Assaulting Buildings
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Just wondering which is the better way to assault buildings eg. a skyscrapper etc is it Top Down or Bottom Up?
Human nature when pursued to in a building is to run upwards.When I was younger, we often played war at my friend's condo and when engaged in running fights on the stairs, we have a tendency to run upwards.But, we all know that the higher up we run, the lesser chance of escape we have as we will eventually run out of place to run right?
Thus, would is be wiser to assault a building, lets say a 20 floor HDB block, does it make more sense for an assault force of say 40 to 60 shooters to heli-rappel or heli-drop onto the roof and fight their way downwards?Throwing grenades downwards is also easier and the assault force has the momentum to rush downwards as opposed to upwards.And if the defenders decide to pull a fast one, they may rush out of the building, but end up getting shot by the occupying force on top of the building or the remaining assault group may chase them on their helos.
However, when assaulting upwards, it is tiring for the assault force. And also, the defenders may leave obstacles to block the path of the assault force or make their lives difficult.The virtue being that the defenders may be pursued to run till they run out of places to escape to, and be forced to fight with greater determination as they have lost everything but their lives.
So if given the situation, with 100 shooters which will you pick? Assaulting top down or bottoms up? -
Top down... always top down. From bottom up dam tiring u know....
Secure all building exits, and go top down. If its too many floors, one group can take top 5, another group can rappel abit and take the next 5, so on so forth -
But which is most often practised? Other then the physical aspect of assaulting upwards being xiong, what other reasons?
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Just bring the building down...
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Unfortunately, most often practiced in war is bottom up.
Reference 'Black Hawks Down'.
Though they had choppers, they didn't land troops on rooftops even though the buildings are low due to a variety of reasons.
And a lot of times, the troops who do the fighting are just normal ground troops who don't have heliborne assets.
In the infantry, we did a lot of FIBUA, all bottom up.
If you are commando, Guards or spec ops of course, different, but most of us are just ground troops who don't know the first thing about rappelling etc.
We do have ladders to climb up to second floor windows ala storming mediaeval castle.
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Well, what about throwing grenades/flashbangs?As I see potential chokepoints for the assault force to be the stairwells.Where a well-placed shooter or MG can dominate the entire force.
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Agreed.Originally posted by caleb_chiang:Just bring the building down...
Blast the foundations of the building.
I don't send in my men to go in there to risk their lifes
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what if ur objective is in the building...Originally posted by maggot:Agreed.
Blast the foundations of the building.
I don't send in my men to go in there to risk their lifes -
according to some SF, top down.
according to grunts, bottom up in practice, though top down would be nice.
if youre going loud [hard not to if theres alot of you], then go loud. bang every room since they [opfor] know youre in the immediate area anyway.
the last formal training i did was with both grunts and SF, and we assembled teams to assault every floor at the same time lol - SF request.
But that did work, there were chokepoints [as questioned in this thread], but with the large-scale assault of all teams at the same time managed to overwhelm even the chokepoints.
the overall idea above was provided by SAS, and is similar to the technique they used for the Princes Gate siege. Only they didnt have a specific bottom-up force as it wouldve been too obvious in that environment. i gather that if they could have, they wouldve done it the way they conducted us.
the idea being to dominate the enemy very quickly in all areas at the same time if possible.
we did tubular assaults with them as well and the same idea was put in training, with similar results.
yes, this can result in larger numbers of casualties, and if youre not trained properly even friendly fire, but the idea was to get the job done very quickly.
Did something similar with police, and if youre short on numbers they applied the same basic army way - bottom up. if they had the numbers of SF then theyd do it the SF way.
so, i guess, in summary, if you got the numbers, all floors; if youre SF, top down; and if youre everyone else ~ and/or short on numbers ~ its bottom up..
as OP asked, with skyscraper, i guess you go from top and bottom and meet in the middle..
heh, i could be completely wrong but there you go.
dont you guys go through this, or something like it, for FIBUA/OBUA in NS ? -
Of course, in reality you can't pick the situation. You may be in the middle of a fight and be chasing your opponent up, in which case, it's bottom-up, like it or not.
Personally, given the choice, I'd go top-down, mainly because it's easier shooting down than up - the guy below you has less cover. Fast-rope down and work from the roof down, and leave a MG gunner covering the exit. Sandwiching is somewhat risky because of the possibility of a blue-on-blue. -
Use microwave weapon and fried everyone inside the building
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true - but i mentioned that anyway - same problem with assaulting all floors at the same time.Originally posted by Gedanken:Of course, in reality you can't pick the situation. You may be in the middle of a fight and be chasing your opponent up, in which case, it's bottom-up, like it or not.
