Urban / City Warfare (merged thread)

[Schmedlap]

It's possible to adapt. Camouflage, concealment and deception would work just fine.

Yup. The best form of camouflage is the populace. We've gotten better at spotting insurgent activity when they think that they're safe from detection, let their guard down, and don't use camouflage. There's a fix to that. Call the people out into the streets and smuggle weapons through the market places or emplace IEDs while surrounded by crowds. All that the UAV is going to see is a mass of people. Likewise, fire your mortars and rockets from crowded open-air markets. What are we gonna do about it? Shoot back and kill everyone in the market place? We're seeing the blowback from that in Pakistan. Looks like the Taliban pretty much figured out what the Shia militiamen didn't.

I also disagree with the author's assertion that we are doing things "cleanly and cheaply." There is nothing cheap about multiple UAVs, air weapons teams, armored vehicles, etc. There is also nothing clean about taking 5 years to gather the necessary intelligence and develop the techniques and procedures necessary to "dominate" a unique piece of terrain. I also dispute that we are dominant - as opposed to having an advantage that could slip away - and I think it is worth emphasizing again that the terrain that we are allegedly dominating is unique and it has taken us too long to figure out how to be more successful on that unique piece of terrain. Our slow climb up the learning curve is a frightening indicator of our ability to apply our craft in areas outside of that few square miles of ground. Rather than patting outselves on the backs, we should be asking why it took us so long to get to this point.

[The Cuyahoga Kid]

Looking for some clarification here.

Are the article and associated comments referring to the multiple challenges caused by urban terrain during COIN and low intensity operations specifically, challenges caused by urban terrain during conventional warfare and high intensity conflict specifically or challenges caused by urban terrain during both?

Also, there are a variety of disadvantages to operating in urban terrain while engaged in a counter insurgency which previous posters have mentioned, including collateral damage, use of civilian areas by enemy forces and a restrictive operating environment. But are there any advantages which urban terrain offers to the COIN forces while conducting a counter insurgency campaign?

[Jones_RE]

I'll bite. The urban environment offers a concentrated population which may make providing security easier - i.e. you don't have dozens of scattered villages to protect. It may also simplify some of the logistics of delivering humanitarian aid. Cities tend to grow up in accessible areas. However, I'd bet that overall the urban environment makes things harder.

[charlyjsp]

As always, thank you for highlighting these events that us not in the U.S. miss. Btw, are we assuming the urban area is cleared of people or not?

On the question, alas, no solution. To my limited understanding, Sadr City involved luxurious amounts of ISR and time, and in its own way was a 'brute force' approach (throw as many ISR, firing platforms and other assets at the problem as possible), a bigger less defined and multi-layer urban area would require exponentially more assets. I suggest it's possible to learn from Sadr City, not copy it - but that is what I'm guessing Gen. Petraeus meant.

In any case, brief thoughts on #2,4 & 5:

2) No need for coalition ground forces to go house-to-house, wrecking the city in the process,

Unless there is some magic to tell me what people living in houses are thinking, or indicate prepositioned explosives (mines etc), I would still want to go house to house. Whether or not going house to house necessarily means wrecking the city is up to all combatant actors.

4) Much reduced non-combatant casualties and refugee flows, resulting from persistent observation and precision fires,

Persistent observation theoretically exists in CCTV systems, but even there it's hard to (in advance) know what is in a bag, car etc. From the description provided, overhead observation of Sadr City was not persistent in the way CCTV potentially is...so many ways to not see what the adversaries are actually doing (seconding Ken White's decoys, deceptions line of thought). The main problem, to me, is how it is possible to (pre-) identify targets, or positively post-identify them (make sure you know the guy about to be shot is the same person who shot at you).

5) Perhaps most important, no climactic drama and resulting media attention.

I understand the broader point of this, but surely for the population (residents in Sadr City) there was drama, that will be remembered (positively or negatively). This would then have an effect on how the population responds to further combat/aid etc.

On potential adaptations, they are surely location-culture specific, but if the U.S. can see above ground, going underground seems logical (ok, this may apply mainly to cities with water-sanitation infrastructure that is underground, or where digging tunnels is possible.)