What is street fighting?
First, it is hand-to-hand combat between the enemy and ourselves, and it is cruel. Because almost all the battles are based on infantry light fire assault, and they are all carried out within sight range, the terrain is complex and unpredictable, so heavy weapons are useless in street fighting. There are dense buildings and high-rise buildings in the city, and tanks and armored vehicles, which provide the main fire support, cannot lift the gun barrel to a sufficient height due to their own structural limitations, so they cannot effectively shoot high targets. Narrow streets also prevent tanks and other large chariots from turning around, making their sides and tails vulnerable to attack. In street fighting, the mobility of troops is seriously restricted; The limited field of vision makes it very inconvenient to observe, shoot and cooperate. In many cases, the combat formation of troops is divided and they have to be dispersed into various units to fight independently.
secondly, the enemy and I are mixed, jagged and dangerous. Because there is no clear front, the enemy and the enemy are mixed, and the enemy and the civilians are mixed, forming a stalemate between you and me, while the attacking party is in the light and the defending party is hiding in the dark, which further increases the difficulty and risk of street fighting. Tall buildings and underground bunkers are good places to hide snipers. "You don't know who the enemy is until others shoot at you", and where the bullets come from. Surprise ambushes and impossible-to-prevent snipers often make attackers tremble with fear and fall into the shadow of panic and anxiety.
Famous street fighting in history
The Battle of Stalingrad. This is the first large-scale street fighting in the true sense of modern war, and it is also a veritable "city meat grinder". Its tragic degree can be described as unparalleled in the world and unprecedented. In July 1942, the Germans invaded Stalingrad with superior forces. The arrogant Germans tried to flatten the city, a symbol of the supreme commander of the Soviet Union, with the tried and tested blitzkrieg, but they soon found themselves in a deep pit full of death. Under Stalin's strict order that "no step back", the Soviet army relied on the complex terrain and numerous artificial buildings in the city to fight to the death with the enemy. A floor, a room, a water tower, a section of railway subgrade, even a wall and a pile of rubble can trigger a fierce battle. The ruins captured by the Germans at great cost were recaptured by the Soviets in an instant. The train station changed hands repeatedly as many as 13 times. The whole Stalingrad was ablaze and bloody. The enemy and I fought to the death, and when the bullets were finished, they started a white-edged fight. The tank came up and rushed over with grenades tied to them. Under the desperate resistance of Soviet soldiers and civilians, the Germans suffered heavy casualties and could not move, and the harsh winter weather that followed made them even weaker. In February 1943, the Soviet Union launched a counterattack, and the German army, exhausted by street fighting, was annihilated, and the Sixth Army suffered a devastating blow. The Battle of Stalingrad became the turning point of World War II, and Nazi Germany began to retreat.
street fighting in Mogadishu. This is a battle with the shortest time in the history of street fighting, but its influence and significance are extraordinary. On October 3, 1993, the U.S. peacekeeping forces in Somalia dispatched "Black Hawk" helicopters and commandos to encircle Aidid, Somalia's largest warlord. Before that, the anti-American armed forces led by Aidid used ambush guerrilla tactics, which made the U.S. military suffer enough. This time, the American troops were ambushed again, and fell into the mire of street fighting they feared most in the streets and lanes of Mogadishu. Hundreds of people almost turned into killers in an instant, and even some women and children were not skilled at shooting with weapons. Because the narrow streets were blocked by roadblocks, the follow-up troops of the US military could not get reinforcements in time. After half a day of fighting, 19 American commandos were killed and two Black Hawk helicopters were shot down. The next day, the Somali people dragged the body of an American soldier to the streets to celebrate. This shot was photographed by a reporter, which caused an uproar in the United States. Under the pressure of all parties, the Clinton administration had to announce its withdrawal from Somalia soon.
street fighting in Grozny. This is the cruelest and bloodiest street fighting after the Vietnam War. Since 1994, Russian troops and Chechen illegal armed forces have successively erupted two large-scale street battles in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya. Grozny was designed according to the requirements of the battle fortress when it was built, so the fortresses in the city are dotted and dense as cobwebs. Russian troops entered the city as if they were in a maze, unable to touch the north, but unable to play with superior weapons and equipment. However, Chechen snipers can hide in the dark with their familiar terrain and shoot targets one by one like practicing shooting. At the end of the first street fighting in 1995, it was said that a regiment of more than 1, Russian troops broke into the city, leaving only one officer and 1 soldiers alive. Twenty of the 26 Russian tanks were destroyed, and 12 of the 12 armored vehicles were lost. Russian dead bodies were even used as sandbags by Chechen armed forces to build "human blockhouses". The second street fighting in Grozny took place from December 25, 1999 to February 2. The Russian army was covered with corpses, and 1,173 soldiers were killed. Even Major General Malofeyev, the commander-in-chief of the Russian front line, was shot dead. The helpless Russian President Vladimir Putin later ordered the bombing of Grozny, but this tiny town has become an eternal pain in the hearts of Russian soldiers.
what will street fighting be like in the future
urban street fighting is gradually formed with the development of cities and the expansion of war scale. In the future society, the world population will be further concentrated in cities. According to the United Nations, by 23, two-thirds of the world's population will live in urban areas. This means that if there is a war in the future, urban street fighting will remain inevitable and will become an important combat style.
In November p>24, the US military launched a large-scale attack on the city of Fallujah, which was occupied by anti-American armed forces headed by Zarqawi, and killed and captured more than 3, Iraqi armed men at a small cost of casualties of more than 5 marines. This is the first large-scale urban street fighting of the US military in the 21st century, which highlights many new features of the US military's implementation of urban warfare under the condition of informationization.
first of all, the means of attack tend to be high-tech. In the battle of Fallujah, in order to minimize the risk of casualties, the US military used a lot of new technologies suitable for urban street fighting. For example, develop a "multidimensional surveillance system" to monitor military targets all the time through reconnaissance and surveillance satellites, unmanned reconnaissance planes and various electronic sensors, so that anti-American armed personnel cannot hide; Using anti-sniper and robot technology, search for enemy snipers hidden behind various buildings, and organize fire to clear them before infantry attacks; Using new armor protection technology, tanks can enter the city to fight effectively. With the support of high-tech means, modern street fighting will no longer be the attacker's incubus.
Secondly, the hitting direction tends to be three-dimensional. In the Battle of Fallujah, the U.S. military carried out joint and integrated operations, using long-range precision guided missiles, fighter planes, bombers and special operations forces to strike and destroy the targets occupied by anti-American armed forces in the city from the four dimensions of land, sea, air and sky. This new multi-dimensional and three-dimensional urban street fighting has greatly changed the single mode of traditional street fighting on the ground and improved the fighting efficiency.
third, the target tends to be precise. Modern cities are densely populated, and the traditional carpet bombing will bring many problems to post-war reconstruction. In the Battle of Fallujah, the U.S. military achieved the greatest success with minor casualties. While eliminating anti-American armed forces, it basically preserved the buildings in the city, and did not harm innocent civilians too much. This shows that the new concept of urban street fighting will emphasize the principle of paying equal attention to attack and protection.