RogerRanger
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With the war in Ukraine breaking out, the risk to civilian life is once again greatest in the major cities, with built up business/governmental/residential areas seeing street battles. Leading mass casualties for both attacker and defender. With the defending setting up defensive positions which the attacker can't bypass.
So my feeling is how could an attacking army use maneuver warfare to bypass defenders in cities, encircle them and allow them to surrender. Keep destruction to a minimum. In WW2 city fighting broke the German army and the Russians took massive loss of life, in the Iraq war and Syrian civil war the same things happened, thousands of people died and there was no long term victory for either side. So we have to do it all over again.
Does anyone have an examples of successful urban battles where the attacker kept the casualties down and won the battle?
The terrain of a city is all about height, so whoever has the high ground and the low ground wins because they can encircle the enemy from above and below. This is different to non-Urban warfare where its about encircling around the enemy. So given the importance of height, gaining the roof tops, being able to move from one roof to another without it being known about. So without using helicopters. Then setting up lines of connection to enable troops to move around the city using roofs, rather than streets alone. This will enable operational maneuver, rather than limited tactical maneuver and the need to use heavy tanks and heavy weapons to blow people out of buildings.
In the urban environment there are three different types of people which I think we could learn from. Steeplejacks, urban climbers and parkour runners. In a military context they would be vital for urban maneuver warfare. Steeplejacks to set up ladders/ropes/webbing/cables to connect builds, and safely knock buildings down without using explosives. Urban climbers to climb up and down the faces of buildings, allowing your troops to enter buildings from different and unexpected places and set up non-lethal weapons within or outside of buildings. Like noise or small or vibration weapons which can be used to allow enemy forces to surrender. Parkour runners to move across buildings and roof tops, move through buildings drawing enemy troops away to enable them to be encircled by street forces or allow you troops to successfully move into a building. They can also set up drop zones and have operating based on the roof tops from which they can support street forces.
I think there needs to be a total change in how people think about urban warfare and how it could be conducted in the future to save infrastructure, buildings and peoples lives. Rather than just the enemy is in a building, lets storm it or destroy it.
So my feeling is how could an attacking army use maneuver warfare to bypass defenders in cities, encircle them and allow them to surrender. Keep destruction to a minimum. In WW2 city fighting broke the German army and the Russians took massive loss of life, in the Iraq war and Syrian civil war the same things happened, thousands of people died and there was no long term victory for either side. So we have to do it all over again.
Does anyone have an examples of successful urban battles where the attacker kept the casualties down and won the battle?
The terrain of a city is all about height, so whoever has the high ground and the low ground wins because they can encircle the enemy from above and below. This is different to non-Urban warfare where its about encircling around the enemy. So given the importance of height, gaining the roof tops, being able to move from one roof to another without it being known about. So without using helicopters. Then setting up lines of connection to enable troops to move around the city using roofs, rather than streets alone. This will enable operational maneuver, rather than limited tactical maneuver and the need to use heavy tanks and heavy weapons to blow people out of buildings.
In the urban environment there are three different types of people which I think we could learn from. Steeplejacks, urban climbers and parkour runners. In a military context they would be vital for urban maneuver warfare. Steeplejacks to set up ladders/ropes/webbing/cables to connect builds, and safely knock buildings down without using explosives. Urban climbers to climb up and down the faces of buildings, allowing your troops to enter buildings from different and unexpected places and set up non-lethal weapons within or outside of buildings. Like noise or small or vibration weapons which can be used to allow enemy forces to surrender. Parkour runners to move across buildings and roof tops, move through buildings drawing enemy troops away to enable them to be encircled by street forces or allow you troops to successfully move into a building. They can also set up drop zones and have operating based on the roof tops from which they can support street forces.
I think there needs to be a total change in how people think about urban warfare and how it could be conducted in the future to save infrastructure, buildings and peoples lives. Rather than just the enemy is in a building, lets storm it or destroy it.
