Reading: Urban Warfare series by Charles Knight, posts by John Spencer

(graphic: Charles Knight)

While we await the seemingly inevitable battle for Gaza City, I thought I would post a link to a series of seven blog posts by Charles Knight on the 12 challenges of urban operations. He writes very clearly in this set of short posts about the difficulties of this kind of combat.

These posts originally appeared in the summer of 2020 on the blog Grounded Curiosity, an Australian Defence Force professional military education resource.

Urban Warfare

Meanwhile, COL John Spencer, Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute, director of the MWI Urban Warfare Project and of Urban Warfare Training at the 40th Infantry Division (CA ARNG) has been very quick off the mark about the coming battle for Gaza. He’s been posting frequently but also appearing in major news outlets and on cable news programs. But this kind of thing he could write in his sleep, I think, as he knows the subject well:

https://mwi.westpoint.edu/these-are-the-challenges-awaiting-israeli-ground-forces-in-gaza

https://mwi.westpoint.edu/underground-nightmare-hamas-tunnels-and-the-wicked-problem-facing-the-idf/

Variant: We Are Coming, Gaza!

NOTE: See edit below dated 2 January 2024. This variant has been undertaken by actual events. 

I have created a variant for We Are Coming, Nineveh! that explores the possible conduct of the announced Israeli Defence Forces ground offensive into Gaza City, in what has been called the Hamas-Israel War, or the Sukkot War, or simply Operation Swords of Iron.

The variant uses most of the components of WACN (ISF = IDF, Daesh = Hamas) but you must download and print out a new map that shows most of Gaza City, at 750 metres per hex. It is sized to print out at 17″ x 22″ approximately but you can size the PDF as you like… remember the unit blocks are about 3/4″ (20 mm) so you need to make the map big enough to avoid undue crowding.

Yes, again with the “game-based journalism”… this one took me 8 hours to put together, counting time to make lunch for my wife and do the Sunday baking (banana cake and double-chocolate banana bread, for the curious among you). However, I spent much of the time just fiddling with the map.

The ground offensive has not started as of the time I posted this, so how it will end up is anyone’s guess… besides the destruction and carnage that will be visited on the innocent and guilty alike, of course.

Variant rules (Open Document format): we-are-coming-gaza-20-oct-23

Variant map (PDF): We Are Coming Gaza 15 oct 23

Variant map (JPG): https://brtrain.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/we-are-coming-gaza-15-oct-23.jpg

[Notes and ETAs for the variant:

• 16 October: made a few clarifications and corrections in the rules document
• 20 October: added optional rules: UN Pressure for Ceasefire, Two-Axis Offensive]

Commentary on 3 December 2023, after about eight weeks of war:

I have been checking the updates from the Institute of the Study of War, which are fairly good for something that does not involve anything classified and also tries to keep it to the militarily significant. This from the 3 December update (https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-december-3-2023):

Hamas has used increasingly sophisticated tactics against Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip since the humanitarian pause ended on December 1. Hamas and other Palestinian militias have used explosively formed penetrators (EFP) five times since December 1.[1] These attacks mark a noteworthy increase in the use of EFPs in the Israel-Hamas war. Hamas claimed that it used EFPs only twice prior to December 1, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) claimed no EFP attacks prior to December 2.[2] Hamas separately conducted a complex ambush targeting Israeli forces northeast of Khan Younis on December 3 (see below). Hamas also released a video on December 2 showing its force launching three one-way attack drones targeting Israeli forces in the northern Gaza Strip.[3] The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have not confirmed that Hamas is employing these systems or tactics against its forces.

CTP-ISW is considering two possible hypotheses to explain this shift in tactics. Neither of these hypotheses are mutually exclusive.

1. Hamas and the other Palestinian militias have shifted from conducting a delaying operation to conducting a deliberate defense meant to attrit and degrade the Israeli will to continue the ground operation into the Gaza Strip. CTP-ISW previously assessed on November 14 that Hamas and other Palestinian militias were conducting a delaying operation in the northern Gaza Strip.[4] Hamas likely sought to avoid a decisive defeat by preparing for a ”long war” that Hamas hoped would compel Israel to agree to a permanent ceasefire and thereby preserve Hamas as a governing body and military force.[5] The delaying operation was also likely meant to provide Hamas time to move its leaders and military materiel from the northern Gaza strip to the southern part of the strip. A delaying operation intentionally does not involve committing forces decisively to fighting. The shift in tactics suggests that Hamas and Palestinian militias are preparing to become decisively committed to defending against the Israeli ground operation. Israeli officials emphasized during the humanitarian pause that they would continue pursuing the destruction of Hamas.[6]
2. Hamas and the other Palestinian militias are using new tactics based on lessons learned during the past month of fighting in the Gaza Strip. Israeli forces are not using main roads when advancing, instead opting to create new avenues of movement.[7] Hamas and the other Palestinian militias could have learned how to more effectively counter this Israeli approach, for instance.

So, certainly the intense street fighting that was predicted by some to begin at the beginning of the ground phase has not come to pass. I think some people thought there might be a “thunder run” into the centre of the city and then spreading out from there, but a look at the situation map for 3 December (see link at the top of the referred page) shows that the IDF has been very methodical… they have not cleared more than a minority of Gaza City, though the entire urban area is cut off from both the southern part of the Strip and from the sea. And the IDF also says they have closed about 500 of the 800 (!) tunnel entrances they have found so far.

