Forums

BLOCKBUSTING

By Marc “Bayonet” Bellizzi 

10-0 BACKGROUND

Urban areas and urban populations have grown significantly during the twentieth century exerting great influence on military operations. Street fighting, house to house, building clearing, Urban Operations, MOUT (Military Operations on Urbanized Terrain), or Blockbusting – no matter what the colloquial term used, the connotation is the same; vicious, violent combat in close quarters. Every Army trains their soldiers for this type of operation. The Germans, pioneers in so many military fields before & during WWII, also forged the way in street fighting. In an effort to make their training as realistic as possible, in the mid 30’s the German Government went into the town of Hammelburg, and relocated all its residents elsewhere. What resulted is still considered to this day one of the best tailor-made environments for house to house training.

Cities tend to reduce the advantages of a technologically superior force. Ground operations become manpower intensive. Operations also become decentralized, time consuming and result in huge expenditures of supplies.
Ultimately and most importantly in urban operations, the player/commander MUST determine what his critical objectives are, and what are not. There are rarely enough forces available to attack everything; the prudent commander finds the critical objectives, isolates them, seizes them and secures them against counterattack.

In wargaming, the player is lucky in respect to defined objectives in that he usually has pre-picked goals to secure (the objective hexes). However a player must also avoid the temptation to get into a ‘brawl’ over insignificant buildings, like the Germans did in Stalingrad. Secure your key objectives, isolate non-key enemy strongpoints and move on.

10-1 FUNDAMENTALS
At the macro level, planning for urban operations generally follows the same basic process as planning for other military operations. As in all tactics, one of the key elements to successful ‘blockbusting’ is to set the conditions.

By concentrating the right forces, support and equipment at the right moment (synergy), a player/commander can heavily influence his street fighting operations. The following six fundamentals allow the commander to understand urban characteristics, the advantages and disadvantages they offer, and how they impact mobility and weapons effectiveness.


10-1.1 SEE THE BATTLEFIELD: Intelligence becomes critical. A player must have at least a general idea of what he is up against; otherwise the result quickly becomes another Stalingrad or Grozny. Masking effects of the terrain and concealment offered by built-up areas make it easier for the enemy to hide his command and control elements, as well as combat support and combat service support units. The enemy’s ability to conduct deception operations is huge. The “concrete canyons” provide a perfect hiding area for forces – a player cannot discern easily if there is just a sniper, a squad or a whole platoon occupying the building to his front. Reconnaissance assets should be used to find the enemy, and once found, remain where they can keep an eye on them.

10-1.2 CONCENTRATE COMBAT POWER: While mobility in urban terrain is difficult, concentration should be provided for during the planning phase by allocating added combat support, particularly engineers and field artillery, to the main attack. During the attack, field and air defense artillery, as well as air-strikes, provide flexible, responsive elements of combat power which may be massed with less regard to mobility restrictions.

10-1.3 SUPPRESSION OF ENEMY DEFENSIVE FIRES: At battalion and company level, there is an increased requirement for direct, rather than indirect, fire suppression. With reduced engagement ranges, this requirement may be satisfied in part by organic weapons. The use of field artillery in the direct fire role may be required to root-out gunners in hardened positions. Extensive use of smoke also may be required to conceal movement. The intensity of close combat and reduced direct fire ranges within built-up areas will require continuing suppressive fires and smoke obscuration.

10-1.4 SHOCK, OVERWHELM, AND DESTROY THE ENEMY: Commanders should seek to conduct a hasty attack, simultaneously enveloping the defender's flanks and rear. Once the momentum of the attack has been gained, commanders must maintain that momentum until the defense has lost its cohesion. Enemy resistance is bypassed or destroyed by intense direct fires to preclude heavy casualties and loss of momentum. Stalled attacking forces maintain pressure by direct fires, while reserves bypass the resistance and continue the attack. The attacker must cause events to happen faster than the defender can react to them. The enemy must be denied the opportunity to consolidate defenses and must be destroyed or isolated before he can occupy built-up areas. Failure to achieve this historically results in disaster.

10-1.5 OVERWHELM THE ENEMY REAR: Enemy defenses will usually consist of strongpoints and obstacles arrayed laterally and in depth over the most likely avenues of approach. After disrupting the initial urban defenses, the attacker must secure critical objectives and seek to drive into the enemy rear to find and destroy his control headquarters, combat support, and combat service support units. The attack and isolation of forward defenses disrupt combat service support functions. It also demands that the defender employ his combat support elements, thus aiding the attacker in locating and destroying them. The splintering of the defense, along with the disruption of command and control and destruction of support capabilities, will cause the defense to collapse.

10-1.6 PROVIDE CONTINUOUS MOBILE SUPPORT: Although urban battles are viewed predominantly as small-unit, combined arms actions, continuous support is required. Tanks and artillery provide the infantry with destructive firepower to defeat prepared defenses. Combat engineers breach obstacles to enhance mobility. Field artillery and offensive air support disrupt the enemy command and control network and destroy his support units. Air defense artillery helps protect the entire force. Forward replenishment of supplies helps sustain momentum. All these elements are critical to win at urban combat.


