Recently, our Corps has been repeatedly praised for our aggressive study of the future of war. These comments consistently point to the fact we are leading the way in developing the technology and tactics for fighting in the urban sprawl that dominates critical areas of the world today. Too bad we don't seem serious about it.
Before you get your back up and cite the tremendous intellectual and fiscal capital we are expending on the Urban Warrior Advanced Warfighting Experiment, let me note that my comments are aimed mostly at our operational forces. Despite our proclamation that the future of combat resides in the cities of the world, we continue to train much as we did in the 1970s when the primary threats were rural guerrillas and the Soviet Union. We know we will most likely fight in urban areas. Yet, we conduct the vast majority of our training in rural areas the hills of Camp Pendleton, the deserts of Twentynine Palms, the woods of Camp Lejeune, and the jungles of Okinawa, Japan.
The primary reason for continuing to train this way seem to be threefold: cultural (we've "always" done it this way); institutional (combined arms exercises, special operations capable Marine expeditionary units, Marine Corps Combat Readiness Evaluations, and our schools all focus on rural combat); and resource limitations (our training areas are 99.9 percent rural). This is reality, however with a little ingenuity, commanders can immediately overcome these deficits. Starting today, commanders can generate immediate improvements in both training and education.
The first step is identifying the individual training and education we require to operate more effectively in an urban environment. This is simple. We must train our Marines to shoot, move, and communicate in urban settings. Then we must educate them on what they will encounter, how their weapons will (or will NOT) work in an urban environment. Finally, we must provide them with realistic scenarios that force them to think and from which they can extrapolate the situations they will actually face.
Shoot
We can start our training with one of the most difficult urban combat skills shooting. This does NOT require an urban area but can be one on our current live fire and fire maneuver ranges. Simply put, the jungle trail becomes the urban trail. Urban live fire training must focus on discriminating shooting, engagement of fleeting targets, and very close range shooting. Our current marksmanship program lays a firm foundation for all three. For advanced training, we can easily develop live fire drills that specifically address each area and provide immediate feedback for the shooter and coach. Our drills must focus on developing a mix of shooting and decision making skills.
To refine our discriminating skills, we have to work on selective shooting in combat scenarios. For example, we use colored balloons as targets. The platoon or squad leader designates a shooter and the color of balloon he is to engage. To increase the pressure on the shooter, the leader designates another shooter to engage different color balloons in the same area. The shooters compete to see who can destroy all his targets first. We then develop a simple scoring system that credits speed (first to eliminate all targets) while rewarding accuracy (using the fewest rounds). Of course there must be penalties for hitting other balloons (innocent bystanders).
To simulate fleeting targets, Marines in the butts of known distance range can hold up silhouettes and run a short distance. Scout/snipers already use this technique routinely. Low cost and low tech, it provides immediate accurate feedback to our shooters.
Very close engagements are different. They require snap-shooting techniques. Our Corps teaches a number of effective techniques and each can be easily taught by unit noncommissioned officers (NCOs) at a 1,000 inch range.
Once they get the hang of each drill, we then simulate combat conditions both individual physical reactions and outside elements. Before they shoot, Marines should run sprints with water cans to get their hearts pounding ad some sweat in their eyes. Then add noise, smoke, yelling, and whistles to portray the confusion they will experience. For both fleeting targets and snap-shooting add some identifying mark to the target to force continual target discrimination, These are only a couple of literally dozens of simple, cheap, and easy ideas available to our trainers. Put your NCOs and officers to work on devising others that provide feedback, simulate combat conditions, and put the shooter under pressure.
To support the second leg of marksmanship training, our Corps has already purchased some excellent small arms simulation systems. These systems provide fleeting targets and require strong team and squad fire control to maximize the number of hits. Unfortunately, almost all scenarios take place in rural areas. We need to pay for new urban scenarios.