Personally, given the choice, I'd go top-down, mainly because it's easier shooting down than up - the guy below you has less cover. Fast-rope down and work from the roof down, and leave a MG gunner covering the exit. Sandwiching is somewhat risky because of the possibility of a blue-on-blue.
SF chaps said it was 'easier' going down too.
it really does depend on the situation. if anti terrorist situation probably do as SF guys said, and police [both have units that train for this] - then you may well have the luxury of choosing to go top down.
if it is just general all out war/conflict, then yeah, it'll be the grunts way - bottom up.
uh. how about we teleport into the building, phaser fire [perhaps set to stun] the opfor and teleport the targets out.Originally posted by maggot:Use microwave weapon and fried everyone inside the building -
I'm curious about your job...doing training with Grunts, SF and police.....Originally posted by zoik:according to some SF, top down.
according to grunts, bottom up in practice, though top down would be nice.
if youre going loud [hard not to if theres alot of you], then go loud. bang every room since they [opfor] know youre in the immediate area anyway.
the last formal training i did was with both grunts and SF, and we assembled teams to assault every floor at the same time lol - SF request.
But that did work, there were chokepoints [as questioned in this thread], but with the large-scale assault of all teams at the same time managed to overwhelm even the chokepoints.
the overall idea above was provided by SAS, and is similar to the technique they used for the Princes Gate siege. Only they didnt have a specific bottom-up force as it wouldve been too obvious in that environment. i gather that if they could have, they wouldve done it the way they conducted us.
the idea being to dominate the enemy very quickly in all areas at the same time if possible.
we did tubular assaults with them as well and the same idea was put in training, with similar results.
yes, this can result in larger numbers of casualties, and if youre not trained properly even friendly fire, but the idea was to get the job done very quickly.
Did something similar with police, and if youre short on numbers they applied the same basic army way - bottom up. if they had the numbers of SF then theyd do it the SF way.
so, i guess, in summary, if you got the numbers, all floors; if youre SF, top down; and if youre everyone else ~ and/or short on numbers ~ its bottom up..
as OP asked, with skyscraper, i guess you go from top and bottom and meet in the middle..
heh, i could be completely wrong but there you go.
dont you guys go through this, or something like it, for FIBUA/OBUA in NS ? -
no job.
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True. Thats why they need to clearly define which floors they are clearin til. For a 20 floor building, and the enemy location unknown, clearing all the way from 20F down to 1F is gonna be tough...Originally posted by Gedanken:Of course, in reality you can't pick the situation. You may be in the middle of a fight and be chasing your opponent up, in which case, it's bottom-up, like it or not.
Personally, given the choice, I'd go top-down, mainly because it's easier shooting down than up - the guy below you has less cover. Fast-rope down and work from the roof down, and leave a MG gunner covering the exit. Sandwiching is somewhat risky because of the possibility of a blue-on-blue. -
So tactically, it will be sound to drop in above and commence assault there, with a blocking force around the target building to prevent anyone from escaping right? But when you are inside the building, in this case a HDB block with many levels, you've gotta factor in that there are many nooks and crannys in the various apartments. So does the assault force like leave a few chaps behind on every floor to guard so that those defenders whom manage to get away will not run back to those levels which have already been cleared?
Or do they just rush downwards all the way,without leaving trailers behind? -
i think that depends on the size/composition of your force to hand, and the time you have [or dont have].
if you have sufficient men, then yeah, i'm guessing you leave some behind as you go.
if you dont, you go down and dominate as much as you can in the shortest time you can.
[in your stacks, you have a guy checking your rear]
but then thats why you clear rooms. bang them, clear them, then move along. while your team is clearing a room, you have another set covering the route youre taking as well as another team if possible taking out the opposite side [if you have a central corridor, you have a team for the left side, and a team for the right side; or you have a team that covers the corridor and both teams alternate the room clearing].
if you are talking about opfor taking other routes to get behind or to escape, then i imagine youd need to plan teams for those routes too.
..at a guess [but thats how we were told/shown/instructed it was done iirc - my memory is failing me] -
I would have figured that after the assault force clears the entire building, they'd hand over the job of sweeping up to the security team.Originally posted by zoik:i think that depends on the size/composition of your force to hand, and the time you have [or dont have].
if you have sufficient men, then yeah, i'm guessing you leave some behind as you go.
if you dont, you go down and dominate as much as you can in the shortest time you can.
