Fort Indiantown Gap adds new training range and sniper tower to installation

A new training range and sniper tower are under construction at Fort Indiantown Gap to enhance training opportunities at the military base.

The range – a combined-arms live-fire, or CALFEX, range – is being built on an underutilized former tank gunnery range, a press release said, and the sniper tower is being added to a existing sniper range. Both ranges are situated at the western end of FTIG’s training corridor between Blue and Second mountains.

“This range and sniper tower will just add to the many diverse training options we have here at Fort Indiantown Gap,” said Col. Kevin Potts, garrison commander, in the release. “And the fact that we were able to build them with a relatively small amount of money makes it even better.”

Totaling more than 500 acres, the CALFEX range will allow elements up to company size to assault one or two objectives or set up a defensive position or ambush. The land previously served as a tank gunnery range but has been underutilized since the Pennsylvania National Guard divested its tanks several years ago, the release said.

“The western end of the training area was a blank slate, and it’s just underutilized land,” Lt. Col. Gordon Kinneer, the base’s director of plans, operations, training and security, said in the release. “We have a couple ranges there, but when those ranges aren’t used, all that maneuver land just doesn’t get used. So we saw it as an opportunity to get more usage out of it and build another capability.”

The need for a CALFEX range comes as Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey gets set to become a mobilization center, the press release explained. Previously, most deploying National Guard units had to mobilize out of Fort Hood or Fort Bliss in Texas.

The range will be very similar to the CALFEX range at Fort Bliss, known as Range 50, Kinneer said.

“We’ve basically built Range 50 here at Fort Indiantown Gap to support mobilizations at Fort Dix, so units that mobilize out of Fort Dix can bus from Fort Dix to here, conduct their live-fire exercise here, and then bus back to Fort Dix,” Kinneer said. “It’s closer than Fort Drum, Fort Barfoot or Fort A.P. Hill.”

Pennsylvania National Guard units will be able to use the range as well as units mobilizing out of McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, the release said. Kinneer noted there is already a lot of interest within the 28th Infantry Division to use the range.

“Historically, you could only achieve squad live-fire here at Fort Indiantown Gap,” Kinneer said. “There was no venue to do platoon live-fire. Now, we have basically three locations where you can do a platoon live-fire, and, really, it didn’t exist before we started developing the western end of the training corridor.”

The sniper tower is three stories high and approximately 100 feet wide. It was built out of shipping containers that have been welded together and shaped into rooms with different dimensions and configurations. Previously, the only option at the range was for snipers to lay on the ground.

“It adds elevation, it adds realism,” Kinneer said. “Yes, sniper teams can stalk through the woods, but they also operate out of urban terrain, and that’s what we’re seeking to replicate with that facility.”

Eventually, the roof of the tower will have various pitches so snipers can get training on shooting while lying on a roof to replicate real-world scenarios, Kinneer said.

The tower will also provide another facility for a brigade or a battalion to establish a command post while training at the installation.

“If a brigade or a battalion wants to exercise lessons learned from Ukraine and utilize a mobile command post or occupy austere environments to set up a command post, they can do that at this facility,” Kinneer said.

The sniper tower is expected to be completed around September, and the CALFEX range by Spring 2026. It is usable now, but only at the squad and platoon level.

“We are continually assessing what we can do to enhance training opportunities for units that come to Fort Indiantown Gap to train,” Potts said. “We do anything we can to ensure units are receiving top-notch training here.”