Tens of thousands of mechanized and infantry soldiers were trained at Camp Laguna for duty at combat fronts throughout the world, from North Africa to the South Pacific.

A heavy investment in technology and a highly skilled soldier-civilian workforce makes the proving ground a significant social and economic component of the local community.

[5] YTC encompasses 1,307.8 square miles (3,387.2 km²) of the northwestern Sonoran Desert[2] and conducts tests on nearly every weapon in the ground combat arsenal.

Nearly all the long-range artillery testing for U.S. ground forces takes place at the YTC in an area almost completely removed from urban encroachment and noise concerns.

Realistic villages and road networks representing urban areas in Southwest Asia have been constructed and are used for testing counter-measures to the threat of roadside bombs.

In a typical year, over 500,000 artillery, mortar and missile rounds are fired, 36,000 parachute drops take place, 200,000 miles (320,000 km) are driven on military vehicles, and over 4,000 air sorties are flown from YTC's Laguna Army Airfield.

YTC's clean air, low humidity, skimpy rainfall – only about 3 inches (76 mm) per year – and annual average of 350 sunny days, add up to almost perfect testing and training conditions.

YTC tests improvised explosive devices, commonly known as IEDs, the number-one killer of American service men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Hundreds of unmanned aerial vehicles fly at the proving ground each year from the six airfields located at YTC, as do helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft conducting personnel and cargo parachute drops.