Urban warfare
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Urban warfare is a modern warfare conducted in urban areas such as towns and cities. As a distinction, warfare conducted in population centers before the 20th century is generally considered siege warfare.
Urban combat is very different from combat in the open at both the operational and tactical level. Complicating factors in urban warfare are the presence of civilians and buildings of all sorts. Some civilians may be difficult to disinguish from combatants such as armed militias and gangs, particularly if individuals are trying to protect their homes. Tactics are complicated by a three-dimensional environment, limited fields of view and fire because of buildings, enhanced concealment and cover for defenders, below ground infrastructure, and the ease of placement of booby traps and snipers.
The United States military term for urban warfare is MOUT, an abbreviation for Military Operations in Urban Terrain. The British military term is FIBUA (Fighting in Built-Up Areas), although it has been called OBUA (Operations in Built-Up Areas) and, unofficially, FISH and CHIPS (Fighting in Someone's House and Causing Havoc in People's Streets).[1] 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.
Contents |
[edit] Operations
Military operations in World War II often relied on large quantities of artillery fire and air support varying from ground attack fighters to heavy bombers. In some particularly vicious urban warfare operations such as Stalingrad and Warsaw, all weapons were used irrespective of their consequences. However, when liberating occupied territory some restraint was often applied, particularly in urban settings. For example, Canadian operations in both Ortona and Groningen avoided the use of artillery altogether to spare civilians and buildings.[2]
Armies are bound by laws of war governing military necessity to the amount of force which can be applied when attacking an area where there are known to be civilians. Until the 1970s this was covered by customary law and IV Hague Convention "The Laws and Customs of War on Land" of 1907 and specifically articles 25-29. This has since been suplemented by the "Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International and Non-International Armed Conflicts". 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 the Germans considered evacuation civilians as did the Soviets in the Battle of Berlin but it both cases it proved to be impractical.[3] When the Russian attack on Grozny, in which large amounts of artillery fire were used. The Russian Army handled the issue of civilian casualties by warning that the city would be levelled and that any civilian should leave the city before the attack began.[4] Also see Yugoslav Army's/Serb attacks on Vukovar, Croatia in 1991.
Fighting in an urban landscape can offer some advantages to a weaker defending force or to guerrilla fighters. The attacking army must account for three-dimensions more often than two,[5] and consequently expend greater amounts of manpower in order to secure a myriad of structures if they don't resort to indiscriminately bombing them. It is also difficult to bomb underground or heavily fortified structures such as bunkers or underground rapid transit tunnels. Examples include the London underground rail system (the "Tube" or Metro) in the bombing ("Blitz") of 1940-41, the sewers of Warsaw in the 1944 insurrection and extensive tunnel systems used by the Vietcong in the Vietnam war of the 1960-70s.
[edit] 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. The buildings can provide excellent sniping posts while alleys and rubble-filled streets are ideal for planting booby traps. Defenders can move from one part of the city to another undetected using underground tunnels and spring ambushes. 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.
[edit] Battle of Berlin
- See also: Battle in Berlin
A Soviet combat group was a mixed arms unit of about eighty men in 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 festung stadt (fortress city) they had encountered from Stalingrad to Berlin.[6]
The Germans tactics used for the urban warfare that took place in Berlin was dictated by three considerations. These were: 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 central districts of Berlin consists of city blocks with straight wide roads with several waterways, parks and large railway marshalling yards. It is predominantly flat but there are some low hills like that of Kreuzberg that is 66m above sea level. Much of the housing stock consisted of apartments blocks build 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 the small trucks used to deliver coal. In many places these apartment blocks were build 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 could be found around the inner countyards.
Just as the Soviets had learn a lot about urban warfare, so had the Germans. The Waffen SS did not use the makeshift barricades erected close to street corners, because these could be raked by artillery fire from guns firing over open sights further along the straight streets. Instead they put snipers and machine guns on the upper floors and the roofs because the Soviet tanks could not elevate their guns that high and they put men armed with panzerfausts in cellar windows to ambush tanks as they moved down the streets. These tactics were quickly adopted by the Hitler Youth and the First World War Volkssturm veterans.[7]
To counter these tactics the Soviets mounted sub-machine gunners on the tanks who 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 (152mm and 203mm) firing over open sights to blast defended buildings and to use anti-aircraft guns against the German gunners on the higher floors. 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. These tactics took the Germans laying 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.[7]
[edit] First Chechen War
During the First Chechen War most of the Chechen fighters had been trained in the Soviet armed forces. They were divided into combat groups consisted of 15 to 20 personnel, subdivided into three or four-man fire teams. A fire team consisted of an antitank gunner, usually armed with an Russian made RPG-7s or RPG-18s, and machine gunner and a sniper. A fire team would be supported by ammunition runners and assistant gunners. To destroy Russian armoured vehicles in Grozny, five or six hunter-killer fire teams deploy at ground level, in second and third stories, and in basements. The snipers and machine gunners would pin down the supporting infantry while the antitank gunners would engage the armoured vehicle aiming at the top, rear and sides of vehicles.[8]
Initially the Russians were taken by surprise, and their armoured columns, that were supposed to take the city without difficulty, as Soviet forces had taken Budapest in 1956, were decimated in fighting more reminiscent of the Battle of Budapest in late 1944. Like their forefathers in Berlin, as a short term measure they deployed anit-aircraft guns (ZSU 23-4 and 2S6) to engage the Chechen combat groups, as their tank's main gun did not have the elevation and depression to engage the fire teams and an armoured vehicle's machine gun could not suppress the fire of half a dozen different fire teams simultaneously. 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.[8]
As with the Soviets 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 armor to defeat the shaped charges of the Chechen RPGs.[7][8]
[edit] Israeli Defence Forces
The Israeli Defence Forces developed special tactics of MOUT, resulting in relatively low casualties to the occupying force (about 250 soldiers in 4 years of fighting). These tactics include:
- Non linear advance of forces, swarming the AO (area of operations) from all directions.
