Project Metropolis brings urban wars to U.S. cities.

The ability to disable a city's critical infrastructure, such as communications and transportation grids, is just one example of some of the new skills that Marines are learning in urban-warfare exercises.

During a recent live exercise in North Little Rock, Ark., Marines from the 4th Expeditionary Brigade headquarters conducted what is known as a "staff ride," visiting key infrastructure sites--telecommunications, water, power, rail transport and nuclear-power facilities. Their goal was to help develop "tactics and techniques to protect and destroy key infrastructure ... or rake the control of it from the hands of terrorists," said Brig. Gen. Douglas O'Dell, commander of the brigade, which is the Corps' elite anti-terrorism unit. O'Dell spoke to National Defense during the exercise in North Little Rock, which was part of a larger Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory urban warfare training initiative called Project Metropolis. The drill involved about 300 Marines.

"We're looking at how to protect these critical vulnerabilities from subtle or not-so-subtle attacks by those who would do us ill," said O'Dell. "In the United Stares and in major European cities, transmitting towers are in the heart of major cities, like the space needle in Seattle," O'Dell said.

As the United States seeks to broaden its global campaign against terrorism, it's important for the Marines to learn how to control the communications channels typically used by terrorists, O'Dell explained. "The real intent of terrorists in seizing and exploiting radio and television communication is to broadcast their message, and to create uncertainty and fear in the populace," O'Dell said. If terrorists seized control of a local radio station and broadcast a message that the water supply had been contaminated with chemicals, the ensuing panic, "whether real or imagined, could be devastating." O'Dell said. "The thing you really want to seize, if you're bent on controlling local telecommunications, is not the radio station, but the transmitting tower."

The 4th MEB was designated as the Corps' main anti-terrorism unit last October. O'Dell noted that the brigade originally dates back to 1917, but was deactivated in 1991 after the Gulf War. In the weeks following the September 11 attacks, the commandant decided to reactivate the unit.

The tactics, techniques and procedures that the Marines were learning in North Little Rock easily could be applied to missions such as guarding the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, said O'Dell. This made the exercise "extremely timely."

Project Metropolis also is focusing on urban ground reconnaissance, said Randy Gangle, a retired Marine colonel, who works at the Corps' Warfighting Laboratory, which is based in Quantico, Va. The ability to hide sensors in a city is key to improving reconnaissance. "What you see looks like normal garbage you might see on the street -- bricks, pieces of concrete, dented oil cans. What they actually are, are different types of sensors," said Brig. Gen. Andrew Davis, a Marine Corps spokesman.

The lab, which manages the Corps' training exercises, is sharpening its focus "from theatre-level or strategic concepts, to experiments that support the Marine in the last 1,500 meters to the objective," said Davis.

The training also will help the Corps decide what equipment they should buy in the future. "There are technologies out there that are going to help protect us," said Davis. An example is camouflage garments. "We're assessing a new type of camouflage utility pattern color for the urban environment," he said. There is also interest in lighter backpacks and smaller batteries, so Marines are nor so weighed down with gear.

Gangle noted that, in the past 20 years, 21 out of the 26 U.S. military deployments have had an "urban context," and 10 of them have been exclusively in an urban environment.

He explained that some of the technologies used for conventional warfare are ineffective in an urban environment. Overhead imagery systems don't work well in looking inside buildings, so enemy forces tend to hide inside buildings and underground. "Because we can't find you, all the precision weapons we've developed are for naught," he said.

"There is no silver-bullet technology available out there for the urban battle," said O'Dell. "But if we train better, use moderate maneuver warfare tactics on the urban battle space, we can improve our efficiency by about 70 percent." New procedures have already brought the casualty rate from 30 percent down into the teens. "Now, I'm still not happy with the teens, but it's a hell of a lot better than 30 percent, which is the historical average for warfare," he said.

The North Little Rock experiment was a peace-keeping scenario with an anti-terrorism flavor, said Maj. Pete Sullivan, a company commander. "It's a compilation of Somalia, Haiti, the Balkans and Central Asia rolled into one."

The Marines used the Miles (Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System) laser-tag instrumentation system and observer-controllers to keep track of direct-fire engagements.

Establishing the company's permanent base is the first priority for the company commander, Sullivan said. That takes the first few days of any operation. In addition to the patrols, there are missions such as house searches.

Physical and mental exhaustion are assessed during these exercises, Sullivan explained. "We made [the experiment] long enough so that they could get a feel for how important the sleep plan is." The Marines worked six-hour shifts, followed by six-hour breaks. It's important for Marines to grasp how long they have, after they set up their base, before they start collapsing from exhaustion, Sullivan said.

"The question often comes up is, why are you here in a real city, like North Little Rock?" he said. The reason is that the average urban training facility on an Army or Marine base consists of 30 buildings, all made our of cinderblock. "They don't have any glass in the windows, they very seldom have furniture inside, and they don't have populations in them," Sullivan explained. "The opportunity for us to get our, in a real city, operate in this type of environment, gives us a little more of an edge, in figuring out if what we've developed conceptually and in those urban training facilities, works when you get it out on the ground.

"The experiment in Little Rock has even taken it a step further than previous experiments," Sullivan said. Other experiments have occurred in Charleston, S.C., but the perimeters of operation included only the campus of the Citadel. In Oakland, Calif., the operation occurred within a former Navy base that the city now owns.

"Here at Little Rock, we are actually out in the entire city, in the neighborhoods, we've blocked off streets, we've stopped cars. It's as real as it can get without going overseas and doing the real thing," said Sullivan. Local law enforcement participated as "interpreters" in the operation, in this case, making certain that residents understood that the Marines were in training, not invading their city.

"We've found some things that work; we've found a lot of things that don't work. We still don't have all the answers to the problems, but we're going to keep working on it," said Gangle.

Lt. Gen. Emil Bedard, Marine deputy commandant for plans, policy and operations, has experienced first-hand the challenges of urban warfare. During a breakfast with defense reporters in Washington, he cited fratricide, fire support and command and control as the most critical concerns.

"The environment can become very hostile, very rapidly. We've got to be able to operate in that kind on environment," he said. "If you're going into an environment that is held entirely by the enemy, that's somewhat easier than if the enemy is dispersed within the population," he said. "The ability to communicate in an urban environment" is also a huge challenge.

"I spent 13 months in Somalia, on two different tours. ... The urban environment is one of the most difficult and challenging ones.

"We believe, as Marines, as an expeditionary force, we're going to find ourselves fighting in every kind of terrain. Urban warfare is nor our only mission, but it's an important one," he said.

Bedard explained that with the return of the 4th Brigade, the Corps will have an expeditionary force ready take action at any time, anywhere, including within the borders of the United States, if necessary. "Let's say another 'New York' happened. I could see this brigade going in and doing a security mission around ground zero, to be able to let the emergency folks do their jobs, focus on civilian protection and sealing off sanitation," he said.