The Marines, at least MARFORSOC, and other SOF units have already doing Subterranean warfare, and Hard and Deeply Buried targets (HDBT) training in reduced visibility for years. It is more than just Syria, or Hamas, the Drug cartel, nK, Pakistan, Iran has been below ground for C5I, Nuclear, Biological and Chemical structures for years. As 1st Lt Walker D. Mills stated in March 2019... "Both as independent services and as a joint effort, the Marine Corps and the Army have to be able to fight and win anywhere, in “any clime and place.” M2
Thanks - you provided needed commentary. In today's world, isolating difficult terrain is often not an option. Complex 3 dimensional urban environments are a reality, and always have been. Today, more key terrain is urban...and Marines need to be ready to fight through it. I've been glad the Subterranean and HDBT has been in some training plans and development programs. One of the keys to retaking western Iraq from ISIS, was the tactics and strategy for fighting through urban areas in Fallujah, Mosul, and other 'good times' areas. The Iraqi Armor Force and the Counter Terror Service had to fight through the macro urban terrain. Granted, where possible, in the micro they isolated and bypassed and/or reduced buildings as necessary. But controlling the cities as a whole could not be bypassed as a mission by isolating all complex urban terrain. It's a fascinating fight that also saw the nascent emergence of organized low cost UAS warfare.
Taking urban terrain and tunnel complexes will eat units in hours. In modern combat key terrain is not taking tunnels or vast cities. Bypass, isolate or destroy. The entire USMC could not take Mexico City against a determined defender. If you do not have the determination to destroy it you have no business being in the fight. Commanders who sacrifice Americans in urban sprawl or tunnel complexes should be fired. This is the fight the defender wants and you should not oblige them.
So, let me get this right. You are saying the options are a) don't operate in urban terrain, and/or b) completely destroy urban terrain. That's just so unrealistic as to be irrelevant. The ROMO does not permit for it. Not taking tunnels or vast cities doesn't mean not operating in/adjacent to tunnels or vast cities. And that means knowing how to operate in/adjacent to those tunnels and cities. Yes, I remember the old ops manual that had a paragraph saying 'bypass' was preferred for villages and hamlets; speaking to long distance, high speed operations against a European adversary where the objective was somewhere past those. As far as Mexico City, the USMC did take Mexico City ("from the Halls of Montezuma"). Chapultepec wasn't some lonely outpost on a beach. In closing, if I have it wrong, then tell me how you control a major port or airport without controlling and operating in the urban terrain adjacent to that port/airfield.
The average unit has less than 1600 hours per year to train. Training to fight in urban terrain and tunnel complexes is exceedingly complicated and favors the defender. It requires specialized training of an exceptional degree. Room to room and house to house, street by street consumes even the best trained units if the enemy has prepared a defense. If your objective is to conquer urban terrain you have the wrong objective. If you must create a buffer around ports and airports you have no choice and you will pay dearly.
Let’s use Fallujah as an example. Most of the civilian population had fled and those who stayed were far from neutral. We had it surrounded and capturing the city cost US lives and destroyed it anyway. Starve them out or pound it into oblivion with stand off weaponry.
A bit of reading about Caen might be instructive. More allied soldiers killed trying to take if for a month than D-Day. In the end we bombed it killing many French civilians. Siege of Vicksburg provides lessons.
Bottom line for me remains. Do not get sucked into urban warfare if an enemy can mount a defense. Do not crawl into tunnels or subterranean complexes. Destroy, burn, flood or implode, but do not enter.
Hostages make tunnel warfare more complicated by a factor of 100. During WWII The Soviets flooded the Berlin subway system killing innumerable non military citizens who sought refuge there. It made the system unusable for troop movements, resupply and storage.
My thoughts on tunnels mirrors that of urban warfare. Avoid it and in the case of tunnel systems flood, burn, starve of oxygen or seal off. Sending friendly forces into them is irresponsible.
The Maginot was also a vast system of tunnels. Go around it, over it and systematically destroy it later. Expend no troops taking it yard by yard or segment by segment.
The USMC experience with caves and tunnel systems in the Pacific in WWII is instructive. Burn them and seal them.
