Until 2500 years ago, Sun Tzu advised avoiding storming cities due to the inevitability of heavy losses - much greater than in a field battle. In the early fall of 1941, Hitler categorically forbade his generals to storm Soviet cities, but a year later he retreated from this rule near Stalingrad, which led to the defeat of Paulus' army and a turning point in World War II. Stalin demanded to take cities at any cost - the numbers of losses of the Red Army in Budapest, Königsberg, Breslau, Berlin are terrifying, involuntarily forcing them to think about the need for such operations. But they were awarded generously for successful assaults - a whole constellation of medals "For the capture" of enemy cities was established in the USSR. At the cost of a lot of blood, it was possible to develop effective street fighting tactics, create special assault groups, battalions and entire brigades, accumulate the richest combat experience, which, it would seem, guaranteed against repeating previous mistakes - however, half a century after the Victory, our generals again "stepped on the same rake" during the assault Grozny.