Sparrowhawk
08-22-02, 11:23 AM
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<b>Marines learn urban combat ~ Five-week course designed to lower high casualty rates </b>
By Greg Jaffe
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
GEORGE AIR FORCE BASE, Calif., Aug. 22 — If the U.S. wants to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, Americans will probably have to fight his best-trained troops in downtown Baghdad. It’s a thought that gives U.S. generals pause.
TO SEE why, look no further than the 980 Marines under the command of Lt. Col. Michael Belcher here. In June they went through an experimental five-week training regimen in urban warfare, designed to lower the terrible casualty rates common in block-to-block fighting. This month, those same Marines were put to the test in a grueling four days of simulated urban combat, up against foes who had been coached in the hit-and-run tactics of guerrilla fighters.
“We need to prove to our enemies that we have the skills to defeat them in the city, and over the next 96 hours we will,” barked Col. Belcher to his men as the exercise began, his eyes hidden behind wraparound Oakley sunglasses.
The Marines, however, were also about to discover the high costs of urban warfare that often await even the best-trained troops.
CLAY BULLETS
Behind Col. Belcher stood the remains of the long-shuttered George Air Force Base, nicknamed “al-George” by the Marines after an imaginary Middle Eastern city. Inside, perched on rooftops and hiding behind sandbag bunkers, were the “enemy fighters,” played by 160 Marine reservists. People hired from an employment agency helped populate the city with “civilians.” Both fighting forces were armed with simulated grenades and artillery rounds, plus rifles shooting clay bullets that leave just a small welt.
For decades the U.S. military had a simple policy on urban fighting: Avoid it. Cities diminish America’s huge technological advantages. Satellites and surveillance planes can’t see inside buildings or down sewer tunnels where fighters may lurk. Moreover, urban battlefields are full of civilians-hard to distinguish for certain from combatants, and easily caught in the crossfire. Few things can alienate an ally more quickly than photos of dead women and children.
But two events persuaded the Marine Corps it couldn’t simply bypass urban warfare. The first was the 1993 debacle in Somalia, when Army Rangers sent to capture a hostile warlord got into a nightlong firefight in Mogadishu that killed 18 Americans, including one dragged afterward through the streets. A year later, the U.S. watched as Chechen rebels inside the city of Grozny managed to destroy 102 of 120 Russian tanks sent after them.
And now Iraq. “I know you all have been reading the papers and watching the news,” Col. Belcher told his Marines before he sent them into mock battle. “The next time you do this it might be for real.”
URBAN PLANNING
Mr. Hussein has recently moved batteries of surface-to-air missiles from the desert into Baghdad, a signal that if attacked he plans to fight U.S. troops in the city instead of the open desert, say defense intelligence officials. His elite Republican Guard, which before the Gulf War trained mostly in open terrain, also has stepped up its urban training, defense officials say.
Initially, the Marine Corps looked for a technological solution to urban battlefields. It experimented with remote-controlled surveillance vehicles and thermal sights to spot fighters in darkened rooms. But those measures wouldn’t lower casualty rates, war games showed. So the Marines focused on training. For instance, they began to teach troops running down hallways to stay away from the sides, because bullets tend to ricochet and travel along walls. Marines also had to get used to facing fire from above and below instead of head-on.
In small-scale experiments, a month of urban-warfare training seemed to cut casualty rates to 15%, about half of what’s common in house-to-house fighting. But the Marine Corps couldn’t be sure its training worked without testing it in a sprawling urban complex, where men could easily get lost and confused. George Air Force Base, with about 1,000 abandoned buildings packed into a half-mile square, is just such a place.
As the sun rose over al-George one morning this month, the nearly 1,000 Marines blinked away the last good night’s sleep they would have in four days. For the rest of the exercise they would be lucky to get more than a couple of hours of sleep each day, and that would come on a filthy floor covered with broken glass and spent shell casings.
Key to the fight were 135 Marines from Lima Company, under the command of Capt. George Schreffler, a stocky 31-year-old who has wanted to be a Marine since he was 10 years old and wrote a letter to a recruiter. He still has the letter the Marines sent him in reply.
Lima Company’s job was to fight from the southern edge of the city to the north, dislodging the rebels from their bunkers inside a thicket of one- and two-story cinderblock apartment houses. Once they reached the northern edge, their job would be to clear a landing zone for about 150 helicopter-borne Marines from India Company, who would swoop in to finish off the exposed enemy fighters. A third unit, Kilo Company, would attack from the west, acting as a decoy to divert the foes’ attention. The rest of the troops would evacuate casualties, treat the wounded and make sure fuel, food and water got to the troops.
“You’re my right cross,” the tall, lean Col. Belcher told Lima Company. “Put the enemy back on his heels so India Company can knock them out.”
U.S. forces usually prefer to fight after dark because they have superior night-vision technology. But in cities nighttime fighting can mean chaos and “fratricide”-men inadvertently killing fellow troops. So Lima Company aimed to clear the landing zone by 4 p.m., giving the follow-on forces three hours of daylight to kill the enemy before darkness brought them a chance to regroup.