Yep, agree the US military needs to add “tunnel warfare” training to the list of; urban warfare training, cold weather training, desert warfare training, mountain warfare training, jungle warfare training, and let’s throw in some time for amphibious warfare training, riot control training, NBC training, etc., etc., etc.. In the light of the Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi Raid, I would agree that the “Raiders” will need tunnel assault training as does all Marine infantry battalions. Let’s add tunnel warfare into our urban warfare training packages. The US Marine Corps needs to maintain its adaptability and flexibility and let’s not get wrapped around the axle like we did over CCP A2/AD missiles. Dedicating a brigade size unit to tunnel warfare is not a good idea unless a specific tactical situation dedicates it or a Combatant Commander has “tunnel warfare” on his mind. (The 2nd Marines use to get an annual training trip to the skis lopes in prep for the winter Norway Exercise.) Remember, after a focus on pre-deployment COIN Training, we flatten Fallujah in urban warfare. Understand the Israeli Army has a specific tactical problem, but I am not sure they have solved it. They still need something to force bad guys out of the Gaza tunnels besides their soldiers in the role of tunnel rats. S/F
Thanks Polar Bear, good comments. One add, immediately after flattening Fallujah, we were back in and managing the population and digging into less kinetic parts of the ROMO again. I personally lived and worked in Fallujah proper (not Camp F) as well as the myriad of towns and villages in the greater area with my good Iraqi friends. I worked 'Operation Purple Finger" in '05 (the vote) in the Jolan. No getting away from built up areas to work. Fortunately, my Iraqi friends at the time were operationally pretty good and pursued 3D thinking in our AO. As soon as the flattening ended, ratlines started getting exploited again by badguys and criminals. It was quite a change from running a Tank Company Team (Infantry platoon plus attachments) for the invasion, to include ops in Baghdad. One plus was the tunnels we dealt with in our part of the city and surrounding areas were mostly minor and tended towards caches, so not real 'tunnel nightmare' tunnels. IS did some tunnel nightmare building projects 10 years later. (And don't get me started on urban waterways and pretending they are 'just scenery').
It is hard to get a tank in a tunnel. If we still had our tanks we would hear from our armor colleagues that when you see a fixed fortified position (Man's monuments to his own stupidity, General GS Patton, Jr.) they would advise us ground pounders that it is a good idea to by pass the fixed fortified position if possible. Strangle the fixed fortified position, nothing in, nothing out. Now add the complication of tunnel complexes that allow under ground warfare, tied to the surface fight in buildings of some so many stores. Forced into the fight our engineers would come up with clever solutions like blow up the tunnel systems entrances and exits, find out where the rats scurry to and kill them when they surface, and/or leave those in the tunnels to figure another way out, or simply die in the dark. Oh! Wait! We don't need engineers anymore, so we divested them! But let's train the infantry to get into the tunnels likely defended in depth and see how many WIA and KIA we can accumulate before we figure something else out. Wasn't it Donald Rumsfeld who opined you go to war with the army you have...how did that work out? Up armor and harden your HumVee's, oh that will happen, after we learn about IED's. Is anyone watching the war in Ukraine? There are cities and towns, what lessons are being learned?
The writer is with Douglas Rape', blow the damn things up, flood them, seal them, figure out a concussive explosive that from the surface or near surface make living in the tunnel unlivable. Burn them out or leave them burned. Blind, Blast, Burn. FMFM 6-1 it is in there somewhere.
What about the hostages and unarmed noncombatants the UN asks? Well the writer directs all to the final shoot out scene in the Clint Eastwood movie "Unforgiven." Eastwood's character shoots and kills an unarmed man, (owner of a bar and brothel, and a semi bad guy) Gene Hackman's character the local "Law" says "You just shot an unarmed man!" Eastwood replies "Well he should have armed himself." Why should our forces play their game? We should use our wits and technology to reduce the use of the tunnels and connecting systems, and here is a thought, find the leadership that built the tunnels and take them down there and have them walk point for while. "Now A**hole, tell me where and how this system works, you have 3 heart beats and 2 just died." We need to fight smarter not harder, we already know how to fight hard.
God bless the Vietnam "tunnel rats" by the way. Hero's....they came in small packages...
I know one (several) Marine Tanker (s) who has (have) operated across the ROMO in urban terrain with Armor/Infantry + who would suggest that your first few sentences are wishful thinking and some great movie lines. As far as movie lines, I think Kelly's Heroes provides the greatest warning for military students considering the urban dilemma. Sometimes, to get the gold, you have to fight in and through the urban landscape....there is no bypass. "Hey, Oddball, this is your hour of glory".
He was already found...alive.
