Force concentration

From an empirical examination of past battles, the Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831) concluded: [...] we may infer, that it is very difficult in the present state of Europe, for the most talented General to gain a victory over an enemy double his strength.

Now if we see double numbers prove such a weight in the scale against the greatest Generals, we may be sure, that in ordinary cases, in small as well as great combats, an important superiority of numbers, but which need not be over two to one, will be sufficient to ensure the victory, however disadvantageous other circumstances may be.

There is no battlefield where battle tactics can be reduced to a pure race of delivering damage while ignoring all other circumstances.

In that case, equations stated in Lanchester's laws model the potential outcome of the conflict fairly well.

This result could be understood if the rate of damage (considered as the only relevant factor in the model) is solved as a system of differential equations.

The sales and distribution forces built up to support these regions in turn were used in the final "determined push in London with a numerically larger salesforce".

Hypothetically the attacker can win by concentrating his armour at one point (with his infantry holding the rest of the line).

Assume that they can take on the oncoming armour on equal terms (with ATGWs, pre-prepared artillery fireplans etc.)

However, as the defensive line increases from the imaginary four units in length, the advantage slips from the defender to the attacker.

The tank embodies these two properties and for the past seventy years has been seen as the primary weapon of conventional warfare.

Such considerations may be economic or political in nature, e.g. one side is unable or unwilling to allow the sanctity of its soil to be violated, and thus insists on defending a line on a map.

Force concentration has been a part of the military commander's repertoire since the dawn of warfare, though maybe not by that name.

in out of the way areas, they may be able to lure their opponents into spreading themselves out into isolated outposts, linked by convoys and patrols, in order to control territory.

Regular forces, in turn, may act in order to invite such attacks by concentrations of enemy guerrillas, in order to bring an otherwise elusive enemy to battle, relying on its own superior training and firepower to win such battles.

This was successfully practiced by the French during the First Indochina War at the Battle of Nà Sản, but a subsequent attempt to replicate this at Dien Bien Phu led to decisive defeat.

To overcome this shortcoming rather than deploying their fighters uniformly along the fronts, the Germans concentrated their fighters into large mobile Jagdgeschwader formations, the most famous of which was Manfred von Richthofen's Flying Circus, that could be moved rapidly and unexpectedly to different points along the front.

Similarly the Second World War Big Wing was one tactic that was evolved to cause maximum damage to the enemy with the minimum of casualties.

Modern armour warfare doctrine was developed and established during the run up to World War II.

A fundamental key to conventional Warfare is the concentration of force at a particular point (the [der] Schwerpunkt).

The first was to distribute the available forces along the Atlantic Wall and throw the invading Allies back into the sea where and when they landed.

Territory could then be conceded to draw the invasion force away from their lodgement areas from which it would be nipped off by the cutting of their supply lines and then defeated in detail.

With Allied air superiority not only were major force concentrations vulnerable to tactical and heavy bombers themselves, but so were the vital assets—bridges, marshalling yards, fuel depots, etc.—needed to give them mobility.

As it was in this case, the blitzkrieg solution was the worst of both worlds, neither being far enough forward to maximise the use of their defensive fortifications, nor far enough away and concentrated to give it room to manoeuvre.

Similarly, for the Japanese in the final stages of the Island hopping campaign of the Pacific War, with Allied naval and air superiority and non-existent room to manoeuvre, neither a water's edge defensive strategy nor a holding back and counterattacking strategy could succeed.

For much of the Cold War, to combat the overwhelming Soviet supremacy in armour and men, NATO planned to use much of West German territory as a flood plain in a defence in depth to absorb and disperse the momentum of a massed Soviet attack.

Mobile anti-tank teams and counterattacking NATO armies would seek to cut off the leading Soviet echelons from their supporting echelons and then reduce the isolated elements with superior air power and conventional munitions, and if this failed, with nuclear munitions.

In an effort to avoid the use of nuclear munitions in an otherwise conventional war, the US invested heavily in a family of technologies it called "Assault Breaker", the two parts of these programmes were an enhanced realtime intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance capability, and the second part a series of stand off precision guided air-launched and artillery weapon systems, such as the MLRS, ICMs, M712 Copperhead, and the BLU-108 submunition.

From the mid eighties and onward a much greater level of force dispersal became desirable rather than concentration.