Scale of flanking attacks

[Flibby]

Hello all,

Firstly sorry for any poor English! I'll try and be precise.

I was just wondering compared to say, napoleonic battles where flanking manouvers were carried out primarily on the regimental scale on open field battles, whether a similar scale exists now.

To use an example, say army A is invading the territory of army B; they would no doubt plan somewhere for an envelopment or flanking manoeuvre on a strategic scale to trap the enemy forces. How would this translate to more tactical or operational battles within this plan? Would the commander of a division on the flanking arm still divide its own forces to envelop or flank their opposing army, or would their strategic aims take over an cause their commander just to keep pushing up as his speed doesn't allow the niceties of manoeuvre within his division?

My initial view from my rudimentary tactical knowledge from national service would be that even at squad level you are always trying to flank the enemy, however I struggle when trying to pin this into an operational or strategic plan.

Any help greatly appreciated

Nicko.

 

[RobWilliams]

Hello all,

Firstly sorry for any poor English! I'll try and be precise.

I was just wondering compared to say, napoleonic battles where flanking manouvers were carried out primarily on the regimental scale on open field battles, whether a similar scale exists now.

To use an example, say army A is invading the territory of army B; they would no doubt plan somewhere for an envelopment or flanking manoeuvre on a strategic scale to trap the enemy forces. How would this translate to more tactical or operational battles within this plan? Would the commander of a division on the flanking arm still divide its own forces to envelop or flank their opposing army, or would their strategic aims take over an cause their commander just to keep pushing up as his speed doesn't allow the niceties of manoeuvre within his division?

My initial view from my rudimentary tactical knowledge from national service would be that even at squad level you are always trying to flank the enemy, however I struggle when trying to pin this into an operational or strategic plan.

Any help greatly appreciated

Nicko.

The best example in the use of flanking on a grand scale recently is during the first Gulf war. This was essentially a deception plan to trick the Iraqi high command into thinking that the axis of attack would be through Kuwait (i seem to recall the US setting up the circumstances that suggested an amphibious landing) and hid the vast coalition forces building up on the Iraqi border, this 'left hook' ultimately resulted in the encirclement of a vast amount of Iraqi forces and undoubtably contributed massively to the swift success of the entire operation.

Writing this off the top of my head its not especially detailed but i'm sure you could find better accounts using research

 

[FirstSpear]

Hello all,

Firstly sorry for any poor English! I'll try and be precise.

I was just wondering compared to say, napoleonic battles where flanking manouvers were carried out primarily on the regimental scale on open field battles, whether a similar scale exists now.

To use an example, say army A is invading the territory of army B; they would no doubt plan somewhere for an envelopment or flanking manoeuvre on a strategic scale to trap the enemy forces. How would this translate to more tactical or operational battles within this plan? Would the commander of a division on the flanking arm still divide its own forces to envelop or flank their opposing army, or would their strategic aims take over an cause their commander just to keep pushing up as his speed doesn't allow the niceties of manoeuvre within his division?

My initial view from my rudimentary tactical knowledge from national service would be that even at squad level you are always trying to flank the enemy, however I struggle when trying to pin this into an operational or strategic plan.

Any help greatly appreciated

Nicko.

The small level doctrine (battalion and below) in the IDF was, for a long time, that in case of unexpected contact with a sizable force, half the assets would fight a holding or pinning action and the other half would move as a subunit conducting a flanking attack.

this is in contrast to an assault on a prepared position which is generally a matter of planning and finding the indirect approach to fight the enemy.

Also, with a typical battalion deploying 4 company size fighting units, the maneuver unit is much like a French "groupe d'escadrons" (in armored cavalry formations) where battalions are subdivided into two subunits led by the senior company commander in each subunit.

This is consistent with the IDF's long preference for both column warfare (prone to numerous unexpected contacts) and reverse front attacks (which can only be safely performed either with significant recon screens to ensure the friendly unit reversing is not struck from the rear by enemy follow-on echelons) or, more commonly in the Israeli experience, significant and pervasive air support (for recon and interdiction of follow on elements).

Not sure how much of this applies since 1998. But old habits (dating back to the war of independence) are hard to break so...

Conclusion, flanking and reverse front attacks may be back in style!

Maybe this is helpful.

Best,

 

[gf0012-aust]

The best example in the use of flanking on a grand scale ..........................

Writing this off the top of my head its not especially detailed but i'm sure you could find better accounts using research

Subodai might argue with that. 1241 against the hungarians.

or a cut and paste from a forum I posted on 7 years ago: (the punchline about cohort manouvre being that he used armies to flank at a theatre level - ie armies that were a thousand plus km away had a tactical plan to fight and form up, ie flank and roll up the enemy. most enemies were fighting with a 3 day window of view (3 riding days) - he planned far beyind that into weeks and months with a tactical intent

The issue for Subodai is that he managed to armies totalling a quarter of a million men thousands of kilometres away from each other with a conjoining outcome. Ie he planned a thousand plus kilometre flanking manouvre. The fact that he was studied with positivity by luminaries such as Napoleon, Clausewitz, Hart, Patton and even Schwarkopf is no mean feat. I think it was Schwarzkopf who tagged him a 20th century general in 13th century clothes. The mongol invasions were the precursor of jointness. That is not to belittle wellington etc.. but where as the english were defining what infantry would do in the early 1800's, Subodai was implementing cohort manouvre, artillery, ballistics, etc... In a real sense his art of warfare was the grandfather of establishing war doctrine. I don't think you see a field army displaying such a multiude of disparate technologies integrated into manouvre warfare until the advent of the american civil war. In the context of him being in the 13th century, that is no mean feat.

 

[RobWilliams]

Subodai might argue with that. 1241 against the hungarians.

or a cut and paste from a forum I posted on 7 years ago: (the punchline about cohort manouvre being that he used armies to flank at a theatre level - ie armies that were a thousand plus km away had a tactical plan to fight and form up, ie flank and roll up the enemy. most enemies were fighting with a 3 day window of view (3 riding days) - he planned far beyind that into weeks and months with a tactical intent

The issue for Subodai is that he managed to armies totalling a quarter of a million men thousands of kilometres away from each other with a conjoining outcome. Ie he planned a thousand plus kilometre flanking manouvre. The fact that he was studied with positivity by luminaries such as Napoleon, Clausewitz, Hart, Patton and even Schwarkopf is no mean feat. I think it was Schwarzkopf who tagged him a 20th century general in 13th century clothes. The mongol invasions were the precursor of jointness. That is not to belittle wellington etc.. but where as the english were defining what infantry would do in the early 1800's, Subodai was implementing cohort manouvre, artillery, ballistics, etc... In a real sense his art of warfare was the grandfather of establishing war doctrine. I don't think you see a field army displaying such a multiude of disparate technologies integrated into manouvre warfare until the advent of the american civil war. In the context of him being in the 13th century, that is no mean feat.

The key phrase in the first line of my reply which was missed in your quote was "recently", i do not doubt that throughout military history there are many more impressive examples of flanking. The reason i specifically mentioned the Gulf war was because the original question was "whether a similar scale exists now" and i took "now" to be 20th-21st century ergo using the first Gulf war as the best example of flanking manouvers in a large scale attack in modern history.

I apologise if i did not make this clear.

 

[gf0012-aust]

I apologise if i did not make this clear.

You did.

I just had a little brain fart and when I realised and then saw no point in pulling my post as it was still a useful tidbit about the effect of manouvre at distance