Urban Combat Specialized Corps

[OPSSG]

Waylander's more or less hit the nail on the head here. Modern infantry units already train for MOUT and their leadership has established doctrines for going about doing it.

Agreed. The training for room clearing is actually quite fun (or at least I enjoyed it in my day in the late '80s), particularly, the night live firing - it's so loud even with ear plugs. It's almost as fun as going to a demolition live firing.

With all the new gear, they have changed the syllabus quite a bit. There are now modern training tools available and video replays are excellent for watching your own mistakes.

However, fighting in urban situations is very time- and casualty-intensive, making it a costly and often untenable enterprise

It depends on whether you have a choice - in every case of urban warfare in the 20thC, the defender/enemy chose to fight there. If you are a solider and your enemy chooses to fight your army in an urban area, it is unlikely that your generals and politicians will decline the invitation for too long.

IMO, the alternative to not fighting in urban areas, is not to go to war at all (given increasing urbanization). Remember, in war, the enemy gets a vote. You can only by-pass concentrations of your enemy for so long before you need to engage/clear them (so that your can hopefully proceed with the next phase - stabilization) - unless you are talking about surrounding a city and starving them out just to 'win'.

While specialization has its benefits, overspecialization can be a bad thing. You end up with tremendous redundancies and you don't make effective use of your manpower and expertise when you end up go to war.

I would think that MOUT is part of any modern army's training syllabus (so that implies a certain level of preparedness and some use of specialized tools/weapons).

Feanor, just curious did you have the chance to go through the gas chamber during training? If you did, I'm really interested to hear your thoughts on the experience.

I'm sure he did. It would be part of their training syllabus - the US guys are so well trained. Even I as a normal conscript went to the gas chamber (did a few exercises in the chamber) and for the finale, the instructors made us take-off our gas mask, our inner and outer gloves, expose our skin and recite our name and I/C number before letting us out - this is to ensure that the trainees take deep breaths of the gas. But that's not MOUT training per say, as that is the chemical warfare module of our training. I can tell you that it is F**king painful experience until you wash out your eyes with water and the important thing is not to scratch portions of your skin that was exposed after. I came out of the chamber and just held onto a wire fence nearby to avoid scratching.

Edit: CS is unpleasant and soldiers are already conditioned by limited exposure to it - so it will not permanently degrade fighting ability as long as we move away from the source and wash out our eyes or get out our gas mask.

The outer boot that goes over your boots, the inner glove and outer glove and so on. The mask and so on come in different sizes. You have to make sure you have good seal. The biggest problem for us is the possibility of heat exhaustion (as we are in the tropics) and we've got on all this gear - typically we sweat so much in the suit.

Cheers

 

[old faithful]

i have trained with cs in the Australian army, as well as in my current occupation.
I use operationally in my job now, for (hint of my job) cell extractions and riot control. I have not been involved in riots, however have done extractions useing CS. I have yet to see anyone who will not be effected, some guys can handle being gassed for longer than others, but eventually, everyone folds.the ability to fight is definatly reduced, but some will continue to fight, but ineffectivly, blindly lashing out. it is a very good short term control agent.

 

[OPSSG]

i have trained with cs in the Australian army, as well as in my current occupation.
I use operationally in my job now, for (hint of my job) cell extractions and riot control. I have not been involved in riots, however have done extractions using CS. I have yet to see anyone who will not be effected, some guys can handle being gassed for longer than others, but eventually, everyone folds.the ability to fight is definatly reduced, but some will continue to fight, but ineffectively, blindly lashing out. it is a very good short term control agent.

I agree that CS is a good riot control agent... Honest question. Does ADF use CS for infantry training in MOUT? As a normal infantryman, I would prefer flash bangs or grenades and my primary objective is not to take prisoners in room and in building clearing. Is there going to be an issue with momentum and aggression? BTW, I'm a bit out of date on the nuances of current MOUT tactics - so please feel free to correct me.

