High Intensity Urban Combat Part 1: How is it Different?
Will urban tactics of the GWOT change when we must fight the "next Stalingrad?"
This article is adapted from our High Intensity Military Urban Combat book which we plan to publish here on Substack in serial form. We offer special thanks to the courageous members of our team who have volunteered to deploy overseas to current conflict zones. Their real-time feedback has proven invaluable for our analysis.
How must urban combat tactics change if the United States and its allies find themselves in a high-intensity conventional war against a modern, combined arms force like Russia, China or North Korea? While many tactics and general principles will remain the same, there are some very important differences between high-intensity conventional urban combat and the sort of precision Close Quarters Battle (CQB) that the U.S. military adopted while fighting low-intensity conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Modern military doctrine for CQB and Military Operations in Urban Terrain (MOUT) traces its origin to hostage rescue tactics. Beginning with the British 22nd Special Air Service Regiment (SAS), counterterrorist units became the experts in room clearing and CQB. Because their focus was hostage rescue, their tactics demanded a very high degree of precision and target discrimination.
After September 11, 2001, the United States and its allies found themselves embroiled in numerous counterinsurgency and low-intensity conflicts around the globe. Because these conflicts also demanded tactics that focused on precision and target discrimination, conventional military units were able to adapt counterterrorist CQB tactics (and in some cases law enforcement tactics) to the new battlefield. However, in the event of a conventional war, urban tactics may need to evolve once again. Below are six critical factors that military units will need to consider when preparing for high-intensity conventional urban combat:
1) Greater Freedom for Heavy Weapons and Firepower:
In a combined-arms urban fight, it is likely that civilians will either have evacuated prior to the battle or will be doing everything they can to stay out of the way. Even if civilians remain on the battlefield, accidental civilian deaths are often accepted as a tragic but unavoidable reality of high-intensity warfare. As a result, military commanders on both sides will have much more freedom in their application of heavy weapons and firepower. Tactics like tossing fragmentation grenades through windows, firing machineguns through walls and using airburst artillery to clear rooftops will suddenly become both acceptable and necessary. This will require breaking many habits learned during the Global War on Terror (GWOT).
2) Increased Danger for Room and Building Clearing:
When facing an adversary armed with machine guns, mines, booby traps, high explosives and artillery, the task of clearing an enemy-held room or building becomes much more dangerous. A platoon or company-sized element might clear a building successfully, only to die in a massive explosion as the enemy detonates pre-positioned demolition charges, bringing the entire building down. In many cases, units will want to avoid going into a room or building at all and instead use firepower to neutralize threats from a distance.
3) Effects of Building Damage and Rubble:
The intense employment of machine guns, artillery and explosives will greatly change the urban landscape. Military units used to clearing normal rooms in a counterinsurgency fight will be surprised when they open a door and almost fall multiple stories down because half of the building is gone. Buildings may be damaged, unstable, on fire, or filled with smoke. When buildings are completely destroyed, the tangled mass of rubble can provide even more effective defensive positions. Military units might benefit from talking with firefighters about how to move and operate in heavily damaged buildings.
4) Mouse-holes and New Clearing Challenges:
Enemy defensive measures will make the urban terrain even more complex. Enemies might create holes in the floor so they can drop grenades into the rooms below or cut holes in the walls to use as firing/observation ports. Enemies might booby-trap stairwells or rip out the stairs completely and instead rely on retractable rope ladders. Both sides will also avoid using doors if possible and instead use explosives, heavy shells or armored vehicles to “mouse-hole” through walls. Military units might want to study World War II battles to relearn many “dirty tricks” of urban combat that have not been used for decades. Studying contemporary high-intensity conflicts like Ukraine can also prove useful.
5) Increased Importance of Underground Combat:
Sewers and subway tunnels will become much more important in conventional urban warfare since they offer hidden routes to move around the city without being exposed to direct fire and artillery. However, these narrow passages can also become deathtraps if the enemy clears them using explosives or flamethrowers. Both sides will need to learn new techniques for fighting and surviving underground.
6) Dramatic Increase in Casualties:
Casualties in an urban fight are typically very high. Units must prepare mentally, physically and tactically to absorb a large number of casualties and keep fighting. More importantly, on the modern battlefield, combatants on both sides may wear highly effective, modern body armor. This will save more lives but it may also mean that a much higher percentage of casualties will be wounded (WIA) as opposed to killed (KIA). A large number of WIA presents a far more difficult logistical challenge for evacuation than an equal number of KIA. Military forces might need to reorganize and augment their MEDEVAC and medical treatment capabilities to deal with numbers of WIA that could exceed any historical precedent.
The six points above are only a few of the many new urban warfare challenges that will emerge in the event of a high-intensity conventional conflict. Special Tactics staff members continue to study both historical and contemporary cases to predict what urban warfare will look like should the U.S. and/or NATO become involved in a major conflict. In future High-Intensity Urban Warfare articles we will share some specific tactics that have proven and are currently proving effective.
We hope you found the short article useful and once again we welcome your reactions, comments or suggestions below in the chat area. We want to promote constructive discussions on tactics with people from various tactical backgrounds and experience levels.
