The MOUTing Challenge: and the New Zealand Army’s Need to Prepare
Abstract
Operations in urban environments are a persistent feature of military affairs. As Western technology has outstripped our adversaries, they have adapted to use this most complex terrain, limiting the utility of Western firepower and destructive force. This article examines several aspects of this dilemma from the perspective of New Zealand’s Army and suggests avenues of further development.
Introduction
The future of warfare is likely to become increasingly complex. Adversaries will employ irregular methods of attack, exploiting complex terrain such as mountains, forests, littoral environments, or urban areas. Such fighting has been an accepted feature of warfare. Whether in the Pacific jungles during the Second World War or insurgents in the alleyways of Baghdad, forces have sought to undermine their opponents’ technological superiority and greater firepower. The exploitation of complex terrain will continue to be a characteristic of tomorrow’s warfighting. Military operations in urban terrain (MOUT) will become a common experience for Western military forces in the future. This paper introduces a number of important points or recommendations to improve the New Zealand Army’s ability to conduct combat roles in such an environment.
Strategic Importance of Urban Areas
The US Army’s ‘thunder run’ into Baghdad did not herald some new development in war; urban warfare has been a frequent occurrence throughout history and the use of massed armoured and mechanised forces in sweeping reconnaissance-in-force drives through cities dates back at least to Vietnam.1 The restricted nature of urban warfare can make for exceptionally bloody battles that consume whole armies—as happened at Stalingrad, Monte Cassino, or Berlin. The inherent dangers of urban combat have not prevented conventional armed forces from continually being drawn into urban struggles. Metropolitan centres are important strategic objectives, representing economic, social and political power. While crucial during conventional warfare, built-up areas will become even more attractive during non-conventional hostilities.
Securing these population centres will be crucial to the achievement of operational and strategic objectives. At the same time, the differences between the tactical, operational and strategic levels of war become blurred. The compressed nature of urban areas means that small-unit actions can have significant implications for larger engagements. Moreover, the intensity of urban operations and the potential for non-combatant casualties—and hence possible political backlash—make tactical-level operations even more important for determining strategic victory.
Increased Rate of Global Urbanisation
The rate of urbanisation is expected to increase and much of it will occur in the developing world. For example, by 2015 the world population is expected to be more than seven billion, with 95 per cent of the increase occurring in poor or developing countries.2 Half the world’s population will be urbanised. The increase in urbanisation will not be restricted to the Middle East, South Asia, or South America; it will also be prevalent throughout the Pacific Rim. In 1970, the Asia-Pacific region had only eight cities in excess of five million inhabitants; today there are more than thirty.3
Developing nations often lack the political or social facilities to ensure order. With pollution, corruption and urban decay accompanying urbanisation, cities will attract criminals, terrorists and insurgents that base their ‘centre of gravity’ among the disgruntled urban populace. Urban areas are becoming the ‘citadels of the dispossessed and irreconcilable’.4 Although the potential for such situations to escalate into large-scale inter-state war is low, it is likely that armed forces will in future be engaged in city areas against insurgents. Furthermore, the proliferation of sophisticated communications systems allows combatants to remain connected through cyber-traffic whilst also employing discrete communication networks.
Physical Challenges of Urban Terrain
Urban environments offer unique military advantages to the defender. The complexity of such environments derives from the sheer number of elements within a confined space. The physical characteristics of urban areas require a different way of thinking about terrain, including comprehension of its multi-dimensional nature, its general forms and functions, and its size and scope. The total size of the surfaces and spaces of a built-up area is usually many times that of a similar-sized piece of natural terrain because of the complex blend of horizontal, vertical, interior, exterior and subterranean forms superimposed on the natural landscape.