[in your stacks, you have a guy checking your rear]
but then thats why you clear rooms. bang them, clear them, then move along. while your team is clearing a room, you have another set covering the route youre taking as well as another team if possible taking out the opposite side [if you have a central corridor, you have a team for the left side, and a team for the right side; or you have a team that covers the corridor and both teams alternate the room clearing].
if you are talking about opfor taking other routes to get behind or to escape, then i imagine youd need to plan teams for those routes too.
..at a guess [but thats how we were told/shown/instructed it was done iirc - my memory is failing me]
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sure. perhaps.
but i was figuring about the initial assault...
how soon would a force come in afterwards? again it depends on what you got surely.
the basic premise would be the same though, go in, dominate asap.
on some stuff i recall we didnt have the luxury of a security team to mop up after us, so we left personnel in key areas and conducted more thorough sweeps ourselves.
not difficult to think about is it? -
Yeap, I agree. Dominate first and the rest can be worried / improvised later.Originally posted by zoik:sure. perhaps.
but i was figuring about the initial assault...
how soon would a force come in afterwards? again it depends on what you got surely.
the basic premise would be the same though, go in, dominate asap.
on some stuff i recall we didnt have the luxury of a security team to mop up after us, so we left personnel in key areas and conducted more thorough sweeps ourselves.
not difficult to think about is it?
I guess thats the difference between exercise and ops. I'd think actual ops, they'd have a security force to sweep up after the assault is over, ie. Clear bodies, collect weapons etc..
Pardon me for askin, wat exactly was ur job again? =D You seem to have a lot of prior experience in this . -
Unless one is in a hostage situation, why bother assaulting the building at all? Just blast it up. During the Moscow coup, the parliament was shelled instead of assaulted.
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Its not always classic case of why preserve the building's structural integrity, but its like, some of these buildings are like national monuments etc...now the scenario is only a 20F HDB block, but what if give you Swissotel or Republic Plaza...den die alr lor..Originally posted by calvin2224:Unless one is in a hostage situation, why bother assaulting the building at all? Just blast it up. During the Moscow coup, the parliament was shelled instead of assaulted. -
The ideal "textbook" situation is always going to be a Top Down attack.
The advantages of such an attack are obvious.
Firstly, grenades roll downwards. Thus, it's easier for you to lob a grenade at the enemy than it is for the enemy to throw one at you.
Secondly, attacking downwards allows your support weapons to come into play. By attacking downwards, any escaping enemy are "flushed" towards the buildings exits. By siting MG weapons in position to guard the exits, any escaping enemy will be wiped out with no further risk. On the other hand, enemy always escape AWAY from the the direction your attack is coming from so if you attack top-up, you might find that you've chased all the enemy and trapped them in the top floor. This is BAD for the infantryman because a cornered and trapped enemy will more likely put up a more aggressive defence since they have no other alternative than to fight. Clearing this last floor will definitely result in more friendly casualties.
Lastly, attacking top-down will allow a force to side-step more enemy obstacles and traps since these are more likely to be placed at exits and entrances. -
The urban warfare doctrine in the SAF has become a bit diluted since most ground commanders fail to realise the inherent benefits of the top down approach.
Since most training occurs in fibua villiages like those in Tekong or BCTC where it is extremely difficult for a clearing force to climb stairs without becoming decisively engaged (always only got 1 set of stairs which are always well guarded), trainees in Sispec or OCS are always taught to go bottom up. This is good for such low level structures but it teaches future commanders the wrong principles for when they tackle multi-level structures in real battles.
Also, command schools always lack necessary items like folding ladders which facilitate the top-down strategy. -
Truth be said, for low buildings of like 1 to 3 floors, the bottoms-up approach is pretty okay. However, if multi-level, I pity the shagged assault force once they reach the top.Originally posted by Quirinus:The urban warfare doctrine in the SAF has become a bit diluted since most ground commanders fail to realise the inherent benefits of the top down approach.
Since most training occurs in fibua villiages like those in Tekong or BCTC where it is extremely difficult for a clearing force to climb stairs without becoming decisively engaged (always only got 1 set of stairs which are always well guarded), trainees in Sispec or OCS are always taught to go bottom up. This is good for such low level structures but it teaches future commanders the wrong principles for when they tackle multi-level structures in real battles.
Also, command schools always lack necessary items like folding ladders which facilitate the top-down strategy.