Like most Marine companies, Capt. Schreffler’s consisted of three platoons, each led by a lieutenant. Each platoon, in turn, had three squads of 10 to 15 men led by a corporal, a young enlisted man. If all went as planned, Lima Company’s three platoons would reach the northern landing zone at the same time. (continued)
<b>Marines learn urban combat ~ Five-week course designed to lower high casualty rates </b>
By Greg Jaffe
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
GEORGE AIR FORCE BASE, Calif., Aug. 22 — If the U.S. wants to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, Americans will probably have to fight his best-trained troops in downtown Baghdad. It’s a thought that gives U.S. generals pause.
TO SEE why, look no further than the 980 Marines under the command of Lt. Col. Michael Belcher here. In June they went through an experimental five-week training regimen in urban warfare, designed to lower the terrible casualty rates common in block-to-block fighting. This month, those same Marines were put to the test in a grueling four days of simulated urban combat, up against foes who had been coached in the hit-and-run tactics of guerrilla fighters.
“We need to prove to our enemies that we have the skills to defeat them in the city, and over the next 96 hours we will,” barked Col. Belcher to his men as the exercise began, his eyes hidden behind wraparound Oakley sunglasses.
The Marines, however, were also about to discover the high costs of urban warfare that often await even the best-trained troops.
CLAY BULLETS
Behind Col. Belcher stood the remains of the long-shuttered George Air Force Base, nicknamed “al-George” by the Marines after an imaginary Middle Eastern city. Inside, perched on rooftops and hiding behind sandbag bunkers, were the “enemy fighters,” played by 160 Marine reservists. People hired from an employment agency helped populate the city with “civilians.” Both fighting forces were armed with simulated grenades and artillery rounds, plus rifles shooting clay bullets that leave just a small welt.
For decades the U.S. military had a simple policy on urban fighting: Avoid it. Cities diminish America’s huge technological advantages. Satellites and surveillance planes can’t see inside buildings or down sewer tunnels where fighters may lurk. Moreover, urban battlefields are full of civilians-hard to distinguish for certain from combatants, and easily caught in the crossfire. Few things can alienate an ally more quickly than photos of dead women and children.
But two events persuaded the Marine Corps it couldn’t simply bypass urban warfare. The first was the 1993 debacle in Somalia, when Army Rangers sent to capture a hostile warlord got into a nightlong firefight in Mogadishu that killed 18 Americans, including one dragged afterward through the streets. A year later, the U.S. watched as Chechen rebels inside the city of Grozny managed to destroy 102 of 120 Russian tanks sent after them.
And now Iraq. “I know you all have been reading the papers and watching the news,” Col. Belcher told his Marines before he sent them into mock battle. “The next time you do this it might be for real.”
URBAN PLANNING
Mr. Hussein has recently moved batteries of surface-to-air missiles from the desert into Baghdad, a signal that if attacked he plans to fight U.S. troops in the city instead of the open desert, say defense intelligence officials. His elite Republican Guard, which before the Gulf War trained mostly in open terrain, also has stepped up its urban training, defense officials say.
Initially, the Marine Corps looked for a technological solution to urban battlefields. It experimented with remote-controlled surveillance vehicles and thermal sights to spot fighters in darkened rooms. But those measures wouldn’t lower casualty rates, war games showed. So the Marines focused on training. For instance, they began to teach troops running down hallways to stay away from the sides, because bullets tend to ricochet and travel along walls. Marines also had to get used to facing fire from above and below instead of head-on.
In small-scale experiments, a month of urban-warfare training seemed to cut casualty rates to 15%, about half of what’s common in house-to-house fighting. But the Marine Corps couldn’t be sure its training worked without testing it in a sprawling urban complex, where men could easily get lost and confused. George Air Force Base, with about 1,000 abandoned buildings packed into a half-mile square, is just such a place.
As the sun rose over al-George one morning this month, the nearly 1,000 Marines blinked away the last good night’s sleep they would have in four days. For the rest of the exercise they would be lucky to get more than a couple of hours of sleep each day, and that would come on a filthy floor covered with broken glass and spent shell casings.
Key to the fight were 135 Marines from Lima Company, under the command of Capt. George Schreffler, a stocky 31-year-old who has wanted to be a Marine since he was 10 years old and wrote a letter to a recruiter. He still has the letter the Marines sent him in reply.
Lima Company’s job was to fight from the southern edge of the city to the north, dislodging the rebels from their bunkers inside a thicket of one- and two-story cinderblock apartment houses. Once they reached the northern edge, their job would be to clear a landing zone for about 150 helicopter-borne Marines from India Company, who would swoop in to finish off the exposed enemy fighters. A third unit, Kilo Company, would attack from the west, acting as a decoy to divert the foes’ attention. The rest of the troops would evacuate casualties, treat the wounded and make sure fuel, food and water got to the troops.
“You’re my right cross,” the tall, lean Col. Belcher told Lima Company. “Put the enemy back on his heels so India Company can knock them out.”
U.S. forces usually prefer to fight after dark because they have superior night-vision technology. But in cities nighttime fighting can mean chaos and “fratricide”-men inadvertently killing fellow troops. So Lima Company aimed to clear the landing zone by 4 p.m., giving the follow-on forces three hours of daylight to kill the enemy before darkness brought them a chance to regroup.
Like most Marine companies, Capt. Schreffler’s consisted of three platoons, each led by a lieutenant. Each platoon, in turn, had three squads of 10 to 15 men led by a corporal, a young enlisted man. If all went as planned, Lima Company’s three platoons would reach the northern landing zone at the same time. (continued)