Sieges in Modern Urban Warfare and Artillery Tactics

Disclaimer : There is no two ways about it - Wars are brutally inhuman and the aim is to inflict maximum damage on the enemy.

The topics that I am going to explore today is not for the faint-hearted. Everything is fair in war. So first things first, let me give you a brief run down about certain aspects of warfare -

1. The aggressor is always at an disadvantage, it is general consensus that the aggressor needs numerical and fire superiority in the ranges of 3:1 in any battle to stand a decent chance of victory. This gets even more lopsided in urban warfare.

2. The defenders always have the upper hand when it comes to knowledge of terrain, effective use of choke points, local support and logistics.

3. Speaking of logistics - the unglamorous side of the military is actually the second most important and often overlooked bit, the first most important one being intelligence and surveillance. Logistics planning can make or break a military operation.

4. Urban warfare has always been one of the most difficult points to address for all militaries worldwide irrespective of military doctrine, technology prowess or fielded manpower, along with mountain warfare and guerilla warfare (insurgency).

5. Force regeneration is crucial as this can be the difference between being the hunter or becoming the hunted.

6. Retreat is not shameful. Tactical and strategical retreating has many benefits which will have detrimental impact on the casualties incurred.

7. The enemy also will in its arsenal have hardcore patriots whom are resourceful and eventually they will get an opportunity to strike, so one will do well not to underestimate the opposition.

8. Casualties will happen on both sides, sometimes the most elite units will get massacred, they are not immune to it, it is a part of war. Maintaining morale will become difficult as the war drags on, no matter how powerful the propaganda is.

9. And the last one which some of you might have heard before - Air superiority helps but boots on the ground wins you the war. To add to it, the easiest way to achieve ground superiority is by taking inspiration from Napoleon Bonaparte - the god of war is artillery.

Now coming to the most recent war that has caught the world's attention - the Russia-Ukraine war. Let me make this very clear to the readers, Ukraine would have crumpled under Russian military operation if not for the humongous military aid flowing in from more than 60 countries and the toughest sanctions regime imposed on Russia. So effectively this is a war between Russia, Ukraine and NATO's non-kinetic (short of active participation) might. Now rumors are that the western nation's covert special forces units who are passed-off as mercenaries are even taking an active role apart from advising, one might begin to wonder to what lengths will these countries go to see Russia defeated and when will a slip-up lead to a free for all nuclear rave party, post which there will be no humans left for an after-party.

One of the most notable trend in this war is the proactive, heavy and indiscriminate use of artillery to inflict casualties on the enemy, which makes sense as both the sides field and effectively operate multi-tiered air defence systems and as the war progresses the air defence forces of both sides have gotten better at intercepting each others aircrafts albeit Russia has an upper hand in this, as well as in the electromagnetic spectrum of jamming and interference in battlefield communications and surveillance. This ability provides the Russians with an unseen yet big advantage - disruptions in this domain also affects the the counter-artillery radars of Ukrainian making them ineffective in locating Russian barrel and rocket artillery units.

The Russian way of warfighting is very different from the western concepts, one such example is the method of operation of sniper units. Western forces use these specialised units to covertly take out important enemy personnel behind enemy lines to paralyze the enemy but in the process also exposing these units to the enemy. Russia though can undertake these operations to a lesser extent, have devised an entirely different method by pairing up multiple sniper teams along the frontlines and literally herd enemy units to pre-designated areas which are well reconnoitered by friendly artillery, and when the enemy is in the kill-zone, the Russian artillery opens up on them and devastates them. So in essence it's not appropriate to evaluate Russian military operations according to western parameters.

This is what I wanted to emphasize on - one need not have to ape western standards of conducting military operations.

During the beginning of the hostilities Russian forces avoided urban combat by circumventing major cities and advancing along open areas where the Russian advantage in battle tanks payed-off. The earlier by-passed cities were laid to siege and slowly suffocated. But this tactics soon created problems for the Russians as the surrounded Ukrainian units refused to surrender and started carrying out operations independently of Ukrainian command by probing Russian forces participating in the siege and breaking through. These Ukrainian units then proceeded to create confusion among the Russian rear which now was deep inside Ukraine by conducting sabotage and diversionary attacks. So the plan of Russians to avoid urban combat backfired big-time, and the nightmare that US military once faced in Iraq's Fallujah in the form of bloody fighting in closed, confined and tight spaces became a stark reality. Recognizing their folly, they fell back on tried and trusted tactics from Syria, that is "scorched earth", which entailed destruction of major cities by continued and relentless bombardment. This soon presented them with another set of problems - levelling multi-storied buildings created a set of passages and tunnels akin to bunkers from collapsed rubble which became even more difficult to deal with.

Here is where I would like to bring to your attention to two different munitions in artillery - incendiary and thermobaric projectiles.

Incendiary projectiles -

Looks beautiful like fireworks right ? It burns even more beautifully and that's what makes it frightening. It can burn through almost anything...and anyone unlucky enough to get exposed to it dies a horrific death. This munitions drops substances that burn on contact with oxygen and it's very difficult to extinguish. The general solution is to run and find hard cover and hope that it doesn't burn through the shelter that one finds themselves in.

Thermobaric munitions -

And here ladies and gentleman is another horrific instrument of war, this projectile has a two step detonation process - 'numero-uno' - a primary blast which sprays fine fuel droplets and then a secondary blast which ignites the previously sprayed droplets that have now become a potent fuel-air mixture. The terrifying aspect of this type of explosion is that it literally sucks out oxygen from the bubble envelope of the fuel-air mixture and creates extreme pressure differences in the localized area...so extreme that it is enough to rupture the lungs of all living organisms present in that area. This makes it especially effective when the enemy is hiding.

The ghastly artillery tactics of pairing them up - Provide artillery units going for urban confrontation with incendiary and thermobaric munitions. The artillery units will start the bombardment with incendiary munitions forcing the defenders to take cover in the tight urban spaces. Follow up with thermobaric munitions which sucks out the oxygen and thereby eliminating all hostile forces present in the urban setting. This would relieve pressure on advancing friendly units from having to partake in bloody and time consuming urban warfare and also mitigate the need for levelling buildings and prolonged artillery bombardment. The huge downside to this is the potential for civilian deaths.

Like I mentioned at the beginning, everything is fair in war and holding onto chivalry though will save civilians, mind you...civilians that are aligned with the enemy...have no doubt about it, but will come at the cost of the lives of friendly soldiers. It all depends on how desperate the warring factions get for a victory on the battlefield. To put things into perspective - "it is never a good idea to corner someone in a fight as they then will make a last stand, instead it's always better to negotiate a honorable truce". The world will do well to keep that in mind when the above mentioned statement comes into the picture with respect to a superpower like Russia.