The military operations taking place in Ukraine between the Russian and Ukrainian Armed Forces, depending on the environment in which they take place, are divided into three categories, to which similar doctrines are applied. Thus another doctrine is followed for the attacker and the defender in case of conducting military operations in the countryside, in a semi-urban and in an urban environment.
As the Russian Forces have reached the point of besieging large Ukrainian cities, such as Kiev, Kharkov and Mariupol, it is necessary to analyze what the entry of armored-motor vehicles and these Special Forces into the Russian Forces will mean. According to the latest information, an escort of Russian forces was located near Kiev. It has one hundred armored personnel carriers and tanks. Explosions and shootings are heard in various parts of Kiev.
War in an urban environment
In the urban environment, weapon systems are losing their value and others are gaining new momentum, while the most important thing to keep in mind is that motorized and armored forces are particularly vulnerable, losing many of their main capabilities.
The military art and science is dominated by the axiom that the power of any weapon system is not absolute but relative and takes into account the geographical environment that will be called to use. In today’s world, therefore, a new geographical reality is developing. That of the huge urban and semi-urban complexes that are often integrated with each other, creating vast spaces which can create many problems and losses to the attacker.
Recent or relatively recent examples are many, such as Mogadishu, Grozny, Mitrovica, Beirut, Kabul, Baghdad, Gaza.
A pioneer in understanding the diversity of the war in populated areas was Stalingrad, where in World War II the then defending and now attacking Russians, ironically, stopped the Germans by capturing General Fon’s 6th German Army. The Battle of Berlin followed in Germany at the end of World War II. Both of these conflicts showed that the dominant weapon system for this battlefield is the ruthless infantryman, since the “urban field” is a peculiar and with its own rules battle theater.
The changes are many and radical. In a similar geographical environment, unique challenges are born for the current fighter. First, many weapons systems lose their value and others gain new momentum.
First of all, this internationally recorded change in the way of fighting arose from the demographic data, as the population of the cities increased fivefold by the beginning of the 20th century. More than two hundred and eighty cities in the world have at least one million inhabitants. Twenty-six cities have a population of over seven million.
In 2025, 2/3 of the world’s population will live in cities, while some claim that the rate will rise to 85% in 2050. As a matter of fact, the main political, economic, social and cultural fabric has developed in the big cities, where the transport and telecommunications axes intersect, while these urban structures are under the media spotlight.
By the end of the Cold War, armies had been formed so that they could clash “frontally” in open fields. War in cities was, in their education, essentially a sub-paragraph, one of the secondary scenarios of education. And of course, the mass bombing of cities as it did in 1944 is a long way off.
Today – of course, the battles are focused on specific points, of course helping the precision weapons and increased point power that have been developed.
On the other hand, there is now the philosophy – which is also based on economic data – that collateral losses in people and infrastructure must be minimized. The victorious forces want to quickly install “control and stabilization mechanisms” rather than rebuild necessary infrastructure they have already destroyed
Thus, unlike large theaters of border or regional battles, the urban environment is a labyrinth with many dimensions, such as underground metro stations, warehouses, sewers, parking lots, underground networks, streets, squares, dead ends, as well as and buildings with floors in every possible form (historic centers, shopping streets, residential areas, working-class apartment buildings, shopping malls, high-rise buildings).
The use of Civilians as a “Shield” of the Defenders
This maze offers the war, especially if it has the support of a significant part of the population, an element that exists in today’s “asymmetric” conflicts, a “protective cover” that allows a seemingly weaker opponent to gain a regular advantage in military confrontation. In the new battlefield approach, the presence of the civilian population is a key point. “Residents are usually the victims, but sometimes they take part in the clashes in rotation, separately or simultaneously.”
Inside the city, the threat comes from everywhere. Every street, every neighborhood can become a small business theater. The units are usually scattered, cut off. You are constantly in “duel” conditions, whatever weapons are used. You need to try to identify which of the residents are involved, active, dangerous and which are not difficult. And you always act under the watchful eye of the media. Fighting in residential areas is undoubtedly one of the most difficult, because it can not focus on killing the opponent.
The need to use reasonable violence by the attacker is a complex task, especially when within the same crowd, the motives, the actual actions and the means used are different.The situation itself is evolving rapidly, both in space and time. Such conditions require great composure, perfect tolerance, unshakable confidence on the part of soldiers.
Resistance within cities (or urban type masts) becomes more favorable for the defender, especially when he has at his side an insurgent crowd that easily turns into a “city guerrilla” that has a natural ally the streets, burrows, basements, parks, the sewers, the buildings, the terraces and so on.
In addition, the new environment has imposed new weapons on city “defenders”, such as improvised explosive devices, new types of anti-tank missiles and rockets in new applications, IEDs (improvised explosive devices).
As a result, it was natural for large armies to add weapons, equipment and techniques in view of the risk of being involved in some phase of their mission in urban battles. This did not happen either quickly or “once and for all”.
