It's known as the worst place for battle, and looking into the future, it may be just where battles of the future rage: cities.
More than 80 percent of the world's population will reside in urban environments. "By 2050 I think we'll have for the first time one city with over 100 million people in it," said Andrei Cernasov, associate director for innovation at the U.S. Army Armament Research Development and Engineering Center, which is part of the Army's Research Development and Engineering Command.
"If you look around today, at the trouble in Iraq, in Syria, most of warfare, even today, is in cities," said Cernasov. "Saddam's last stand may have also been the last stand for what we think of as classical warfare."
This means in order to prepare for future warfare it is becoming increasingly important to look closely at the challenges of urban conflicts, and take them head on. To that end, Cernasov and the Innovative Developments Everyday at ARDEC program have conducted the first portion of a six-part Urban Warfare Workshop Series which aims to produce one or more weapons platforms that will succeed in tomorrow's urban conflicts by leveraging the innovative talent in the ARDEC workforce.
"Our goal is to see a number of projects that address this topic," said Cernasov of urban warfare. "Another goal is to develop knowledge in this very important area within ARDEC."
Having the discussions with engineers and scientists provides awareness and understanding of the particular challenges of urban warfare, which differs significantly from the warfare challenges of the so-called "classical" variety.
"Instead of the problem being a guy 100 yards away, it is a guy behind the door or on the third floor, so you need tools to deal with that," said Cernasov.
"You need better situational awareness. You need to evacuate casualties better. You need to discriminate between combatants and noncombatants better. You need to be able to get to the sniper in the minaret."
U.S. forces in Fallujah, "sometimes, they had no idea how to handle an entrenched enemy," said Cernasov.
Part of the problem lies in the available weapons.
"Our weapons are derivatives of the weapons used in trenches and open fields during World War I."
"They are generally designed to project power at a distance. So what's happening is that?'s all great, but in the urban environment they are the wrong tools for urban warfare," said Cernasov. "And future warfare is going into the cities."
Cernasov assembled innovators from the IDEA program -- which endeavors to increase innovation and patents at ARDEC-- to tackle the challenge.
"I wanted non-standard thinkers. I tried to bring in people who were experienced innovators without excluding anybody who could contribute."
"We had more than 100 patents in that room," said Cernasov regarding the number of patents held by the participants. In the first two sessions, the objectives were focused more on defining the particular challenges of urban warfare. Later sessions will focus on solutions.
The innovators viewed presentations and videos on violent urban conflicts in different places and times, including the Tet Offensive, the Battle of Stalingrad, Fallujah and the ongoing Syrian conflict.
The participants examined urban conflicts ranging from "pushing and shoving" at the low end and "full-blown warfare" at the high end of the spectrum, explained Cernasov.
"We looked at Occupy Wall Street and the Ukranian demonstrations because I wanted to bring in non-lethal options," said Cernasov.
"We wanted to look at how you deal with problems where the other guy could be your brother."
"We do not always have solutions that go beyond lethality," said Cernasov. "You can't stoop to the level of throwing punches."
As the workshops continue, the inventors, several of whom are recipients of Army Greatest Inventions awards, will utilize a number of innovation techniques, including classical brainstorming, affinitizing -- a technique that groups solutions into similar clusters -- and TRIZ-- a process of inventive problem solving-- in order to better understand problems and better find solutions.
The emphasis is on starting with zero trying to look at the problem with a fresh perspective.
"We were trying to think of what we actually need in that environment."
"We wanted to look at solutions to the problem not modifications to the existing problem, not modifications of current weapons that marginally address the problem," said Cernasov.
While obtaining a fresh perspective on the problems, the innovators also brought their knowledge of current technologies.
"No matter what happens we?'re going to have a better understanding of urban warfare," said Cernasov.
But Cernasov made clear a better understanding is not the primary goal.
The objective is new platforms, with tools that were designed from the start to solve the challenges of urban warfare.
The workshop is structured so that in its final sessions it will be presenting and supporting ideas, possibly white papers, that will generate seed money from combat centers to explore the validity and potential of those weapons systems ideas.
"We?'ll find out by the process what those weapons will be," said Cernasov.
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U.S. Army Armament Research Development and Engineering Center
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