In warfare, an attack is the opening act of hostility by a force seeking to dislodge an enemy from its position. It is considered more advantageous to offer than to await attack, even in a defensive war (hence the term 'offence is the best form of defence'). The historic forms of attack are: 1. The parallel; 2. The form in which both the wings attack and the centre is kept back; 3. The form in which the centre is pushed forward and the wings kept back; 4. The famous oblique mode, dating at least from Epaminondas, and employed by Frederick the Great, where one wing advances to engage, whilst the other is kept back, and occupies the attention of the enemy by pretending an attack. Napoleon preferred to mass heavy columns against an enemy's centre. The forms of attack have changed with the weapons used. In the days of the pike heavy masses were the rule, but the use of the musket led to an extended battle-front to give effect to the fire. The advance in long and slender lines which grew out of this has been not less famous in the annals of British attack than the square formation in those of defence. Adherence to traditional techniques of attack, with a long massed line advancing slowly upon the enemy, during the Great War led to the wholesale slaughter of the attackers from defensive machine-gun fire and following the Great War a major rethink of attack methodologies. During the 1930's the German army invented the Blitzkrieg method, whereby a concentrated, fast moving armoured attack is made at a single point, the defences breached, and through the hole massed troops poured which then spread left and right along the enemy line attacking from the rear of the defensive positions. Research Attack
Abbreviations
Warfare
Research Attack