The U.S. military, which has carried out more than 20 military operations in civilian or civilian areas since 1980, began changing tactics after the failed 1993 operation in Mogadishu, Somalia.
According to experts, he developed new techniques – scattered battle units, interconnection – communication of soldiers, satellite tracking, armed or manned aircraft, etc. – and then tried them in Iraq and Afghanistan. By implementing these new tactics, the Marines estimated that they could significantly reduce their losses.
In both the United States and other large military countries, new types of training centers have been created for urban exercises: old huge camps, abandoned remote neighborhoods, and new structures have been transformed into modern training grounds.
At the same time, new weapons, new tactical – interdisciplinary – new information networks and (aerial) surveillance and surveillance were added to the arsenal. The use of traditional weapons systems has been changed or adapted – including armor.
The Americans invested huge amount of funds to strengthen armor or prevent rocket fire from close range. The “civilian battlefield” is finally taking on another status.
For example, France has developed and incorporated into its Armed Forces the “Military Training Center for Urban Areas” which started operating in 2006 and which with its continuous extensions will be able to provide training on a constitutional scale and in almost real conditions in 2011.
The infantryman is the weapon system of the future anyway, as has been shown by operations in a geographical environment that has nothing to do with cities.
Strengthening urban training is crucial to maintaining a military’s combat capabilities in the 21st century. The combat capability of an army is a dynamic quantity that takes on a dialectical relation to the environment in which it will be called to act. And today’s geographical environment is dominated by a new reality. That of extensive urban areas
Another factor that favors the upgrade of the infantryman to the “fundamental weapon system of the beginning of the 21st century” is the dramatic increase in the volume of fire it possesses and its ability to operate in combination with long-range precision weapons in a network-centric environment.
What we need to know about military operations in residential areas
Group – Squadron training is considered the basis of knowledge that must have anyone who acts defensively or aggressively in residential areas and it includes theoretical and practical training and practice, which relates to the following subjects:
Theoretical training
• Initial update and security update.
• Presentation of armament.
• Defense operations in residential areas.
• Individual skills.
• Attack on a building.
• Building clearance by Team.
• Trapping information.
• Home defense.
• Target pointing at upcoming armor.
• Operations below ground level (where possible).
Practical training
• Election and occupation of a battle position within the residential area, movement within it alone or within the group.
• Organization-construction of battle positions within the residential area.
• Shots of portable Anti-tank weapons, if possible through prefabricated buildings.
• Technique of entering a room by a couple of men, clearing a house by a group of Riflemen.
• Removal of mines and other mechanisms.
• Trapping doors and other objects inside the house.
• Locate and avoid trapped and other suspicious areas.
• Shotguns day and night with night-vision binoculars, with special emphasis on short distances, in suddenly appearing targets, from all shooting positions.
• Shooting with a sniper rifle.
• Possibility of carrying out small-scale disasters (opening of entrance holes, destruction of small buildings).
• Variation and adjustment of color, shape, shine, shade within residential areas.
• Grenade fire in open and closed space, from all positions of the shooter and definitely through windows or holes.
• Adjusting the mask and maintaining it for a long time.
• Fire discipline.
• Orientation within residential areas.
• Climbing – descending a ladder.
• Descent with a rope, from the roof of a building or a helicopter and simultaneous execution of a shot.
• Climbing with a rope and hook and entering the building through the window.
• Roadside mining and mine trapping.
• Easy to operate mine detector.
• Construction of improvised incendiary devices.
• Classification of buildings.
• Effects of weapons – Regular and technical use in residential areas.
• Fire management.
• Use of chariots – TOMA, support firearms, AT weapons, Reconnaissance, Engineer.
• Development of communications.
• Placing obstacles – mines – explosives.
• Procedure of transportation – hospitalization of battle casualties.
• Exploitation – Exploitation of the civilian population.
• Night Training.
• Conducting Regular Exercise After Troops (TAMS) Group level for “House cleaning” and “Home Defense”.
• Conducting Regular Exercise After Troops (TAMS) at the level of Motorized Infantry Squadron – Ulamos Medium Tankers for “Defense – Offensive Operations”.
We note that with the completion of this type of exercise, the staff has gained valuable experience in conducting operations in an urban type environment, but at the same time conclusions are drawn in order to improve both the way the departments operate and the training of staff in it.
The morale factor is a catalyst
The morale factor is the catalyst for both the defender and the attacker on businesses in a residential area. Losses in residential areas are always high for both the attacker and the defender. That is why Vladimir Putin is trying to lower the morale of Ukrainian defenders, with sermons-urgings to the Ukrainian soldiers and especially the Ukrainian people, to overthrow the Zelensky government and stop fighting.
The Russian president’s ultimate goal is for the Ukrainians to capitulate and not be forced to invade inside the cities by the Russian army to occupy them. The superiority of the Russian army in tanks and motor vehicles, in artillery and fighter jets against the Ukrainians will not play a role there either, but the soul and the courage of the fighter.