Like other terrain, cities consist of airspace and surface areas. Additionally, there are manmade ‘super-surface’ areas (the roofs of buildings or towers) and ‘sub-surface’ areas (below ground level). Intra-surface areas, such as floors within buildings, provide another avenue of attack and are prone to intense combat. Reconnaissance and surveillance is limited in such environments, and they also provide a prime location for the emplacement of snipers, automatic weapons, light and medium anti-tank weapons, and man-portable air defence systems. Firing from within buildings also allows for top-down attacks onto the sensitive points of armoured vehicles or low-flying aircraft. Hence, built environs present more daunting challenges than their natural counterparts.
Urban environments provide the ultimate equaliser for insurgent forces that would be soundly and rapidly defeated in open terrain. The proliferation of heavy-calibre machineguns and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) provides insurgents with significant lethality, particularly within the confines of urban terrain. For example, in 1992, Russian T-72 tanks were destroyed in Tajikistan by rebels using swarmed RPGs.5 The first round breached the reactive armour, while the second and third rounds hit the exposed area of the tank. With the tank’s crew now blind, the rebel gunners re-positioned themselves to disable the tank. Other tactics included attacking the T-72 from its vulnerable rear and flank. The destruction of the Russian 131st Maykop Brigade during the 1994 attack on Grozny again demonstrated how urban terrain could channel conventional forces into a prepared ambush.6
The greater demand for combatants to conduct small-unit engagements at close range places a premium on new weapons capable of breeching walls, clearing rooms and destroying buildings. Minimising civilian casualties will require weapons that deliver force with precision and surgical effort while minimising secondary fragmentation damage. The New Zealand Army will need greater proficiency in close quarters battle to further assist overmatch against the threat force. The numerous avenues of attack mean that a platoon will generally be the minimum-sized unit when conducting mounted or dismounted operations.7 Given the high density of urban areas and potential for rapid escalation, section commanders will require access to important assets without referring up the chain of command. This includes advanced infantry weapons that can provide a precision and stand-off capability with overmatch, as well as enhanced body armour and access to unattended sensors for enhanced situational awareness.
The Importance of Precise Firepower
The 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq did not culminate in the much-feared Grozny-like battle for Baghdad. The ‘thunder runs’ into Baghdad were a coup de main that minimised the risk of large-scale urban warfare. Major General Buford Blount, Commander 3rd Infantry Division, made the decision to unleash the ‘thunder run’ with poor satellite photos, no human intelligence reports and little understanding of Iraqi defences.8 The Iraqi Army offered at times stiff resistance; however, they lacked any long-term or coordinated exploitation of urban environments, such as the use of mines, snipers or barricades.
The 2003 Iraq War illustrated the importance of armour in urban areas—when supported by infantry—to provide precise and high-value suppressive and destructive firepower. The supporting infantry-fighting vehicles, with their short barrel length, high barrel elevation and ability to manoeuvre, allowed for a large engagement envelope. For example, the Stryker Infantry Carrier Vehicle, similar to the New Zealand Defence Force’s recently acquired Light Armoured Vehicle III, was a valuable asset when isolating an objective in an urban environment. Stryker vehicles were used to drop off squads and then patrol the perimeter to isolate the objective and identify suspects fleeing the scene.
In a Special Defence Department briefing, Colonel Robert Brown, the commander of the US 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division in the Multinational Force – Northwest in Iraq, outlined the effectiveness of the Stryker in providing protection and mobility in urban areas.9 A December 2004 US Centre for Army Lessons Learned report argued that its slat armour was only effective against 50 per cent of RPG attacks and that the additional armour restricted manoeuvrability. However, the report also noted that a soldier’s body armour and minimal exposure outside the vehicle were successful in preventing injuries. Major Nicholas Mullen, 1st Brigade’s rear detachment commander, argued that ‘there were physically very few places that we couldn’t go within that urban terrain’.10
The Role of Non-Lethal Weapons
Casualty phobia has increased as technology has made war seem more clinical and bloodless, with increased accuracy in both information and weapons. This effect has combined with the pervasive products of globalisation as the media has unprecedented access and audience in modern conflict. The decision to use lethal force is now a strategic as well as tactical one because of the consequences on public opinion. The conundrum for tomorrow’s military is obvious: tolerance for casualties is low while the probability of urban combat is high.
