Influenced by images of Ukrainian soldiers in dug-in fighting positions, the Oklahoma National Guard is building a trench warfare training area to provide its citizen-soldiers more realistic combat scenarios.

Officials broke ground June 2 at the Oklahoma National Guard’s Camp Gruber Training Center, 60 miles southeast of Tulsa, and units are expected to be able to conduct trench warfare training as early as November, according to a news release.

The new range is part of the Oklahoma National Guard’s effort to give soldiers modern, challenging and realistic training areas and provide them with a taste of the threats they may face in conflicts around the globe, Maj. Gen. Thomas Mancino, adjutant general for Oklahoma, said in the release.

“If you watch the war in Ukraine carefully, you see it’s transitioning to something that looks like World War I, where you have to be dug in to survive,” Mancino said. “In Oklahoma, we had a vision of creating a training facility that will allow our soldiers to learn to fight in those environments. Learn to fight, clear and win in the trenches.”

The trench warfare lane is being constructed in three phases over three years by engineers from the 545th Brigade Engineer Battalion, 45th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, and the 120th Engineer Battalion, 90th Troop Command, Lt. Col Neal Harvey, commander of the 545th BEB, said in the release.

The first phase will focus on creating the first of two trenches that soldiers will learn how to defend and attack. Phase two will see construction of a second trench that will be used to create more complex training scenarios. A covered pavilion with a large sand table for rehearsals and after-action reviews will be constructed during the final phase, Harvey said.

Col. Shane Riley, director of military support for the Oklahoma National Guard, oversees the Guard’s efforts to transform training from counterinsurgency-era tactics to preparing soldiers and leaders for the challenges from near-peer threats like China and Russia.

The establishment of the trench lane, combined with other modernization efforts like the Oklahoma National Guard’s counter-unmanned aerial systems school, he said, is designed to force leaders to adapt to aerial threats and learn to both seize and defend well-fortified positions.

“You aren’t going to show up and be dominant on the battlefield if you haven’t got the experience, the time in the saddle, to make hard decisions,” Riley said in the release.

Col. Andrew Ballenger, commander of the 45th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, said the trench lane will give his soldiers a local training ground where they can hone their skills in trench warfare, including learning how to counter aerial threats from unmanned aerial systems, a crucial skill based on the tactics observed in Ukraine.

“The use of trenches in Eastern Europe, between Russia and Ukraine, has illustrated the need for dismounted maneuver forces to understand how to fight and how to survive a linear battlefield under large-scale combat operations,” Ballenger said in the release.