Urban warfare
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Urban warfare is warfare in urban areas such as towns and cities. Urban combat differs from combat in the open at both operational and the tactical levels. Complicating factors in urban warfare include the presence of civilians and the complexity of the urban terrain. Urban combat operations may be conducted to capitalize on strategic or tactical advantages associated with the possession or the control of a particular urban area or to deny these advantages to the enemy.[1] It is considered to be arguably the most difficult form of warfare.[2][3]
Fighting in urban areas negates the advantages that one side may have over the other in armor, heavy artillery, or air support. Ambushes laid down by small groups of soldiers with handheld anti-tank weapons can destroy entire columns of modern armor (as in the
Some civilians may be difficult to distinguish from such combatants as armed militias and gangs, and particularly individuals who are simply trying to protect their homes from attackers. Tactics are complicated by a three-dimensional environment, limited
Military terminology
Historically, the United States Armed Forces has referred to urban warfare as UO (urban operations),[5] but this term has been largely replaced with MOUT (military operations in urban terrain).[6]
The
The term FOFO (fighting in fortified objectives) refers to clearing enemy personnel from narrow and entrenched places like bunkers, trenches and strongholds; the dismantling of mines and wires; and the securing of footholds in enemy areas.[9]
Urban operations
Urban military operations in
Military historian Victor Davis Hanson noted the lethality of urban warfare in the Second World War, "When civilian met soldier in the confined landscapes, the death toll spiked, and it was no surprise that the greatest carnage of World War II—at Leningrad and Stalingrad—was the result of efforts to storm municipal fortresses".[13]
However, when liberating occupied territory some restraint was often applied, particularly in urban settings. For example,
Military forces are bound by the
Sometimes distinction and proportionality, as in the case of the Canadians in Ortona, causes the attacking force to restrain from using all the force they could when attacking a city. In other cases, such as the Battle of Stalingrad and the Battle of Berlin, both military forces considered evacuating civilians only to find it impractical.[16]
When Russian forces attacked Grozny in 1999, they conducted a massive artillery and air bombardment campaign in an attempt to smash the city into submission. The Russian Army handled the issue of civilian casualties by issuing an ultimatum urging citizens to leave or be destroyed without mercy.[17] Leaflets dropped on the city read: 'You are surrounded, all roads to Grozny are blocked...Persons who stay in the city will be considered terrorists and bandits and will be destroyed by artillery and aviation. There will be no further negotiations. Everyone who does not leave the city will be destroyed '.[18][17]
Fighting in an
It is also difficult to destroy underground or heavily fortified structures such as bunkers and utility tunnels; during the Siege of Budapest in 1944 fighting broke out in the sewers, as both Axis and Soviet troops used them for troop movements.[21]
Analysts debate the scope and size of urban battles in the modern day, as they are unlikely to match the scale of battles in the Second World War. For example, professor Michael C. Desch states that while "enormous forces engaged on both sides in those battles may never be seen in high-intensity urban battles again", that "the large numbers of killed and wounded underline the basic fact that such conflict is extremely lethal", referencing the battles of Stalingrad and Berlin.
