by Concrete Hell- Urban Warfare From Stalingrad to Iraq (epub)
World War II established modern urban battle tactics. In the years since World War II tactics have evolved but not changed dramatically. During the Cold War, modern armies encountered traditional foes in urban combat situations very reminiscent of World War II. Cold War urban battles in places like Korea and Vietnam looked very much like the World War II experience. However, modern armies have also encountered enemies that have not been armies in the traditional sense, but rather urban insurgents. Urban insurgency emerged during the Cold War and required that modern armies build on traditional urban tactical techniques and combine them with an entirely new understanding of warfare. The French in Algeria and the British in Northern Ireland pioneered the experience of 20th-century armies fighting urban insurgents amid a large civilian population.
The first years of the 21st century continued the trend of more and more combat centered on large urban centers and their populations. Recent combat has demonstrated that the world’s cities may well be more the focus of operations than at any time in history. Certainly the evidence of the first decade of the 21st century is that enemies of modern armies will seek out the urban battlefields for a variety of compelling reasons. The urban battle space gives – as it always has done – maximum physical advantages to the defender; the physical environment tends to mitigate many technological advantages held by the attacker; the presence of civilians can greatly complicate the operations of attacking forces, while sometimes also providing cover and concealment to the defender; and it opens the battle to modern media scrutiny. The beginning of the 21st century also revealed that the experiences in conventional and unconventional combat of the last half of the 20th century provide a good guide to the tactics and techniques necessary for success against dedicated and deadly urban enemies of all types. Thus, it seems that understanding the future of war in the 21st century requires an understanding of the history of modern urban combat as demonstrated in the key city battles since World War II.
CHAPTER 2
AN OPERATIONAL DEBACLE
Stalingrad, 1942
Stalingrad is the most famous urban battle in history. It was one of the most decisive battles of World War II and established much of the public and professional military’s view of urban combat. Some of the lessons of Stalingrad are myths, and some of them are unique to the Stalingrad battle; however some remain standards of urban combat today and the battle is a worthy starting point for the study of urban combat. The positive aspects of the battle are virtually all on the Soviet side. On the German side, in contrast, the battle provides multiple lessons for how to attack a city in precisely the wrong way. At the tactical level, the battle demonstrated many of the truisms of urban combat, but it also established many of the myths of war in a concrete jungle.
The major event of World War II in 1941 was the German attack on the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa. The campaign, which lasted through the summer, fall and into the depths of the winter, is one of the most studied and analyzed in military history. One of the critiques of Operation Barbarossa was that it was a strategic failure because it was not a focused attack. The Germans failed to identify a single main effort, and instead they attacked across the entire front of the Soviet Union’s western border. This lack of focus meant that, though the Germans captured immense amounts of territory and destroyed huge numbers of Soviet forces, the 1941 offensive failed to accomplish anything strategically decisive and Germany entered 1942 in a very precarious situation: not only had they provoked and wounded the Russian bear, but also, in December 1941, Germany declared war on the United States. Thus, it was imperative that Germany not only win battles in 1942, but ensure that those battles, once won, led to decisive strategic victory.
The Soviets Avoid Destruction
As the summer of 1942 approached, the Germans determined to reopen the offensive on the Russian front. This time, however, they would not only focus their efforts, but their chosen objective would greatly increase their strategic capabilities to pursue the war to victory: the Caucasus oil fields in southern Russia. The Germans devoted the entire Southern front to this effort. The new offensive was called Operation Blue. The Germans divided Army Group South into two Army Groups, A and B. These army groups were the primary forces in the initial attack. Army Group A, attacking in the south, would be the main effort with the mission of actually capturing the oil fields. Army Group B, to the north of Army Group A, was the supporting attack with the mission of protecting Army Group A’s left flank from a Soviet threat from the north. The Volga River was designated as the limit of the advance of Army Group B. The Germans envisioned Army Group B leading the attack before forming a defensive line along the Volga River to protect the main effort. Army Group A would then assume the lead and attack south into the Caucasus Mountains and secure control of the Caucasus oil fields. The success of the Southern Front offensive would inflict significant combat losses on the Soviets, gain a vital strategic resource for the Reich, and deny that same resource to the Soviet Union.
Army Group B, under the command of Field Marshal Fedor von Bock was composed of two subordinate armies, the Sixth Army under General der Panzertruppe Friedrich Paulus, and the Fourth Panzer Army under Generaloberst Hermann Hoth. Of the two, the Fourth Panzer Army was initially the more powerful formation, consisting of two panzer corps and two infantry corps, including a total of four panzer divisions. In contrast, the Sixth Army commanded two infantry and one panzer corps. The Fourth Panzer Army was initially located north in Army Group B’s sector and was the main attack. The Sixth Army was in the south of the army group sector and had the task of supporting the attack of Fourth Panzer Army. The city of Stalingrad was located in the center of the Sixth Army’s sector.