The problem as I see it is discrimination between civilians and combatants in MOUT (and we have to avoid killing innocent civilians).

 

[Waylander]

The civilians you are a major point.
One thing one should note about chemical weapons is that most modern armies are prepared to get slimed and because of this should remain as a formidable foghting force.

Civilians in a city on the other hand are normally not able to protect themselves from such a threat (albeit Israel hands out masks for example).

But if the gloves are off somebody might very well use them.
Not that bombing and shelling a city to smitherins (like Feanor mentioned) is very kind to civilians either...


In my opinion the original question of our new mexican member calls for a paramilitary force like the french gendarmerie or the italian carabinieri. Those formations are well suited for security missions on deployments in high risk theaters.

It is very popular to think about MOUT being a bunch of well trained light infantry forces going house to house through a city but most people (many members here not included ) tend to forget the amount of firepower an army will concentrate onto an enemy city.

While light infantry is the core element of a MOUT operation the supporting assets are much more important than one might think.

 

[Feanor]

Feanor, just curious did you have the chance to go through the gas chamber during training? If you did, I'm really interested to hear your thoughts on the experience.

And you're right, I probably should have chosen my verbage a bit more carefully. "Pushed back" was bit...over-dramatic on my part.

I have, and it sucks. But ultimately if you have your field-protector mask you'll be fine. You can even keep going for a little while without it, but not very long. I would expect that if the enemy has chemical weapons, field-protector masks would be issued to everyone involved.

When you go to the gas chamber you go in with your mask on, you do some exercises, don and clear the mask, and then take it off and have to breathe a certain amount of time and then put it back on, and clear it. Your skin burns, and if you take a deep breath without your mask you'll start coughing uncontrollably. But I was smart and kept my eyes closed when we took off the mask, and took shallow breaths.

i have trained with cs in the Australian army, as well as in my current occupation.
I use operationally in my job now, for (hint of my job) cell extractions and riot control. I have not been involved in riots, however have done extractions useing CS. I have yet to see anyone who will not be effected, some guys can handle being gassed for longer than others, but eventually, everyone folds.the ability to fight is definatly reduced, but some will continue to fight, but ineffectivly, blindly lashing out. it is a very good short term control agent.

Absolutely, but they don't just go running when you gas them. You still have to go in and clear the building. Hence my comment, CS isn't going to push them back. Your attack will.

 

[Chino]

How does CS compare to flashbangs? Which has a longer effect of disabling combatants?

 

[Feanor]

How does CS compare to flashbangs? Which has a longer effect of disabling combatants?

I have no idea. I've never used a flashbang on someone. Or had it used on me.

 

[riksavage]

I have no idea. I've never used a flashbang on someone. Or had it used on me.

Flashbangs disorientate, they don't disable. Unlike a stun grenade, you typicaily enter the room at the same time, and through training get used to them going off around you. A stun on the other hand (depending on the variant) is like a hand grenade with no fragmentation, the over pressure and flash gives you a nasty surprise. CS or CN if used correctly can incapacitate, same goes for capsicum, which unlike CS/CN can be used against attack dogs.

 

[old faithful]

flash bangs are more of a distraction, good for deception as well.
I have trained with cs in military uses. My opinion is , its best used in combination with smoke grenades to cover a withdrawral. Spec warries use it for all sorts of missions, that i wont discuss for different reasons, (one being I was never a spec warrie)

 

[Marc 1]

I would imagine, where possible, it would be easier to demolish the city rather then assault it.

Depending on the degree of demolition, that may not be the case. The seige of MonteCasino during WWII was a case in point. The air raids that demolished the monastary just made a whole stack of new firing positions for the german para's that held it against massive odds. Some have argued that if they hadn't bombed it to kingdom come that it would have been easier to take.

 

[Marc 1]

In reply to the OP, any decent infantry force must have MOUT or FIBUA as one of their skill sets. All militaries encounter urban terrain. You cannot just stop and wait for the specialists to arrive.