"In many cases, units will want to avoid going into a room or building at all and instead use firepower to neutralize threats from a distance."
This brought a smile to my face. What you've described is what I'd call "old-fashioned, but good". :-)
Because my service (Australian infantry) was pre-Iraq, pre-GWOT etc, we never trained in any of the subtleties of room clearing that you've described in other articles, and which I've never really understood.
When training for fighting through urban terrain (which I admit we didn't do a lot of) we kept it simple, aka WW2 style. Structures were generally to be prepared via M-79 rounds through windows from a distance, grenades and automatic fire through doors and walls up close, and then entry if necessary. M72 and Carl Gustav were also options for heavier structures.
The idea of entering a building or a room in a building without first preparing it with fire makes me shudder. The old school method is expensive in munitions, particularly grenades, and destructive, but I think it beats the hell out of being first through the door into a room full of enemy.
I'll clarify also that I'm talking about fighting through enemy occupied defensive positions in urban terrain. Patrolling into a "peaceful" village full of civilians and possibly not-so-civilians is a different matter altogether.
Thanks for a very interesting piece on what is an important and necessary paradigm shift. I'm looking forward to the follow-up articles.
BEWARE: Verboten. The reference to Ukraine is of a centuries old campaign of Genocide. There is zero war inside Ukraine. The western Mind often resides in minor periodicities. Yes, minor squabbles like Korea, Vietnam, Iraq's, Afghanistan, etc.
Not a single combatant that went to Vietnam, Korea, Iraq was bred to abduct Vietnamese, Koreans for Human trafficking/slavery. If so, where are those documented films/photographs?
But the ancient Muscovy families bred to butcher and mass abduct Ukrainians. Bi-annual sex-slave caravans expedited into Ukraine's hinterland to mass abduct little Ukrainian boys for depravation then sale to the prime Ruuzzkie client, the very demanding muslim Ottoman empire slave buyer. Huge numbers of boys were needed as castration was a high death occurrence. Likewise, The most gold for the tsars GNP came from perfect little Ukrainian girls. "Lolita" packages were demanded to be perfect as the muslim standards for the official harem paid huge weight in gold.
As site administrators, it may be difficult to "educate" soldiers of the past 75 years that this 2025 Genocide is a inner need to return to Muscovy families genetic roots born in legal Genocide and slavery. The first thing that Putin's "Little Green Groomer" military did in 2014 was trade "Lolita: packages with local insurgents paid by the NAZI-like FSB. Local ruuzzkie butchers knew exactly where "Lolita" packages lived and basement butchery solved the parental problem. The locals traded for ammo/vehicles/heavy guns etc as the packages were air shipped to very needy russian language instructors and table top dance instructing ruzzkie style.
The language since 2014 must not use the word war. It is a cultural Genocide of Ukrainians, that all acknowledge eventually with some education.
The USA has a real mental barrier. If it is stated that the Ukrainian Fathers of 1616 fought this identical Muscovy ethic family Cabal and won in 1616, well, that requires a knowledge of centuries of Kremlin sent ruuzzkie deviants sent to legally mass degrade and mass abduct little Ukrainian children for sale for muslim gold. That was five hundred years back. There was zero concept of the USA as a nation, only colonies with hatred of the French or Spanish.
That the POTUS Obama Democrat Cabal of 2008-14 unilaterally, covertly, green lit the re-start of this 1000 year old Genocide is also a large topic, not so much as your focus.
Yes, Ukrainian children in 2014 knew that their sisters, mothers would be mass abducted for human trafficking. That was a prime ancient goal of these Muscovy Kremlin ruuzzkies. In 2022 Ukrainian kids ran out with their drones to help their friend and neighbours locate armour + tanks loaded with orc level butchers direct out of Moscow.
That is where your organization + articles should start. The innovative spirit of Cossack children who swiftly evolved in asymmetric spatial dimensions dragging the ancient military of the WEST with them. The existential dilemma of a repeat of a 1000 years of ruuzzkie Kremlin butchery was on every child's moral mind scape. The ruuzzkie low level orcs obliged with instant degradation and butchery to/of Ukrainians. Twelve years later, hundreds of thousands of grown-up kids try to survive in the meat grinder front line the vicious betrayal of 1994 US Budapest blather.
That the PRC CCP Xi regime has a LONG GAME with its covert funding of kremlin vassal Putin should fill your articles. Debate in your pages of the start date of WW3 is intrinsic to the concepts of Urban warfare that Ukrainian Children have lived the past 12 years.
The worry: Located inside the USA, the cognitive + moral ability of your group leaders to transcend that limitation is to be determined. Periodicity seems your enemy. The MAGA POTUS may make decisions that devastate those millions of fighting Ukrainians that live out the daily urban Genocide attacks and the meat grinder front trenches of the Genocide line. Poof, like independent state of Karpathian Ukraine of March 16, 1939, WW2 immediately started and zap, 30-40 percent of Karpathian Ukraine were butchered or on the way to the Gulag. Who in the USA even wants to understand urban warfare of this nation? A hundred dollars to the best article that describes the reasons the component WEST ignored the death of this nation and then the restoration after the formal end of WW3. -30-