2/20/2018 The Challenges of Command and Control in Urban Operations

Characteristics of urban warfare

For regular armies, operations in urban terrain pose significant challenges. Compared to rural areas, or open
desert, maneuverability in a city is restricted to fixed routes, which are frequently dominated by elevated
firing positions (such as rooftops, towers, etc). These restricted movement axes limit maneuverability and
require deployment of forces into long columns, reducing their ability to employ concentrated firepower and
provide mutual support. Since the routes are predictable, enemy ambushes can be pre-planned or executed
spontaneously as the battle progresses.

Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) can be pre-positioned, some buried under the pavement, some blended
into walls and covered with mortar and paint. These devices make passing targets, such as foot patrols or
inadequately protected vehicles, highly vulnerable.

IEDs and mines are only two of the threats that military units can encounter in urban settings. Other popular
attack methods include car-bombs, suicide bombers, weapons fired from passing cars, sniper fire, mortar and
rocket attacks, and even direct assaults on vulnerable elements. Locations of these ambushes can be selected
based on availability of observation points, ingress routes and especially escape routes that allow urban
guerillas to blend into the local population immediately following an attack.

Subterranean networks, such as sewer or cistern systems, or purpose built tunnels, offer covert movement to
local elements familiar with the terrain and add to the guerilla’s mobility. Attacks in urban environments are
often carefully planned, but their purpose is not always to kill people. Sometimes attacks are performed as
deceptions, or as part of "battlefield shaping" by the attackers.

1 regardlessof their cause or justification for the fight, the enemy will be collectively addressed here as
"urban guerillas" (Back to top)

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