Concrete Hell: Urban warfare From Stalingrad to Iraq

Description

Throughout history cities have been at the center of warfare, from sieges to street-fighting, from peace-keeping to coups de mains. Sun Tzu admonished his readers of The Art of War that the lowest realization of warfare was to attack a fortified city. Indeed, although strategists have advised against it across the millennia, armies and generals have been forced nonetheless to attack and defend cities, and victory has required that they do it well. In Concrete Hell Louis DiMarco has provided a masterful study of the brutal realities of urban warfare, of what it means to seize and hold a city literally block by block. Such a study could not be more timely. We live in an increasingly urbanizing world, a military unprepared for urban operations is unprepared for tomorrow. Di Marco masterfully studies the successes and failures of past battles in order to provide lessons for today's tacticians. COVER TITLE PAGE DEDICATION CONTENTS FOREWORD LIST OF MAPS LIST OF PLATES CHAPTER 1-URBAN WARFARE, PAST AND FUTURE CHAPTER 2-AN OPERATIONAL DEBACLE Stalingrad, 1942 CHAPTER 3-AMERICAN URBAN WARFARE Aachen, 1944 CHAPTER 4-URBAN WARFARE FROM THE SEA Inchon and Seoul, 1950 CHAPTER 5-COMPLEX URBAN WARFARE The Battle for Hue, 1968 CHAPTER 6-WAR IN THE CASBAH The Battle of Algiers, 1956–57 CHAPTER 7-THE LONG URBAN WAR Operation Banner, 1969–2007 CHAPTER 8-URBAN DEATH TRAP The Russian Army in Grozny, 1995 CHAPTER 9-INVADING THE URBAN SANCTUARY Operation Defensive Shield and the Battlefor Jenin, 2002 CHAPTER 10-SYSTEMATIC URBAN WARFARE “Ready First” in Ramadi, 2006–07 CHAPTER 11-URBAN COMBAT IN THE 21ST CENTURY BIBLIOGRAPHY GLOSSARY ABOUT THE AUTHOR INDEX