Summary
Complete Guide
See the full content of this document
Extract
The vertical battlefield.
"The worst policy is to attack cities ... attack cities only when there is no alternative." wrote Sun Tzu in his Art of War (c. 500 BC). He was correct: urban fighting involves challenges and costs that can far exceed those of conventional warfare. The effectiveness of superior weapons and communications technology is blunted in the urban environment, but new tactics, training and equipment are being developed to try to overcome these disadvantages.
Armies fight in cities not because they want to, but because they have to. Population, especially in the developing world, is rising rapidly and becoming more city-centric. One estimate suggests that by the year 2010 75 percent of the world's population will live in urban areas. American military doctrine recognises that cities are the battlefields of the future, but urban warfare presents special challenges, especially for the attacker. The Problems The problems are greatest for technologically advanced attackers who face determined defenders. Classic recent and current examples are the Russians in Grozny, Israelis in the towns of the Gaza Strip and West Bank and American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Urban fighting sharply reduces the effectiveness of sophisticated sensors and weaponry and favours less sophisticated mobile weaponry, local knowledge and guerrilla tactics. Cities have two defining features that make urban warfare difficult: buildings and people. Imagine a battlefield that has been folded back on itself multiple times, so that a conflict which would cover a much wider area on level ground is compressed into a few square kilometres. This is the urban battlefield, vertical rather than horizontal, a '360-degree fight' in which upper floors of buildings, basements, sewers and tunnels are all places where defenders can hide from and fire on attackers in the streets. This compressed and complex battlefield makes it difficult for commanders and troops to gain an overview of the action, while the small area of action increases the likelihood of fratricide. The urban landscape offers increased possibilities for ambushes and flanking operations: buildings, and even the rubble from buildings, provide cover for snipers and mobile artillery such as RPGs (rocket-propelled grenade launchers). Also, a tank that breaks down can block an entire line of advance, a fact that the Chechen defenders used to their advantage in the 1994-95 battle for Grozny. Confident in their superior firepower, the Russians paraded through the streets in columns converging on the presidential palace. By disabling the tanks at the front and rear of each column, the Chechens immobilised the re...See the full content of this document
Sponsored links