When confronted with an irregular enemy, Coalition forces find innocent and opponent indistinguishable. While able to achieve a significant victory during the conventional stages of the Iraq War, they were ill-prepared for the subsequent deterioration of law and order. Maintaining civil order is an important aspect of the contemporary battlefield—and will be in future. The development of non-lethal weapons (NLW) could offer armed forces an effective means of achieving their objectives of modern war whilst minimising civilian casualties and reducing the amount of political ammunition for the urban opponent. Although such weapons are still in the development phase, their potential has already been aptly demonstrated.
For example, in March 1995, the US Marines, armed with non-lethal weapons, safeguarded the withdrawal of 2500 UN peacekeepers from Somalia.11 The lack of time available meant that the non-lethal systems selected used organic weapons systems within the Marine rifle company’s table of equipment. Due to training time limitations and increased combat load upon the Marine, the decision was made to acquire non-lethal munitions that could be fired from the M203 and the standard 12-gauge shotgun.12 Despite the efforts undertaken to prepare for the use of non-lethal weapons, these were not actually employed. Advanced efforts in the areas of diplomatic initiative and public awareness, complemented by the availability of heavy forces, meant there was little need for the use of non-lethal weapons. Important lessons extracted from the withdrawal from Somalia were the need to have compatibility between non-lethal munitions and existing weapons and training systems. Furthermore, clear and unambiguous rules of engagement were crucial. Lloyd Feldman, Assistant Director for the Pentagon’s Office of Force Transformation, stated: ‘The future of our military commitments is going to emphasize stability and reconstruction ... This venue is not a free-fire zone and killing field. You need some way of differentiating the good, the bad, and the ugly’.13
Although non-lethal weapons clearly have significant strategic value when operating in the future battlefield, there are numerous issues that must be taken into consideration. For example, future military leaders must comprehend the effectiveness and limitations of NLWs as well as the situations in which they are appropriate. The use of non-lethal weapons can also be expanded to be used against enemy radio or television broadcasts. It is also crucial to extend the range of non-lethal weapons out to 100 metres, out of the range of rock-throwers or rioters armed with Molotov cocktails. The decision to use non-lethal options must be made at the lowest possible level. For example, operations that intend to use non-lethal weapons must comprehend the fluidity of the future battlespace and its inherently unpredictable ability to transition instantly from humanitarian operations to warfighting. The commander’s ability to make sense of the chaos of battle will ultimately determine the success or failure of non-lethal weapons.
The Vulnerability of Combat Service Support
The current insurgency in Iraq has also illustrated how small units can exploit urban terrain to conduct co-ordinated attacks against enemy forces and supply convoys. Logistic support in urban areas is dangerous, resulting in vital equipment not being replaced or repaired. The strain upon ‘just in time’ logistics will become even greater considering the potential high rate of ammunition consumption by dispersed groups. It will be difficult to guarantee adequate protection for supply lines in urban areas if scarce infantry are already engaged in offensive operations. Combat service support elements will need to provide their own protection, whether during offensive, defensive or stability urban operations.
The Russians in Afghanistan and Chechnya found it essential to provide armour on the cabs of support trucks. Mogadishu, Northern Ireland, and Baghdad have reinforced the notion that in urban environments there is no ‘rear area’. Since support units will be required to defend themselves as well as come to the aid of other forces, every soldier will need to be trained and equipped to act as an infantryman.
