Military Tactics: When to surround

[gosciu555]

When you have sprung an ambush or have isolated some enemy troops, when is it a good idea to surround them? When you read about ambushes and how to set them up, they always stress avoiding friendly fire, avoiding two sided ambushed where you can shoot your own guys. What happens when you surround someone? Do you only surround on a larger scale to cut off supplies? Thanks.

[Lt. James Anderson]

What do you mean "to surround"?
Nine times out of ten ambush is used to destroy the enemy.
Sometimes it's used to capture but it all depends on a situation/time/terrain/ size of the force etc.

[Alfacentori]

I'm no expert of course but I would think, from an historical viewpoint, the most common reasons to Surround/Envelope an enemy force are

-The enemy strong point/force is to strong to be taken by the initial assault and by passing it to be mopped up by following elements (ie Bastogne)

-To trap large numbers of forces in sweeping pincer type movements (ie German Blitzkrieg tactics in the East)

-And to trap enemy forces and then let them 'wither on the vine' without supplies and support and either weaken them before attack or force a surrender. (ie Siege tactics)

Of course these are all large formation tactics, hopefully someone will be able to provide more insight into small unit tactics to do with envelopment.

Alfa

[LineDoggie]

A Well Planned, Rehearsed, Executed Ambush leaves no enemy survivors , unless you want prisoners. Using APERS(M16 Bounding or M18A1 Command detonated) mines to canalize the enemy's choices of egress direction into your crew served weapons fires effectively blocks them in the Kill Zone.

Your Assault group moves in to check for PIR, thats when any Prisoners are taken by the special teams

"Ambush is Murder, And Murder is Fun" as My Old DS used to say

[Don Cossack]

The most common tactic for a platoon, small unit, or squad sized elements is an L-shaped ambush. This means you have your riflemen form a skirmish line along the side of the route your enemy will be traveling, while your support or automatic weapon (be it a BAR, M60, or your choice of crew served weapon) sits at a 90-degree angle from the end of the line. Wait until they stumble along the line and right into the base of the L, and open up. As others have said before, there shouldn't be anyone still alive after the firing stops.

The whole purpose of the L shape is to avoid friendly fire, first and foremost. It also comes with the addition of providing overlapping fields of fire from your riflemen and support weapon.

Doing something like completely surrounding the enemy from all sides is usually not a good idea, as there's a good chance if you miss that you'll hit the guy across from you; not to mention ricochets, over-penetration of the target, and other factors can lead to someone who's not the enemy getting shot. As you can imagine, there's a reason it's sometimes called a "Chinese firing squad."

[gosciu555]

Maybe I should clear up what I mean. In the instances when you do surround the other guy, how do you avoid friendly fire?

[domokun]

To simplify by huge margin...

On pretty much all levels current tactics are based on out flanking enemy. Basically scout to detect enemy strong points and then strike at weakest found point. In attack (or "real war" phase of current gulf war) phase coalition troops passed most of Iraq's prepared positions, made their presence seen behind those positions and called for air support... that was enough to cause panic and falling back in Iraq's troops, in most of battles. Attacking strongest position is tactical failure.

Surrounding enemy is goal, but attack itself is always made after communication and coordination with all friendly forces has been established (at least in theory). Without coordination blue-on-blue/red-on-red situations come into reality.

Avoiding friendly fire is mostly done by having communication with other friendly forces. In smaller scale common uniform and visual confirmation is last method.

[LineDoggie]

Maybe I should clear up what I mean. In the instances when you do surround the other guy, how do you avoid friendly fire?
Use your Bayonet..........

[Zalmoxes]

The only purpose for surrounding is to take prisoners (if you're playing by Geneva Convention rules). Only select soldiers will be allowed to shoot just to let the enemy know that there is no place to go but to prison or to hell. That' what I've managed to learn so far from a few guys that saw action particularly in urban zones. I imagine that it's even more true on a battle field without buildings.

