Twenty three threads have been merged in today, all bar one from SWJ Blog. Prompted by the next post.
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Twenty three threads have been merged in today, all bar one from SWJ Blog. Prompted by the next post.
Hat tip to WoTR for this article https://warontherocks.com/2018/01/ol...rkeys-war-pkk/ which dissects what happened when the PKK opted to fight in Turkish cities (it will be cross-posted elsewhere).
The authors have observations on the wider impact on urban operations, for strategy and operations. Near the end:Quote:
This dynamic suggests armed groups might choose to target cities even when their chances of military success are slim, that is, if they believe that they can frame the urban battle in ways that will help them achieve their long-term strategic objectives.
From Army University Press and on open access, except for the post-Mosul report. Citing their introduction in part:Link:ww.armyupress.army.mil/Online-Publications/Primer-on-Urban-Operations/#5?platform=hootsuiteQuote:
Army Press has compiled a selection of articles from Military Review, publications from the Combat Studies Institute, monographs from students at the Command and General Staff College, and other publications. This primer on urban operations should not be viewed as the textbook on the subject, but rather as a starting point for renewed study and conversation.
Lessons to Be Learned: The Employment of Suicide Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Devises in the Islamic State’s Defense of Mosul
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This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.
Jason Burke, a journalist with The Guardian and writer on terrorism, has this very well-timed article, which draws on history and seeks to explain why terrorists know attacks in cities matter.
Here is a "taster":He ends with:Quote:
f the urban environment offers practical assistance to the aspirant terrorist – a degree of anonymity, ease of sourcing components or funds, proximity to others in a network, communication facilities, transport – it also offers a wealth of targets. The nature of these virtually guarantees what all terrorists seek: attention.
Link:https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2...hip-terrorism?Quote:
The history of terrorism is thus the history of our cities. The history of our cities, at least over the last 150 years or so, is in part the history of terrorism. This is a deadly, inextricable link that is unlikely to be broken anytime soon.
In today's mailbox was a - startling for me - WoTR article on the Tet 1968 offensive in South Vietnam; which had an urban focus. A military failure for the NVA / VC, but a strategic victory. Worth a read.
Link:https://warontherocks.com/2018/01/im...tet-offensive/
Reading these articles and the coverage on the very recent, brutal Taliban / ISIS attacks in Kabul, Afghanistan, could GIRoA and its allies be in danger of repeating the Tet offensive?
RUSI held a day, closed conference last week and have now published the programme and three other items, one a short paper. Plus a podcast by the opening speaker, ret'd General Mungo Melvin (till 33:45) and the historian Antony Beevor.
Link:https://rusi.org/event/urban-warfare...present-future
There are three PPT, alas slides only by:Peter Mansoor, David Kilcullen and a British brigadier.
The paper refers to a re'd UK General Tony Newton's experience of how the British Army lost sight of urban fighting and has a section on Operation Agile Warrior that appears earlier in this thread.
Link:https://rusi.org/sites/default/files...rks-newton.pdf
Link:https://www.forces.net/news/anti-isi...p-retake-raqqaQuote:
An app created using a map seized from Islamic State was a "game changer" in the battle to defeat the extremists in Raqqa, a British man who fought the murderous group has said....Speaking to the Press Association, the 30-year-old said he understands the app was put together by the Americans using a very detailed map of Raqqa that was captured from IS: "I would be walking down the street and would take fire from a building or I would see enemy movement or a tank, all I'd have to do is move my dot, get the grid coordinates and call it in."
The Future Battlefield: Army, Marines Prepare for ‘Massive’ Fight in Megacities
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Preparing for the Urban Future of Counterinsurgency
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Every so called urban training area I've seen looks more like a small village with neatly spread out buildings. When I think of Urban warfare, FIBUA or MOUT, I hink of central London or the Brazilian favelas. Maybe someone should contact the Japanese Gov and lease Hashima island also, for a more atmospheric look see here. At Least it looks like a slice of a city! Also it's out in the ocean so no noise concerns...Attachment 5571
This paper The Worst of Both Worlds: An analysis of urban littoral combat by Dr Dayton McCarthy is from Australia. I have only skimmed the introduction and the papers itself is 5Mb. The intro's key passage:Link:https://www.army.gov.au/our-future/a...ations/army-25Quote:
This is a paper about fighting in cities on coastlines – the contemporary topic of the combat in the ‘urban littoral’. This paper argues that urban littoral combat is the ‘worst of both worlds’ and brings together two of the most difficult forms of warfare – urban and amphibious operations.
A pointer to the Modern War Institute's Urban Warfare Project collection of articles:https://mwi.usma.edu/urban-warfare-project/
https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/16/world...ntl/index.htmlQuote:
(CNN)The coming decades will see the growth of colossal megacities as the world's population increasingly moves into urban environments, a new United Nations report predicts.
Today, 55% of the world's population is urban, a figure which is expected to grow to 68% by 2050, with the addition of 2.5 billion new city residents, according to projections by the Population Division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
By 2030, there will be 43 megacities around the world with populations of over 10 million, up from 33 similarly sized urban centers today and just 10 in 1990.
A short article from Australia. Which opens with:Link:https://groundedcuriosity.com/shades...kippur-effect/Quote:
This systems-of-systems configuration is referred to as the Survivability Onion. Layers of the onion include: don’t be seen, don’t be hit, don’t be penetrated and don’t be killed. Each onion stratum features specific technologies to safeguard an AFV and its crew. However, AFV survivability is not just the sum of discrete defensive systems, but rather it is their collective integration that generates superior protection.