In late June 1942 Operation Blue was launched, a little later than originally planned. In July 1942, Fuhrer Directive No. 45 changed the course of the campaign and confirmed changes that had already occurred in the original plan. By this point in the campaign Army Group B commander, Field Marshal von Bock, had been relieved of command and replaced by Generaloberst Freiherr Maximilian von Weichs. The Fourth Panzer Army was de-emphasized in the new campaign plan, and XXVIII Panzer Corps and the 24th Panzer Division were moved from Fourth Panzer Army to General Paulus’ Sixth Army’s control. The Fourth Panzer Army itself was transferred to the control of Army Group A. The Fuhrer’s order upgraded Stalingrad to a major objective in the campaign. Finally, the attacks by Army Groups A and B were directed to occur simultaneously rather than sequentially as originally conceived. The plan as directed under Directive No. 45 became the basis of the remainder of the campaign.
The Soviets expected the Germans to resume their offensive in the summer of 1942, but they didn’t expect it to be in the south. Instead, the Soviets expected the Germans to resume their offensive in central Russia with the objective of capturing Moscow. The Soviet strategy in the summer of 1942, though, was largely governed by the leader of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin. Stalin insisted that the Red Army continue the counterattacks that had been initiated the previous winter as Operation Barbarossa stalled. Thus, just prior to the Germans launching Operation Blue, Soviet forces attacked further north. Eventually, after the initiation of Operation Blue the Soviet high command discerned that the German main effort was aiming south across the Don River and on to the Volga River.
The Soviet armies facing the German offensive were not the same armies that the Germans had decisively defeated the previous summer and fall. The Soviet commanders who had survived the onslaught of the previous year were a hardened and much smarter group of leaders. The ones who had failed in 1941 had been killed, captured, or arrested. Those that remained had learned important lessons about how to survive fighting against blitzkrieg. They understood that the concept of kettleschlag – the entrapment battle – was fundamental to German success. Thus, as the Germans launched their summer offense in 1942, they found it harder to conduct the large and successful entrapment operations that had characterized Operation Barbarossa the previo
us year. In the summer of 1942, Soviet commanders increasingly used their tank forces to slow the panzer spearheads and quickly marched their infantry out of threatening German envelopment attacks. This became easier for Soviet commanders to do over the course of the summer as Stalin realized that he could not micromanage the Red Army to victory, and increasingly turned over control of daily operations to the Soviet high command, Stafka, and individual field commanders. In the field, Stalin’s de-emphasis on political control of the military was reflected by the diminished role of political commissars who had previously been practically co-commanders of Soviet military units. Over the course of 1942 commissars were clearly placed subordinate to professional military officers on all matters related to tactical and operational decisions. This change became official in all Soviet forces in September 1942, and greatly increased the flexibility and effectiveness of Soviet commanders.
The city of Stalingrad, upgraded to a major campaign objective, was in the sector of the German Sixth Army. When World War II started, the city of Stalingrad was a major industrial center with a large population of about half a million people. Today, called Volgograd, the modern city is located on the same site as the original, approximated 200 miles north of the Caspian Sea on the west bank of the Volga River. The city’s layout was unusual for several reasons. First, it was not symmetrical. Stalingrad’s geographic shape was that of a very long rectangle that extended about 14 miles north to south along the west bank of the river, and was at its widest only about five miles from east to west. The Volga River east of Stalingrad was about a mile wide and thus a very significant obstacle.
Despite some attempts to evacuate portions of the city’s population, the war industry capability of the city was deemed too important for it to be shut down. Therefore, many civilians remained in the city operating the various war-related facilities, especially the munitions and tank factories. The city was also a magnet for refugees fleeing east before the advancing German army. Soviet industrial facilities in the city continued to operate as the battle raged and only stopped as Soviet troops retreated. Thus, through the bulk of the fighting for the city environs, more than 600,000 civilians remained in the city. To the German military, the presence of the civilians did not affect operations at all. To the Russians, the civilians were a necessary part of the defense. They were organized into labor units that assisted in building defensive positions and they continued to work in the industrial facilities. As those facilities were gradually captured by the Germans the civilian population fled or were ferried to the east side of the river. Throughout the most intense fighting for the city as many as 50,000 civilians remained within the area of the battle.
Map 2.1 German Summer Offensive, 1942
Hitler’s Battle
A key to successful urban combat is anticipating the urban battle and preparing for it. The German commanders understood this. However, the operation to capture Stalingrad was not initially subject to close scrutiny because it was only a secondary objective of the campaign, and not decisive to obtaining the German army’s objective for the summer campaign, the Caucasus oil fields. In fact, the original plan had no requirement to capture Stalingrad, but rather merely required the German forces to contain Soviet forces and halt the production in the factories located there.
