Eli5: Why is Urban warfare feared as the most difficult form of warfare for a military to conduct?
In: 1719
Because you have to worry about killing innocent people. If they enemy is in a field, you just drop bombs on them and automatically win. You can’t drop bombs on a shopping mall, and so you have to expose your vulnerable troops and send them into urban areas to win (if you don’t just level the cities).
Why don’t psychopaths just bomb everything and win?
Because much of the value of capturing an area lies in its infrastructure. The winner of all-out war gets a bombed-out patch of dirt as a prize.
literally everything is a booby trap and everywhere is an ambush. any “safe place to rest” is a death trap for those resting
I can think of exactly 2 strategies that are effective in urban warfare. One of them is extremely expensive in terms of manpower, time, and risk. The other one is to kill everyone inside that urban area. Either way it goes, it’s a complete fucking nightmare to have to deal with.
You are concentrated into tight spaces like hallways and streets, with limited cover and no camouflage, surrounded by an infinite amount of positions the enemy could be holding, corners, windows, doorways, cars, rooftops etc. its basically just tactical hell. in every corner of every room of every building on every street could be an enemy who has a keyhole sightline on you. there is no possible way to not potentially have your back to the enemy.
Lots of places for the enemy to hide. Also, you most likely have to clear every house, every street, making it even more difficult.
Imagine a new friend trying to beat you at hide and seek in your own home… now multiply that by a billion.
Urban warfare is the most highly dynamic and dangerous situation to find yourself. They are filled with fatal funnels, vertical danger, dead space literally everywhere and almost no ideal way to move. Room Clearing is a slow and terrifying process because the room you are going through has very limited entrances and your team is about to go through one into a room filled with who knows what and who. In short -its unpredictable and almost impossible to cover every possible ambush point simultaneously.
Imagine you are standing in an open field so large there are no trees as far as you can see.You have perfect visibility to the horizon, no-one can sneak up on you, no-one can snipe you, you can see everything. Sounds will be easy to identify. Vehicles have free range to manoeuvre.
Now you are in a rocky meadow surrounded by forest with the old low wall running through the surrounds. Suddenly you can’t see past the forest, and the rocks are perfect hiding places, but at least you can see the tanks or the helicopters. Sounds will be muffled, but clearly identified once they exit the trees. Vehicles have free range to manoeuvre within the clearing keeping clear of the rocks. The ground provides good cover particularly if you are on a hill.
Now you are in a forest, not good, you can’t see very far, too many trees. But the enemy has the same problem. Sounds are muffled to some extent, but others can travel far. You need to keep watch at all times, head on a swivel and all that.. BUT you also have to look up into the trees for sniper nests. Vehicles are unusable. Every gap could be an IED (Improvised Explosive Device).
Now you are in the middle of street of a major city, pick any. Look at this image:
https://goo.gl/maps/ZWbH3zuUTEZQP4Kb9
***Every*** window is an enemy position and every single one is HIGHER than you. Every building is a warren of small rooms and even worse choke points. Every car is hiding an enemy behind it. Every low wall is hiding an enemy. There are subway entrances that could be holding hundreds of soldiers ready to pour forth. That building next to you could be holding a battalion and you wouldn’t know it. Sounds will echo and reverb and reflect making it hard to pinpoint direction. The sun will be hidden for much of the day. Vehicles are restricted to a single path, betwen the buildings with easy ways to stop or block their progress. Every gap less than a few meters is an IED waiting to happen. In narrow alleys or corridors, explosions will be concentrated due to the narrow corridors and hard floors and walls making them more lethal. Glass will explode making it hard to be stealthy and causing additional fragmentation effects. Civilians abound, and how do you know they are real or pretending? Extraction via helicopter is difficult (if not impossible). Supply lines are easily cut and if you only have enough force to cover one city block, you can be surrounded easily with every exit cut off.
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[Urban warfare is the worst](https://mwi.usma.edu/city-not-neutral-urban-warfare-hard/) and is one of the reasons some forces choose to just flatten the entire city instead
> The American unit that executed the Aachen operation did it with massive amounts of artillery and mortars. The attacking unit adopted a catchphrase—“Knock ’em all down”—that reflected both its systematic approach to destroying buildings and a complete lack of concern for collateral damage.
As an ex-tanker, for us the danger is the sheer volume of dead angles (both horizontal and *especially* vertical), the difficulty of moving around and how easy it is to trap us. In classic movie fashion you could park an “abandoned” tractor or bus on a side streets, wait till we cross and just park it right behind us and we wouldnt even hear it till its too late.
For infantry, its the same rules really. IEDs and basic traps are stupidly easy to set up, enemies in buildings have height advantage and often will know the area better so they can prepare and defend much easier. For those assaulting, unlike say an field or a large open area, you need to watch every damn corner, up and below you to stay safe. You have to check every closet, behind every couch and every door because someone can be hiding there with a gun or a suicide vest. Its also a logistical nightmare to organize and supply.
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