From: imbibe@mindspring.com   
      
   The Chaotic Urban Hellscape That Awaits Israel in a Gaza Invasion   
   By Wall Street Journal, Oct. 20, 2023   
   Successful military operations in urban terrain, as the fighting is formally   
   known, require extensive training and troop preparation. U.S. forces in Iraq   
   spent years learning to operate in urban battle zones such as Fallujah and   
   Mosul, developing    
   specialized weapons and tactics.   
      
   Steve Walsh, who was a Marine Corps lieutenant colonel in Fallujah, said U.S.   
   forces prepared for the assault for two to three months and used the sort of   
   technology that Israel will have, such as thermal optics, sensors and drones.    
      
   Despite having constant and complete air supremacy, the battle—his most   
   intense in 26 years of service—was “often very messy, very close   
   combat,” he said.   
      
   “Often what was required to kill the bad guys was just old-fashioned muscle,   
   a squad of Marines with grenades following up through a hole a tank has just   
   blown into a wall of a house,” he said.    
      
   Urban warfare is considered ideal terrain for snipers. Snipers say buildings   
   give cover and distort sound, making it harder to trace them. Hamas used   
   snipers to kill an Israeli soldier in a 2018 skirmish.   
      
   A good sniper can generally fire three shots before being located, and can   
   conduct reconnaissance, said Walsh, who was an instructor at the Marine sniper   
   school in Quantico, Va. “Urban combat is generally at short ranges and   
   up-close and personal,”    
   he said.   
      
   Urban warfare is subject to restrictions on the use of force mandated by   
   international laws of war. Those limitations, combined with pervasive threats,   
   put enormous stress on soldiers.    
      
   Even when cities are largely emptied of civilians, an urban assault can   
   require three times as many troops as in less treacherous conditions. In open   
   terrain, attackers generally want to have about three troops for every   
   defender, while in urban    
   conditions the ratio can be 5 or even 10 to 1, said John Spencer, chair of   
   Urban Warfare Studies at the Madison Policy Forum, a think tank.   
      
   Destroying buildings, as Israel has been doing, can eliminate some   
   command-and-control centers. That complicates defensive operations, but also   
   creates rubble that can impede a ground invasion.   
      
   To clear paths for troops, the Israel Defense Forces uses heavily modified   
   Caterpillar D9 bulldozers—hulking earth movers encased in several tons of   
   armor, explosion-proof windows and protective shielding. Some D9s can be   
   operated remotely to avoid    
   putting drivers at risk.   
      
   Rubble has been a problem for attackers in past urban fighting, including   
   during the Nazi siege of Stalingrad during World War II. German bombers   
   demolished large parts of the city, aiming to kill Soviet forces. The   
   resulting ruin gave Soviet troops more    
   hiding places and hindered Germans’ use of tanks in the protracted battle,   
   which Germany lost.   
      
   In recent years, Russian forces engaged in urban fighting have tried to   
   undercut defenders by leveling cities, including Grozny in Chechnya and   
   Mariupol in Ukraine. Even a flattened city, though, can thwart an assaulting   
   military. After Russia leveled    
   Mariupol—a city where Ukrainian fighters used tunnels underneath a giant   
   steel plant—it took Russia nearly three months to take control of it.   
      
   The battle came at a significant cost, with between 80% and 90% of the   
   city’s buildings damaged or destroyed. Exiled local officials estimated that   
   some 22,000 people died in a city that had a prewar population of 430,000.    
      
   https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-gaza-invasion-urban   
   warfare-4d1052b6   
      
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