Tag Kharkov

TDI Friday Read: Measuring The Effects of Combat in Cities

Between 2001 and 2004, TDI undertook a series of studies on the effects of urban combat in cities for the U.S. Army Center for Army Analysis (CAA). These studies examined a total of 304 cases of urban combat at the divisional and battalion level that occurred between 1942 and 2003, as well as 319 cases of concurrent non-urban combat for comparison.

The primary findings of Phases I-III of the study were:

  • Urban terrain had no significantly measurable influence on the outcome of battle.
  • Attacker casualties in the urban engagements were less than in the non-urban engagements and the casualty exchange ratio favored the attacker as well.
  • One of the primary effects of urban terrain is that it slowed opposed advance rates. The average advance rate in urban combat was one-half to one-third that of non-urban combat.
  • There is little evidence that combat operations in urban terrain resulted in a higher linear density of troops.
  • Armor losses in urban terrain were the same as, or lower than armor losses in non-urban terrain. In some cases it appears that armor losses were significantly lower in urban than non-urban terrain.
  • Urban terrain did not significantly influence the force ratio required to achieve success or effectively conduct combat operations.
  • Overall, it appears that urban terrain was no more stressful a combat environment during actual combat operations than was non-urban terrain.
  • Overall, the expenditure of ammunition in urban operations was not greater than that in non-urban operations. There is no evidence that the expenditure of other consumable items (rations; water; or fuel, oil, or lubricants) was significantly different in urban as opposed to non-urban combat.
  • Since it was found that advance rates in urban combat were significantly reduced, then it is obvious that these two effects (advance rates and time) were interrelated. It does appear that the primary impact of urban combat was to slow the tempo of operations.

In order to broaden and deepen understanding of the effects of urban combat, TDI proposed several follow-up studies. To date, none of these have been funded:

  1. Conduct a detailed study of the Battle of Stalingrad. Stalingrad may also represent one of the most intense examples of urban combat, so may provide some clues to the causes of the urban outliers.
  2. Conduct a detailed study of battalion/brigade-level urban combat. This would begin with an analysis of battalion-level actions from the first two phases of this study (European Theater of Operations and Eastern Front), added to the battalion-level actions completed in this third phase of the study. Additional battalion-level engagements would be added as needed.
  3. Conduct a detailed study of the outliers in an attempt to discover the causes for the atypical nature of these urban battles.
  4. Conduct a detailed study of urban warfare in an unconventional warfare setting.

Details of the Phase I-III study reports and conclusions can be found below:

Measuring The Effects Of Combat In Cities, Phase I

Measuring the Effects of Combat in Cities, Phase II – part 1

Measuring the Effects of Combat in Cities, Phase II – part 2

Measuring the Effects of Combat in Cities, Phase III – part 1

Measuring the Effects of Combat in Cities, Phase III – part 2

Measuring the Effects of Combat in Cities, Phase III – part 2.1

Measuring the Effects of Combat in Cities, Phase III – part 3

Urban Phase IV – Stalingrad

Urban Combat in War by Numbers

Measuring the Effects of Combat in Cities, Phase II – part 1

Our first urban warfare report that we did had a big impact. It clearly showed that the intensity of urban warfare was not what some of the “experts” out there were claiming. In particular, it called into question some of the claims being made by RAND. But, the report was based upon Aachen, Cherbourg, and a collection of mop-up operations along the Channel Coast. Although this was a good starting point because of the ease of research and availability of data, we did not feel that this was a fully representative collection of cases. We also did not feel that it was based upon enough cases, although we had already assembled more cases than most “experts” were using. We therefore convinced CAA (Center for Army Analysis) to fund a similar effort for the Eastern Front in World War II.

For this second phase, we again assembled a collection of Eastern Front urban warfare engagements in our DLEDB (Division-level Engagement Data Base) and compared it to Eastern Front non-urban engagements. We had, of course, a considerable collection of non-urban engagements already assembled from the Battle of Kursk in July 1943. We therefore needed a good urban engagement nearby. Kharkov is the nearest major city to where these non-urban engagements occurred and it was fought over three times in 1943. It was taken by the Red Army in February, it was retaken by the German Army in March, and it was taken again by the Red Army in August. Many of the units involved were the same units involved in the Battle of Kursk. This was a good close match. It has the additional advantage that both sides were at times on the offense.

Furthermore, Kharkov was a big city. At the time it was the fourth biggest city in the Soviet Union, being bigger than Stalingrad (as measured by pre-war population). A picture of its Red Square in March 1943, after the Germans retook it, is above.

We did have good German records for 1943 and we were able to get access to Soviet division-level records from February, March and August from the Soviet military archives in Podolsk. Therefore, we were able to assembled all the engagements based upon the unit records of both sides. No secondary sources were used, and those that were available were incomplete, usually one-sided, sometimes biased and often riddled with factual errors.

So, we ended up with 51 urban and conurban engagements from the fighting around Kharkov, along with 65 non-urban engagements from Kursk (we have more now).

The Phase II effort was completed on 30 June 2003. The conclusions of Phase II (pages 40-41) were similar to Phase I:

.Phase II Conclusions:

  1. Mission Accomplishment: This [Phase I] conclusion was further supported. The data does show a tendency for urban engagements not to generate penetrations.
  2. Casualty Rates: This [Phase I] conclusion was further supported. If urban combat influenced the casualty rate, it appears that it resulted in a reduction of the attacker casualty rate and a more favorable casualty exchange ratio compared to nonurban warfare. There still appears to be no basis to the claim that urban combat is significantly more intense with regards to casualties than is nonurban warfare.
  3. Advance Rates: There is no strong evidence of a reduction in the advance rates in urban terrain in the Eastern Front data. TDI still stands by its original conclusion that the average advance rate in urban combat should be one-half to one-third that of nonurban combat.
  4. Linear Density: Again, there is little evidence that the presence of urban terrain results in a higher linear density of troops, but unlike the ETO data, the data did not show a tendency to trend in that direction.
  5. Armor Losses: This conclusion was further supported (Phase I conclusion was: Overall, it appears that the loss of armor in urban terrain is the same as or less than that found in nonurban terrain, and in some cases is significantly lower.)
  6. Force Ratios: The conclusion was further supported (Phase I conclusion was: Urban combat did not significantly influence the Force Ratio required to achieve success or effectively conduct combat operations).
  7. Duration of Combat: Nothing could be determined from an analysis of the data regarding the Duration of Combat (Time) in urban versus nonurban terrain.

There is a part 2 to this effort that I will pick up in a later post.