The Air Force's struggle to fight subterranean warfare
By Stephen Losey and Todd South
Mar 11, 2019 –
FORT BRAGG, North Carolina — It is darkness like you’ve never seen. The air you breathe could kill you in moments. All of your fire support — air, armor, artillery — is useless. The walls and ceiling could collapse. Communications will fail. A wrong turn leaves you utterly alone.
Going underground, especially in dark, tight spaces, can trigger feelings of helplessness in even the most experienced troops, from the individual to the operational level.
It is the most primitive close combat a fighter may ever face.
“You think you’ve been in a dark environment?” a former special operations soldier-turned-trainer said. “Wait until you get into a deep underground facility and the power’s cut. That is scary.”
Welcome to the subterranean.
It is happening in Syria now. Iraqi forces faced it in Mosul. Russia, China, North Korea and Iran all boast complex facilities laced with reinforced command and control and the ability to deploy thousands of troops, tanks, missiles, even launch planes from underground runways.
Militant groups from the Islamic State to Hamas to rebel groups in Africa have expanded their use of the underground,
whether in remote caves or by burrowing their way through cities such as Darayya, Syria, for what became tunnel-on-tunnel warfare with the regime.
“They’ve gone underground to match our overmatch,” said retired Army Maj. John Spencer, chair of Urban Warfare Studies with the Modern War Institute at West Point.