Thread 64149294

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2018/06/24/army-spending-half-billion-train-troops-fight-underground.html
https://www.army.mil/article/267480/underground_soldiers_army_trains_for_operations_below_surface
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=DpWpVVhCT50
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXgr_YErHDE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ix1oSu9-ydw
Are we going to see these specialized troops deployed anytime soon?

MOLEMEN RVLE THEM ALL!

isn't it just CQB training?

>>64149312
That's about as true as when airsofters say they're just like real soldiers.

my soul is ready

>>64149312
No. Imagine Dante's Inferno levels of hell.
>regular dangers of ambush and gunfights
>dark, even pitch black
>pressure from even just firing weapon in confined space
>air quality/ breathing issues
>booby traps
>hallucinations and disorientation
it makes regular combat look like easy mode

>>64149294 (OP)
It would be much more effective and less costly to just pump tunnels full of natural gas and ignite it.

>>64149312
No,its knife fighting in a coffin in pitch darkness while being buried underground and your opponent is a mole with rabies.

>>64149846
Way harder to do than it sounds. There was a paper out there somewhere that was talking about how Israel tried several methods like filling them with water, concrete, and destroying them with explosives. They were simply running out of materials and resources to destroy or block them. The sea water method was seeping into natural fresh water aquifers if I remember correctly. They've probably considered actually doing everything short of dumping sewage in them.

>>64149846
The Vietcong countered the use of gas with water locks, short sections of flooded tunnel that naturally blocked off any gases.

>>64150051
as it stands, sealing or destroying a tunnel or underground complex permanently is actually very fucking difficult, with basic things like blast doors, compartmentalization, vents and blast traps the tunnel becomes very survivable even to bunker busters, and collapsed sections can be bypassed or repaired and opening up a new entrance isnt that complicated.
even the whole process of securing the entrance and parts of the tunnel is a slow, methodical process that requires special equipment, and units with appropriate training.
>>64149846
pumping anything in a sufficient quantity in to a tunnel, be it gas, water, concrete or even liquid explosives is one hell of a massive logistic undertaking and even more so when its in an active combat zone.

>>64149294 (OP)
Future war is going to be weird, you will have everything being melted down to pulp by unmanned systems topside, then you will have dirty sweaty grunts shooting and shivving each other in dark tunnels

>>64149294 (OP)
all I need

>>64149312

oh no anon. Tunnel fighting is the freshest hell.


https://i.4cdn.org/wsg/1755771392418435.webm

Based on Fort Vaux you will have machine gun nests defending every gallery, booby traps everywhere in oppressive heat and while 400mm shells (or in modern time bunker busters) shake the entire bunker complex.

>>64150051
The Israelis should have named the anti-tunnel thing Operation Moleman Cricket 19

>>64150099
I imagine tunnel warfare is going to become significantly more common, now that it's basically a death sentence to be exposed to the sky anywhere near any contested region.
It will be very interesting to see what kind of rapid tunneling tech comes about as a result of this.

>>64149846
you can block gas with water.

>>64151294
Every underground system will have to have ventilation

>>64151304
put it in a secret spot

>>64149294 (OP)
They're not specialized as in a whole separate unit just for this. Everyone trains this stuff eventually.
The intent is to be ready for future large scale urban combat, where there will be significant fighting underground. Picture a huge city like Taipei or Shanghai and all the underground spaces that exist there, it's that kind of thing they're training to fight in.

>>64151282
I agree. It's going to be insane.

>>64151282
I remember people on here talking about how you can shoot these drones down, yet I learned that these things can travel 80 mph iirc. We fucked up as a species.

I like when the future has shit that nobody was really predicting.

>Haha yeah we're going to have space fighting and shit it'll be cool
Instead we're going subterranean horrors.

>>64151282
What I'm struck by is how fucking GOOD of a defense it is. Iran's mountain system was pretty much GG-no-RE to anybody but the United States and only our what, +20 something specialty munitions. Short of that you'd need a nuke and there's disputing on if the strikes worked or not. Similarly the Gaza vietcong tunnels are allowing them to hang on far longer than anything else would have and if you asked me or any odd conscript
>Get in the fucking labrynth and don't forget your ball of yarn so the minotaur doesn't eat you.
You'd get fragged.

While all attention is correctly on drones right now it'd really behoove military R&D to start figuring out ways of anti-underground warfare

>>64151453
This, it's just extra training. As >>64150092 says tunnels are a huge pain in the ass. Either you camp the exits and hope they don't sneak out through auxiliary tunnels/exits and starve them out, or you go in and suffer high casualties with a huge "fuck this shit" burden to your men. I personally would reccomend just waiting them out, but in the chaos of a modern battlefield there are going to be so many alternative exits for them to use even if you blow the ones you find that they'll just pop up behind you once they dig their way back out. A combination of blasting entrances closed, posting lookouts on the ones that are open, being autistic with your security behind your lines since they will pop up behind you, and sending in drones and dogs is your best bet. I think we'll see more drone tech developing for these scenarios such as specialized RC cars but with tracks all over, or straight up robot rats with bombs on them

>>64149294 (OP)
Who do you think was fighting all those battles in the tunnels under the hospitals, streets and such back in 2020? Why do you think the coof was made a big deal in certain areas vs others? It was to clear out and keep safe people that didn't need to be there.....

>>64149294 (OP)
>A one on one special about Subterranean warfare with Maj. (Ret) John Spencer and CSM (Ret) Joe Vega
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tA84G4Vrt28
Here is a CAG guy talking about the difficulties of underground warfare. It sounds terribly difficult. Imagine having to breach doors underground but your team has to wear nuclear/biological/chemical suits and carry oxygen and supplies so by the time they reach the target they are exhausted and almost out of oxygen so you have to have teams rotating in and out at all times.

>>64150073
I liked that idea where they had waterlocks that go off in several directions. You'd not have room to turn around and the distance you had to cover was significant relative to how long you can hold your breath. I expect this to delay the enemy for a long time and make them vulnerable asf. You'd have to wait for scuba equipment. Have fun being the guy being sent in that way. Some chink with a sharp stick will go spearfishing.

>>64149305
fpbp

>>64149294 (OP)
total unrestricted global moleman warfare
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfRM4tJntJ8

>>64149294 (OP)
An interesting thing to think about is that nukes will eventually proliferate, barring a total collapse of civilization you won't be able to keep smaller nations from developing nukes over the next few centuries, and probably more like tac nukes than proper ICBMs, which will probably lead to semi regular use of nukes in warfare. Along with drones and space based weapons the only way to really be surviveable in that scenario is to have your critical infrastructure and manufacturing underground, perhaps making layered cities with aboveground habitation but with underground shelters, transport corridors, factories, warehouses, etc.

Perhaps nuclear weapons proliferation also leads to nuclear energy adoption and humanity moves much of its industrial infrastructure underground, with anything on the surface either being unimportant or widely dispersed. It could honestly be kind of utopian to have so much underground, creating opportunities to rewild more of the surface

>>64149294 (OP)
>>64151632
When?