The Mini-Manual for the

Urban Defender

Version 1 (March 15, 2022)

By John Spencer
 About the author
John Spencer is an award-winning scholar, professor,
author, combat veteran, and internationally recognized
expert and advisor on urban warfare. He served over 25
years in the U.S. Army to include two urban-warfare centric
combat deployments to Iraq. He can be found on twitter
@SpencerGuard
 Table of Contents

• Spencer’s Standing Orders (for the Urban Defender)

• 8 Rules of Attacking a City
• 6 Main elements of any defense
• General information
• Protection and safety
• Barriers, barriers, barriers
• Attack, attack, attack
• Casualty and Fighter-care
 Spencer’s Standing Orders
(for the Urban Defender)
1. The defense is the strongest form of war. The attacker must come to you and you must be in
prepared positions. He must cross the open street to attack you. Kill him in the streets and alleyways.
2. Never stop preparing the defense. Even when you are fighting you should be continuing to
improve your positions.
3. Make the attacker go where you want, not where he wants. Build barriers as high as you can. Block
all streets, alleyways, doors, and windows. Turn the city into a fortress of walls that make the enemy
enter your prepared traps.
4. Use concrete. It is your greatest defensive resource. Do not use wood and sandbags, they are
weak. Concrete reinforced by steel bars (rebar) is one of the strongest materials. Build barriers and
fighting positions out of it.
5. Always hide yourself, your position, your weapons. Always believe the enemy can see you from
above. If he can see you, he can strike you with missiles, bombs, and mortars. If you are always
hiding, moving inside buildings, under tarps between buildings, the enemy will not be able to strike
you.
6. Use any and all underground. If there is none beneath you, start digging. The attacker will bomb
you before attacking. You can use the underground to hide, escape, protect yourselves, store
supplies, move, and attack.
7. Surprise is everything. The attacker cannot see through concrete. You decide when and where the
fighting will occur. The enemy fears urban snipers deeply. Make him think every window holds a
sniper.
8. Fight in groups. One fighter is not enough. Fight in a minimum of 3-5 person teams.
9. Always attack from a protected and hidden position. It does not matter if you are throwing
something or shooting something, do so from inside a building, from high or low floors, piles of
rubble, popping up from the underground.
10. Always have an escape plan after attacking. Put holes in walls, floors, and ceilings so you can run
between rooms and buildings when the enemy bombs are falling, or they are too close to you. Dig
tunnels under buildings and houses to escape through. Make lots of different attacking position to
move to. Pre-position supplies everywhere: ammo, grenades, rocket-propelled grenades, water.
11. Do not get surprised. The enemy fears urban warfare. He will attempt to sneak past your
defenses. Never have more than 2/3s of your fighters asleep.
12. Drink water. You cannot fight if you are dead. You can survive only 3 days without water, but 3
weeks without food. Purify any water (boil it, add bleach or iodine). If your pee is clear nothing to fear;
yellow or brown you are going down.
13. Wash your hands before eating. Disease can kill you more than enemy bullets. When you eat and
drink ensure your bathrooms are more than 100 meters away. Do not let flies touch your food.
14. You must follow the laws of war. You must wear markings to identify you as fighters. No matter
the enemy’s tactics, you must follow the laws of war to include handling of captured enemy fighters.
 8 Rules of Attacking a City
There are rules that restrain a military force attacking a city. A smart defender
plans to maximize and use each rule against the attacker. The rules are:

1. The urban defender has the advantage. It takes much more force to attack and defeat an
enemy that is in an established and properly constructed defense than one in the open.

2. The urban terrain reduces the attacker’s advantages in intelligence, surveillance, and
reconnaissance, the utility of aerial assets, and the attacker’s ability to engage at
distance.

3. The defender can see and engage the attacker coming, because the attacker has
limited cover and concealment. The biggest tactical advantage for the defending force is that
it can remain hidden inside and under buildings.

4. Buildings serve as fortified bunkers that must be negotiated. Cities are full of structures
that are ideal for military defense purposes. Large government, office, or industrial buildings are
often made of thick, steel-reinforced concrete that make them nearly impervious to many
military weapons.