[Albatross]

Surrounding an enemy could be used to "out wait" them. If they are low on supplies you could surround them and use a big enough area that it would limit FF incidents. I imagine the problem would be getting a tight enough noose on the area so no one gets through.

Just an educated guess.

[Sand Man]

Use your Bayonet..........

What if the enemy has a spear? p-)

[playtym]

I think that you're supposed to say, "we've got you surrounded, come out with your hands up," and they'll just surrender.
























It probably helps if you sound like Clint Eastwood.

[Hilbert]

EDIT: Nevermind.

[LineDoggie]

What if the enemy has a spear? p-)

Put some guts behind that Bayonet as Colour Sergeant Bourne would say....

[CombatBoots]

I think surrounding is mostly heard of in larger scales, like surrounding a city wouldn't be as dangerous as surrounding a squad of men in the fields, look at Alfa's post.

[kokoro666]

you must observe enemy patrols.
let the night be your friend
choose a rokkie group to attack .
if you have explosives first you would charge them .
then you would fire to kill all of them .
priorty targets.
1, oficers + radio guy , dog guy
2, rpg and heavy machine gun ( russian bigsy )or m 60 guy
3 normal infantry .

if you are on forest and other side cant request help stay and slaughter all.

if other side can call for ground help you should have mined the road area before ,and ambush them too .

before the atack if you can read the area well . leave some woulded soldiers and run like hell . and observe where the helicopters could land and put some remote expolosives chargers.
so when the chopers come you can blow them up .

if you cant improvise remote chargers. shoot them with law or rpg .
birds on the ground are wounarable.

Never close the cirle. always leave a empty place. so low level infintry would break away .
aim small miss small .

Turkish basic infintary handbook advices.
and things like this. 8 years ago in the army lots of night exercises and traings.

[Britboy]

I'm not quite sure just what you mean by 'surround'.

If you mean something like the film Starship Troopers with multiple blokes standing in a ring around an enemy, no.

If you are thinking of something like how the Soviet Army trapped the German Sixth Army in a 'kessel', yes. I'm sure some of our FDF posters here can shed light on 'motti' tactics used by sissi against Soviet Army as well.

Surrounding would be done by a large force over a (relatively) large area, if you ask me.

You would not 'surround' with a section or fireteam.

You don't necessarily have to surround an enemy to make life difficult for him.

[oldsoak]

Surrounding is not necessarily the best idea - always channel the enemy so you get target practice should he make a break for it without setting up a potential blue on blue. If it looks like he's not shifting, get arty. Dont do it with anything less than a platoon.
I must be P8ssed.

[Toddy]

When you have 10,000 and the other dude 100 is a good time to surround...

as Sun Tzu said: If ten times the enemy's strength, surround them; if five times, attack them; if double, divide them; if equal, be able to fight them; if fewer, be able to evade them; if weaker, be able to avoid them.

[Lokos]

If by 'surround' you mean 'encircle', then the answer is as often as possible - preferably always. The operational art is basically one big exercise in achieving optimum force concentrations at the most advantageous point, so as to force the collapse of a belligerent formation structure. Encirclements are a handy, if difficult to achieve, method by which the combat means of a belligerent force can be depleted with inordinate rapidity. Though a tactical encirclement is not always calamitous (but it often is), an operational encirclement - or, worse yet, a strategic one - is disaster in the making.

It is no accident that many of the world's greatest (in relative scope) land victories have come by way of encirclement or double envelopment.

L.

[Asheren]

It also depends on terrain. If you can set up ambush in terrains like river bed or valley etc. Its possible to use V,U or fan shaped ambush firing down the slope with a low risk of FF.

Lokos you are not exactly right its all a matter of what goals you want to achieve. Trying to encircle blindly might end up in a disaster.

