So, the So What?

Re: "CQB" "black art tactics" (sarcasm), neither the police nor the military do, would, or should, use them when there are actual armed and ready bad guys inside a structure.

So: I am getting a consensus that CQB room entry and clearing drills are best utilized simply to confirm that a room(s) is/are clear, with the potential for bad guys in there but not really considered high threat. Unless as pointed out you are Tier 1 DA and have no choice, but are super high speed anyway.

So: infantry need to be trained for high intensity MOUT/OBUA "just in case" or indeed as we always say, in order to train for the worst case: "train hard fight easy". But in reality we will seek alternative means within the rules of engagement to destroy or neutralize enemy combatants prior to "clearing" those structures. We want to avoid dynamic building and room entry in high intensity conflict where the bad guys are alive and tip top inside there, if we can. And if we do go in, and we dont have a tank gun or thermobaric weapon in direct support, we would rather go in through the roof or a mousehole or some such alternative to the front door.

Interestingly, when buildings are damaged and we include tunnels, rat runs etc, then we can't really do the urban specific "CQB" SME room entry drills, because rooms/buildings have been rearranged by fire. So, then it becomes close combat or "non-SME taught" CQB which comes full circle back to my original point: if urban room clearing type CQB is the totality of all CQB, or whether other close combat is CQB also, with urban CQB being simply a specific sub-set.

We also need to think seriously about getting back to a point where we train infantry to do the real high intensity breach and room/building clearance drills, rather than the current norm "SWAT type", as laid out in publications such as the small unit tactics smart book (US). I recall that BritMil had a battalion in Berlin during the cold war the exclusively trained in FIBUA high intensity tactics.