The Marines, at least MARFORSOC, and other SOF units have already doing Subterranean warfare, and Hard and Deeply Buried targets (HDBT) training in reduced visibility for years. It is more than just Syria, or Hamas, the Drug cartel, nK, Pakistan, Iran has been below ground for C5I, Nuclear, Biological and Chemical structures for years. As 1st Lt Walker D. Mills stated in March 2019... "Both as independent services and as a joint effort, the Marine Corps and the Army have to be able to fight and win anywhere, in “any clime and place.” M2
https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:US:ec0b473e-dc11-4dca-94ca-2a060c6c6172
https://mwi.westpoint.edu/elephant-tunnel-preparing-fight-win-underground/
https://www.yahoo.com/news/american-travis-timmerman-found-syria-161019970.html?fr=yhssrp_catchall&guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9zZWFyY2gueWFob28uY29tLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAEsAVWgcTgYcZ10sw9KguLTaWNKC9n5DaemtFcnFw78mkvw_aI4FVJ5EQQOf9z2fD17iIclWssnsLZG4oGT4iyfX0y_S7epSXgNnxbTp3sYLLRzw68QZNbVKSiNhrMkYAmyZ5O5ONPTN8O16R79U7kZlGqHIe29VTeTQYitwDSHb
Thanks - you provided needed commentary. In today's world, isolating difficult terrain is often not an option. Complex 3 dimensional urban environments are a reality, and always have been. Today, more key terrain is urban...and Marines need to be ready to fight through it. I've been glad the Subterranean and HDBT has been in some training plans and development programs. One of the keys to retaking western Iraq from ISIS, was the tactics and strategy for fighting through urban areas in Fallujah, Mosul, and other 'good times' areas. The Iraqi Armor Force and the Counter Terror Service had to fight through the macro urban terrain. Granted, where possible, in the micro they isolated and bypassed and/or reduced buildings as necessary. But controlling the cities as a whole could not be bypassed as a mission by isolating all complex urban terrain. It's a fascinating fight that also saw the nascent emergence of organized low cost UAS warfare.
Taking urban terrain and tunnel complexes will eat units in hours. In modern combat key terrain is not taking tunnels or vast cities. Bypass, isolate or destroy. The entire USMC could not take Mexico City against a determined defender. If you do not have the determination to destroy it you have no business being in the fight. Commanders who sacrifice Americans in urban sprawl or tunnel complexes should be fired. This is the fight the defender wants and you should not oblige them.
So, let me get this right. You are saying the options are a) don't operate in urban terrain, and/or b) completely destroy urban terrain. That's just so unrealistic as to be irrelevant. The ROMO does not permit for it. Not taking tunnels or vast cities doesn't mean not operating in/adjacent to tunnels or vast cities. And that means knowing how to operate in/adjacent to those tunnels and cities. Yes, I remember the old ops manual that had a paragraph saying 'bypass' was preferred for villages and hamlets; speaking to long distance, high speed operations against a European adversary where the objective was somewhere past those. As far as Mexico City, the USMC did take Mexico City ("from the Halls of Montezuma"). Chapultepec wasn't some lonely outpost on a beach. In closing, if I have it wrong, then tell me how you control a major port or airport without controlling and operating in the urban terrain adjacent to that port/airfield.
The average unit has less than 1600 hours per year to train. Training to fight in urban terrain and tunnel complexes is exceedingly complicated and favors the defender. It requires specialized training of an exceptional degree. Room to room and house to house, street by street consumes even the best trained units if the enemy has prepared a defense. If your objective is to conquer urban terrain you have the wrong objective. If you must create a buffer around ports and airports you have no choice and you will pay dearly.
Let’s use Fallujah as an example. Most of the civilian population had fled and those who stayed were far from neutral. We had it surrounded and capturing the city cost US lives and destroyed it anyway. Starve them out or pound it into oblivion with stand off weaponry.
A bit of reading about Caen might be instructive. More allied soldiers killed trying to take if for a month than D-Day. In the end we bombed it killing many French civilians. Siege of Vicksburg provides lessons.
Bottom line for me remains. Do not get sucked into urban warfare if an enemy can mount a defense. Do not crawl into tunnels or subterranean complexes. Destroy, burn, flood or implode, but do not enter.
I do not even know what ROMO is.
Hostages make tunnel warfare more complicated by a factor of 100. During WWII The Soviets flooded the Berlin subway system killing innumerable non military citizens who sought refuge there. It made the system unusable for troop movements, resupply and storage.
My thoughts on tunnels mirrors that of urban warfare. Avoid it and in the case of tunnel systems flood, burn, starve of oxygen or seal off. Sending friendly forces into them is irresponsible.
The Maginot was also a vast system of tunnels. Go around it, over it and systematically destroy it later. Expend no troops taking it yard by yard or segment by segment.
The USMC experience with caves and tunnel systems in the Pacific in WWII is instructive. Burn them and seal them.
I am puzzled why this is even a discussion.