5. Attackers must use explosive force to penetrate buildings. The primary current methods
of attacking an urban fortification are to either destroy it or prepare the building with explosive
munitions and then send infantry in to enter and clear the entire building if necessary.

6. The defender maintains relative freedom of maneuver within the urban terrain. They
can prepare the terrain to facilitate their movement to wherever the battle requires. They can
connect battle positions with routes through and under buildings. They can construct obstacles
to lure attackers unknowingly into elaborate ambushes because of the limited main avenues of
approach in many dense urban environments.

7. The underground serves as the defender’s refugee. Defenders use existing tunnels or
dig their own to connect fighting positions, hide from detection, and provide cover from aerial
strikes, and even employ them offensively as tunnel bombs against a stationary military forces.

8. Neither the attacker nor the defender can concentrate their forces against the other. A
defense established in dense urban terrain constrains both the rapid movement and the ability
to concentrate formations against decisive points.
 6 Main Elements of Any Defense
These six element of the defense apply to any defense no
matter both scale or environment. In the urban defense the
defender must always think about how the urban terrain can
be shaped and used to allow defenders to do what they want
to do while stopping the enemy from doing what they want to
do. The six main elements are:

• Preparation – As soon as the urban defender decides to

fight, they must start to plan and shape the urban area to
their plans. The urban defender never stops preparing. Even
when they are fighting, they can have some fighters
shooting while others are continuing to build obstacles,
positions, and more.
• Flexibility – The entire defense must have flexibility to
change to the attacker’s actions. This is important for the
entire defense of a city down to a single block.
• Security – Defenders must ensure all sides of the city are
safe. All fighting positions more than one person.
• Operations in depth – Be able to kill the enemy out as far
away as possible and in belts as try to enter the city.
• Disruption – Use the city to break apart the attacker’s
formations, convoys, separate tanks from infantry.
• Maneuver – Use both fires and fast-moving defenders
• Mass and concentration – Be ready to surge large groups
of defending fighters on the attackers at critical moments.
General Information
 Gather supplies

Urban warfare, to include defending, requires four times the

amount ammo as the same operation in rural terrain.

On top of anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) like Javelins

and NLAWs, defenders needs a lot of rifle bullets,
grenades, anti-tank mines, anti-personnel mines,
disposable drones, water, non-perishable foods, and fuels
(cooking/vehicle/generator)
You have the numbers & advantage
Prepared urban defenders have the advantage. In 2016,
it took over 100,000 security forces 9 months to take
Mosul against 5 to 10,000 ISIS. It took hundreds of
thousands of Soviets to take Stalingrad. Military doctrine
says the attacker needs 3 to 5 times more than he would
during an attack in wooden or open terrain. The enemy
could need as much as 5 if not more attacking soldiers to
1 defending soldier/fighter.
 Protection and Safety

• You cannot fight if you are dead. Shape the

urban area to provide you the most protection
and safety to fight the enemy when he comes.
The first phase of the enemy to attack a city will be
bombing of any known enemy positions
(buildings/places seen from the sky or already known).
Basically softening the defenders force in the city. In
this phase, all efforts to hide known key locations
should be taken, as well as knowing where to escape
the bombing and then come out to fight.
The next phase, as the attacker gets closer to the city,
they will begin heavy heavy bombardment on
"enemy." Also hoping defenders give up. This could
last days & is where the underground is critical to
survive and maintain the weapons and supplies to
fight. Defenders must also know if enemy is close.
The next phase of the city attack will be fires as the enemy
military is right against the city and attempting to find an
entering. This is a dangerous time because the defenders
must be able to attack the invaders but also survive their
bombing. The defenders can “hug” the attackers meaning
let them get so close they can no longer use their artillery
out of fear of killing their own soldiers.

