Why militaries must destroy cities to save them...

via MWI.USMA.ED

A vivid example of the difficulty inherent in entering buildings in major urban fights is described in detail in Reimagining the Character of Urban Operations for the U.S. Army, a summary of the 2004 Second Battle of Fallujah produced by the RAND Corporation. For example, after one Marine platoon had lost almost half its men clearing enemy-held buildings they decided they would not enter “houses anymore without [first] prepping with grenades or rockets, minimum a grenade.”  In his post-battle interview, the commander of the 1st Marine Division, Maj. Gen. Richard Natonski, acknowledged an even greater shift. “Because of the intensity of the resistance and if we knew there were insurgents in buildings, in some cases we’d drop the structure before we’d risk soldier or Marine lives by sending them into buildings,” he said. “We used everything from tanks at close range shooting up the buildings to D9 armored bulldozers to 500-pound JDAMs [Joint Direct Attack Munitions].”

Story here. 

Read the article but first put pillows on the walls.

This bubba will have you punching everything in sight so put the dog outside, tell the wife to go shopping and put all valuables in safe locations.

I can't believe that pile of steaming manure I waded into.  This joker went into a long diatribe about "why militaries must destroy cities to save them" but at the end of the day didn't answer the question!

Additionally he never even made the case of WHY we must fight in cities.  To his credit he did point out how ferocious the combat would be, explained in a limited fashion why the defending forces would have the advantage, laid out the field manual tick tock of conducting a deliberate attack into an urban area but then bailed on the entire premise of the article.

Do me a favor.

Read the fights in the Philippines (forgot the name of the city), the Battle of Hue City, the 2nd Battle of Fallujah and a few others.

Then look at our infantry units which are understrength, our dependence on airpower for fires, our lack of organic artillery (due to over reliance on airpower) and how small our forces are today...then think about a fight in a big city like Manilla...or Seoul...or Nairobi....then wonder how many casualties we would take to secure it.

The city fight is a fool's errand.  The casualties alone would probably render a couple divisions combat ineffective...the damage to the city would make it useless property...the follow on fight would be lost because so much effort was expended in a useless objective.

Fool's errand?  Only an idiot would think that this fight makes sense!