Move
Movement in urban areas is also a distinct skill. We need to train our Marines for the full spectrum of operations. From all-out urban combat, where one avoids the streets, to security missions, where one spends most of his time patrolling those same streets. Our Marines must learn to analyze urban terrain for cover and concealment. They must instinctively see that curbs, gutters, doorways, basements, etc. provide cover or concealment and use that cover to move. Too often in urban exercises we see Marines lying in the open when cover in the form of steps, a curb, or a mound of dirt is only a few feet away.
One of the most important training tasks is to ensure our Marines do NOT adopt the police tactics used by our in extremis hostage rescue teams. We have to ensure they understand that the stack and the movement in column in passageways is distinct to police operations. These tactics will get you killed in urban combat!
On base, we can train our Marines with full gear and at full speed. Team and squad leaders must be responsible for ensuring Marines use available covered routes, concealment, and room entry techniques. Movement can be practiced not only at our combat towns but also in barracks, messhalls, battalion command posts, warehouses, etc. Our Marines must learn to think in the 360 degree , three-dimensional urban battlefield.
Communicate
Communications may be the trickiest aspect of urban operations. Our Marines must learn the limitations of their tactical communications systems. Obviously, urban terrain affects radio communications, but it also affects every other form of communications hand and arm signals, smoke, voice, whistles, runners, etc. We nee to train to anticipate and overcome these problems. Communications must be a constant factor in all urban training.
Educate
In conjunctions with the training program summarized above, we must conduct an aggressive individual education program. Marines must understand the effects of their personal weapons in an urban area. Every Marine must see the effect of 9mm, 5.56, and 7.62 ammunition on wood, brick, flak vests, dirt, barrels, cars, etc. Most Marines have never seen the terminal effects of their personal weapons. Many do not seem to understand that 5.56 and 7.62 rounds will penetrate most interior walls and many exterior walls. This education can easily be accomplished by demonstrations at a live fire range. We can build the targets out of scrap if we have to, but we can easily build them.
Once our Marines understand their personal and crew served weapons, we have to show them the effects of explosive weapons they own and will use. The first and most important are the hand grenade and 40mm grenade. While we routinely use grenades in tire houses, these drills do little to show the effects of the weapons. We simply toss a grenade into a tire room and then enter. This trains the timing but not the effect. Further, it has the negative effect of giving our Marines a sense they can use it in almost any construction. They must understand the potentially disastrous effects of using a grenade in a wood frame or light construction building. One of the real deficiencies we have in force-on-force in urban training is the lack of an effective grenade simulator.
Obviously, we cannot let everyone toss a grenade into a real room. But a simple demonstration can provide a graphic lesson. In 1976, I observed a demonstration where a Marine gunner suspended a grenade in a 55-gallon drum and detonated it. The company was watching from a safe distance an saw the grenade completely unwrap the barrel, blowing the lid about 30 feet in the air. This demonstration was cheap, relatively easy to set up, and very impressive.
Marines must also understand the effects of the various breaching weapons we own. This is a slightly more difficult proposition and I'll cover it in another section.
Finally, Marines must know the minimum arming distances of the M203 rounds, M19 rounds, AT-4, Dragon, Javelin, TOW, and when applicable, their backblast zones. Many urban fights will take place inside the minimum arm distances and have real backblast hazards.
Unit Techniques
The second major area that can bring immediate results is unit training and education. Just like individual training, we need to start with shoot, move, and communicate. Many of the techniques described earlier in this article can be applied up to platoon level. To train units and staff above platoon level, we can conduct a combination of terrain walks, battle studies, and war games.
WE must train across the spectrum of urban operations from security to all-out fighting. Use built-up areas on base to teach your Marines to establish squad and platoon positions, to conduct roadblocks and vehicle searches (using their privately owned vehicles [POVs]). Whenever possible, use two-sided, free-play exercises. For instance, block off one street in a camp. Assign one team to smuggle material through a roadblock. They can use their POVs, enlist help from wives, friends, and even commercial vehicles. The only caveat is that everyone outside the unit is asked if they want to play before they enter the exercise area. The "friendly" team must establish fast, effective search techniques that balance security against the requirements to keep traffic flowing. Like most good training, your Marines will find this challenging and fun.
