Flanking maneuver
This article needs additional citations for verification. (January 2013) |
In military tactics, a flanking maneuver is a movement of an armed force around an enemy force's side, or flank, to achieve an advantageous position over it.[1] Flanking is useful because a force's fighting strength is typically concentrated in its front, therefore, to circumvent an opposing force's front and attack its flank is to concentrate one's own offense in the area where the enemy is least able to concentrate defense.
Flanking can also occur at the operational and strategic levels of warfare.
Tactical flanking
Part of a series on |
War |
---|
The flanking maneuver is a basic military tactic with several variations. Flanking an enemy entails attacking from one or more sides, at an angle to the enemy's direction of engagement. There are three standard flanking maneuvers.
The first maneuver is the
The second type is used during an attack, where a unit encounters an enemy defensive position. Upon receiving fire from the enemy, the unit commander may decide to order a flank attack. A part of the attacking unit pins the enemy in place with suppressive fire, preventing them from returning fire, retreating or changing position to meet the flank attack. The flanking force then advances to the enemy flank and attacks them at close range. Coordination to avoid friendly fire is also important in this situation. This is employed largely by forces meeting each other with equal strength.
The third form of flanking maneuvers is the double envelopment, which involves simultaneous flank attacks on both sides of the enemy. An example is Hannibal's victory over the Roman army at the Battle of Cannae. Double envelopment can only be performed by widening friendly units or formations or opening gaps between them which results in weakening the center and similar battles to that of Gaugamela. Thus, it was often employed when severely outnumbering the opponent or against those without sufficient cavalry support.
Maneuvering
Flanking on land in the
Defense
The use of flanking has been a consistent part of warfare since its invention. The responsibility of defending against flanks falls on the commander, who has to make the choice of how to best use terrain. In addition, the proper adjustment and positioning of soldiers is imperative in ensuring a protected flank.
Terrain
A commander could prevent being flanked by anchoring one or both parts of his line on terrain impassable to his enemies, such as
Fortification
In exceptional circumstances, an army may be fortunate enough to be able to anchor a flank with a friendly castle, fortress, or walled city. In such circumstances, it was necessary not to fix the line to the fortress but to allow a killing space between the fortress and the battle line so that any enemy forces attempting to flank the field forces could be brought under fire from the garrison. Natural strongholds formed by terrain can also be incorporated into the battle line: the Union positions of Culp's Hill, Cemetery Hill on the right flank, and Big Round Top and Little Round Top on the left flank at the Battle of Gettysburg. If time and circumstances allowed, field fortifications could be created or expanded to protect the flanks, as the Allied forces did with the hamlet of Papelotte and the farmhouse of Hougoumont on the left and right flanks at the Battle of Waterloo.
Formations
When the terrain favors neither side, it is down to the disposition of forces in the battle line to prevent flanking attacks. As long as they have had a place on the battlefield, it was the role of cavalry to be placed on the flanks of the infantry battle line. With speed and greater tactical flexibility, the cavalry could both make flanking attacks and guard against them. It was the marked superiority of Hannibal's cavalry at the Battle of Cannae that allowed him to chase off the Roman cavalry and complete the encirclement of the Roman legions. With equally-matched cavalry, commanders have been content to allow inaction, with the cavalry of both sides preventing the other from action.
In a case of no cavalry, inferior cavalry or in armies whose cavalry had gone off on their own (a common complaint), the lack of resulting advantage left the outcome depending on the disposition of the infantry to guard against flanking attacks. It was the danger of being flanked by the numerically superior Persians that led
With troops confident and reliable enough to operate in separate dispersed units, the echelon formation may be adopted. That can take different forms with either equally strong "divisions" or a massively reinforced wing or centre supported by smaller formations in step behind it (forming either a staircase like, or arrow like arrangement). When the foremost unit engages with the enemy the echeloned units remain out of action. The idea is for the enemy to attack the exposed flanks of the foremost unit, but the units immediately echeloned behind the foremost unit would then push forward taking the flankers themselves in the flank. If the echeloned unit is being attacked in turn, the unit behind it would move forward to again attack the flanks of the would be flankers. In theory a cascade of such engagements could occur all along the line for as many units as there were in echelon. In practise, that almost never happened since most enemy commanders saw it for what it was and so resisted the temptation of the initial easy flanking attack.
That prudence was used in the manifestation of the oblique order in which one wing was massively reinforced, creating a local superiority in numbers that could obliterate that part of the enemy line that it was sent against. The weaker echeloned units was sufficient to fix the greater portion of the enemy troops into inaction. With the battle on the wing won, the reinforced flank would turn and roll up the enemy battle line from the flank.
In the Roman chequer board formation, readopted by Renaissance militaries, each of the units in the front line could be thought of as having two lines of units echeloned behind it.
As warfare increased in size and scope and armies increased, armies could no longer hope to have a contiguous battle line. To be able to maneuver, it was necessary to introduce intervals between units and these intervals could be used to flank individual units in the battle line by fast acting-units such as cavalry. To guard against that, the infantry subunits were trained to be able to form
Operational flanking
On an operational level army, commanders may attempt to flank and wrong foot entire enemy armies, rather than just being content with doing so at a tactical battalion or brigade level. The most infamous example of such an attempt was the modified
Second fronts
Just as at the tactical level, where a commander can attempt to anchor his flanks, commanders try to do the same at the operational level. Examples are the
If successful, such operations can be shattering, such as at the
The operations may have strategic objectives such as the
Such a strategy is not new, as Hannibal attacked Rome by going over the Alps, rather than taking the obvious route. In return, Scipio Africanus was able to defeat Hannibal not by trying to face him in Italy but by first undermining his power base in Iberia and then attacking his home city, Carthage.
Strategic flanking
Flank attacks on the
The danger of being strategically flanked has driven the political and diplomatic actions of nations even in peacetime. For example, the fear of being strategically flanked by the other in
The
Historical examples
See also
- Battleplan (documentary TV series)
- Pincer movement
- Encirclement
References
- ^ Headquarters, department of the Army (2012) Army doctrine reference publication 3-90: Offense and defense. p. 2-11. Retrieved 22 March 2015 from http://armypubs.army.mil/doctrine/DR_pubs/dr_a/pdf/adrp3_90.pdf
- ^ Herodotus, The Histories, Book Nine, sections 26 to 28