Many analysts, such as former American army general and Commandant of the United States Marine Corps, Charles C. Krulak, and retired military officer and chairman of the urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute, John Spencer have predicted urban warfare to become the norm in wars.[24][25] Spencer confirmed this to be true in an article in 2024, providing a list of numerous urban battles in the recent decades of the 21st century alone, those being Fallujah, Sadr City, Mosul, Raqqa, Marawi, and now Bakhmut, Mariupol, and Khan Yunis in the 2020s.[25] In 2023, analyst Mikael Weissmann claimed that it is widely agreed upon that urban warfare will be the "battlefields of tomorrow".[3]
Urban warfare tactics
The characteristics of an average city include tall buildings, narrow alleys, sewage tunnels and possibly a subway system. Defenders may have the advantage of detailed local knowledge of the area, right down to the layout inside of buildings and means of travel not shown on maps. [citation needed]
The buildings can provide excellent
Meanwhile, the attackers tend to become more exposed than the defender as they must use the open streets more often, unfamiliar with the defenders' secret and hidden routes. During a house to house search the attacker is often also exposed on the streets.[citation needed]
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Film "La Libération de Paris" shot by the French Resistance of street fighting in Paris, August 1944
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Italian soldiers street fighting in Stalino, October 1941
Battle of Monterrey, Mexico
The Battle of Monterrey was the U.S. Army's first major encounter with urban warfare. It occurred in September 1846 when the U.S. Army under Zachary Taylor invaded the town. The U.S. Army had no prior training in urban warfare and the Mexican defenders hid on rooftops, shot through loopholes, and stationed cannons in the middle of the city's streets. The houses at Monterrey were made of thick adobe, with strong double doors and few windows. The rooftops were lined with a two-foot-tall wall that acted as a parapet for the defending soldiers. Each home was a fort unto itself.[27]
On September 21, 1846, the U.S. Army which included some of its best soldiers, recent West Point graduates, marched down the city's streets and were cut down by the Mexican defenders. They could not see the men hidden behind walls, loopholes, or rooftops. They tried to march straight down the street until the intense fire drove them to hide in adjacent buildings. Taylor tried to move artillery into the city but it could not hit the well-hidden defenders any better than the U.S. soldiers could. Two days later the US again assaulted the city from two sides and this time they fought differently.[28]
Not wanting to repeat the mistakes of the 21st, General William Jenkins Worth listened to his Texan advisers. These men had fought in Mexican cities before at the
Worth's men used pick axes to chip holes in the adobe walls of the homes, in the roof of the house from where the soldiers could drop in, or used ladders to climb to the top of a rooftop and assault the Mexican defenders in hand-to-hand combat. The typical assault on a home would include one man who would run to the door of the house and chip the door away with a pick axe under covering fire. Once the door showed signs of weakening, 3–4 other soldiers would run to the door and barge in with revolvers blazing. Worth lost few men on the 23rd using these new urban warfare techniques.[30]
Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad is largely seen as the defining battle of urban warfare, with the battle commonly studied and referenced in studies of urban warfare. The battle was the single largest and costliest urban battle ever, with it being seen as the worst and most extreme case of urban warfare.[31][23] The Battle of Stalingrad saw all types of MOUT combat techniques.[32] Historian Iain MacGregor states that the "evolution of urban, house-to-house fighting and defending these buildings and built-up areas was seemingly born in Stalingrad in the winter of 1942".[33] The battle "occupies a famous, notorious place in the history of war, particularly urban warfare. It seems to encapsulate and personify it, to provide an instinctive yardstick by which urban warfare can be examined, understood, defined, and assessed" according to military historian Stephen Walsh.[34]
The Soviets used the great amount of destruction to their advantage by adding man-made defenses such as barbed wire, minefields, trenches, and bunkers to the rubble, while large factories even housed tanks and large-caliber guns within.[23] In addition, Soviet urban warfare relied on 20-to-50-man-assault groups, armed with machine guns, grenades and satchel charges, and buildings fortified as strongpoints with clear fields of fire.
Battle of Berlin
A Soviet combat group was a mixed arms unit of about eighty men, divided into assault groups of six to eight men, closely supported by field artillery. These were tactical units which were able to apply the tactics of house to house fighting that the Soviets had been forced to develop and refine at each Festungsstadt (fortress city) they had encountered from Stalingrad to Berlin.[35]
The German tactics in the battle of Berlin were dictated by three considerations: the experience that the Germans had gained during five years of war; the physical characteristics of Berlin; and the tactics used by the Soviets.
