Modern War Institute: Defending the City – An Overview of Defensive Tactics from the Modern History of Urban Warfare

I came across this article by the also informative duo of John Spencer and Jayson Geroux. The full article is worth a read and can be found below, but I wanted to pull out a relevant excerpt from the article that would apply to a partisan force.

https://mwi.usma.edu/defending-the-city-an-overview-of-defensive-tactics-from-the-modern-history-of-urban-warfare/


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Mouseholes and Tunnels

Streets and alleyways in urban warfare can become death traps for both attackers and defenders. The defenders should seek to remain hidden before and during their operation to increase their survivability. The tactic of using mouseholes—holes created in interior and exterior walls of buildings that allow soldiers to move through the exterior walls and interior spaces of buildings—is without question one of the most dominant recurring defense techniques found in urban warfare history. Holes can be made manually with sledgehammers and other tools or with explosives. Tunnels and subterranean spaces can be created between battle positions and when there is an existing underground network, it should be maximized for force protection and mobility.

ISIS fighters in the 2017 Battle of Marawi in the Philippines used mouseholes and tunnels under and through houses to enable movement to and from battle positions and to move to alternate position if they were at risk of being overrun. The mouseholes and tunnels also allowed militants to escape massive aerial bombardments and maneuver against Philippine military forces, ultimately contributing to the amount of collateral damage required to retake the city. During the 1945 the Battle of Berlin, German soldiers proved adept at using the city’s extensive underground transportation, sewage, and other infrastructure networks. The tunnels were used to care for wounded, maintain lines of communication, shelter noncombatants, and conduct attacks. One Soviet commander, Marshal Ivan S. Koniev, recalled that the German forces’ “use of the underground structures caused a good deal of trouble. . . . [German soldiers] emerg[ed] from the underground communications [and] fired on motor vehicles, tanks, and gun crews.”

Caches

The defense allows a force to pre-position ammunition, medical supplies, water, and rations. Urban terrain provides great advantages for hidden, protected, and concealed pre-positioned supply points to support multiple primary, alternate, and supplementary battle positions. Attacking forces have the major disadvantage because they are forced to bring their resources forward with vehicles or dismounted personnel and require resources to protect lines of communications to support resupply traffic.

The Germans at the Battle of Ortona had neatly stacked rifle magazines resting on windowsills, along with boxes of grenades and piles of antitank mines in pre-selected rooms, thus allowing them to be unconcerned about the burden of carrying all their required supplies with them as they fought and moved between positions. Japanese naval defense forces preparing for the attack of the US 6th Army at the Battle of Manila put caches in sewers to support their extensive network of battle positions.

Rapidly Emplaced Hasty Obstacles

The urban environment offers a multitude of large objects that allow defending forces the ability to create obstacles both inside and outside of buildings. Vehicles can be repositioned to block streets, furniture can be thrown into staircases, and concertina wire and remotely detonated explosive devices can be added to hinder easy movement between floors and into entryways of buildings. Concrete barriers, cars, buses, construction vehicles, dumpsters, furniture, and tires can be moved into streets and flipped over to channel, divert, or halt enemy armored fighting vehicles or dismounted personnel.

During a significant battle in Sadr City, Iraq on April 4, 2004, Mahdi militiamen and their sympathizers rapidly constructed hasty obstacles made of refrigerators, vehicle engine blocks and axles, rolls of concertina wire, wooden furniture, heaps of burning trash, and rotting meat that stopped American HMMWVs, infantry fighting vehicles, and at times even M1 Abrams tanks. At the 1950 Battle of Seoul, North Koreans made barricades of sandbags, vehicles, debris, and anything else they could get their hands on. The barricades were used to block roads, protect strongpoints, and establish an overall barricade defense system with some obstacles so strong it took UN forces days to clear them.

Hit-and-Run, Antiarmor Ambushes

If the enemy chooses a single axis of advance or if the terrain and defense plan successfully channel the attacker down main roads, the use of mobile antiarmor ambushes has historically shown great success. The use of both static and mobile positions with clear engagement and disengagement criteria only strengthens an urban defense scheme of maneuver. Small, lightweight, lethal, hit-and-run teams armed with antitank weapons can achieve momentum-stopping effects on enemy forces and attrit attacking forces while the defenders continue to draw them into their main defensive area.

During the 1994–95 First Battle of Grozny, Chechnya, Chechen separatists perfected the use of antiarmor ambushes against Russian conventional forces attempting to seize the city. The rebels used small, nonstandard squads with as few as two men as mobile antitank teams. These elements, armed with only AK-47s, grenades, and RPG-7s or RPG-18s, engaged Russian armored vehicles from either basements or upper stories of buildings, where main tanks and other weapons could not effectively return fire. Once in their trap, ambush teams would strike the vulnerable points of Russian tanks and armored personnel carriers, hit the lead and trail vehicles, quickly withdraw, and then move up the flanks to strike the now paralyzed Russian columns again. Between January 1 and January 3, 1995, the Russian 131st Motorized Rifle Brigade lost 102 of 120 armored vehicles and twenty of twenty-six tanks due to these and other methods. Out of the thirty-one T-80BV tanks sent into Grozny with the 3rd Tank Battalion, 6th Tank Regiment, only one tank survived the battle fully operational.

Snipers

Snipers are a force multiplier while conducting a defense. The urban environment offers snipers and even minimally trained marksmen thousands of protected hide sites and concealed firing lines, including through multiple buildings. Snipers throughout the history of urban warfare have been a dominating feature due to their ability to cause extreme havoc on attacking forces in urban terrain.

The Battle of Stalingrad epitomizes the use of snipers in urban warfare. While the Russians were on the defensive in Stalingrad in 1942, their snipers proved devastating to German forces. Snipers during the battle became national heroes, tallying hundreds of kills. Famous Soviet snipers, like Vasily Ivanovich Zaitsev, mastered the urban terrain and developed new tactics such as using pipes or old barrels as hide sites and making unimaginable shots. The effectiveness of the snipers had a devastating real and physiological impact on the Germans.

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By Published On: February 16, 2022Categories: Commentary, News and Links, TacticalComments Off on Modern War Institute: Defending the City – An Overview of Defensive Tactics from the Modern History of Urban Warfare

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About the Author: Patriotman

Patriotman currently ekes out a survivalist lifestyle in a suburban northeastern state as best as he can. He has varied experience in political science, public policy, biological sciences, and higher education. Proudly Catholic and an Eagle Scout, he has no military experience and thus offers a relatable perspective for the average suburban prepper who is preparing for troubled times on the horizon with less than ideal teams and in less than ideal locations. Brushbeater Store Page: http://bit.ly/BrushbeaterStore

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