ST Kinetics jkohck@stengg.

com

Future Armored Warfare in Urbanized Terrain

Open battlefields’ combat is no longer the dominating trend. With emerging

technology on battlefield awareness, with precision weapons so widely available and
effective, fighting in open terrain will no longer be the main battle theatre, enemy will
be forced into cities and other complex terrain densely clustered with manmade
constructions and high population density.

It is estimated that by the year 2010, seventy-five percent of the world’s population
will live in urban areas. The increased population and accelerated growth of cities
have made the problems of combat in built-up areas an urgent requirement for all
military forces. Urban areas are expected to be the future battlefield and combat in
urban areas cannot be avoided.
With the increasing urbanization of warfare, armored vehicles will need to reform
itself, in their sizes, shape, weights, armor, armaments, propulsion, connectivity and
battlefield awareness.

We need armored vehicles not only to deliver local killing power and allow protected
maneuvers fighting in cities, but also able to survive in the streets. Today’s armor
vehicle is not combat effective in urban warfare. We can see that with Russian
experience in the January 1995 battle for Chechen capital of Grozny and U.S. soldiers
that found themselves in deadly combat in Mogadishu Somalia 1993, under
conditions that begged for armor.

The primary job of armored vehicles in urban areas will be to protect maneuver,
movement, and resupply. Urban environments promise endless ambushes, we need
new forms of armored protection. The predominant threat will come from short-range,
shoulder-fired, shaped charge weapons. The urban threat will come from all
directions, whereas the protection of existing combat vehicles has been designed
primarily against attack within their frontal arc. We need new technologies for
tomorrow’s layers of armor that can complicate target detection on the part of the
enemy systems, before proceeding to environmental or atmospheric modification
capabilities that defeat mines, distort the enemy’s perceptions, and disrupt the
trajectory and integrity of enemy munitions.

An armored, light tracked tactical vehicle is required for effective fighting in urban
environments, it must be nimble. The vehicles must be highly maneuverable and
sprint capability is far more essential rather than long-range sustainability. The
armored vehicles must be able to be deploy in modular approach, either forming to
total armored fighting systems or as troop carriers and must be light enough for
deployment in C-130 aircraft.
Armored vehicles that could operate as compact individual entities or join together to
form moving fortresses offer new flexibility.

Urban warfare is three-dimensional, with subterranean, surface, and building/rooftop

features, all of military significance. Operations can and will occur simultaneously in
and around all of these elements. Armored vehicles using robotics or hyper-sensors
must not only be able to see into multi-story structures and down into subsurface
(underwater, subterranean), surface (ground, street or water level), intrasurface
(ground to top floor, interior of buildings) and supersurface (rooftop, no cover). It

Jason Koh EDC/WS2

ST Kinetics jkohck@stengg.com

would be ideal if it is able to transport soldiers in a protected manner to upper-story or

subterranean zones of operation. Ideally, armored vehicles should have secured
platform that can rise above or descend below ground, gripping the lower portions of
structures, or entering subterranean passageways.

Extraordinary quantities of ammunitions were expended in efforts to destroy by

firepower enemy forces protected by the cover of structures and rubble. As far as
firepower is concerned, the nature of urban terrain will present great challenges in
employing fires. The cover afforded by the terrain will affect penetration
characteristics and fuze functioning; reducing weapons effects below the threshold for
successful engagement. We need ammunitions that can punch through steel-
reinforced concrete walls.

We also need fire support system that can provide accurate target location and
designation in three-dimensional terms, with precise ordnance delivery, munitions
with variable penetration and explosive characteristics and the coordination of lethal
and less-than-lethal fires against different targets.

Less-than-lethal capability is essential because there are constant potential presences

of noncombatants that simultaneously demand reduced lethality in weapons
employment.
Guns mounted on armored vehicles also have to be provided with greater depression
in order to return fire coming from basements of buildings. Guns would also need
more elevation so that they could be used to engage targets behind buildings by
indirect fire (AirBurst Munitions).

To operate in urban environments, future armor vehicle will have to adapt its
equipment to urban conditions, from firepower and protection to mobility. It is
important for the vehicles to be agile and have to ability to accelerate rapidly, in order
to be combat effective in urban terrain. Besides being faster, it need to be lighter and
in order so, we need miniaturization of components, from engines through
communications gear to ammunitions.

Can we do it? Yes, if we start looking into it now……………………………

Jason Koh EDC/WS2