10-2 ORGANIZATION

Units are organized in accordance for the mission requirements. A good rule of thumb is to have the following elements as a minimum: Direct Fire support element. Indirect Fire Support element. Assault element. Exploitation element.

Proper application and integration of these forces reduce casualties and hasten accomplishment of the mission. The degree of application of some elements is determined by the type building to be attacked and by the nature of adjacent urban terrain (i.e., a player may not need a large indirect fire support element, to attack one enemy held strongpoint building surrounded by houses). A commander who organizes accordingly will be able to direct suppressive fires to neutralize the enemy's ability to react and provide mutual support; concentrate forces to overwhelm the enemy at a selected spot; and commit those forces in fire and maneuver to assault the enemy and secure the objective.




10-3 SETTING THE CONDITIONS


To set the conditions, the player commander should consider the following actions for his elements (the picture at the end of this section shows all these elements in action):

*Recon the area as thoroughly as possible. Recon assets in wargames, like binoculars, aircraft, etc. will aid in this greatly.

*Suppressing/obscuring enemy gunners within objective building(s) and adjacent structures - The support element will provide direct fires into the objective to suppress and soften up the enemy, and at the right moment either smoke grenades, or indirect fire smoke should be shot to conceal the assault force as it attacks to gain a foothold.

* Isolating the objective building(s) with indirect/direct fires to prevent enemy withdrawal, reinforcement, or counterattack - Machine guns and AT weapons are good for firing down side streets to isolate a building; Indirect fires are good for firing behind the objective to isolate any enemy reinforcement attempts.

* Destroying and securing outlying enemy positions with direct-fire – If you do secure outlying areas, the enemy fire from those areas can upset your attack timetable.

*Locating/moving the assault force as close as possible to the objective area (without hazarding them to fire).

*Selecting routes that the assault force will take that won’t mask friendly suppressive fires (in wargaming, as in real life, friendly forces do not shoot through friendly forces).

* Snipers are best employed in placing accurate fire into the target area or engaging long-range targets – Snipers should also be on the lookout for lucrative leadership targets.

*Tanks & direct fire cannon provide shock action and firepower. They can help isolate, neutralize or suppress enemy positions with smoke, high explosives, and automatic weapons fire as infantry closes with and destroys the enemy. They can also smash through street barricades or reduce barricades by direct fire. Additionally, they can reduce or make untenable enemy strongpoints by direct fire.



8-4 SETTING THE CONDITIONS

Using Squad Battles as a tool to show in more detail how to clear a building or city block, you can follow along. The setting is the streets surrounding Pavlov’s House, Stalingrad. In the first picture, you will see our forces arrayed to jump off into the attack. I have added labels and arrows to show how the German forces are prepared to conduct Blockbusting.



Green circles represent our two objectives - #1 is the Pavlov House complex, and will require an involved effort that will ultimately require the clearing of a city block. #2 is a lone building we will clear. White lines show were our machine guns are isolating the objectives to prevent enemy reinforcement, and the red circles represent our assault elements. All other units on the front lines are direct fire support elements. The Germans will also be receiving additional assault companies from off map.



Yellow lines represent direct fire; while white continue to depict our isolating fires from the machine guns. Assault companies 1 & 2 are massing right behind the front lines to prepare to attack; assault element 3 is a part of the front line, and is waiting for the enemy to get worn down whereupon it will conduct its attack.



The attacker concentrates his fires on the location that he wants to establish a foothold into the enemy defense. German fires are beginning to have an effect, and Russian units are starting to break. On the far right, two German squads rush across the street and close on the defending Russians.



The main attack occurs in the center. German mortar fire provides smoke to prevent the forces in Pavlov’s House from firing on the assaulting Germans as they cross the street. Heavy direct fire proceeds the movement of the assault force; even though the defending units are ‘pinned’ in the target house, they are still a formidable force. Our attacking units fail to dislodge the defenders, although they do inflict heavy casualties.



Above, we see that our main assault force on Pavlov’s House is pinned in the street; furthermore, the Russians are bringing in reinforcements from the lower left, and our MG line of fire (represented by white dashed lines) is blocked by the assault force. On the right, things are faring much better, and with a loud ‘Hurrah!’ the Germans over-run the building, while continuing to bring more forces across the street to carry on the attack into the enemy rear.



The Germans press on in the center, withdrawing the pinned squads and committing the second company to press the attack. More smoke is fired into the street to conceal the vulnerable assault force. Heavy fire is laid on all along the front to pin and suppress the Russians. On the right, the attack continues to drive deeper into Russian territory.



In our final picture, we see that in the center, the second wave has succeeded to gaining a foothold on the Pavlov House block. More units rush in and press the attack, clearing successive buildings. On the right, the lone Russian squad has fallen back, allowing the Germans to advance. It is only a matter of time before the intense German direct fire combined with assaulting units pressing the attack, before Pavlov’s House falls. Once the objective is secured, the German must remain vigilant and prepare for a potential counterattack!
So there you have it, textbook urban warfare operations.



SOURCES:
FM 90-10 MOUT Operations, US ARMY
Various foreign nation Urban Operations texts