[oldsoak]

If by 'surround' you mean 'encircle', then the answer is as often as possible - preferably always. The operational art is basically one big exercise in achieving optimum force concentrations at the most advantageous point, so as to force the collapse of a belligerent formation structure. Encirclements are a handy, if difficult to achieve, method by which the combat means of a belligerent force can be depleted with inordinate rapidity. Though a tactical encirclement is not always calamitous (but it often is), an operational encirclement - or, worse yet, a strategic one - is disaster in the making.

It is no accident that many of the world's greatest (in relative scope) land victories have come by way of encirclement or double envelopment.

L.

Thats true - but it also depends on relative sizes , depth and ground. One can spread oneself too thinly to be effective in containing the threat. Encircled pockets can then either break out and rejoin the man body or wait for the main body to releive them - everything depends on the speed and strength of the encircler.

[Asheren]

Also depends on enemy plans i read about more than few intresting tactics based on luring enemy forces trying to encircle/envelope in to minefields, rough terrain or preplaned kill zones.

[Britboy]

Surrounding the enemy works in small group tactics too, depending on the terrain and your situational awareness. For example in a forest environment, 10 vs 10 guys, it can be done.

Eh, why 'surround' in this situ?

10 men isn't a very large unit, section with a couple of att's, so area covered will not be large. Encirclement in small area means other guys are going to be potentially in line-of-sight and in-range of your small arms fire... unless they've got convenient dead ground. Also means you can't easily call for indirect fire without the danger of it being too close for safety.

Makes more sense to dislodge them from a loc, then shoot them down as they move, to my mind.

Is 'surround' even a mission verb in the doctrine or not? Cut off, block, isolate, yes, but surround?

[Lt. James Anderson]

Surrounding the enemy works in small group tactics too, depending on the terrain and your situational awareness. For example in a forest environment, 10 vs 10 guys, it can be done.

Ever done it?
I wouldn't wanna do that if the other ten were armed and willing to fight.

[Itamajus]

I remember, few years ago I was at an exercise playing OPFOR, I had to make some night shootouts on the companies "camp", just to stir some sh*t up for them to be happy about. So at around 12 I went out to their camp. I wanted to finish that as fast I can and go back to my sleeping bag. So there I went, it was dark. I was like 200m away from the camp and fired a few bursts in the air. Immediately i received backfire, but i received it from two directions. It happened so that a patrol just left the camp and I was in halfway of the camp and the patrol. A hell broke loose as the camp machineguns opened fire in the direction of the patrol as they also were firing at the direction of the camp. Did I mention it was dark? The time then you don’t see nothing except flashes(Swedes know what beautiful site an AK-4 is at night) and hear the loud bangs(7.62x51). The whole thing went on for about 10 minutes. By that time it ended I was already at OPFOR camp. It was firefight between 2 platoons vs. 2 sections(the patrol) I think. If it happened in real battle I would have received a medal for destroying such a force only with few bursts. So if you are receiving lead from one end, you usually reply them with the same. Of course you can give orders to seize fire, but it would take time for an average soldier to start listing to you and not his survival instinct(by that time he probably be dead or have killed someone). So IMO a circle formation ,in small unit tactics, is only good for defense.

[domokun]

If forced to attack enemy with comparable numbers, someone has screwed up. That does not mean it would not happen but normally for attacking is that you has to have about three times bigger force to be successiful in attack. That is only local superiority to remember it, you can fight effectively if you are more flexible and mobile than enemy.

Finnish "motti" (encirclement) battles in Winter war were done in greatly smaller numbers than Soviets had. Finns were able to win basically all of those due to enemy mistakes of both strategic and tactical level. Soviets attacked along roads with mechanized troops, they had massive advantage in numbers, but Finnish troops could operate out of roads when Soviets didn't have experience or will to fight out of roads. Finnish defense stopped Soviet columns and after that Finns attaced rear and flanks to cut escape routes of soviets. Next step was cut Soviets in smaller pockets that could be over numbered and destroyed. Soviets had massive advantage in numbers and equipment, but lack trained commanders and lack initiative made Soviets not capable of conducting counter attacks and effective break out from encirclement.