Yep, agree the US military needs to add “tunnel warfare” training to the list of; urban warfare training, cold weather training, desert warfare training, mountain warfare training, jungle warfare training, and let’s throw in some time for amphibious warfare training, riot control training, NBC training, etc., etc., etc.. In the light of the Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi Raid, I would agree that the “Raiders” will need tunnel assault training as does all Marine infantry battalions. Let’s add tunnel warfare into our urban warfare training packages. The US Marine Corps needs to maintain its adaptability and flexibility and let’s not get wrapped around the axle like we did over CCP A2/AD missiles. Dedicating a brigade size unit to tunnel warfare is not a good idea unless a specific tactical situation dedicates it or a Combatant Commander has “tunnel warfare” on his mind. (The 2nd Marines use to get an annual training trip to the skis lopes in prep for the winter Norway Exercise.) Remember, after a focus on pre-deployment COIN Training, we flatten Fallujah in urban warfare. Understand the Israeli Army has a specific tactical problem, but I am not sure they have solved it. They still need something to force bad guys out of the Gaza tunnels besides their soldiers in the role of tunnel rats. S/F
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Abu_Bakr_al-Baghdadi#:~:text=By%20the%20time%20those%20things,was%20cornered%20inside%20a%20tunnel.
Thanks Polar Bear, good comments. One add, immediately after flattening Fallujah, we were back in and managing the population and digging into less kinetic parts of the ROMO again. I personally lived and worked in Fallujah proper (not Camp F) as well as the myriad of towns and villages in the greater area with my good Iraqi friends. I worked 'Operation Purple Finger" in '05 (the vote) in the Jolan. No getting away from built up areas to work. Fortunately, my Iraqi friends at the time were operationally pretty good and pursued 3D thinking in our AO. As soon as the flattening ended, ratlines started getting exploited again by badguys and criminals. It was quite a change from running a Tank Company Team (Infantry platoon plus attachments) for the invasion, to include ops in Baghdad. One plus was the tunnels we dealt with in our part of the city and surrounding areas were mostly minor and tended towards caches, so not real 'tunnel nightmare' tunnels. IS did some tunnel nightmare building projects 10 years later. (And don't get me started on urban waterways and pretending they are 'just scenery').
For general SA:https://mwi.westpoint.edu/urban-warfare-project/
It is hard to get a tank in a tunnel. If we still had our tanks we would hear from our armor colleagues that when you see a fixed fortified position (Man's monuments to his own stupidity, General GS Patton, Jr.) they would advise us ground pounders that it is a good idea to by pass the fixed fortified position if possible. Strangle the fixed fortified position, nothing in, nothing out. Now add the complication of tunnel complexes that allow under ground warfare, tied to the surface fight in buildings of some so many stores. Forced into the fight our engineers would come up with clever solutions like blow up the tunnel systems entrances and exits, find out where the rats scurry to and kill them when they surface, and/or leave those in the tunnels to figure another way out, or simply die in the dark. Oh! Wait! We don't need engineers anymore, so we divested them! But let's train the infantry to get into the tunnels likely defended in depth and see how many WIA and KIA we can accumulate before we figure something else out. Wasn't it Donald Rumsfeld who opined you go to war with the army you have...how did that work out? Up armor and harden your HumVee's, oh that will happen, after we learn about IED's. Is anyone watching the war in Ukraine? There are cities and towns, what lessons are being learned?
The writer is with Douglas Rape', blow the damn things up, flood them, seal them, figure out a concussive explosive that from the surface or near surface make living in the tunnel unlivable. Burn them out or leave them burned. Blind, Blast, Burn. FMFM 6-1 it is in there somewhere.
What about the hostages and unarmed noncombatants the UN asks? Well the writer directs all to the final shoot out scene in the Clint Eastwood movie "Unforgiven." Eastwood's character shoots and kills an unarmed man, (owner of a bar and brothel, and a semi bad guy) Gene Hackman's character the local "Law" says "You just shot an unarmed man!" Eastwood replies "Well he should have armed himself." Why should our forces play their game? We should use our wits and technology to reduce the use of the tunnels and connecting systems, and here is a thought, find the leadership that built the tunnels and take them down there and have them walk point for while. "Now A**hole, tell me where and how this system works, you have 3 heart beats and 2 just died." We need to fight smarter not harder, we already know how to fight hard.
God bless the Vietnam "tunnel rats" by the way. Hero's....they came in small packages...
I know one (several) Marine Tanker (s) who has (have) operated across the ROMO in urban terrain with Armor/Infantry + who would suggest that your first few sentences are wishful thinking and some great movie lines. As far as movie lines, I think Kelly's Heroes provides the greatest warning for military students considering the urban dilemma. Sometimes, to get the gold, you have to fight in and through the urban landscape....there is no bypass. "Hey, Oddball, this is your hour of glory".
Very informative about a part of warfare that garners little attention... Semper Fi!