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Armies are re-learning how to fight in cities

economist.com

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Re: Armies are re-learning how to fight in cities

#11

Post by tawaydoo »

trasz wrote: post #7
chrisseaton wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US was operating a counter-insurgency, so they didn't use major artillery bombardment, and used precision strike if anything but mostly used mechanised infantry and armour on the ground. It was still extremely destructive. Russia are conducting basically conventional warfare, so they're absolutely piling artillery rounds into these cities.

I’m not sure if razing a city to ground and killing hundred thousand civilians is “conventional warfare”.

That actually is conventional warfare

Re: Armies are re-learning how to fight in cities

#13

Post by dougmwne »

snapcaster wrote: post #3
Sakos wrote: post #2

Quoted post unavailable.

You are misremembering. Not really your fault, if you're american like me you were only exposed to absurd quantities of propaganda. Worth looking into what things the US did again you'll probably be pretty upset

Help us out. What exactly are you talking about?

Re: Armies are re-learning how to fight in cities

#14

Post by dundarious »

shaftoe444 wrote: post #8
Sakos wrote: post #2

Quoted post unavailable.

> razing a city to the ground or wiping out most of the population of entire towns. In Fallujah the US destroyed over half the homes, displaced 100,000s of people and admitted to using white phosphorus. You are misremembering.

Also, pretty sure the counter to the ISIS takeover of northern Iraq involved the same kind of broad artillery fire on apartments, etc., as we’ve seen in Ukraine.

Here is a study into deaths during the ISIS takeover and occupation, and the counter. There was relatively little conflict when ISIS took over, so the low death rates there are unsurprising but somewhat irrelevant. The death rate in the “liberation” is significant.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29763433/

Re: Armies are re-learning how to fight in cities

#15

Post by gruturo »

trasz wrote: post #7
chrisseaton wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US was operating a counter-insurgency, so they didn't use major artillery bombardment, and used precision strike if anything but mostly used mechanised infantry and armour on the ground. It was still extremely destructive. Russia are conducting basically conventional warfare, so they're absolutely piling artillery rounds into these cities.

I’m not sure if razing a city to ground and killing hundred thousand civilians is “conventional warfare”.

Conventional is exactly the right term unfortunately.

"Conventional" means all-out war, army vs army. The problem is that russia is carrying out conventional warfare tactics against a civilian population rather than an opposing army.

Re: Armies are re-learning how to fight in cities

#18

Post by tawaydoo »

michaelwww wrote: post #9
snapcaster wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are misremembering. Not really your fault, if you're american like me you were only exposed to absurd quantities of propaganda. Worth looking into what things the US did again you'll probably be pretty upset

I found some isolated incidents of war crimes by the US in Iraq. There's nothing like command sanctioned massacring of civilians like the Russians are doing in Ukraine. Can you provide some more info? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes#Iraq_...

I think it’s a bit of a dodge to say ‘the US followed the rules!’ when the entire premise for the Iraq war was willfully fabricated.

Re: Armies are re-learning how to fight in cities

#20

Post by Sakos »

anonymfus wrote: post #16
Sakos wrote: post #2

Quoted post unavailable.

Which claim from the article you refer to? I don't see it saying that US razed a city to the ground or wiped out most of the population of entire towns.

The claim being made is Mariupol will change how we approach urban warfare in the future. But the US and Europe have been involved in a lot of urban warfare since the 90s on. I don't know why Russia being nuts suddenly changes everything.
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