Interesting series of articles from West Point. Articles, historical case studies etc. on fighting in cities: Urban Warfare Project - Modern War Institute
The now dormant Forum or Council on the mainly American website Small Wars Journal has a thread 'Urban / City Warfare', which started in 2005 and stopped in 2020. There are a range of articles (hopefully all the links work) amidst the 202 posts, both historical e.g. Stalingrad and then-contemporary Iraq. See: Urban / City Warfare (merged thread) There is a thread on the UK in Basra, which became a MWI article: Lessons were learnedor relearnedthe hard way, and now being forgotten The thread is open to all, although membership has been suspended. The Journal continues and there is more on the website, as the title suggests 'small wars', insurgency, counter-terrorism etc. Yes, I was - when the Forum was active till 2018 - and remain a moderator there. doing maintenance and adding posts irregularly..
All theory is grey.... From practical experience: 1 - Hearing protection !!! 2 - at least 2 full water bottles 3 - Dextrose 4 - med kit 5 - ammo 6 - ditto 7 - ditto 8 - ditto 9 - ditto 10 - ditto be prepared for: Confusion, more confusion, much more confusion... What the "high leadership delivers" in the way of situation reports (if at all - usually they are even more confused than you are), mostly has the reality content of computer games.....Also great: You have to reconnoitre a suspected enemy position - which you yourself reported cleared 15 minutes before. Nevertheless, interesting reading!
Itdan, The high rates of ammunition use (all types) is a perennial problem. The British Army a few years held an exercise in Southampton, assaulting an empty tower block and as I recall they ran out of ammunition. It is not in the SWJ Forum thread. Instead the details of this 2011 exercise and links are in the first comment shown, not in the article itself: A Proposed Framework for Appreciating Megacities: A US Army Perspective | Small Wars Journal
This article may be of interest, the author Frank Ledwidge has written a couple of books on modern British military campaigns: Ukraine war: what are Russia's strategic aims and how effectively are they achieving them? RUSI, a Whitehall "think tank2 is holding an online event open to all on Monday 7/3/22 2-3pm. The speaker is an American analyst, Michael Kofman. The notice says: Booking via the event page, the actual registration closes tomorrow 4/3/22: https://rusi.org/events/open-to-all/analysing-performance-russian-armed-forces-ukraine
Since it hasn't been mentioned yet, I'll throw it out there that many thought-provoking articles produced by this journal were aggregated into a book.
I understand from his chat on ww2talk that our user Wapen is writing his PhD on urban warfare and lessons learned (correctly or incorrectly).
The Modern Warfare Institute is currently headed by John Spencer and on Twitter I found this recommendation: John Spencer tweets as @SpencerGuard His thread on 26/2/22 is worth a look and this tweet by an ex-USMC, of Ukrainian origin has some good points: https://twitter.com/Nina_Raw1/status/1497623916004708357/photo/1 and https://twitter.com/Nina_Raw1/status/1497623939857760256/photo/1 That thread has been translated into Ukrainian.
Ehup Chris, Urban is just one chapter. I'm doing Op Veritable (Feb-Mar 45) and the battle for Goch has been a key part of British understanding of urban since. There were some false lessons drawn in the post-op assessment so I've tried to put those right. Chapter still in prodcution but here's a YouTube skit I did the other week:
Two articles on the theme, one by an academic (also an adviser to UK Army) and a former SWJ Forum member, who is not an academic. Some familiar themes and examples cited. 1) Urban Warfare is Not Exceptional » Wavell Room 2) https://wavellroom.com/2023/04/28/urban-is-not-exceptional-a-response/?
My anecdotal experience on this topic is from the lower tactical level, dates back to the last century and is mostly obsolete by now. Only this much: far more decisive than the physical is the mental exhaustion caused by the miserable situational awareness: urban warfare/CQB is (was) constant fighting in one big ambush. Motto: "Every day in urban warfare is like a birthday - it costs you a year of your life." Anyway, what I am getting at is: Since the battles in Syria and even more so in Ukraine, these nasty little FPV drones are increasingly playing a decisive role in improving this awareness, in some cases dramatically. And this is likely to increase significantly once such drones are available to the troops in significant numbers. (To what extent AI, networking and kamikaze/battle drones will have an additional impact here is something I can't even begin to grasp.) In any case, I am VERY curious to see what kind of technical concepts this will produce and how the use of such systems will affect urban warfare.
A commentary on this theme from the USA based "think tank" The Soufan Group: From: IntelBrief: Past as Prologue: The Challenge of Urban Warfare in Gaza - The Soufan Center
CQB is simply a blood mill. Plain and miserable. That is the nature of the matter. Says someone whose experience is limited to godforsaken villages in the Balkans decades ago.
