Training Soldiers for Urban Warfare

BETTY ANN BOWSER:

This is the military training its ground forces to attack a city or a town. The army tries to make its urban assault training as close to the real thing as possible. Col. James Terry is commander of the army's joint readiness training center.

COL. JAMES TERRY:

This is as close to combat as it gets without actually shooting live bullets. They gain that experience. You know, they get the sights, the smell, the sounds, so that it's not new to them when they actually have to face combat.

BETTY ANN BOWSER:

Thousands of acres of Louisiana farm and swamp land at Ft. Polk have been turned into a made-up country. It's supposed to be like any third-world city or town where soldiers might be sent today. The good guys are played by the soldiers being trained. In this recent 14-day exercise, they were the third brigade of the 25th Infantry Division out of Hawaii. The bad guys are also played by soldiers, but they take the role of opposition guerrilla forces trying to take over the made-up third-world country.

When the two sides are in combat, they engage in a kind of laser tag. Their rifles are equipped with technology that can record hits on sensors placed on their uniforms and helmets. When the sensor goes off, that soldier is a casualty and put out of action. Each time the war games take place, the guerilla forces always have the upper hand. That's because they train year- round. They're so good, they often inflict 60 percent casualties. Col. Skip Lewis is their commander.

COL. SKIP LEWIS, U.S. Army, Fort Polk:

My soldiers, the ones that are there in the buildings behind you, have fought out of those same buildings three or four times in the last six months. So they know every corner. They know that it will provide them a little different angle to fight from. They know… they know where the sewers are. They know how to escape. They know where to get up into the attics. They just… they know the terrain very well.

SOLDIER:

Second Platoon — it's going to come up, take leads, and find their traffic control point.

BETTY ANN BOWSER:

Captain David Cripe was a company commander in the third brigade. He put his men through war rehearsals the afternoon before their first challenge. They were going into the made-up country to take over a small village from the guerrillas. And like most of today's urban assault action, they would go in at night. That made Cripe optimistic.

CAPT. DAVID CRIPE, U.S. Army:

We own the night. When I started out in the army, we only probably had like one night vision goggle per squad. Now, everybody's got that. We've got technologies going by leaps and bounds.

BETTY ANN BOWSER:

But when Cripe and his men deployed at 2:00 in the morning, he also knew from intelligence reports that the worst could happen, and it did.

CAPT. DAVID CRIPE:

We came in direct fire engagement, and it took us about an hour or so to clear out the town and all that, and then secure the local area. And we took a lot of casualties, about… I'd say about down to about a squad in each platoon by the time it was done.

BETTY ANN BOWSER:

What percent is that?

CAPT. DAVID CRIPE:

Probably about 60 or 70 percent.

BETTY ANN BOWSER:

Then it was time for the most important part of the 14-day exercise: An all-out assault on the main town of the made-up country. The mission, once again: Take the town from the guerrillas. As the soldiers in training moved in at 1:30 in the morning, one of them got hung up on a piece of wire. But eventually they moved on. They were also surprised by the presence of civilians, who threw up their hands in the windows of one building. They had been planted in the town by the army to represent local residents. The U.S. forces tried to establish an offensive position by moving Bradley fighting vehicles into the streets, but the opposition forces immediately took them out. All night long, there was heavy fighting as the U.S. forces tried to destroy the enemy. But at daybreak, the men of the Third Brigade still had not secured the entire town, and their casualties were high.

BETTY ANN BOWSER:

Retired Marine Colonel Randy Gangle, an expert on urban assault training, says the military knows it can expect 30 percent casualty rates in real urban combat, because fighting door to door is inherently dangerous.

COL. RANDY GANGLE:

The urban battle space is without question the most difficult battle space for soldiers or marines to operate in. It is a very restrictive and constrictive battle space. It's very complex because of the nature of the construction and the environment. You've got the multiple dimensions of subterranean, you know, basements, subways, any of a number of tunnels or whatnot. It is the worst environment that the military can operate in. If you train for it, it's a lot less dangerous. If you haven't trained for it, it's as bad as its going to get.

BETTY ANN BOWSER:

American soldiers are no longer playing war games. Now they're involved in the real thing, as they take on Saddam Hussein's forces in a number of Iraqi cities.