Most of the central districts of Berlin consisted of city blocks with straight wide roads, intersected by several waterways, parks and large railway marshalling yards. The terrain was predominantly flat but there were some low hills like that of Kreuzberg that is 66 metres (217 ft) above sea level.[36][37][38][39]
Much of the housing stock consisted of apartment blocks built in the second half of the 19th century. Most of those, thanks to housing regulations and few elevators, were five stories high, built around a courtyard which could be reached from the street through a corridor large enough to take a horse and cart or small trucks used to deliver coal. In many places these apartment blocks were built around several courtyards, one behind the other, each one reached through the outer courtyards by a ground-level tunnel similar to that between the first courtyard and the road. The larger, more expensive flats faced the street and the smaller, less expensive ones were found around the inner courtyards. [40][nb 1]
Just as the Soviets had learned a lot about urban warfare, so had the Germans. The
To counter these tactics, Soviet submachine gunners rode the tanks and sprayed every doorway and window, but this meant the tank could not traverse its turret quickly. The other solution was to rely on heavy howitzers (152 mm and 203 mm) firing over open sights to blast defended buildings and to use anti-aircraft guns against defenders posted on the higher floors.[41]
Soviet combat groups started to move from house to house instead of directly down the streets. They moved through the apartments and cellars blasting holes through the walls of adjacent buildings (for which the Soviets found abandoned German panzerfausts were very effective), while others fought across the roof tops and through the attics.[41]
These tactics took the Germans lying in ambush for tanks in the flanks. Flamethrowers and grenades were very effective, but as the Berlin civilian population had not been evacuated these tactics inevitably killed many civilians.[41]
First Chechen War
During the
Initially, the Russians were taken by surprise. Their armoured columns that were supposed to take the city without difficulty as Soviet forces had taken
In the long term, the Russians brought in more infantry and began a systematic advance through the city, house by house and block by block, with dismounted Russian infantry moving in support of armour. In proactive moves, the Russians started to set up ambush points of their own and then move armour towards them to lure the Chechen combat groups into ambushes.[42]
As with the Soviet tank crews in Berlin in 1945, who attached bedsprings to the outside of their turrets to reduce the damage done by German panzerfausts, some of the Russian armour was fitted quickly with a cage of wire mesh mounted some 25–30 centimetres away from the hull armour to defeat the shaped charges of the Chechen RPGs.[42][43]
Operation Defensive Shield
The two major battles were held in Nablus and Jenin.
In Nablus, the
In
Close-quarters battle
The term close-quarter battle refers to fighting methods within buildings, streets, narrow alleys and other places where visibility and manoeuvrability are limited.[46]
Both close-quarters-battle (CQB) and urban operations (UO) are related to urban warfare, but while UO refers mainly to the macromanagement factor (i.e. sending troops, using of heavy armoured fighting vehicles, battle management), CQB refers to the micromanagement factor—namely: how a small squad of infantry troops should fight in urban environments and/or inside buildings in order to achieve its goals with minimal casualties.[citation needed]
As a doctrine, CQB concerns topics such as:
- Weapons and ammunition most suitable for the mission[citation needed]
- Extra gear, such as night vision devices[citation needed]
- Accurate explosives[citation needed]
- Routines and drills for engaging the enemy, securing a perimeter, clearing a room, etc.[citation needed]
- Team maneuvers[citation needed]
- Methods and tactics[citation needed]
Military CQB doctrine is different from police CQB doctrine, mainly because the military usually operates in hostile areas while the police operates within docile populations.[citation needed]
Armies that often engage in urban warfare operations may train most of their infantry in CQB doctrine. While training will vary, it generally will focus on what proficiencies each unit possess. This is in opposition to what units may lack in either strength or weapons capabilities. The fundamentals of muzzle awareness and weapons safety are of the utmost importance given the propensity for fratricide due to the confined spaces, as well as the limited avenues of approach.[47]
Urban warfare training
Armed forces seek to train their units for those circumstances in which they are to fight: built up, urban areas are no exception. Several countries have created simulated urban training zones. The British Army has established an "Afghan village" within its
During World War II, as preparation for the
See also
- Battleplan (documentary TV series)
- Civilian casualty ratio
- Military urbanism
- Mouse-holing
- Operation Urban Warrior
- Second Battle of Fallujah
- Siege warfare
- Urban guerrilla warfare
- Urban terrain
Notes
- ^ The poorer tenement blocks were known as "Rent-barracks" (Mietskasernen)
Citations
- ^ Pike 2002.
- ^ Spencer, John (March 4, 2020). "The City Is Not Neutral: Why Urban Warfare Is So Hard". Modern War Institute. Retrieved February 24, 2024.