The rubble from earlier phases makes strong fighting

positions.
You must stay hidden. If you can be seen, you can be
attacked by missiles, bombs, artillery, and mortars. Put
tarpaulins, sheets/blankets, wood, plastic, tin, anything
across the top of or between building so the things above
or down the street can’t see you. Hide everything.
The underground has long served as a powerful urban
warfare tool. It allows defenders to escape bombs, hide
fighters, cache and protect supplies, and to move around
unseen, to include to attack the invading enemy.
If there is no underground below you. Start digging. You
would be surprised at the depth of a tunnel a team of
civilians can dig in just a few days. Dig bomb shelters and
passages under buildings. Safe places to put caches.
 Barriers, Barriers, Barriers

• The urban terrain should be shaped to slow or stop

an invading military forces so they can be attack,
force them into traps and ambushes, or to deny
them access to the urban area.
Build multiple defense lines. Prepare complete circles
around the city. Build fortifications. Layer after layer of
obstacles and blocks. Blockades on every street. Speed is
security. A slow vehicle or soldier is easier to hit and
destroy!
In any city defense, you always continue to prepare,
even when fighting, continue to improve your position.
Don't sit around (that will let your mind think about
other things), don't stand in the open. Build bunkers
near the checkpoints. Dig tunnels!
Go out and build obstacles in the streets! Start with any
bridge you can find (they should have been destroyed).
Block them with buses, dump trucks, cars, concrete,
wood, trash, anything! Then block any spot in the city
where there are tall buildings on each side. Already tight
areas.
You must turn the city into a fortress and close the
gates. Block every street, alleyway, sidewalk, door, and
first floor window. Use urban material, it is strongest and
gives the most protection.
 Use concrete as the primary defense material. An
urban defender uses the unique urban material to their
advantage. Concrete reinforced with steel bars (rebar)
is ten times better than sandbags. Use rubble, rock,
bricks.

Concrete reinforced with steel bars (rebar) Sandbags for barriers/bunkers

Use existing concrete Barriers. Modern cities often have
existing concrete barriers for vehicle checkpoints or
infrastructure protection. These barriers offer ready-made
field fortifications. Steel hedgehogs are good too.
If you have razor wire, use it. Stack three together. Lay
between building. A triple strand razor wire can stop most
vehicles, even slow a tank.
Rubbling buildings. create rubble by destroying
structures to produce broken concrete, rebar,
stones, bricks, or solid material to include debris.
If you have time and digging assets, dig tank ditches and
emplace a barrier around the densest parts of the city as
possible, especially any entrances that can be spared
without impacting civilians needs. The goal is to add
density to already urban areas.
Slow or stop all vehicles from entering or moving
through your areas. Block all the streets. Slow
vehicles down so you can shoot at them or throw
Molotovs at them. You must be inside buildings.
Anyone with a weapon on the streets can be seen
by Russians and hit by rockets or artillery.
If there is a street you still need to use, build a “S” or
serpentine pattern obstacle that still slows a vehicle
down. Think police check point (which you could set
up if you wanted to catch saboteurs before the
attackers reach your location). There should be no
roads that allow free, rapid driving down.
 Attack, Attack, Attack

• While the purpose of the urban defense may not be

to destroy all of the enemy attackers, doing so still
achieves the goal of holding the city. You want to
turn every street into a meat grinder or wood-
chipper that the attack feeds their soldiers into die.
Build strongpoints along key avenues into the city. Be sure
to have an out (like a hole into the next building), but key
strong buildings can take days to clear. Do not use
buildings with glass (will shatter) or wood (will burn)
buildings
Make mouseholes and tunnels. The tactic of using
mouseholes—holes created in interior and exterior
walls of buildings that allow soldiers to move through
the exterior walls and interior spaces of buildings—is
one of the most dominant recurring defense
techniques. It allows you to move and attack unseen
and protected in the concrete structures. Tunnels allow
you to also escapet the bombings.
If there is time make make-shift pillboxes – i.e.
enclosed bunkers. Inside buildings best. They should
have overhead cover ( concrete on top of you) and
hidden from above.
You can put heavy weapons systems inside buildings.
Large weapons can be disassembled and reassembled
on the higher floor of a building to provide superior lines of
sight and angles of fire. This also creates bunker-like
protection to the defender’s most casualty-producing
weapons.
Place caches everywhere you plan to fight. Primary,
second and third positions. Urban terrain provides great
advantages for hidden, protected, and concealed pre-
positioned supply points to support multiple primary,
alternate, and supplementary battle positions.
Use the streets with buildings close to the roads to
attack. The higher floors even better because Russian
tanks and other guns can’t elevate their guns that high
and it is just harder for the attacker to fight looking up.
Defenders stay hidden hidden inside building or they
you be killed.
There is no reason an urban defender should be visible
from the sky or street by the approaching attacker when in
their positions they will attack from. Do not stick weapon
barrels out windows. Stay back and shoot from inside the
rooms to leave the streets empty.