The Role of Airpower
Heliborne forces are an obvious tactical option for urban penetration; however, they are vulnerable to small-arms fire. The vulnerability of US Task Force Ranger helicopters to small-arms fire was a bloody and important lesson from Somalia. The task force was unaware that ‘Aidid brought in fundamental Islamic soldiers from Sudan, experienced in downing Russian helicopters in Afghanistan, to train his men in RPG firing techniques’.14 Task Force Ranger failed to learn the significant lessons of the 10 Mountain Division Quick Reaction Force, which just eight days prior had lost a helicopter to enemy RPG fire. Conducting operations in daylight allowed the guerrillas to observe Task Force Ranger’s tactics and to target the helicopters. ‘Given the low altitudes and the relatively low air speed of TF Ranger’s helicopters, the helicopters were much more vulnerable than TF Ranger’s plans assumed.’15
Despite the evident lessons of Somalia and Chechnya about the vulnerability of helicopters in urban areas, they still have a role. For example, attack helicopters were successful in defending US forces from being overrun in Somalia on 3–4 October 1993, while the AC-130 gunship has provided lethal and precise firepower on numerous occasions in Iraq. During the first battle of Nasiriyah on 5 April 2004, the Italian marines were exposed to lethal fire from the rooftops of buildings, which could have been destroyed from the air.16 The amount of training and preparedness of crews is crucial to their ability to operate in an urban environment.
The physical characteristics of urban areas can significantly undermine situational awareness. By obstructing line of sight, high buildings can neutralise key sensors. The short sight distances in urban settings demand a mixture of small air- and groundbased sensors to detect and track targets. Unattended ground sensors could cue other miniature uninhabited aerial vehicles and airborne sensors, significantly increasing the ability to decipher the confused urban environment. The use of uninhabited aerial and ground vehicles can present a viable means of bridging gaps in line-of-sight transmissions. Future sensors are expected to reveal up to 30 to 40 per cent of the battlespace. However, difficulty in assessing the resulting intelligence may lead to confusion—information is not knowledge.17 Unattended sensors will be crucial in both warfighting and humanitarian missions to compensate for lower friendly troop densities.
The Importance of Human Intelligence
Although technology plays an important role in urban areas, human intelligence is of even greater importance. It is difficult to obtain, requiring close contacts with reliable sources. During 1993, Task Force Ranger in Somalia faced challenges in acquiring both signals and human intelligence. Mark Bowden, in his book Black Hawk Down, described Somali society as a complex and confusing web of family and kin relations. Obtaining accurate intelligence in such an environment presented tremendous challenges. Readily identifiable, non-members of the clan were immediately suspect and given little access to the community. Also, clan members were unwilling to provide information about other clan members to United Nations forces.
This problem cannot be solved by using technology alone. Somalia highlighted the vital importance of understanding cultural factors when mounting operations in a complex environment. Major General Zinni, a US Marine Corps officer and former commander of Central Command, observed that the principal failure of US intelligence was the inability to ‘penetrate the faction leaders and ... understand the culture, the clan association affiliation, [and] the power of the faction leaders’.18 A lack of trained interpreters, as occurred in Afghanistan and Iraq, can also mean that valuable human intelligence is lost.
Human Challenges of Urban Terrain
The human environment of urban areas presents another complication to future warfighting. Ralph Peters, in his publication The Human Terrain of Urban Operations, provided a three-level description of social sub-systems, including hierarchical, multicultural and tribal or clan-based cities.19 Difficulty in determining the social composition of urban areas can have a significant impact on military operations, whether that is during warfighting or Stability and Support Operations. For example, Moscow’s failure to recognise the tribal nature of Chechen society meant an opportunity to exploit internal frictions was lost.20
Contemporary opponents are also prepared to place the welfare of civilians at risk to strike a political victory against conventional forces. During Coalition operations in the Iraqi city of Samarra in October 2004, insurgents indiscriminately fired rockets and mortars, killing civilians. International news agencies assumed this was a result of crossfire between US and insurgent forces. Fast and effective information operations were imperative to discredit such allegations.21
The difficulty in differentiating between friend and foe makes the urban terrain attractive for current and future adversaries. It is therefore imperative that work be undertaken to develop ‘identification, friend or foe’ devices. The negative political repercussions that civilian casualties can cause will be exploited by the urban opponent. As Alice Hills stated: ‘[T]he presence of civilians encourages the media, non-governmental and intergovernmental organisations to pay overly critical attention to what the military do’.22
The urban population also provides a source of sanctuary for insurgents, who can escape through a maze of underground networks. Local popular support also provides a source of personnel, ammunition and intelligence. Retaliatory military strikes by the counterinsurgency forces may cause civilian casualties, further increasing popular support for insurgents and thereby strengthening their ‘centre of gravity’. Innocent civilians may also fall victim to insurgents seeking to deter support for opposing forces or undermine the strategic and political unity of intervening parties. Insurgent forces commonly manipulate the local population and incite opposition against external intervention.
