How Armor Was Employed in the Urban Battle of Seoul

As noted in a recent Army Times article entitled Urban Crisis, few armor or mechanized infantry units and not one active duty armor or mechanized infantry unit has yet trained or was scheduled to train at the Zussman Village Mounted Urban Combat Training Site at Fort Knox, Kentucky. This is a startling fact, considering that the facility cost over 15 million dollars to build and is touted as the premier urban warfare training center for armor units. This apparent lack of interest by the heavy force community, coupled with the light infantrys increasing reliance on precision urban warfare, is a disturbing trend. By disregarding the likelihood of future battles in urban terrain, many heavy units, with their emphasis on desert or rural warfare, allow the special operations and elite light infantry units to write the Armys future urban warfare doctrine. For example, a cursory reading of doctrinal proposals or combat training center articles demonstrates that the correct training emphasis of conventional U.S. Army units should be on proper room-clearing techniques and well-aimed rifle fire. Moreover, the focal point for precision MOUT adherents seems to be on aggressive light infantry forces, to the neglect of the combined arms team. Disregarding both the very nature of urban warfare and historys past urban battles, precision MOUT supporters have wrongly implied that fature urban fights will require less fire-power.