The Army is preparing soldiers for the wars of the future by training them to fight in subway tunnels and sewers common to big cities.
Army leaders intend to spend $572 million to train and equip 26 of its 31 combat brigades to do battle in underground complexes, according to a report by Military.com.
“We did recognize, in a megacity that has underground facilities — sewers and subways and some of the things we would encounter … we have to look at ourselves and say ‘OK, how does our current set of equipment and our tactics stack up?'” said Col. Townley Hedrick, commandant of the Infantry School at the Army’s Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning, Georgia. “What are the aspects of megacities that we have paid the least attention to lately, and every megacity has got sewers and subways and stuff that you can encounter, so let’s brush it up a little bit.”
The United Nations has predicted that two out of every three people will be living in cities or urban centers by 2050, many of them in growing metropolises like Delhi, Shanghai, and Los Angeles. Military leaders and national security experts believe that future wars will likely be fought in these megacities, so they want soldiers on the front lines to be prepared to do battle in the dark, tight corridors found in subterranean urban centers.
“Everything that you can do above ground, you can do below ground; there are just tactics and techniques that are particular,” an anonymous Army source told Military.com. “The principles are exactly the same, but now do it without light, now do it in a confined space … now try to breach a door using a thermal cutting torch when you don’t have air.”
Historically, the military has tasked elite units like Navy SEALs and the Army’s Delta Force with taking underground facilities, but as the United States shifts its focus to more conventional adversaries such as China, North Korea, and Russia, regular infantry units could be asked to assist.
North Korea, for example, is believed to have built massive underground tunnels to transport troops under the demilitarized zone separating it from South Korea. Russia has massive underground networks built during the Cold War scattered across major cities such as Moscow. China has dozens of metro systems spanning more than 3,100 miles, most of which are subways.
“North Korea could accommodate the transfer of 30,000 heavily armed troops per hour,” the Army’s new subterranean manual states.
So far, five brigade combat teams have been trained to fight underground. The Army plans to train the remaining 21 by January.
