As the sol Diers conveyed Back to base moments later the nato troops watched As the 14 soldiers drove up in humvee the Roadside bomb detonated and insurgent role players at tacked Young said the nato personnel also saw the sys tems Jarc uses to replicate the noise and smoke of Roadside bombs if they see pieces they can incorporate in their countries they can take those ideas Home with them he said one of the nato soldiers learning about the Road Side bombs was it col Manuel Gauthier of the French army land command the Engineer and explosive ordnance disposal officer said the French Are keen to develop skills for seeking and countering the bombs because there is a big red threat to French troops in Afghanistan As Well As a smaller one to French troops in Lebanon we Are Here to receive lessons Learned from the us army in order to develop our own training courses for the French army he said it col Mehmet Colpen of the turkish army said the training showed him How difficult it is to do live simulations of bombs it is very realistic but things can go wrong your simulated munitions might not work and the peo ple might not react As they should he said Turkey conducts counter bomb training to pre pare troops for deployment to Afghanistan he said but added that the us training is More sophisticated the realistic Side of it is much better we usually use military Simuni Tion As less but they Are using pressure Gas and some new equipment and they use civilian actors whereas we just use soldiers he said the 12 nato nations participating in the training were Lithuania Turkey Poland France czech re Public Norway Latvia Netherlands Romania Spain Canada and Estonia email Seth Robson at