Curious to see the Vulcan 20mm cannon back again, once more atop a M113.
Didn't the IDF deploy such a system years ago, possibly for another purpose: ATGM, not drones?
A sixteen pgs. paper from MWI @ West Point and near the start a passage:Link:https://mwi.usma.edu/wp-content/uplo...the-street.pdfQuote:
At the most basic level, however, there is an obvious, but neglected tactical problem in city fighting:simply crossing the street.
The amount of damage and numbers of casualties in fighting in recent years in Raqqa, Aleppo, Marawi, and Mosul show how rudimentary urban warfare tactics remain, as well as the highly destructive nature of combat in cities. Without new tactics and tools for dealing with some of the basic challenges of urban combat, military units are forced to employ extremely destructive methods to reclaim cities from entrenched defenders.
I noted a reference to Hue Citadel in 1968, with 90mm tank cannon being found to be useless; my understanding is that the USMC realised only the "big guns" could breach the walls, so called up 155mm & 8" guns to batter a hole in the walls. When the ARVN mounted an assault the NVA/VC had left. Less certain is the tale that the USMC in Hue after a few days called the USMC Library @ Quantico, where a librarian explained how siege warfare had worked and so they reverted to those methods.
Plus the reference to defenders who were willing to die, citing ISIS in Mosul as an example. Yesterday I watched a YouTube documentary on the Canadians assaulting the walled city of Ortona, Italy in 1943 held by German paratroopers, as relevant today as it was then.
Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SO7MoWh48g
The perfect petri dish.
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2...-latin-americaQuote:
In 1998, as the setting for his election celebrations, Chávez chose the balcony of the Teresa Carreño, a spectacular, brutalist style cultural centre. Built during the 1970s oil boom and reminiscent of London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, it has hosted stars such as Dizzy Gillespie, George Benson, Ray Charles and Luciano Pavarotti, and epitomised the country’s new ambition. “Venezuela is reborn,” Chávez declared.
Twenty years after that upbeat address, an economic cataclysm experts blame on ill-conceived socialist policies, staggering corruption and the post-2014 slump in oil prices has given Caracas the air of a sinking ship.
Public services are collapsing, businesses closing and residents evacuating on buses or one of a dwindling number of flights still connecting their fallen metropolis to the rest of the world.
Discovered via a WW2 blog site and the first article concludes:Link:http://www.journal.forces.gc.ca/vo8/...oderso-eng.aspQuote:
During the battle for Ortona, the Canadians innovated, improvised, and successfully exploited the effects of their personal weapons and supporting arms under largely unforeseen circumstances. Following a week of fighting in Ortona, the Canadian division became Eighth Army’s acknowledged street-fighting experts. In serving notice upon the Allies to expect further such battles, Ortona also carried implications. In Britain, armies composed mostly of untried formations waited to open the main ‘second front’ in northwest Europe, where they could expect an equally stubborn and desperate German defence. Ortona therefore merited close study, and received it from training staffs throughout the Allied armies.Canadian assessments figured highly, and they remain an instructive case study in the evaluation of battle experience.
Amazing that the Canadians learnt so quickly.
The second article in part explains the learning:Link:https://www.seaforthhighlanders.ca/stories/470Quote:
The Canadians, recognizing that following standard doctrine would result in heavy casualties, swiftly indulged their tactical creativity, devising methods to make them more effective. The most notable of their solutions was the advent of mouse-holing, whereby soldiers would blow a hole in the wall separating two back-to-back buildings, either with explosive charges or the man-packed PIAT (Projector, Infantry, Anti-Tank) launcher, in order to avoid entering the streets and exposing themselves to fire. This inventiveness gave the Canadians a substantial advantage at Ortona, as the German forces were not only surprised by the switch from conventional tactics, but failed to adequately counter the improvised warfare, instead having to rely on conventional counterattacks, usually under the cover of night.
The original website thread has other links, which include videos.
Link:http://ww2talk.com/index.php?threads...-ortona.55293/
An Australian Army commentary that aims to:Not to overlook this:Quote:
describe the key tactical lessons the Australian Army can learn from the AFoP’s urban siege of Marawi City. Consideration of these lessons may inform and improve the Australian Army’s current approach to the force generation of close combat, combined-arms capabilities. It will identify the key tactical lessons learned by the AFoP fighting an intelligent, determined, disciplined and well-equipped terrorist threat in the extraordinarily difficult, intense and complicated terrain.
Link:https://www.cove.org.au/adaptation/a...e-close-fight/Quote:
The fighting drove over 400,000 people from their homes.
I think the Aussies have this right.
High levels of combat fitness, shooting skills, then tactical maneuver skills, and of course communication to facilitate coordination. (Shoot, move, and communicate)Quote:
Combat shooting, battlefield fitness, small team TTPs and battle craft are more important than any other skill, and must be prioritised. Above all else, the Australian Army must have the ability to deliver small combined arms teams to the fight who are capable of shooting faster and more accurately than their enemy out to 200 metres by day and by night; who can dominate and control complex spaces more rapidly and with fewer casualties; and who can operate seamlessly with other small teams or supporting elements in joint and coalition environments.
Later in the article, they talked about the need for leadership that enables tactical innovation at the lowest levels.
Then add the game changing technology as the nation can afford it, night vision devises, explosive breaching, etc. A lot of good insights that validate much of the existing urban warfare doctrine.
Another MWI paper (58 pgs), the author being Margarita Konaev; though this time id'd via Twitter and published by a French "think tank".
Link:https://www.ifri.org/sites/default/f...ities_2019.pdf