The German army had had experience of urban warfare during the Barbarossa campaign and earlier in the summer of 1942. They had captured numerous Russian cities including Minsk in the Ukraine, and Sevastopol in the Crimea, and as they approached Stalingrad, the northern army group was laying siege to the former Russian capital, Leningrad. Dozens of other medium-size Russian cities had been isolated by the German panzers and then captured when the German infantry caught up with the panzer columns. Early in Operation Blue, the Fourth Panzer Army became involved in a tough urban battle in and around the important transportation hub city at Voronezh. Because of that experience the German army had adequate knowledge of the intricacies and challenges of tactical urban warfare. Fighting the urban battle tactically was not a concern of the German military commanders as they approached Stalingrad. However, Hitler’s role in operations was a concern. Hitler, as the Nazi dictator of Germany, was the key to the German military failure at Stalingrad.
Operation Blue began in June 1942 and by mid-July had made important progress. The Germans, inhibited by a shortage of tanks, and fuel for the tanks they did have, found it difficult to complete the large encirclement operations that had characterized Barbarossa the previous year. Inadequate strength in troops, equipment, and fuel caused short delays throughout the approach to Stalingrad, which proved crucial. Still, there was significant operational success and the German Sixth Army had captured tens of thousands of Soviet troops and destroyed dozens of divisions by mid-summer. Even so, Soviet commanders managed to keep many of their major formations from being trapped and, though they lost most of their armored forces in the great retreat through southern Russia, they retained the core combat power of their divisions and avoided decisive defeat.
In the middle of July Hitler intervened in the summer campaign. He was unhappy with the rate of advance and ordered the launching of the offensive into the Caucasus as the advance to the Volga was ongoing. Thus, contrary to the original Operation Blue plan, which called for a sequenced advance of first Army Group B and then Army Group A attacking south into the Caucasus, Hitler Directive No. 45 ordered both army groups to attack simultaneously. This had several immediate effects. It strained the already overstrained logistics system. It also created two weaker efforts in the place of one strong attack. Finally, the two army groups’ objectives were on divergent axes, so the German formations moved further away from each other as the attacks progressed, to the point where they were not within supporting distance of each other.
As important as changing the sequencing of the offensive were Hitler’s changes to the orders regarding Stalingrad. Stalingrad was redesignated as a primary objective of the campaign. This change not only required the Sixth Army to capture the entire city, but required that resources which may have been used to reinforce the attack into the Caucuses were diverted to the Stalingrad battle.
The Germans began their final push to capture Stalingrad at the end of August 1942. By August 22, Sixth Army’s XIV Panzer Corps had entered the northern suburbs of the city and the following day the panzers reached the Volga north of the city. The rest of the Sixth Army, and XXVIII Panzer Corps under control of Sixth Army, pushed to the outskirts of the city. The XXVIII Panzer Corps managed to break through the Soviet Sixty-Fourth Army defending the southern portion of the city and race almost to the Volga threatening to trap part of the Sixty-Fourth Army and all of the Soviet Sixty-Second Army in the city’s outskirts. This success caused the two Soviet armies, the Sixty-Second and Sixty-Fourth, to give up the outer ring of the city’s defenses and withdraw into the city to avoid the trap. Thus, by the end of August the Germans were firmly in possession of the outskirts of the city and threatened it from three directions: north, west, and south. It appeared the fall of the entire city would happen in a matter of weeks.
The fighting for Stalingrad proper began on September 14, as German forces attempted to force their way into the city center. The battle for the city directly involved three German army corps: the XIV Panzer and LI Corps of the Sixth Army, and the XXVIII Panzer Corps of Fourth Panzer Army. The three German corps were opposed directly by two Soviet armies: the Sixty-Fourth and Sixty-Second Armies of the Stalingrad Front. The initial attacks were costly but successful. After about ten days of very intense fighting the two panzer and two infantry divisions of XXVIII Corps managed to destroy most of the Sixty-Fourth Army in the southern part of the city and seize about five miles of the Volga riverbank. In the center of the city, the combined forces of the LI and XIV Panzer Corps pushed the divisions of the Soviet General Vasily Chuikov’s Sixty-Second Army back toward theVolga and reduced the Soviets’ defensive parameter by half.
Despite the successes, the attacks o
f mid-September did not accomplish the Sixth Army’s mission. The task of the army was the capture of the city, not just, as it had initially been, to control the city. Thus on September 27, Sixth Army renewed the attacks to eliminate the presence of the Soviet Sixty-Second Army on the west bank of the Volga. The initial attacks had severely depleted many of the veteran units of the Sixth Army, particularly in the center of the line where the most significant attacks occurred. To compensate, most of XXVIII Panzer Corps was moved from the south into the central part of the sector. This gave the Germans two strong panzer divisions (the 24th and the 14th) and two motorized infantry divisions in the center.