First published by the Combat Studies Institute Press. The resulting anthology begins with a general overview of urban operations from ancient times to the midpoint of the twentieth century. It then details ten specific case studies of U.S., German, and Japanese operations in cities during World War II and ends with more recent Russian attempts to subdue Chechen fighters in Grozny and the Serbian siege of Sarajevo. Operations range across the spectrum from combat to humanitarian and disaster relief. Each chapter contains a narrative account of a designated operation, identifying and analyzing the lessons that remain relevant today.

Few lessons are as prevalent in military history as is the adage that tanks don't perform well in cities. The notion of deliberately committing tanks to urban combat is anathema to most. In "Breaking the Mold: Tanks in the Cities," Ken Gott disproves that notion with a timely series of five case studies from World War II to the present war in Iraq. This is not a parochial or triumphant study. These cases demonstrate that tanks must do more than merely "arrive" on the battlefield to be successful in urban combat. From Aachen in 1944 to Fallujah in 2004, the absolute need for specialized training and the use of combined arms at the lowest tactical levels are two of the most salient lessons that emerge from this study. When properly employed, well-trained and well-supported units led by tanks are decisive in urban combat. The reverse also is true. Chechen rebels taught the Russian army and the world a brutal lesson in Grozny about what happens when armored units are poorly led, poorly trained, and cavalierly employed in a city. The case studies in this monograph are high-intensity battles in conflicts ranging from limited interventions to major combat operations. It would be wrong to use them to argue for the use of tanks in every urban situation. As the intensity of the operation decreases, the 2nd and 3rd order effects of using tanks in cities can begin to outweigh their utility. The damage to infrastructure caused by their sheer weight and size is just one example of what can make tanks unsuitable for every mission. Even during peace operations, however, the ability to employ tanks and other heavy armored vehicles can be crucial. "Breaking the Mold" provides an up-to-date analysis of the utility of tanks and heavy armored forces in urban combat. The U.S. Army will increasingly conduct combat operations in urban terrain, and it will be necessary to understand what it takes to employ tanks to achieve success in that battlefield environment.

Doctrine provides a military organization with a common philosophy, a language, a purpose, and unity of effort. Rather than establishing a set of hard and fast rules, the objective of doctrine is to foster initiative and creative thinking. To this end, FM 3-06 discusses major Army operations in an urban environment. This environment, consisting of complex terrain, a concentrated population, and an infrastructure of systems, is an operational environment in which Army forces will operate. In the future, it may be the predominant operational environment. Each urban operation is unique and will differ because of the multitude of combinations presented by the threat, the urban area itself, the major operation of which it may be part (or the focus), and the fluidity of societal and geopolitical considerations. Therefore, there will always exist an innate tension between Army doctrine, the actual context of the urban operation, and future realities. Commanders must strike the proper balance between maintaining the capability to respond to current threats and preparing for future challenges.

In every operation, the functions of command, control, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), and communications are all fundamental to success. But in cities, the dense population, many manmade structures, and other challenges act to severely impede these functions in several ways. This monograph contemplates the nature of those challenges and proposes several recommendations to surmount them in both the short and longer terms.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SOCIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE brings to students, researchers and practitioners in all of the social and language-related sciences carefully selected book-length publications dealing with sociolinguistic theory, methods, findings and applications. It approaches the study of language in society in its broadest sense, as a truly international and interdisciplinary field in which various approaches, theoretical and empirical, supplement and complement each other. The series invites the attention of linguists, language teachers of all interests, sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, historians etc. to the development of the sociology of language.