Snipers in Urban Warfare
ref: https://twitter.com/JaysonGeroux/status/1516571582977687556
Jayson Geroux @JaysonGeroux Apr 19 2022
Thanks to @Stu_Lyle & Klem @Zarelepotec for retweeting. Points about snipers in urban operations:
1. Friendly:
a. They are a critical enabler, but they need to be given to the company commanders in the fight; they cannot be held at the battalion/brigade levels.
Quote Tweet
Klem @Zarelepotec Apr 19 Sniping in #UrbanWarfare twitter.com/TriTro29/statu… https://twitter.com/Zarelepotec/status/1516330516794036229 https://twitter.com/TriTro29/status/1516096506134089733
Good examples of this occurred in the films “Enemy at the Gates” with Jude Law playing Russian Vasily Zaitsev & “American Sniper” with Bradley Cooper playing Chris Kyle. Both gentlemen depicted their characters supporting the forward troops.
By the way, if you read “Enemy at the Gates” by William Craig the book is about the urban battle of Stalingrad. Zaitsev is only discussed occasionally; the film takes up only 3 pages in the book; don’t buy the book thinking it’s just about Zaitsev. goodreads.com Enemy at the Gates: The Battle for Stalingrad by William Craig
Zaitsev was credited with 242 kills in Stalingrad; he was wounded in action and temporarily blinded from a landmine during the battle. After the Second World War (1939-1945) Zaitsev married and then became the director of an engineering school in...Kyiv, Ukraine.
b. Given the environment sniper teams need more time to insert themselves into the urban area before the conventional forces arrive. Doctrinally it is 24-48 hours in a rural environment, but given the challenges in the urban environment give them 48-96 hours or even more. They need the extra time to be stealthy, find a route in, avoid the enemy & to locate that nook/cranny where they can employ their skills and meet the commander’s intent.
c. Don’t micromanage sniper teams & don’t tell them where to go; just tell them what you would like them to do, what the high value targets are & who you need them to protect. They’ll figure out where to position themselves & how to do these tasks. 7/19
d. Ensure you know where they are so your own soldiers don’t shoot at them by accident, or in case they have to withdraw quickly because they’ve been located by the enemy; for the latter sniper teams only work in teams of 2 personnel & they…8/19 Jayson Geroux
…only have a limited amount of ammunition/supplies. Have an armoured vehicle ready to link up with them & extract them to safety. 9/19
e. Snipers are typically the best soldiers in an infantry battalion: they’re physically & mentally fit, they can endure a lot. Having written that, they’re not robots, they’re human beings like everyone else. So be prepared to rotate them routinely. Some sniper teams during the urban battle of Marawi (23 May-23 October 2017, photo below) suffered from mental health issues & extreme fatigue because of the number of ISIS fighters they killed and/or because they were in the city for too long. 11/19
If you want to read a fantastic book on the Armed Forces of the Philippines Light Reaction Regiment & their snipers in Marawi (“Tiradores” means “Shooters” in Filipino) I highly recommend this book: goodreads.com
Tiradores: Missions and the Men of the Philippine's Light Reaction Regiment by Francis U. Villanueva
2. Enemy: Once your people start dropping from enemy snipers it will kill your unit’s momentum; suddenly your folks aren’t too keen on advancing. Figuring out what to do after your people start dropping is the wrong time to do it. The Russians at 1st Grozny (December 1994-February 1995) learned this the hard way; they did not have any pro-active plans whatsoever & they lost hundreds of soldiers to Chechen snipers & marksmen as a result.
So, commanders must have a contingency plan (CONPLAN) for enemy snipers before you even set foot into that urban area. Be pro-active, not reactive: counter-sniper teams, a weapons system/platform, use of smoke, use of manoeuvre or a combination of any of these or whatever other equipment/technologies (thermal vision equipment) you have in your inventory to counter this particular threat. Insurgents learned at 2nd Fallujah (09-15 November 2004) to remain inside buildings when moving, making it difficult for American snipers to engage them. The Russians eventually used thermobaric weapons at 1st Grozny to counter Chechen snipers & marksmen effectively. 17/19
Enemy sniper teams will not necessarily be in the highest building, rooftop, church steeple (like in the film Saving Private Ryan, below). Those are cliché positions; they know those areas will be struck first by large munitions, so they’ll pick other not-so-obvious spots.
When I’m teaching urban ops I force my students to be pro-active with regards to enemy snipers (and finding civilians) in the urban battlespace. I tell them that when they are debriefing me they better have CONPLANs for both of these factors or else their plan is a failure.
