U.S. forces in Iraq have experience in urban warfare

WASHINGTON - If the battle for Fallujah unfolds like other urban-combat operations in Iraq, a big part of it will involve troops on foot working closely with heavily armored vehicles to probe the city's neighborhoods, drawing fire that reveals enemy positions.

Once soldiers have pinpointed insurgents' positions, they can call in fire from jets and gunships orbiting overhead, from artillery and mortars stationed outside the city, from snipers close to the front or from tanks designed during the Cold War that are advancing with the troops.

"I believe you're going to see a major use of tanks and infantry," said David Aaron, the director of Rand Corp.'s Center for Middle East Public Policy. "It turns out that the tank we thought we were going to fight the Russians with is the best thing we've got to fight in an urban environment."
.............
"We're either to have a major battle or showdown, or we'll have a sizable one but they (the insurgents) will melt away again," said Aaron, the Middle East analyst. "My guess is there will be a sizable battle, but it will not be a definitive event."

Maj. Francis Piccoli, a spokesman for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Fallujah, said last week: "If there's a fight in Fallujah, there would be no holds barred. We would go after the enemy with an overwhelming force. ... We're prepared to run over these people."

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/10130185.htm

If you are a 21 year old kid who just got out of boot camp how in the hell can you have experience fighting urban war fare. the military is so full of shit. i was in the U.S. Army between 1978-1982 and i can tell you that the kids on that front line are scared to death and do not want to be there. but the media doesn't tell you that.

The military has shifted its training around the MOUT site over the past decade. That training is probably the most experience the soldiers have aside from a few Panama/Grenada vets. Anybody who has trained for a MOUT operation knows that it's way better to be the defender. Fighting toe to toe with our tanks, Bradly Fighting Vehicles, and Strikers doesn't seem consistent with the "terrorist" doctrine though. I think they'll escape and evade.

bombing weddings,
hancuffing little girls,
slicing diapers off infants with bayonets (searching for bombs)

sure, it is WAY better to be some frightened teenager being sodomized in your own home than it is to be
an armed and dangerous MERCENARY.

WHERE DO YOU GET OFF KILLING CIVILIANS IN THEIR OWN HOMES>
I pray to GOD that YOU get to be
"a defender."
My regards to Rove.

of killling civilians in their homes? If so I think you're a little confused. Try Haldol.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

the Black Forest.

There isn't much you can do against the M1 Abrams unless you have another M1 Abrams. It is more vulnerable in the urban environment though but I suspect the enemy will choose not to fight such a battle as Aaron suggested. In fact, I saw they started attacking in Baghdad within hours of beginning the offensive in Fallujah.

"When I wish to force my enemy to move, I attack a position that he must secure."
Sun Tzu

Unless I had 380 tons of HMX.
And 4,000 Stinger missiles.
And a network of tunnels all over the city.
And boobytraps at every intersection.

So basically you sort of note that someone may have fired at you from somewhere nearby. Then you call in the artillery to blow up everything around that somewhere nearby. That's precision warfare. That's what'll kill another 100,000 Iraqis before you know it. Precisely.

I heard males 15-45 weren't being allowed to leave Fallujah. Women and children could leave, as long as they accepted the Sophie's Choice of abandoning their husbands and older male children. That is what this battle against "terrorists" is like.

Then what? This "war" was lost before it began. Much wiser men 12 years ago rejected the folly of trying to colonize the place.

It may even be viewed as a watershed event. As Herr Rumsfeldt announced the patently ridiculous observation that the difference in Fallujah, round 2, was that we now had an effective and legitimate Iraqi executive government in power (or words to that effect). While he was saying it, Sunni leadership announced that they were leaving that government due to the action in Fallujah. This is now a undeniably a civil war against a puppet government.

The Pentagon rarely makes the connection between the methods of war and its political objectives. The disconnect is complete now.

I have wondered for two years just WTF this exercise was about. Looks like another piece of support for the theory that bu$h was going to get his war on, no matter what--doesn't it?

NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (Reuters) - U.S. Marines will hunt mock combatants in a real city next week in a first-of-its-kind urban warfare exercise aimed at improving tactics in the U.S. war on terrorism and other dangerous overseas missions.

While there will be no shooting, about 300 Marines will practice reconnaissance and house and vehicle searches in downtown North Little Rock, nearby neighborhoods, on key bridges and at a nuclear power plant from Sunday through Thursday, officials said.

The experiment was planned before the September 11 hijack attacks on the United States, but was given added urgency by President George W Bush's declared war on terrorism. (Emphasis added.)

Link to story. And before anybody whines about it being from Rense: It was a Reuters dispatch, written by Steve Barnes, one of the last Real Journalists anywhere on the planet.

:freak:
dbt