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Urban warfare

Urban warfare is warfare in urban areas such as towns and cities. Urban combat differs from combat in the open at both operational and the tactical levels. Complicating factors in urban warfare include the presence of civilians and the complexity of the urban terrain. Urban combat operations may be conducted to capitalize on strategic or tactical advantages associated with the possession or the control of a particular urban area or to deny these advantages to the enemy.[1] It is considered to be arguably the most difficult form of warfare.[2][3]

Fighting in urban areas negates the advantages that one side may have over the other in armor, heavy artillery, or air support. Ambushes laid down by small groups of soldiers with handheld anti-tank weapons can destroy entire columns of modern armor (as in the First Battle of Grozny), while artillery and air support can be severely reduced if the "superior" party wants to limit civilian casualties as much as possible, but the defending party does not (or even uses civilians as human shields).


Some civilians may be difficult to distinguish from such combatants as armed militias and gangs, and particularly individuals who are simply trying to protect their homes from attackers. Tactics are complicated by a three-dimensional environment, limited fields of view and fire because of buildings, enhanced concealment and cover for defenders, below-ground infrastructure, and the ease of placement of booby traps and snipers.[4]

Home Army soldiers assault a fortified house in downtown Warsaw during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944

Home Army soldiers assault a fortified house in downtown Warsaw during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944

Film "" shot by the French Resistance of street fighting in Paris, August 1944

La Libération de Paris

Italian soldiers street fighting in Stalino, October 1941

Italian soldiers street fighting in Stalino, October 1941

(documentary TV series)

Battleplan

Civilian casualty ratio

Military urbanism

Mouse-holing

Operation Urban Warrior

Second Battle of Fallujah

Siege warfare

Urban guerrilla warfare

Urban terrain

BBC staff (December 7, 1999). . BBC.

"Russia will pay for Chechnya"

(2002). Berlin: The Downfall 1945. London; New York: Viking-Penguin Books. pp. 316–319. ISBN 0-670-03041-4.

Beevor, Antony

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Dishman, Christopher (2010). A Perfect Gibraltar: The Battle for Monterrey, Mexico. University of Oklahoma Press.  978-0-8061-4140-4.

ISBN

Grau, Lester W. (January 1997). . Russian-Manufactured Armoured Vehicle Vulnerability in Urban Combat: The Chechnya Experience. Red Thrust Star. Archived from the original on April 30, 2010. Retrieved June 16, 2010.

"Chechen Anti-armor Techniques"

Ladd, Brian (1998). The Ghosts of Berlin: Confronting German History in the Urban Landscape (illustrated ed.). University of Chicago Press. p. –102. ISBN 978-0-226-46762-7.

99

McDonnald, Alexander Hopkins, ed. (1951). The Encyclopedia Americana. Vol. 6. Americana Corporationn. p. 720. {{}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

cite encyclopedia

Pike, John (September 16, 2002). . GlobalSecurity.org. Retrieved July 14, 2017.

"Military Operations on Urban Terrain [MOUT]"

Prakash, Gyan; Kruse, Kevin Michael (2008). The spaces of the modern city: imaginaries, politics, and everyday life (illustrated ed.). Princeton University Press. pp. –46. ISBN 978-0-691-13343-0.

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Siepen, Edith (2011). Peeps at Great Cities – Berlin. BoD – Books on Demand. p. . ISBN 978-3-86403-134-2.

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Volume III: The Victory Campaign: The Operations in North West Europe 1944–1945

Urban Land Institute (2006). Urban Land. 65 (9–12). Urban Land Institute: 88. {{}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

cite journal

Marine Corps Warfighting Publication (MCWP) 3–35.3 – US Marine Corps guidance on urban warfare

Military Operations on Urbanized Terrain (MOUT)

FM 90-10-1 AN INFANTRYMAN 'S GUIDE TO COMBAT IN BUILT-UP AREAS

– Urban operations, reading guide.

Small Wars Journal

Urban warfare in Sub-Saharan Africa in 1970–1981: inventing the rules of the game.