ARMORED WARFARE: Master of the Urban Battlefield
Strategy Page
February 26, 2005: Based on recent Israeli experience in Palestinian towns, and American experience in Iraq, the world’s armies are rethinking long held ideas about how to use armored vehicles in urban areas. There have been several surprises in this Israeli and American experience. First of all, it's understood that tanks can effectively work in urban areas, and armored vehicles of all sorts are an asset there. The conventional wisdom was that armor was too vulnerable in cities, and that infantry alone was able to clear out enemy resistance.
It’s true that armored vehicles are, in theory, more vulnerable amongst all those buildings. But if the vehicles are built to defeat, or resist most of the enemy close range weapons, and the entire team of infantry and tanks are well trained for city fighting, then the tanks turn out to be a major asset. This is the key to making armor work in urban areas; preparation. The Israelis analyzed the complexities of urban warfare and concluded that armor, lots of armor, could give them major advantages. Speed was possible with armored vehicles, as was keeping your troops protected from a lot of the enemy fire. Specialized armored vehicles, like giant, armored bulldozers, allowed you to literally go through buildings and quickly clear roadblocks. Armored vehicles carry a lot of firepower. Even the armor piercing shells from the tanks main gun can be useful in street fighting.
The other key element was information. Having lots of helicopters and UAVs overhead, equipped with vidcams, that were streaming the video to the combat commanders below. That degree of information, augmented by electronic eavesdropping and lots of patrols, gives the attacking armored force an information advantage. Speed, and information, is what makes armor work in urban areas. That, and the willingness to innovate. For example, Israeli tankers noted that when tanks were off by themselves, they had a blind spot in the back when they were in alleys or narrow streets. So the rear door of their Merkava (which leads to a compartment holding either ammo, or a few infantrymen) was modified so that a sniper could operate a rifle out the back door. This covered the rear. It was also noted that the key to survival in urban area was alertness. You had to be able to spot booby traps, roadside bombs and snipers quickly. This was where the infantry really earned their way. Extra eyes and ears were very valuable.
The eyes and ears are still valuable, but increasingly they are electronic and carried (and powered) by the armored vehicles. Two such systems have already been used in Iraq. There’s the PDCue countersniper system, that uses sensors to instantly provide the direction, elevation, distance, caliber, miss distance; and GPS coordinates of the sniper. This is information is shown on a visual display, that is overlaid on standard military electronic maps. This eliminates the problem of “where did that come from.” But systems like PDCue are expensive, and in Iraq and Afghanistan, snipers are not a widespread problem (the bad guys are rarely good shots.) But PDCue has been in development for over a decade, and will eventually get cheap and accurate enough to be a standard piece of vehicle equipment. That has already happened with thermal imagers, which are very useful in urban warfare at night or when there’s a lot of fog or smoke about.
Video cameras (vidcams) have also become cheap and effective, and are part of remote controlled gun systems found on Stryker vehicles. Some troops have improvised their own vehicle based security camera systems, allowing one guy inside an armored vehicle to keep an eye on several different directions at once. You can also use night vision vidcams, making it much more dangerous to try and sneak up on an armored vehicle at night.
Armored vehicles can also carry lots of the new combat robots being used in Iraq. These robots began years a go as remotely controlled vehicles for bomb squads. But now they are as small as a suitcase, carry more powerful cameras and batteries, and can be thrown through a window. Clearing a building is a lot safer if you have more electronic eyes watching the proceedings, and robots you can send in first.
The new Israeli and American tactics take advantage of new technology, but build off successful American urban warfare tactics that go back to World War II. While armored vehicles are still vulnerable in cities, they carry firepower (especially new tank shells designed for street fighting) that can more quickly deal with anyone hiding in a building. All that new technology is heavy and bulky, and you can get it into place a lot faster using armored vehicles, that the backs of infantrymen. |