Continued urbanisation will increase the military, economic and political value of urban areas. Modern military forces must be able to conduct operations in urban areas to maintain their strategic relevance. To ignore urban operations or place them in the ‘too hard’ basket fails to recognise that, regardless of intentions, armies have been repeatedly drawn into urban fighting. The gravitational pull of urban areas will only increase as they escalate in political and military importance for the future enemy.
The New Zealand Army Preparations
For Urban Operations
The New Zealand Army must continue to be prepared to operate in urban environments. Although New Zealand has not been involved in conventional urban warfighting operations since the Second World War, peace support operations in Bosnia-Herzegovina, East Timor and Solomon Islands have illustrated the continuing demand for core skills and suitable equipment to operate within such environments.23
Key lessons from our overseas deployments include the importance of aerial surveillance and force and route protection to avoid confusion and fratricide. The New Zealand Army’s experience in Basra in southern Iraq indicated the potential to become involved in the full spectrum of operations. This again highlighted the Army’s weakness in force protection, training requirements to deal with improvised explosive devices, and maintaining public order. The fact that the New Zealand Engineer Group was deployed without its own organic protection meant scarce resources had to be diverted to this crucial task. As a result, engineer output was reduced by approximately 50 per cent. The frequent spikes in violence meant the New Zealand Engineer Group was required to operate alongside British armoured vehicles if protection was required.
In likely offshore scenarios, primarily focused in the developing world and not involving any threat to core state survival, heavy New Zealand casualties will be politically untenable. It is important, therefore, that the Army’s equipment has an increased ability to operate in urban areas. As indicated above, the Stryker, similar to the LAV III, has performed admirably with US forces in Iraq. The American performance has also illustrated important lessons in terms of improving survivability, including armour upgrades and new weapon acquisitions designed for breaching and stability operations.
The Army’s upcoming Future Land Operating Concept (FLOC), which provides the strategic planning for the development of a Network Enabled Army by 2010, places particular emphasis upon the continued requirement to operate in urban areas against lethal opponents. The FLOC also mentions that interagency coordination will become a great demand in the future to ensure success in the other ‘two blocks’—humanitarian and law enforcement operations—in the ‘three-block war’ construct. The New Zealand Army’s soldier modernisation program has also learnt valuable lessons from previous deployments and those of other nations to equip our future soldiers for the ‘three-block’ war. This includes the development of light body armour, non-lethal weapons, precision weapons with overmatch, and the ability to access information from air- and ground-based sensors. The New Zealand Army has also undertaken efforts towards formulating its tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) for operating in an urban environment and is seeking to acquire a purpose built urban training facility. Although work remains to ensure future capability is suitable for urban operations, the New Zealand Army is undertaking a deliberate development of its capacity to undertake operations in an urban environment.
