A guide to Urban warfare and why it's so nasty.

The Battle of Mosul is over and all Islamic State terrorists have been cleared from the area. Iraq’s second largest city and home to 900,000 people lie in ruins. Mosul joins Aleppo, Raqqa, Grozny, Hue, Stalingrad, Warsaw, and countless other cities destroyed by costly urban combat. The victory at Mosul does not look like a victory at all. Why is urban warfare so bloody? Why do the most well-equipped and powerful militaries fail in cities, and why are cities destroyed to be saved? In this post I’ll explain in layman terms the nature and difficulty of urban combat.

Urban warfare will become increasingly relevant in the 21st century simply because changes in our economy and technology encourages people to move into cities and other densely populated areas. The United Nations estimates that by 2030 more than 60% of the world will live in urban area. In the past, armies could simply avoid unfavorable terrain like cities.

The Battle of Stalingrad is the biggest and bloodiest urban battle in history, and it is a good case study since an abundance of first-hand accounts exist. Diaries and such written by troops on both sides offer a very insightful view into fighting in cities. The German troops bitterly called their defeat Rattenkrieg, ‘rat war’, where the three-dimensional and heavily cluttered environment degraded the ability to conduct large sweeps.

The complaints from German troops in Stalingrad were unsurprising. The terrain allowed Soviet and German troops to interweave, German tanks, artillery and air support couldn’t fire without killing friendly units. Soviet troops lurked everywhere, forcing Germans to blow the shit out of every building where they saw movement. Armoured vehicles couldn’t bring their guns to bear fast enough, and enemies attacked the weaker side/rear armour of tanks because the buildings and narrow streets robbed tanks and other heavy weapons any fire superiority.

Stalingrad didn’t demonstrate a Soviet strength, it demonstrated how the enviroments helped to remove or inhibit the German strength, namely the good training and experience of the Wehrmacht officers, and the coordination between infantry, vehicles, artillery and air support which has previously allowed Germany to defeat the French and the BEF. Armor, artillery and aviation are restricted in their usefulness. Which is why a relatively weak force can fight off technologically superior armies in urban areas because heavy weapons are ineffective in confinement.

January 1994, Some 10,000 Chechen rebels thrashed 38,000 mechanised Russia troops in Grozny. Despite overwhelming technological superiority, the Russian forces suffers a complete breakdown and it’s ‘victory’ over Grozny could be barely described as a victory at all. Badly trained Russia troops used heavy weapons like rockets and even anti-air chain guns on suspected Chechen positions. So much civilians were killed that the neutral population and even pro-Russian rebels turned against the Russian troops. Tank units got lost in the streets of Grozny where many road signs were switched/removed to confuse Russian troops, Once again tanks and IFVs were unable to fire back at enemies hiding on rooftops or flanking their sides, only anti-air guns and large amounts of artillery could solve this issue, contributing to 7,000-10,000 civilian deaths.

The Second Battle of Grozny was much more successful. Russian forces learnt from their mistakes and focused on protecting their vehicles and making infantry units more mobile. Instead of large columns of armored vehicles, Russian troops advanced slowly in small squads, artillery was made to respond rapidly and accurately in case heavy resistance was encountered by infantry.

For a professional military, there are basically two approaches to fighting in cities. The first is room-to-room fighting, first pioneered by SWAT teams and special forces but now also practiced by regular troops. These ‘door-breaching’ attacks usually do not result in too much destruction but they do require accurate reconnaissance, i.e you need to know which room contains enemies, civilians or both. This approach can only be executed in a limited scale because it’s too costly for the attacking side and requires an unrealistic amount of information/intel to pull off. Training requirements are also very high, your average infantry cannot be expected to be as proficient as Spetsnaz troopers or FBI hostage rescue squad

Above: M1 Abrams tank removes a two-story house containing Talibans

The second approach is outright destruction, like the Second battle of Fallujah or Grozny. The city is isolated, as much civilians is evacuated as possible, and maximum firepower is applied to pressure and exhaust the enemy. With 90% of the city population evacuated, Iraqi and U.S forces fired over 5,000 shells at Fallujah and dropped thousands of munitions from aviation forces. Civilians did die and the losses inflicted on the Taliban were not as severe as initially expected, still Fallujah was a success on its own.

U.S 155mm artillery supporting Marines during the 2004 Battle of Fallujah.

The high population density and complexity of cities highlights a weakness particularly from the attacking side. There are traditionally very few weapons that lies between a bullet and a salvo of artillery shells. In recent years, the advancement in electronics has resulted in guided munitions much smaller than their predecessors. The Israeli mini-spike missile weighs only 4kg, intended to destroy a room without bringing down the entire building. U.S 40mm grenades are currently tested with a laser-guidance kit, allowing troops to attack enemies behind cover without having to resort to artillery or Hellfire missiles from helicopters.

Guided munitions are becoming increasingly accurate and compact, allowing the attacking side to strike in confined environments.

Militaries involved in urban combat are also heavily reliant on engineers. The need to construct barriers and traps, and to remove ones constructed by enemies. Knowledge of civil engineering will be critical to military operations in dense urban terrain. We learned the hard way in Iraq and Syria how infrastructure destruction hampers the movement of troops and creates choke-points. Cities means countless opportunities to deny mobility and breathing space, the vast amount of concrete, bricks and steel provides ample raw material for the construction of barricades, covers etc.

Above: Israeli armored bulldozers and combat engineers have been in high demand, used to clear roads from rubble or mines, and to create holes in buildings without resorting to explosives or risking soldiers attempting to breach walls.

Then there’s the presence of civilians, which are not and cannot be completely evacuated in time. If the defending side is nasty like ISIS, they’ll hold civilians as human shields too. Fallujah and Stalingrad saw most of the civilians flee before the onslaught, Berlin and Grozny was a different story. A clash in the mountains of Afghanistan or in the steppes of Russia results in thousands of military casualties but few civilian deaths, Urban warfare can result in more many more civilian deaths, especially when the aforementioned ‘second approach’ is used. 1,500 insurgents were killed at Fallujah, while civilian deaths estimates range from 700 to 2,000. Grozny was bloodier, the Royal Danish Defence College estimates 35,000 civilians killed or wounded in comparison to 14,000 military casualties. Civilian deaths are just about the worst thing that can happen to leaders directing a war, it causes all kinds of heated arguments and outrage from the general public, it turns the local population against the actors involved, and most importantly it is awfully immoral. The high density of civilians highlights the importance of developing small guided munitions and dependable military intelligence.

Side note: Starting in the 1980s, it was often claimed that 90 percent of the victims of modern wars were civilians. These claims include refugees and IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons) as casualties. The proportion of civilian deaths and severe injuries during conflicts since 1980 range from 50% to 74%, according to Sivard, R. L and Echhardt, W.

Above: The Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul, or whats left of it after the Islamic State demolished it. Reconstruction costs for Mosul is estimated to be at $1.5 billion USD.

General William Tecumseh Sherman said war is hell, and urban warfare is the ‘ninth circle’ of hell. What began as a paradox during WW2 became familiar during Vietnam, and urban warfare will only grow in relevance in the 21st century. Cities are destroyed so that one side may occupy them.

Credits to Major J. Spencer, U.S Army infantryman and a scholar at USMA for providing the bulk of this information. Thanks for reading, and check out my gallery for more stuff on military aviation, international politics etc.