Concrete Hell: Urban Warfare From Stalingrad to Iraq

by Concrete Hell- Urban Warfare From Stalingrad to Iraq (epub)

  Offensive operations inside the city were delayed on October 15 as the 1st Division confronted the 3rd Panzer Grenadier Division counterattack. On October 16, the 30th and 1st Infantry Divisions isolated the city. The attack resumed again on October 18, in the pattern that existed before. The two American battalions methodically moved from objective to objective using a combination of artillery, mortar, machine-gun, and tank fire to suppress the Germans prior to a rapid infantry assault. Both battalions were unhurried in their operations and took time to methodically clear each objective as it was won. This included clearing underground sewer systems and conducting room-to-room searches for enemy who had remained behind. The 26th Infantry was joined in the Aachen battle by a two-battalion task force of the 3rd Armored Division attacking on the north flank of the 3/26 Infantry, and a single battalion of the 28th Infantry Division filling the growing gap between the advancing 2/26 and the 1106th Engineer Group. On October 18 and 19 the relentless advance continued, block by block, objective by objective. On the 19th the German defenses began to crumble as the German troops recognized the inevitable end and surrenders increased dramatically. By October 20 the city center and the northern zone of the city had been taken and the pace of the American attack increased. The only remaining resistance existed in the western and southwestern suburbs, areas low on the Americans’ priority list of objectives. Finally, on October 21, Colonel Wilck, against Hitler’s orders to resist, surrendered his headquarters and all German troops under his command, just prior to an assault by 3/26.

  The US Army took 19 days to capture Aachen and its 20,000 remaining inhabitants. The 30th and the 1st US Infantry Divisions captured approximately 12,000 prisoners. Though no accurate count of German casualties was possible, they were certainly in the area of 15,000 in addition to those taken prisoner – casualties in the 3rd Panzer Grenadier Division alone were at least 3,000. Over 20 different German infantry and panzer battalions were used in futile counterattacks to retake lost ground and push the Americans back across the Wurm River. During the battle the US artillery fired an average of 9,300 artillery rounds a day and the Germans were estimated to have used 4,500 rounds a day. American losses were significant: the 30th Division suffered approximately 3,000 casualties in 19 days of combat, roughly 20 percent of the division strength but almost a third of the division’s infantry strength. Aachen was an important battle in which, ironically, both sides achieved their objectives. The Germans had managed to keep the Americans from capturing the city for almost three weeks, until nearly the end of October, and protected their ability to stage for the coming counteroffensive – the Battle of the Bulge. The Americans were able to take the city, breach the West Wall, and secure a start position for their final offensive into Germany and across the Rhine River.

  American Tactics

  Aachen demonstrated and validated many important lessons regarding conventional urban combat. Many of the issues illustrated at Aachen were identical to characteristics of urban warfare highlighted in the earlier Stalingrad battle. Aachen validated the important role of the fight outside the city to the fight inside the city; like Stalingrad, the decisive operations occurred well outside the city, making the final reduction of the city center somewhat anticlimactic. The battle validated the critical role of armor in urban warfare – tanks were a key element in all operations. The US infantry always attacked with tank support. The only serious threats to US domination of the battlefield came from the various German armor units thrust into the battle by the German LXXXI Corps. The Tiger tanks of the 506th Heavy Tank Battalion were a dangerous nemesis. The most serious German counterattacks against the American attack were by the mobile formations of the I SS Panzer Corps.

  Aachen also illustrated the continued necessity for tailoring unit organizations for urban combat at the lowest levels. The squad-level bunker-assault teams, and the combined-arms task forces built on the infantry companies of 2/26 were good representations of the benefits of building units tailored for the battle before the battle. Like the Germans and Soviets on the Eastern Front, the Americans understood that combined-arms assault teams were the required organization for urban combat. In Aachen the US infantry platoons advanced from one building to the next only after a preparatory barrage of artillery or mortars. The infantrymen led, supported closely by flamethrowers and tanks. The entire force avoided the open streets as much as possible. An important concern was not fretting away the numbers of the assault platoons by requiring them to occupy and guard the houses they captured. Other supporting arms, antitank guns, machine-gun crews, and even headquarters personnel, were dropped off by the advancing assault troops to guard captured buildings against reoccupation by the Germans.

  Aachen confirmed the critical role of artillery in urban combat. The experienced American infantry assaulted defended positions close behind their supporting artillery barrage. A well-timed artillery attack did not kill many defenders but it allowed the attackers to close in on the building or bunker and assault it while the defenders sheltered from the barrage. American artillery, unlike Soviet artillery, and to a much greater degree than German, was responsive to forward observers and could quickly mass fire at any designated point within range. Thus, even small-scale assaults could be preceded by accurate artillery barrages. Aachen also demonstrated the fantastic effects that artillery in a direct-fire role could achieve. The employment of the self-propelled 155mm guns in support of the infantry demonstrated that those effects were not only material but psychological.