It also appears that the IDF has had about 150 troops killed since the beginning of the ground offensive – around 260 were killed in the 7 October massacres and the week after, for a total of about 400  against an unknown but probably much larger number of Palestinian resistance fighters… not just Hamas but several other organizations, but presumably included in the total of at least 15,000 Palestinian dead thus far.

I’m thinking that the pace I originally thought of for this variant is way off… but also that that’s OK, and it will prove perhaps typical of sustained fights for large urban areas: Gaza City might well take as long or longer to subdue than Mosul or Marawi… possibly much longer, since it is the largest of the three and much more extensively tunnelled and fortified.

So cancel my remark in 3.0 in the variant about each turn being 1-2 days of sustained fighting, because that fighting has not yet occurred. In the original Nineveh game, each turn was around 2 weeks long, to a maximum of 12 turns (6 months); at this time scale we are still not yet to Game-turn 3 since the major ground incursion began on 27 October. The game still has a contemplated length of about 12 turns, though it can go much longer, and players should be prepared to have an even more elastic sense of time taken by each cycle of operations.

Further Commentary, 2 January 2024:

A recent TwXtter post by Emanuel Fabian, the military correspondent for the Times of Israel noted the following:

The Israel Defense Forces has released five brigades from the fighting in the Gaza Strip, as rocket fire by Hamas has been curbed significantly with the military maintaining control of the ground.

The 460th Armored Brigade, responsible for the Armored Corps training base; the 261st Brigade, the Bahad 1 officers’ school in wartime; the 828th Brigade, the School for Infantry Corps Professions and Squad Commanders; the 14th Reserve Armored Brigade; and 551st Reserve Paratroopers Brigade, have all be released.

The brigades tasked with training soldiers will return to carrying out their usual activity, while the reservists are being released to help bounce back Israel’s economy.

In Gaza, the 162nd Division remains focused on Gaza City’s Daraj and Tuffah neighborhoods; the 36th Division is fighting Hamas in central Gaza’s al-Bureij; and the 98th, 99th and Gaza divisions are operating in the Strip’s south, in the Khan Younis area.

The ground operations in recent weeks have led to a significant decline in the number of rockets launched from Gaza at Israel.

[…]

The military believes the war against Hamas will likely continue throughout 2024, and says it is prepared for lengthy fighting.
9:19 AM · Dec 31, 2023

This message was quoted in the ISW updates for the conflict and it coincides with other judgements that the IDF is transitioning to a third phase of operations.

“The third phase will include the end of major combat operations, a “reduction in forces” in the Gaza Strip, the release of reservists, a “transition to targeted raids,” and the establishment of a security buffer zone within the Gaza Strip.
An unspecified Israeli intelligence officer told the Economist that most of Hamas’ command structure is “gone” and that Hamas is no longer operating as a military organization. CTP-ISW assesses that at least three of 30 Hamas battalions in the five brigades are combat ineffective, at least eight battalions are degraded, and at least 12 battalions are currently under intense IDF pressure..”

The IDF does not claim to have completely secured Gaza City (see the interactive map of IDF operations in Gaza for 31 December 2023 which shows IDF control of all but three smaller zones within the city: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/2e746151991643e39e64780f0674f7dd) but the tempo of operations has slowed, and as noted above the main effort and fighting has shifted to Khan Younis further to the south of Gaza City.

It now definitely seems that the stand-up fight within Gaza City that seemed possible, even probable, in early and mid October did not happen… and therefore, the variant I created for We Are Coming Nineveh is now moot.

But I think I am going to leave it up here as another example of the kind of speculative interactive exercise that wargames can offer us, even if they do not have long-term application.

They certainly don’t have much predictive ability!

Zugzwang: Gaza Ganoush

One of my favourite new-to-me words these days is Zugzwang, one of those words that are concise in German but verbose to convey the meaning of in English (… when usually it’s the other way round).

It means something like “compulsion to move”, or to make a move, and is a chess term originally – a game where you cannot pass your turn.

Specifically, it refers to a situation where a player has forced on the other player a situation where they feel they must make a significant move, but all of the options open to them are bad moves which will leave them in a worse situation, and open to having further Zugzwangen inflicted on them.

I think this is a concise term for the situation the Israeli government finds itself in, and for its Defence Forces as they prepare for a ground assault into an extensive and densely populated area, filled with armed and angry 18 year-olds whose leadership has had almost ten years to prepare the physical ground.

No easy solutions for this, on any level or for any party.

Brief Border Wars 1 and 2: on sale!

Compass Games holiday sale (which will be on until 31 January 2024) has Brief Border Wars on sale at the holiday price of $45.00 (that’s a shade over $11 for each game, friends!).

Also, Brief Border Wars Volume 2 is available for the reduced pay-later price of $54.00. It’s marked “mid 2024”, and now you know as much as I do abut that.

Miss out on this and you’ll have to pay $65.00 later! Just think of what you could do with that spare eleven bucks.

Come to think of it, if enough people miss out on this, they won’t publish the game and then no one can have it at any price….

Brief Border Wars 2 (Pay Later)