Sociology

Jungle warfare is a kind of war that takes place in a jungle terrain characterised by dense vegetation and wild animals, while an urban warfare is one that is fought in an urban setting where different types of buildings and civilians exist. The Vietnam War was a good example of jungle warfare while the war in Iraq is an example of urban warfare. Due to the physical differences that prevail in the locations where the two wars are fought, the war techniques used are different as will be discussed in this paper. However, it is imperative to mention that the type of weapons used in the two warfare brings about a wide array of techniques applied in the battle field.  

In urban warfare very sophisticated and superior weapons are used because of the numerous risks involved in this type of war. On the other hand, jungle warfare involves the use of less complex weapons. The mostly used war technique in urban war is the use of as much force as possible in order to exceed that of the opponent and thus be able to attack and put up a strong defence. On the other hand, jungle warfare require critical manoeuvre to establish tactics of attacking the enemy without being seen and therefore there is use of minimum force as opposed to urban warfare. Jungle warfare also involves the technique of striking and moving from one location to the other and hence it does not permit the use of heavy and sophisticated weapons that limit the fighters mobility (Barber, 2005).

The other war technique used in jungle warfare comprises of fortification and camouflage. The dense vegetation in a jungle terrain affects the ability to spot the enemy at a distance making it possible for the fighters in the jungle to hide from the enemy and therefore snipers are used to shoot their targets from their hiding places. The presence of vegetation in the jungle also makes it possible to use the camouflaging technique which is not possible in urban warfare where the war if fought in an open ground with only buildings and monuments being the hiding places. The camouflage technique is carried out by wearing a uniform whose colour resembles that of the vegetation which makes it difficult for the enemy to spot the opponent.  In addition, in urban warfare where open space exists, the techniques used for hiding includes the use of bunkers which cannot be easily accessed by the enemy.

Furthermore, planting bombs in buildings is a major technique used in urban warfare. This is because blowing a building causes massive damage than would have been the case if the bomb had been set in a terrain in the jungle. The massive damage is aimed at weakening the enemy and destroying the potential hiding places for the enemy in order to expose the enemy.  In jungle warfare, setting traps to either dupe the enemy or to slow down the action of the enemy is a major war technique applied to weaken the enemy.

The jungle environment is characterised by poor road network or no roads at all and therefore the warring parties use air transport to supply their war battalions with the required weapons. Due to the problem of transport, jungle warfare requires the use of a lot of engineering resources to help in setting up of landing grounds for the war planes and build bridges where necessary to necessitate the movement of fighters from one place to the other. In this respect, the use of small unit of forces is a widely applied war technique in jungle warfare as opposed to urban warfare where large troop groupings are stationed in strategic urban corners to overcome the massive striking forces of the opponent.

Spying and striving to locate the enemys hideout is another war technique used in jungle warfare. This is particularly true because local knowledge of the battle field is a major added advantage where those with the knowledge of the area are able to hide in strategic locations that their enemies are not familiar with. In urban warfare, the use of underground tunnels as hiding places is paramount because moving in the open streets increases the chances of attack from the enemy. In addition, house to house search for the enemy is another war technique used in urban warfare where fighters forcefully break into different rooms to find out any elements of collaborations or links that can help to weaken the enemy.
 The use of low flying war crafts that can easily locate the hiding places of the attackers is another war technique used in jungle warfare and if the enemy is spotted in the bushes all military operations are used including heavy bombing on the target. This is opposed to urban where restriction on the amount of force that can be used is initiated because of the presence of civilians. For example in Iraq, the US soldiers avoid using artillery weapons in order  to spare the civilians and avoid negative consequences such as massive destruction of buildings.

Close-quarter battle is also another technique used in urban warfare because in urban places manoeuvrability is limited. In applying this technique, the fighters ensure that their opponents do not know the direction from where they shoot from. This technique is also suitable for the urban warfare in order to reduce the number of casualties of innocent civilians who get caught up in the war. When fighting in an urban warfare, you have to use three dimensional techniques because of visibility from many directions. There is therefore the use of bullet-proof vests and other gears such as night vision devices to reduce chances of being attacked from unknown direction (Beevor, 2002).

Due to the dangers that prevail in urban warfare as a result of open space, tactics such as the use of long range weapons are used. For example, in Iraq war, the US military bombed several sites in Iraq using missiles that were sent from their bases located outside Iraq. Such long range war technique makes it possible to strike the enemy from a distance where the enemy cannot be able to reiterate particularly when the enemy is well conversant with the urban setting. However, in jungle warfare, short range war techniques are used because the fighters need to be close to the target to identify the location of the target because the vegetation limits visibility from for a distance. The short range technique used in jungle warfare includes rocket-propelled grenades and shoulder-fired surface to air missiles (Taber, 1995).

From the above discussion, a conclusion can be made that the difference techniques applied in urban and the jungle warfare are mainly determined and necessitated by the physical environment. As seen above, in jungle warfare dense vegetation characterises the environment and therefore hiding from the enemy is not a major problem and the challenge remains with the fighters mobility because access roots are hard to find. In urban warfare, transport is not a major problem but the openness of the area makes it difficult to hide from the enemy and therefore three-dimensional war tact becomes necessary.

The location of the urban warfare requires the use of massive armed force and use of sophisticated weapons. On the other hand jungle warfare techniques are based more on a strong military leadership manoeuvres that can outwit the techniques of the opponents. Techniques such as camouflaging and knowledge of the battle field are therefore of paramount importance in jungle warfare.