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StrategyPage has a post on just how useful armored vehicles are good in urban combat. Many people think they are not, but this post indicates that assumption is false.
Good roads, a fast ride, big guns and a touch of boldness now give the edge to armored vehicles in urban areas. The conventional wisdom has long held that armored vehicles getting sucked into urban combat is a losing proposition. That was once true, but half a century of highway building has changed the battlefield, and the prospects for tanks fighting and winning inside a city.Posted by Ted at May 27, 2005 8:05 PMTwo years ago, columns of American armored vehicles dashed into Baghdad, fighting through any opposition they encountered, and shocked the enemy into collapse. What was generally ignored in studies of that operation is that, since World War II, most major cities have been rebuilt to be “vehicle friendly.†Cities have increasingly been built for rapid movement by automobiles, large trucks, etc. There are portions of Baghdad, or any other city, which are really restrictive in regards to the mobility of tanks, but urban geography in the last 60 years has, generally, tended towards becoming much more permissive to mechanized operations. Two years ago, the American attackers realized that, the Iraqi defenders did not.
Two years later, American troops still appreciate the usefulness of fast vehicles, and surprise. Hummers, even without armor, are still favored for many combat operations. Why? Because they are fast. The Stryker armored vehicle, much maligned for being a poor imitation of a tracked combat vehicle, gets high marks from its users because, in actual combat operations, the higher speed, and quiet operation, makes a big difference. While the enemy has tried to take advantage of the heavy American use of vehicles, the roadside bombs have not been a decisive weapons. The Americans still rule the roads, go wherever they want, and give much more hurt than they get doing it.