Street fighting

xiàngzhàn

[street fighting; Street Combat] battles fought in the streets and alleys of towns

Street fighting, also commonly known as "urban warfare", is because street fighting is a street-by-street, house-by-house battle, usually in a city or a large village. Street fighting has the following two distinctive characteristics:

First, it is hand-to-hand combat between the enemy and us, which is very cruel. Since the battles are almost always based on infantry light fire assaults, and they are all carried out within visual range, the terrain is complex and unpredictable, so in street battles, heavy weapons are useless. Cities are densely populated with buildings and tall buildings, and tanks and armored vehicles, which provide the main fire support, are unable to lift their gun barrels to a sufficient height due to their structural limitations, so they are unable to fire effectively at high targets. The narrow streets also make it impossible for large tanks and other vehicles to turn around, making their flanks and tail extremely vulnerable. In street fighting, the mobility of troops was severely restricted; The limited field of vision makes it very inconvenient to observe, shoot, and coordinate, and in many cases the combat formation of the troops is fragmented, so they have to be dispersed into various units to fight independently.

Second, the enemy and the enemy are mixed with each other, and the dog's teeth are intertwined, which is very dangerous. Because there is no clear battle line, the enemy and the enemy are mixed, and the enemy and the civilian population are mixed, forming a state of mutual stalemate, and the attacking side is in the open and the defending side is hiding in the dark, which increases the difficulty and risk of this kind of military action in street fighting. Tall buildings and underground bunkers are a great place to hide snipers, "you don't know who the enemy is until someone shoots at you" and where the bullets are coming from. Surprise ambushes and unguardable snipers often make the attackers tremble and fall into the shadow of panic and fear.

Famous street battles in history

Battle of Stalingrad. This is the first large-scale street battle in the true sense of modern warfare, and it is also a veritable "urban meat grinder". Its tragedy is unparalleled in the world and unprecedented. In July 1942, the Germans entered Stalingrad with superior forces. The arrogant Germans tried to crush the city with a tried-and-true blitzkrieg, but soon found themselves in a pit full of death. Under Stalin's strict order that "not to take a step back", the Soviet army relied on the complex terrain and many artificial structures in the city to wage a desperate struggle with the enemy. A floor, a room, a water tower, a section of railroad embankment, or even a wall or a pile of rubble can lead to a fierce battle. The Germans often paid great costs to capture the ruins, and in the blink of an eye, they were recaptured by the Soviets. The train station changed hands 13 times. The whole of Stalingrad was in flames, and flesh and blood were flying. The enemy and us fought to the death, and when the bullets were finished, they started a white-knuckle fight, and the tank came up, and the grenade strapped to its body rushed over and died with it. Under the desperate resistance of the Soviet soldiers and civilians, the Germans suffered heavy casualties and could not move an inch, and the ensuing harsh winter weather made the German army even weaker. In February 1943, the Soviets launched a counteroffensive, and the German army, exhausted by street fighting, was crushed, and the 6th Army suffered a devastating blow. The Battle of Stalingrad became a turning point in World War II, and Nazi Germany began to lose ground from then on.

Street fighting in Mogadishu. It was the shortest battle in the history of street fighting, but its impact and significance were extraordinary. On October 3, 1993, the U.S. peacekeeping forces stationed in Somalia dispatched "Black Hawk" helicopters and commandos to encircle and suppress Somalia's largest warlord, Aideed. This time, the US troops were again plotted and plunged into the quagmire of street fighting in the streets and alleys of Mogadishu, where hundreds of people were almost all turned into killers in an instant, and even some women and children were not skilled in shooting with weapons. Since the narrow streets were blocked by barricades, the follow-up units of the American army could not arrive in time for reinforcements. At the end of the half-day battle, 19 American commandos were killed, and 2 Black Hawk helicopters were shot down. The next day, Somalis dragged the body of a US soldier to the streets to celebrate. This footage was captured by reporters and caused an uproar after it was broadcast in the United States, and the Clinton administration had to quickly announce the withdrawal of troops from Somalia under pressure from all sides.

Street fighting in Grozny. This was the most brutal and bloody street battle since the Vietnam War. Since 1994, two large-scale street battles have broken out between the Russian army and the illegal Chechen forces in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya. Grozny was originally built with the requirements of a fortress in mind, so the fortresses are dotted with cobwebs. When the Russian army entered the city, it was like entering a labyrinth, and it could not touch the north, and it had superior weapons and equipment but could not give full play. Chechen armed snipers, on the other hand, can take advantage of the familiar terrain and hide in the shadows as if practicing shooting, shooting targets one by one. At the end of the first street fighting in 1995, it is said that only one officer and 10 soldiers of a regiment of more than 1,000 Russian troops who broke into the city left alive. 20 of the 26 Russian tanks were destroyed, and 120 armored vehicles were also lost. The dead bodies of the Russian army were even used as sandbags by the Chechen armed forces, and they were built together to build "human bunkers". The second street battle in Grozny took place between December 25, 1999 and February 2000, and the Russian army was strewn with corpses, 1,173 soldiers were killed, and even the commander-in-chief of the Russian front, Major General Malofeyev, was shot dead. The helpless Russian President Vladimir Putin later ordered to bombard Grozny, but this small city has become an eternal pain in the hearts of Russian soldiers.

What will happen to street fights in the future

Urban street fighting was gradually formed with the development of the city and the expansion of the scale of warfare. In the future, the world's population will be further concentrated in cities. The United Nations estimates that by 2030, two-thirds of the world's population will live in urban areas. This means that in the event of a war in the future, urban street fighting will remain inevitable and will become an important form of warfare.

In November 2004, the U.S. military launched a large-scale offensive on Fallujah, where anti-American forces led by al-Zarqawi were entrenched, killing and capturing more than 3,000 Iraqi fighters at a modest cost of more than 50 Marines. This was the first large-scale urban street battle of the US military in the 21 st century, and it highlighted many new characteristics of the US military's urban warfare under the conditions of informationization.

First of all, the means of combat tend to be high-tech. In the Battle of Fallujah, in order to minimize the risk of casualties, the U.S. military used a large number of new technologies suitable for urban street fighting. For example, a "multi-dimensional surveillance system" has been developed to monitor military targets at all times through reconnaissance and surveillance satellites, unmanned reconnaissance aircraft, and various electronic sensors, so that anti-US armed personnel cannot hide. Use anti-sniper and robotics to search for enemy snipers hiding behind various buildings, and organize fire to clear them before the infantry attacks; The use of new armor protection technologies allows the tank to enter urban areas for effective combat. With the support of high-tech means, modern street fighting will no longer be the dream demon of the attacker.

Second, the direction of the blow tends to be three-dimensional. During the Battle of Fallujah, the US military carried out a joint integrated battle, using long-range precision-guided missiles, fighter jets, bombers, and special operations forces to strike and destroy targets occupied by anti-US forces in the city from the four dimensions of land, sea, air, and space. This new type of multi-dimensional and three-dimensional urban street warfare has greatly changed the single mode of ground warfare in traditional street warfare and improved combat efficiency.

Third, the targets of strikes tend to be more precise. Modern cities are densely populated, and the traditional carpet bombing used to storm cities will cause many problems for post-war reconstruction. In the battle of Fallujah, the U.S. military achieved the greatest result with small casualties, eliminating the anti-American forces while basically preserving the city's buildings intact, and did not harm innocent civilians too much. This suggests that the new concept of urban street warfare will place more emphasis on the principle of using both attack and protection