Endnotes
1 Tommy Franks, American Solider, Regan Books, NY, 2004, p. 517.
2 Eduardo Lopez Moreno and Rasna Warah, ‘Urban and Slum Trends in the 21st Century’, The State of the World’s Cities Report 2006/7, United Nations Chronicle Online Edition, <http://www.un.org/Pubs/chronicle/2006/issue2/0206p24.htm>
3 Alice Hills, Future War in Cities: Rethinking a Liberal Dilemma, Cass, London, 2004, p. 16.
4 Ralph Peters, ‘Our Soldiers, Their Cities’, Parameters, Vol. XXVI, No. 1, Spring 1996.
5 Martin Andrew, ‘The Russian Experience of Urban Combat: Some Lessons from Central Asia’, Australian Army Journal, Vol. 1, No. 2, December 2003, pp. 163–8.
6 Timothy Jackson, David Slays Goliath: A Chechan Perspective on the War in Chechnya (1994–96), US Marine Corps Wargaming Division paper, 2000, accessed from <http://www.smallwarsjournal.com/documents/davidgoliath.pdf>.
7 Daniel Morgan, ‘Deploying to Iraq? Lessons from an Infantry Company Commander’, Infantry, Vol. 93, Issue 1, January-February 2004, pp. 28–32.
8 Jason Conroy and Ron Martz, Heavy Metal: A Tank Company’s Battle to Baghdad, Potomac Books, Dulles, DC, 2005, p. 166.
9 Robert Brown, ‘Special Defense Department Operational Update Briefing on Operations in Northwest Iraq’, 14 September 2005, US Department of Defense, <http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2005/tr20050914-3903.html>, accessed 14 February 2006.
10 Grace Jean, ‘Stryker Units Win Over Skeptics: Army’s Ghost Riders’, National Defense, October 2005, pp. 30–5.
11 Graham T Allison, Paul X Kelley, Richard L Garwin, Nonlethal Weapons and Capabilities: Report of an Independent Task Force Sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, Council on Foreign Relations: New York, 2004, p. 1.
12 FM Lorenz, ‘Non-Lethal Force: The Slippery Slope to War’, Parameters, Vol. XXVI, No. 3, Autumn 1996, pp. 52–62.
13 Bryan Bender, ‘US Testing Nonlethal Weapons Arsenal For Use In Iraq’, 5 August 2005, Boston Globe.
14 Marshall V. Ecklund, ‘Analysis of operation gothic serpent: TF Ranger in Somalia’, Special Warfare, May 2004.
15 Marshall V. Ecklund, ‘Task Force Ranger vs. Urban Somali Guerrillas in Mogadishu: An Analysis of Guerrilla and Counterguerrilla Tactics and Techniques used during Operation GOTHIC SERPENT’, Small Wars and Insurgencies, Vol. 15, No. 3, 2004, pp. 47–69.
16 Riccardo Cappelli, ‘Iraq: Italian Lessons Learned’, Military Review, Vol. LXXXV, No. 2, March/April 2005, pp. 58–61.
17 Jason Thomas, ‘Some Observations on the Role of Reconnaissance in Urban Operations’, Australian Army Journal, Vol. 1, No. 2, December 2003, pp. 157–61.
18 Martin Adamson, ‘War in the 21st Century: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly: Knowing and Finding the Adversary in the “Three Block War”‘, Canadian Forces College, 25 October 2003, p.9, accessible from: <http://www.smallwarsjournal.com/documents/adamson.pdf>.
19 Ralph Peters, ‘The Human Terrain of Urban Operations’, Parameters, Vol. XXX, No. 1, Spring 2000, pp. 4–12.
20 Arthur Speyer, ‘The Two Sides of Grozny’, in Russell W. Glenn (ed), Capital Preservation: Preparing for Urban Operations in the Twenty-First Century, RAND, Santa Monica, 2000, pp. 49–86.
21 John RS Batiste and Paul R Daniels, ‘The Fight for Samarra: Full-Spectrum Operations in Modern Warfare’, Military Review, Vol. LXXXV, No. 3, May/June 2005, pp. 13–21.
22 Hills, p. 200.
23 Phil Gibbons, ‘The Urban Area During Stability Missions Case Study: East Timor,’ in Glenn, Capital Preservation, pp. 99–161.