- ^ a b Weissmann, Mikael (2023). "Urban Warfare: Challenges of Military Operations on Tomorrow's Battlefield". academic.oup.com. Retrieved February 21, 2024.
- ISBN 978-0-7153-9477-9)
- ^ Wahlman, Alec (2015). Storming the City: U.S. Military Performance in Urban Warfare from World War II to Vietnam. University of North Texas Press. p. 99.
- ^ Bowyer, Richard (2004). Dictionary of Military Terms (3 ed.). Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 162.
- ^ Sengupta, Kim (March 24, 2008). "The final battle for Basra is near, says Iraqi general". The Independent. London. Retrieved April 11, 2008.
- ISBN 978-0-553-38528-1
- ^ FOFO. Archived February 7, 2016, at the Wayback Machine Retrieved December 7, 2007.
- ^ "Urban Warfare Training Center – Simulating the Modern Battle-Field". idf.il. October 26, 2011.
- ^ YLE: Suomalaiset kuvaavat sotien jälkiä kaupungeissa – katso kuvat ja tarinat tutuilta kulmilta (in Finnish)
- ^ Kitfield, James C. (December 1, 1998). "War in the Urban Jungles". Air & Space Forces Magazine. Retrieved February 24, 2024.
- ISBN 978-1541674103.
- ^ "Ortona". canadiansoldiers.com. Archived from the original on January 9, 2008.
- ^ "In spite of the severe fighting ... great crowds of (Dutch) civilians thronged the streets (of Groningen) — apparently more excited than frightened by the sound of nearby rifle and machine-gun fire. Out of regard for these civilians, the Canadians did not shell or bomb the city, thereby accepting the possibility of delay and additional casualties" (Stacey 1966, Chapter XX: The Rhine Crossing and the 2nd Corps' Advance to the North Sea March 23-April 22, 1945)
- ^ Beevor 2002, p. 318.
- ^ a b Bagrov, Yuri. "Russia Warns Civilians in Chechnya". Associated Press. Archived from the original on March 2, 2022.
- ^ BBC staff 1999, Russia will pay for Chechnya.
- ^ Staten, C.L. (March 29, 2003). "Urban Warfare Considerations; Understanding and Combating Irregular and Guerrilla Forces During A "Conventional War" In Iraq". Emergency Response and Research Institute. Archived from the original on June 13, 2006. Retrieved July 22, 2006.
- ^ Beevor 2002, p. 354,355.
- ^ "World War II: Siege of Budapest". HistoryNet. June 12, 2006. Retrieved April 4, 2024.
- ^ Desch, Michael (October 1, 2001). "Soldiers in Cities: Military Operations on Urban Terrain". Monographs, Collaborative Studies, & IRPs. US Army War College Press.
- ^ a b c Geroux, John Spencer, Jayson (June 28, 2021). "Urban Warfare Project Case Study #1: Battle of Stalingrad". Modern War Institute. Retrieved February 27, 2024.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Spencer, John (July 19, 2017). "The City Is the Battlefield of the Future". WSJ. Retrieved February 28, 2024.
- ^ a b Spencer, John (February 9, 2024). "War Books: The Urban Battlefield of the Future". Modern War Institute. Retrieved February 21, 2024.
- ^ Spencer, John; Geroux, Jayson (February 14, 2022). "Defending the City: An Overview of Defensive Tactics from the Modern History of Urban Warfare". Modern War Institute. Retrieved April 1, 2024.
- ^ Glenn, Russell W. (March 6, 2023). "Monterrey, 1846: Still Offering Urban Combat Lessons after all these Years". smallwarsjournal.com. Retrieved April 1, 2024.
- ^ Urban Warfare – Battle of Monterrey.com Archived July 7, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Dishman 2009, p. [page needed].
- ^ a b Dishman 2010, p. [page needed]
- ^ Intrec Inc (1974). "Weapons Effects in Cities. Volume 1". Technical Report – via DTIC.
- ^ McLaurin, R. D.; Jureidini, Paul A.; McDonald, David S.; Sellers, Kurt J. (1987). "Modern Experience in City Combat". Technical Memorandum – via DTIC.
- ISBN 978-1-9821-6358-7.
