ARTICLE

July 2004

Heavy Armor Gains Clout in Urban Combat

by Roxana Tiron

An ongoing debate within the U.S. Army is whether to revise its tactics and doctrine for the employment of heavy armored vehicles in urban areas.

Operations in Iraq prove that the current doctrine, which specifically dissuades the Army from bringing tanks into cities, should be rewritten, said Gen. B.B. Bell, the commander of the Army’s forces in Europe.

“The utility of tanks in the city, not only from a protective envelope, but also from a capabilities perspective, is something that we relearned,” Bell told National Defense. “I think we knew this in previous wars. So, we have to go re-look at our doctrine and make sure that we write our doctrine correctly for using armored platforms in cities.”

In the current doctrine, crafted 20 years ago, “the fundamental precept was [that] the worst place where you can take a tank is in the city,” Bell said in an interview during the 2004 Armor conference at Fort Knox, Ky.

“The general belief was that you’d be immediately engulfed with rocket-propelled grenades, [the tank] would be caught up in this terrible caldron of fires and, therefore, this was not an appropriate platform to operate in cities,” he explained. “That has obviously proven to be a doctrine of exclusion that was not correct.”

Stability and support operations have turned out more lethal than expected, he said, and therefore, the requirement for armored platforms, ranging from tanks to Stryker light armored vehicles and up-armored Humvees, “is as important as it has ever been and, perhaps, more so,” he said.

Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, the commander of the U.S. Army’s 3rd Corps and the multi-national Corps in Iraq has required more tanks and Bradleys, according to Chief Master Sgt. William Gainey. “We are all beefing up,” he said after a presentation at Fort Knox. “We had what we thought we needed, but it did not prove enough.”

Officials at Fort Hood, Texas, were preparing last month to send 50 tanks to Iraq.

“One thing is for sure: to gain proximity to the enemy and survive his ambush attacks, having sufficient armor surrounding our forces—physically surrounding them—has proven vital,” Bell said.

“Armored platforms do have a role in cities,” he argued. “They have a role first to protect our infantry formations as they fight house to house. Then, they have a role as a support platform, or firing platform to defeat enemy forces in cities.”

U.S. main battle tanks—the M1A1 Abrams and its updated versions, the M1A2 and the M1A2 System Enhancement Program—carry precise, direct-fire weapons that can cut the risk of civilian casualties, which normally would be high in a city, said Bell.

“An artillery piece, or even certain types of aerial delivered fire, produce a wide range of collateral damage that a direct-fire, tank-like weapon does not produce,” he said.

“I would take this tank in the urban environment any day, because having extra protection would be something that we like,” Staff Sgt. Jared Hamilton said. Hamilton fought with the 3rd Infantry Division in Iraq.

“Tanks not only provide over-watch, they can also blow up a house much better than the firepower from six soldiers,” he told National Defense. “In order to disable a tank, one would have to get pretty close to it.”

But that does not happen often, he said. The shock factor of an Abrams tank is fairly effective. Insurgents are less likely to attack if a tank is present, he explained.

Hamilton’s former unit from the 3rd ID, training at Fort Polk, La., before being re-deployed, is using the tanks in support of the dismounts, he said.

In the past, infantry always entered cities first, with armor following, explained Gainey. Now, “what we are trying to do is put the armor in first, blow the holes and [then] let the infantry come in,” he said. “That is working well.”

Success in the urban environment requires the effective use of the combined arms teams—the mix of scouts, infantry and armored platforms, according to Bell. “What you do not want to do is use any of these capabilities by themselves.”

The Army’s intent to build combined arms brigades-modular units organized as combined arms at the lowest level—will not only bring all those organizations together for the fight, but keep them together for their entire organizational life, said Bell.

The 3rd ID, based at Fort Stewart, Ga., is the first to be reorganized under the modularity concept and will test it when they re-deploy to Iraq. The division’s three brigades are being restructured into four “units of action,” including armored, maneuver and aviation components. The division headquarters will become the “unit of employment X.”

The maneuver units of action are made up of an armed reconnaissance squadron, two combined arms battalions, an artillery battalion, a brigade support battalion and an engineer company, according to Maj. Gen. Terry Tucker, the commander of Fort Knox and the Army’s Armor School.

“We had a tradition in the Army for years of tailoring and task-organizing for a mission right before the mission and it worked kind of well, but we have always been troubled that during training and exercises we did not have these organizations permanently formed,” Bell said.

To provide the combatant commanders with cohesive, combat-ready troops, the Army has to figure out how to bring a unit together “at the right time” and keep it together, Tucker explained.

Under a new proposed plan, a brigade should be “rebuilt” over one to three months, then would spend up to eight months training, culminating with a certification exercise. For about 24 to 29 months, the brigade will stay ready to conduct operations and each of these new units of action can expect to go “somewhere, at least once,” said Tucker.

“That gives you about a three-year cycle to build the team, train it, deploy it and bring it back,” Tucker said in a presentation at the armor conference. To support this plan, however, the Army has to restructure the personnel system.

Meanwhile, Fort Knox is leading the Army’s efforts to change the way the service trains its armor and infantry forces, said Tucker, from “private to brigade commander.”

The Army is revamping unit training, according to Tucker. Soldiers and officers are spending more time in live exercises and less on marches and drills.

“Tankers and scouts are not going to be good marchers for the next year or two, because they are conducting tactical movements and combat drills,” Tucker said. Additionally, troops will learn to fire their individual and collective unit weapons at night and during the day, according to Tucker.

Classroom instruction will be curtailed, said Tucker. “Today, what we turn out is a soldier [who] is better prepared to arrive at this first unit to contribute to the effort” as opposed to having to be trained by the platoon sergeant in theater, he said.

Non-commissioned officers also will be better trained to lead crews, squads, sections and platoons. “We are getting great sergeants out in the operational force, a lot faster than we did [before],” said Tucker. Out of 368 soldiers who recently graduated from the Armor School, 240 were in theater.

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