The final touches are being completed at Fort Bragg on its first subterranean range, which will simulate the difficulties of underground combat. The new range provides service members with unique training experience to help prepare them for the 21st-century battlefield. The tunnel complex ties into an existing urban terrain facility.

Urban warfare often includes fighting in underground tunnels and caves. There is a long history of underground fighting stretching back to biblical times. For at least 3,000 years, embattled populations have used them to hide from and strike at stronger enemies. Archaeologists have found more than 450 ancient cave systems in the Holy Land, including many that were dug into mountainsides, which the Jews used to launch guerrilla-style attacks on Roman legionnaires. The Romans faced the same tactic, around that time in their fight in Europe, against Germanic tribes who would dig hidden trenches connected by tunnels and then spring out of the ground to ambush the Roman soldiers. That tactic was used regularly by the Viet Cong during the war in Vietnam.