- ISBN 978-3-030-27088-9.
- ^ Beevor 2002, p. 317.
- ^ Prakash & Kruse 2008, pp. 44–46.
- ^ "A Prussian law of 1875, enacted to cover the streets of Berlin, prescribed that the main streets should be 95 feet or more in width, secondary thoroughfares from 65 to 95 feet and the local streets from 40 to 65 feet." (McDonnald 1951, p. 720)
- ^ "The Berlin streets are for the most part very broad and straight. They are surprisingly even; there is not a hill worthy of the name in the whole of the city" (Siepen 2011, p. 7).
- ^ "The highest hill in the ridge was the Kreuzberg, which stood at 217 feet (66 m). It became the site of a from the Schinkel-designed monument erected in 1821 and gave its name to the most famous of Berlin's districts" (Urban Land Institute 2006, p. 88).
- ^ Ladd 1998, pp. 99–102.
- ^ a b c d e Beevor 2002, pp. 316–319.
- ^ a b c d Grau 1997
- ^ "Then, they went in again for festooning their vehicles with bedsprings and other metal to make the panzerfausts explode prematurely" (Beevor 2002, p. 317)
- ^ "EU strongly condemns indiscriminate Hamas rockets on Israel and use of Palestinian population as human shields, 'terrorist groups in Gaza must disarm', calls for 'immediate ceasefire'". Archived December 31, 2014, at the Wayback Machine, European Jewish Press, July 22, 2014.
- ^ "European Union: Hamas, other Gaza terror groups must disarm". Archived April 5, 2015, at the Wayback Machine, Haaretz, July 22, 2014.
- ^ Military.com. "Navy SEAL Close Quarter Battle (CQB)". Military.com. Retrieved September 28, 2016.
- ^ FM 90-10 Military Operations on Urbanized Terrain (MOUT)
References
- BBC staff (December 7, 1999). "Russia will pay for Chechnya". BBC.
- ISBN 0-670-03041-4.
- Dishman, Chris (August 2009). "Street Fight in Monterrey". Military Heritage Magazine.
- Dishman, Christopher (2010). A Perfect Gibraltar: The Battle for Monterrey, Mexico. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 978-0-8061-4140-4.
- Grau, Lester W. (January 1997). "Chechen Anti-armor Techniques". Russian-Manufactured Armoured Vehicle Vulnerability in Urban Combat: The Chechnya Experience. Red Thrust Star. Archived from the original on April 30, 2010. Retrieved June 16, 2010.
- Ladd, Brian (1998). The Ghosts of Berlin: Confronting German History in the Urban Landscape (illustrated ed.). University of Chicago Press. p. 99–102. ISBN 978-0-226-46762-7.
- McDonnald, Alexander Hopkins, ed. (1951). The Encyclopedia Americana. Vol. 6. Americana Corporationn. p. 720.
{{cite encyclopedia}}
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(help) - Pike, John (September 16, 2002). "Military Operations on Urban Terrain [MOUT]". GlobalSecurity.org. Retrieved July 14, 2017.
- Prakash, Gyan; Kruse, Kevin Michael (2008). The spaces of the modern city: imaginaries, politics, and everyday life (illustrated ed.). Princeton University Press. pp. 44–46. ISBN 978-0-691-13343-0.
- Siepen, Edith (2011). Peeps at Great Cities – Berlin. BoD – Books on Demand. p. 7. ISBN 978-3-86403-134-2.
- Stacey, C.P. (1966). Volume III: The Victory Campaign: The Operations in North West Europe 1944–1945. Official History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War.
- Urban Land Institute (2006). Urban Land. 65 (9–12). Urban Land Institute: 88.
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External links
- Military Operations on Urbanized Terrain (MOUT), Marine Corps Warfighting Publication (MCWP) 3–35.3 – US Marine Corps guidance on urban warfare
- FM 90-10-1 AN INFANTRYMAN 'S GUIDE TO COMBAT IN BUILT-UP AREAS
- Small Wars Journal – Urban operations, reading guide.
- Urban warfare in Sub-Saharan Africa in 1970–1981: inventing the rules of the game.