  Aachen validated several characteristics of urban warfare which were valid regardless of what army was participating in the battle. These included the need for tanks, the requirement to use small combined-arms assault teams, the amount of time necessary to capture a city from a skilled and determined enemy, and the important role of the battles outside the city to ensure success inside the city. It also identified some aspects of urban warfare which were unique to American forces. American forces tended to substitute firepower for manpower, and though they did not change their operating methods, they did make plans for the civilian population even though it was considered hostile.

  One of the uniquely American characteristics was the substitution whenever possible of firepower for manpower. The US forces made liberal use of artillery and airpower whenever possible. This permitted the Americans to conduct very intensive offensive operations without a major numerical advantage in infantry. Although American infantry did not outnumber their adversary, they made up for numerical parity with lavish quantities of artillery and airpower and virtually limitless supplies of munitions. This not only reduced the number of infantry required, it also reduced the number of casualties incurred by the attacking force.

  The liberal use of firepower by the Americans would also seem to equate to a disregard for civilian casualties equivalent to the attitudes of the Germans and Soviets on the Eastern Front, but this was not the case. Though the Americans did not change their operational approach to account for civilian casualties, they made a major effort to remove civilians from the battle area once they came under American control. Civil Affairs specialists were positioned immediately behind the battle area to take charge of the civilian population, process it, and evacuate the population to camps under army control. Thus, though US forces in Aachen placed concern for enemy civilian casualties as a lower priority than mission accomplishment, it was still a priority of the command.

  When the 26th Infantry Regiment assaulted Aachen on October 13, the two infantry battalions in the attack were outnumbered by Colonel Wilck’s defenders at least three to one. Despite all the advantages that the Americans had in airpower, the odds on the ground should have favored the German defense. That the American infantry were successful, and at a relatively low cost in casualties, was astounding. The success of the attack can be attributed to the application of a variety of urban fighting techniques, blended in a near-perfect combination by the soldiers of the US 2nd Armored Division, and 30th and 1st Infantry Divisions
with their supporting units. Aachen demonstrated that it was very possible to capture a relatively large urban area, heavily defended by good-quality troops, with a comparatively small number of infantry.

  Comparison with Stalingrad

  The major difference between the American approach to Aachen and the German approach to Stalingrad was the use of maneuver to set favorable conditions for urban battle. The Americans fought and maneuvered outside of the city to isolate the city from support before reducing it. This greatly reduced the burden on the battalions that eventually assaulted the city center. Because the city was isolated, the Americans could choose to attack the city from any number of directions. In contrast, the Germans had to defend everywhere. Because the city was isolated, the Americans could attack the city from the east, when the city’s defenses were designed to protect from attacks from the west. Finally, because the city was isolated, the psychological stress on the defenders was significantly greater than on the attackers. These were all advantages that the Americans had at Aachen, and that the Germans did not have at Stalingrad. This aspect of the American approach to Aachen demonstrated the ideal operational conditions for city fighting: don’t fight for the city until you control access to the city. Despite the simplicity of this concept, subsequent chapters will show that its application is not always obvious to modern armies, or easy for them to achieve.

  CHAPTER 4

  URBAN WARFARE FROM THE SEA

  Inchon and Seoul, 1950

  After World War II the American military jettisoned the vast bulk of the superb ground force that had fought and won the war. By 1950 that force was a hollow shell of its former self. The only remaining remnants of the combat-experienced ground forces were the non-commissioned officer and officer leadership of the skeleton divisions that remained in the force. The bulk of the force in 1950 was draftees with no experience, and in some cases their equipment wasn’t even the best of the World War II equipment. In the late summer of 1950, this force found itself in the midst of another large-scale urban battle against a wholly unanticipated foe in a theater of operations that many Americans had never heard of and would have a hard time finding on a map.

  A Hot Cold War

  In June 1950 the forces of Communist North Korea launched a surprise attack on the forces of South Korea. The military forces of the North, well trained and equipped by the Soviet Union, vastly outnumbered those of the South. In addition, though there were US Army advisors with the Republic of Korea’s (ROK) military, the US vision for the ROK Army (ROKA) was as a large military police force; which meant that there were no heavy weapons, tanks, heavy artillery or antitank weapons among the small South Korean force. Because of this, and the surprise of the attack, the North Korea People’s Army (KPA) was very successful, and in just six weeks managed to push the combined South Korean and American defenders back to a small perimeter at the toe of Korea around the important port city of Pusan.

  At the end of the first week of the surprise attack, the US military entered the war decisively on the side of South Korea. The most effective and responsive weapon that the US had in Asia was the US Air Force, and air attacks against the advancing North Korean columns began on June 27. However, air attacks could slow, but not stop the North Korean advance. Therefore, the US Eighth Army, stationed in Japan, began to deploy to Korea. The problem was that the Eighth Army in 1950 was a shadow of the great American army that had fought its way across the Pacific Ocean under General Douglas MacArthur during World War II. Still under MacArthur’s command – MacArthur was the Supreme Commander Allied Powers in Japan, and Commander US Forces Far East – the Eighth Army was greatly debilitated by post-World War II defense cuts. The Eighth Army had four divisions organized into two corps. However, each of the army’s infantry divisions comprised only two regiments instead of the doctrinal three. Likewise, each regiment had only two battalions, and each battalion only two companies. Similarly, division artillery was reduced to two battalions, all the medium and heavy artillery had been removed from the force at all levels, and each battalion only had two firing batteries of light howitzers. The medium-tank battalions supporting each infantry division was similarly reduced to light-tank battalions of only two companies each. Finally, if the numbers alone were not bad enough, budget and facility constraints greatly inhibited training, leaving the units in a poor state of readiness. Though a formidable force on paper, the Eighth Army and all its subordinate forces were in reality only about 50 percent as capable as the World War II version of the army. This army was thrown as fast as possible into the path of the advancing North Koreans.