Couple good examples of "motti" battles, from wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raate_Road
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Suomussalmi

[Lokos]

Thats true - but it also depends on relative sizes , depth and ground. One can spread oneself too thinly to be effective in containing the threat. Encircled pockets can then either break out and rejoin the man body or wait for the main body to releive them - everything depends on the speed and strength of the encircler.

Goes without saying.


If forced to attack enemy with comparable numbers, someone has screwed up. That does not mean it would not happen but normally for attacking is that you has to have about three times bigger force to be successiful in attack. That is only local superiority to remember it, you can fight effectively if you are more flexible and mobile than enemy.

That is a common military truism, though it is not always applicable to practice. Usually, though, you're right, it's very important to achieve a force superiority, and contrary to much popular belief, the Wehrmacht's predilection for victory early in the war was more a result of the ability to massively concentrate forces on the breakthrough axis than anything else. That is no mean achievement - force concentration is one of the most difficult aspects of the operational art.

L.

[Britboy]

Lets say your patrol meets an enemy patrol behind your own lines. You open fire and stop them from pushing forward. The enemy will probably try to break loose, so you must keep contact with them to stop them from retreating. Send a couple of guys to flank them from both left and right, and a couple of guys to try and get behind them to stop them from escaping. This way you can destroy them, or at least contain them until your backups arrive. Sorry, I don't have time to write a more thorough reply right now.



Not live fire, no.

Hmm, so you mean containment behind the FEBA rather than encirclement?
Never really done patrols behind the (nominal, for-exercise) FEBA, isn't this going to be a supporting services role rather than inf, cav etc? Not to mention in current ops there is no 'frontline' but rather its '360 degree battlefield'.

However, if I was the encircled enemy comd in this situ, I'd just look for the most covered, most suitable route out, and bang out in that direction. You've achieved your encirclement, yes, but at the cost of spreading yourself thin. So I'm going to take my 10 lads and burst through your 2-3 lads that could be covering any direction, til I'm out of it.

Unless I am a section and you are a platoon, o well!

[oldsoak]

Hmm, so you mean containment behind the FEBA rather than encirclement?
Never really done patrols behind the (nominal, for-exercise) FEBA, isn't this going to be a supporting services role rather than inf, cav etc? Not to mention in current ops there is no 'frontline' but rather its '360 degree battlefield'.

However, if I was the encircled enemy comd in this situ, I'd just look for the most covered, most suitable route out, and bang out in that direction. You've achieved your encirclement, yes, but at the cost of spreading yourself thin. So I'm going to take my 10 lads and burst through your 2-3 lads that could be covering any direction, til I'm out of it.

Unless I am a section and you are a platoon, o well!

I'd agree. Encirclements are really big unit tactics with oodles of firepower. You can still outfox a platoon as a section if the IC's are switched on enough to see whats going on and get the eff out rather than going to ground. Problem is, how many IC's have we met who start a re-run of the Alamo when they really should be bugging out ?

[David]

its really common in iraq for us to "cordon" off an area. or "encircle" it. or "surround" it. and then do whatever we need to do inside of the area. if thats what your talking about, then yes we do do it.

[gosciu555]

This thread was inspired by this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIx0YPejzE4&feature=related

Around 2:10 he says the taliban had completely surrounded them. When I first saw this, a light bulb went off in my head. How did they manage to not hit each other? Did they just cordon off the area and have the assault group shoot?

In any case, the only scenario I can imagine in which you're shooting at a fire-team from a 360 incirclement is when they're down in the valley and you're up on the hillside.

Thanks for the answers.

[Lt. James Anderson]

High ground. It's Afghanistan.

[gosciu555]

High ground. It's Afghanistan.

I figured that, just wanted to confirm.