Militaries fear snipers. Or really any defender shooting and

the attacker in the streets is not sure where the bullets are
coming from. Turn every window into a possible sniper in
his mind. Fire through rooms and buildings to the outside.
Use hit-and-run, antiarmor ambushes. At the First Battle of
Grozny small groups of 3-5 fighters armed with only AK-
47s, grenades, and RPG-7s or RPG-18s, engaged
armored vehicles from either basements or upper stories of
buildings, where main tanks and other weapons could not
effectively return fire. They would strike the first and last
vehicles to trap the others inside their trap. Hitting and
moving.
One of the most powerful defense tactics is the
establishment of engagement areas (kill zones...places
the enemy will die). 7 simple steps (adjusted for
simplicity):
Again, your survival to fight is important so think hard
about where you will shoot from. Elevated positions
down long streets. Shoot and run. Ambushes. Aim for
the windows and doors of non-armor vehicles. Soldiers
in open. One of the greatest fears of a soldier is a
sniper.
Any commercial hobby drones can be used to spot the
incoming attackers. To prevent the attacker from
surprising the defenders. They can also put Do fear in
the hearts of soldiers. If they have to look up, and not
know what is in the sky, they won’t know if it is a killer
drone or not.
 Molotov Cocktails

• Molotov cocktails can be effective weapons if used

properly. Thrown from protected sites and at the right
targets and spots on vehicles.
Think about where you will stand to throw
(then run). Dropping from windows above
vehicles most ideal. Vehicles without
weapons on top the most vulnerable, but if it
is armor, choose where to hit.
 Tanks

• The attacker of a city in high intensity combat must

have tanks to go inside the city. They need tanks,
infantry, engineers, artillery and more. But they really
need tanks. The defender should prioritize
destroying tanks.
Tanks cannot elevate their guns to higher levels or lower
levels of buildings, when playing to attack on, being where
it cannot shoot is best.
The most vulnerable spot on any tank is the top where the
armor (steel) is thinnest. That is why they fear the Javelin
and other anti-tank weapons that are “top-attack” which
fly up into the sky and then come down on top of the tank.
If the defender has rocket-propelled grenades that can’t
penetrate thick armor or anti-tank hand/rifle grenades, it is
best to be in high floors of a building and top them on top
of the tanks.
Defenders may not be able to destroy a tank, but they can
make it not work or not work as well. One way to do this is to
blind the tank where all the soldiers inside need to see out or
use the main gun. This is possible by shooting at the vision
block (place they look out). Upper left – tank commander
vision block. Upper right possible loader independent viewer
(depending on model of tank) and front bottom under the
main gun – driver vision blocks. Shoot or throw things to
break/cover those.
Molotov’s & other close tank attacks
As a last resort, Molotov cocktails can be used to attack a tank. If this is
the plan, more than one Molotov cocktail (a volley from both sides of a
street) has a better chance. Throw the Molotov at the back top of the tank
where the engine grill and air outlets are or again at the vision blocks. A
last last resort would be attempting to shove steel rods and other devices
into the back sprocket of the tank tracks attempting to seize or throw the
sprocket/track.
Casualty and Fighter Care
Fighting in urban terrain leads to higher casualties for both
attacker and defender. The defender needs to be ready to
move their casualties to safety and care. They should make
lots of homemade litters (device 2 carry people). All that is
needed is poles (wood/metal/plastic) & material (blankets,
jackets, tarps). Like:
The urban defender must drink water. You cannot fight if you are
dead. You can survive only 3 days without water, but 3 weeks
without food. If your pee is clear nothing to fear; yellow or brown
you are going down. There are ways to make water safe to drink.
Collect/melt snow/rain. Boil water found. Add 2 eye drops of
bleach to a liter. Or 5 - 10 drops of iodine. If ever not sure, purify
the water. Drinking bad water can cause vomiting/diarrhea and
lead to severe dehydration and death.

Know the signs of dehydration like stomach and muscle cramps,

dizziness, blackouts and seizures.