In this episode, John Spencer is joined by Stuart Lyle, urban operations research lead at the United Kingdom’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, for a discussion on one of the most overlooked but critical aspects of preparing for future war: urban warfare training facilities. The conversation includes a survey of major urban warfare training centers across NATO member states, including live-fire defensive buildings, subterranean training complexes, trench systems integrated into urban terrain, and facilities designed to demonstrate the real effects of weapons on buildings, cover, and urban infrastructure. Spencer and Lyle examine the persistent challenge of balancing scale and realism in urban warfare training, examining whether existing facilities—even the most innovative ones—adequately prepare soldiers for the realities of high-intensity urban combat. They discuss what current training sites get right, where they fall short, and what militaries must do to better prepare for the decisive battles increasingly fought in cities.
In this episode, guest host Jayson Geroux is joined by retired Lieutenant Colonel Louis DiMarco, a professor of military history at the United States...
As the chair of urban warfare studies at MWI, John Spencer spends a lot of time thinking about the gaps between the tasks that...
Cities' complex man-made terrain, the presence of civilian populations and infrastructure to support those populations, a complicated information environment, and a range of political...