- Use of tanks and heavily-protected APCs to mobilize troops and protect them from enemy's fire.
- Use of armored bulldozers to:
- clear path to friendly forces: both vehicles and infantry.
- safely detonate booby traps and IEDs.
- to battle gunmen barricading in rigged buildings.
- destroy or create ground obstacles.
- Use of superior Close-Quarters-Battle (CQB) technologies such as advanced red-dot sights, night vision devices, body armor and advanced C4IS systems.
- Use of UAVs to provide intelligence and full battle picture.
- Use of helicopter gunships to target specific threats such as rocket launchers and RPG squads.
- Razing of large swaths of urban areas, thus levelling the battlefield
- Elimination of enemy leaders and sympathisers before they can engage in urban warfare
[edit] Close quarters battle
The term close quarter battle refers to fighting methods within buildings, streets, narrow alleys and other places where visibility and maneuverability are limited.
Both CQB and MOUT are related to urban warfare, but while MOUT 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.
As a doctrine, CQB concerns topics such as:
-
- Weapons and ammunition most suitable for the mission
- Extra gear, such as bulletproof vests and night vision devices
- Accurate explosives
- Routines and drills for engaging the enemy, securing a perimeter, clearing a room, etc.
- Team maneuvers
- Methods and tactics
It should be noted that military CQB doctrine is different from police CQB doctrine, mainly because the military usually operates in hostile areas while the police operates within friendly populations.
Armies that often engage in urban warfare operations may train most of their infantry in CQB doctrine.
[edit] History
[edit] Famous urban battles in modern times
- Paris Commune 1870
- Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916
- Dublin - Irish Civil War July 1922
- Madrid - Spanish Civil War October 1936 to March 1939
- Shanghai, Republic of China (R.O.C), July 1937 to November 1937
- Nanking, Republic of China, December 1937
- Siege of Leningrad, USSR, September 1941 to January 1943[citation needed],
- Ortona, Italy (1943)
- Stalingrad, USSR (1942-1943)
- Warsaw, Poland (Siege of Warsaw 1939, Warsaw Ghetto Uprising 1943, Warsaw Uprising 1944)
- Budapest, Hungary (1945). After a 14-week siege the city fell to Soviet troops. Almost 70% of Buda was destroyed.
- Manila, Philippines (1945)
- Battle of Groningen, Netherlands (1945)
- Berlin, Germany (1945)
- Jerusalem (Operation Jevus, April 27, 1948 Israeli capture of Jewish neighbourhoods. Operation Kilshon and Operation Schfifon, May 14, 1948, capture of Jewish sections and sections to create territorial continuity, failed attempt to recapture Old City. Six-Day War of 1967, Israeli capture of East Jerusalem)
- Seoul, Korea (1950-1951)
- Budapest in the 1956 Hungarian Revolution
- Battle of Algiers (1956-1962)
- Northern Ireland,The Troubles-Falls Curfew Belfast 1970, Operation Motorman Belfast and Derry 1972.
- Battle of Hue, Vietnam (1968)
- Saigon (1975)
- Beirut, Lebanon (1970 and'80s) see: Lebanese Civil War and Siege of Beirut by Israeli forces, 1982
- Panama City, Panama (1989)
- Kabul early 1990s, internecine fighting between Afghan factions
- Vukovar, Croatia (1991)
- Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992-1995)
- Grozny, Chechnya - First battle of Grozny (1994-1995), Second battle of Grozny December 1999 to February 2000.
- Mogadishu, Somalia (1992-1993)
- Jenin, the West Bank (April 2002)
- Monrovia, Liberia (July - August 2003)
- Fallujah, Iraq, (2004) (Operation Vigilant Resolve and Operation Phantom Fury/Operation Al Fajr (New Dawn))
[edit] See also
- Hand to hand combat
- Asymmetric warfare
- Low-intensity operations
- Urban Warrior
- Land Warrior
- Urban guerrilla
- Combatives
- Commando
- Sayeret
- Mouse-holing (tactic)
[edit] References
- Beevor, Antony. Berlin: The Downfall 1945, Penguin Books, 2002, ISBN 0-670-88695-5 pp. 316-319
- Grau,Lester W. Russian-Manufactured Armored Vehicle Vulnerability in Urban Combat: The Chechnya Experience — the article originally appeared in Red Thrust Star January 1997 (source not verified)
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ "U.S. relearning painful lessons in Iraq", USA TODAY, 2005-01-23. Retrieved on May 24, 2006.
- ^ canadiansoldiers.com. See also Stacey, C.P. Official History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War Volume III: The Victory Campaign: The Operations in North West Europe 1944-1945 who wrote "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."
- ^ Beevor, Antony. Berlin: The Downfall 1945, Penguin Books, 2002, ISBN 0-670-88695-5 p.318
- ^ Staff. 'Russia will pay for Chechnya' BBC 7 December, 1999
- ^ Staten, C.L. (2003-03-29). Urban Warfare Considerations; Understanding and Combating Irregular and Guerrilla Forces During A "Conventional War" In Iraq (English). Emergency Response and Research Institute. Retrieved on July 22, 2006.
- ^ Beevor, References p. 317
- ^ a b c Beevor References pp. 316-319
- ^ a b c Grau,Lester W. Russian-Manufactured Armored Vehicle Vulnerability in Urban Combat: The Chechnya Experience — the article originally appeared in Red Thrust Star January 1997 (source not verified) See section "Chechen Anti-armor Techniques"
[edit] External links