  General Walton Walker commanded the combined US and South Korean armies on the peninsula. In the last weeks of August 1950 he managed to stem the North Korean onslaught around the city of Pusan. However, in the first eight weeks of the war the Communists captured over 80 percent of the land of South Korea. Clearly, Walker and his commander, General Douglas MacArthur, could not sit passively on the defensive. As early as the end of July, as Walker fought desperately to maintain a toehold in Korea, General MacArthur was thinking in terms of a counterstroke.

  End Run to Seoul

  MacArthur, in keeping with the operational thinking he had developed during the Pacific campaign of World War II, was keen to avoid the hard campaign that a counterattack back up the mountainous Korean peninsula would entail. He set his staff to investigating the various possibilities of an amphibious operation to bypass the major North Korean forces and land in their rear. This would avoid the tremendous casualties of a frontal assault, save invaluable time, and guarantee the complete destruction of the bulk of the North Korean army. The only problem was there was no suitable landing site for a major amphibious thrust along Korea’s very formidable coastline. The closest that the planners could identify was the city of Inchon on Korea’s west coast.

  The command faced several significant problems executing a major amphibious assault at Inchon. These included the difficulty of the local tides, lack of suitable beaches, the difficulty of achieving surprise, and a shortage of trained troops available. MacArthur carefully considered the problems but also weighed the points in Inchon’s favor. The difficulty of the operation would lend itself to surprise and thus lessen opposition to the landing. Inchon’s geographic position put it close to Seoul. Thus, a successful landing at Inchon could easily lead to a quick conquest of Seoul. Seoul was MacArthur’s ultimate objective. The city’s geographic location put it astride the only important north–south maneuver corridor on the peninsula. Control of Seoul meant control of South Korea. More important than its position, which was extremely important, was that Seoul was also the capital city of South Korea. To many, the loss of Seoul had represented losing the war in the first week: recapturing Seoul represented snatching victory from apparent defeat. MacArthur recognized that the political and psychological importance of Seoul were beyond measure. MacArthur understood that the value of Seoul outweighed the operational risks inherent in an amphibious assault and therefore determined that the operation proceed over the objections of key subordinates and experts on amphibious operations.

  To execute the operation to capture Seoul the Americans assembled a new unit, separate from the US Eighth Army fighting the battle at Pusan. This new unit, X Corps, was tailored for the amphibious operation, and reported not to Eighth Army, but directly to General MacArthur’s Far East Command. The two major subcomponents of the X Corps were the 1st US Marine Division, and the US Army 7th Infantry Division, all under the X Corps commander, Major General Edward Almond. In addition to the two infantry divisions, the corps had the direct support of the Marine Air Wing of the 1st Marine Division. It also included two ROK military units: the ROK Marine Regiment attached to the 1st Marine Division, and the ROK 1st Infantry Regiment attached to the 7th Infantry Division. These latter two units were critical for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was to improve the flagging prestige and morale of the ROK military, and also to highlight the important political objec
tives which were an important goal of the operation.

  Map 4.1 The Inchon Landings, September 1950

  Seoul was a city of over a million people when the war broke out – the fifth largest urban population in Asia. It was the ancient capital of the Korean peninsula and thus was extremely important to both North Korea (the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea – DPRK) and to South Korea. As the North Korean forces poured across the border in the summer of 1950, the population had panicked and attempted to flee. However, over a million people – largely without automotive transportation – cannot quickly pick up and move. So, as the Americans began to execute operations to recapture the capital, there were hundreds of thousands of South Korean civilians still living in Seoul under the occupation rule of North Korea.

  The initial landing area at Inchon was opposed by about 2,000 troops. The KPA had a total of about 16,000 troops in the Inchon–Seoul area. This was a relatively light defensive force given the area’s strategic importance, but it reflected the North Korean high command’s focus on the battles in the south around the Pusan perimeter. In addition to the 2,000 troops positioned in the area of Inchon, another 2,000 troops of the 87th Infantry Regiment were positioned to defend the major suburb of Seoul at Yongdungpo. Additionally, Seoul was garrisoned and defended by the Seoul Defense Division, a unit of approximately 10,000 troops. The remainder of the initial KPA forces around the capital were various support units. Not part of the Seoul garrison, but able to respond quickly to any threat to the city or an amphibious landing, was the KPA’s theater reserve, the 105th Tank Division, equipped with T-34/85 tanks. This unit was the premier unit of the KPA, equipped with over 50 tanks, supporting artillery, and antitank and infantry subunits. It was refitting near Seoul when the landings at Inchon occurred.