Army developed urban tactics, but lacked doctrine.

• Author: Peck, Michael
• Position: URBAN COMBAT

Urban warfare did not receive concentrated Army attention until the 1990s, despite a wealth of experience gained during conflicts spanning more than half a century.

Army doctrine has evolved into a focused plan of identifying, isolating and destroying concentrated targets within cities, rather than avoiding key population centers or storming them with all resources available.

It wasn't until quite recently that troops received realistic training in urban mockups.

In World War II, soldiers learned city fighting the hard way as they battled and blasted their way through the Ruhr and Manila, said Arthur Durante Jr., deputy chief of doctrine at Fort Benning, Ga., who has studied the history of Army urban warfare methods.

"But at the end of the war, we didn't have a doctrine. What we had were tactics. We knew how to do it. But we had never written it down, thought it through and said, 'This is why we do it this way, and this is how we ought to approach it.'"

The first manual for urban operations appeared in the 1950s. Solidly rooted in World War II experience, the book "Combat in Fortified Areas" focused more on tackling entrenchments than cities. "For 30 years, that was the only book," said Durante. "Good for what it was, but it talked about Sherman tanks against dragon's teeth and pillboxes on the Siegfried Line."

In 1979 came Field Manual 90-10, which reflected the change in Army focus from jungle warfare in Vietnam to mechanized warfare in Europe. And therein lay the problem. The manual used examples of village fighting in Germany-though West Germany had become heavily urbanized by the 1970s. "If you got down to it, the manual said, 'avoid fighting in cities," Durante said. "We bypass cities. We fight in the open. Cities are bad places to fight. Here are some things you can do if you're there, but don't fight there if you can avoid it."'

So the Infantry School came out with a supplement in 1982: FM 90-10-1, "Infantry Guide to Urban Combat." Though it focused more on city combat than previous works, it came out when the infantry was mostly stuck with M-113s instead of Bradleys and Abrams. "We were still back in the days of the Sherman," said Durante.

Perhaps worse, training didn't simulate urban combat. Durante recalled conducting lessons learned surveys of 7th Infantry Division soldiers who had participated in the Panama conflict. "One of the things that struck us was that we heard the same statement over and over again: they didn't have any...