On a battalion level, assign a platoon or company to live in "combat town" (base MOUT facility). Give each Marine a brief biography, an address, and a job. Then, using a double blind system, select a few to be terrorists. Tell them to do their best to disrupt the battalion's operations. Task the rest of the battalion with assisting the "local authorities" in maintaining order. See if your intelligence section can run a database to sort the "citizens" from the "terrorists." Find out how well your Marines can deal with the "residents" as they move around "their" town.
Terrain Walks
Terrain walks are essential to expose your Marines to the tremendous variety of obastcles and opportunities that are present in any urban area. To prepare for a terrain walk, obtain copies of local city graphics, sewer maps, power lines, etc. from the city office. Download overhead imagery. Write a simple mission statement and commanders' intent to serve as the basis for the planning.
Then as your Marines walk an urban area have them plan, sketch, and discuss how they would site individual and crew served positions; how they would move as individuals and teams; what surprises they might run into; how they think about all the factors that make urban operations so difficult. To supplement terrain walks, conduct battle studies. There are literally thousands of books, articles, films, and maps about urban battles. Study Stalingrad, Berlin, Mogadishu, Belfast, Hue City, Chechnya (especially Grozny), or Kabul.
Facilities
There are a number of facility changes we need to implement. We still have pristine combat towns. Every brick in place, every room swept no furniture allowed, and no disorder. Yet we claim these are our premier urban training sites.
We can easily make them more realistic, and simultaneously provide education on the effect of breaching weapons. First, we select certain walls to breach preferably using standard breaching charges and assault weapons. Once the walls are breached, we mark each with visual evidence of what their weapons will do. As a bonus, breaching the walls and leaving the rubble in place will allow more realistic and tactically sound movement in our combat towns. The current construction virtually forces our Marines to move in the streets and enter via doors and windows the worst possible places to be in urban combat. Next, we need to make the combat towns look lived in. Fortunately, this is even cheaper than breaching. WE simply go to the Defense Reutilization Management Office and pick up old furniture.
Then give it to our Marines and tell them they are free to use the furniture, as they deem fit for tactical purposes. Depending on the scenario security operations to mid-intensity conflict, Marines can arrange the furniture to reflect houses being lived in or fought over. Marines may push the furniture in front of doors, block hallways, and build hiding places. The key is: no limits let them create the environment they will fight in.
As for the long term, we should fill in the open areas in our combat towns. Very little of the world consists of the semidetached and detached buildings that typify our combat towns. We need to build between them to form the solid blocks typical or most of the world. We also must create slum/refugee areas; establish junkyards, tow in more vehicles. In short, make our combat towns look like real urban areas.
Force-on-Force
Finally, force-on-force exercises conducted at the small unit level should be used to put it all together. The new simunitions are the training tool of choice for force-on-force in urban operations. Unfortunately, they are relatively expensive. One substitute that proved highly effective for 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines were Daisy lever action BB guns. For about $40, we can equip a Marine with a paint ball mask and a BB gun. A battalion can buy at least 50 sets, allowing for exercises up to platoon versus squad. After the initial purchase, training is very cheap with BBs only a penny for every 20 BBs.
While BB guns have distinct range limitations, they are ideal for interior urban operations because they provide immediate feedback to your Marines. They can be used in combat towns, warehouses, close terrain, and even condemned buildings. The very real possibility of being hit (hurting both your hide and your pride) forces our Marines not only to shoot well but to move and communicate the way they will in combat. And, its a lot of fun!
In summary, the choice is ours. We can continue to pay lip service to urban operations or we can modify our training, education, and facilities for urban combat. The steps are simple. We can take them now. All we have to do is get serious.
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