Infiltration tactics
Soldiers take the initiative to identify enemy weak points and choose their own routes, targets, moments and methods of attack; this requires a high degree of skill and training, and can be supplemented by special equipment and weaponry to give them more local combat options.
Infiltration tactics may not be standard in modern combat where training is limited, such as for militia or rushed conscript units, or in desperate attacks where an immediate victory is required.
As far back as the 18th century, Prussian military doctrine stressed maneuver and force concentration to achieve a decisive battle (Vernichtungsgedanke).
Rohr's initial efforts to use these as special advanced strike teams, to break French trench lines for following troops to exploit, achieved only limited success, with heavy losses.
[2] During the next two years, special Stoßtruppen (stormtrooper) detachments were created in divisions throughout the army; select men were sent to Rohr for training, who became trainers when they returned to their units.
Conventional mass-wave tactics were typically preceded by days of constant bombardment of all defender positions, attempting to gain advantage by attrition.
Additionally, they acknowledge the futility of managing a grand detailed plan of operations from afar, opting instead for junior officers on the spot to exercise initiative, expanding the earlier Prussian doctrine of Auftragstaktik (mission-based tactics).
Regular infantry with heavy weapons would follow up, using more standard tactics, reducing isolated and weakened opposing strongpoints with flank attacks, as the stormtroopers continued the advance beyond them.
[4]: 489 Initial German successes were stunning; of these, Hutier's 18th Army gained more than 50 km (30 mi) in less than a week – the farthest advance in the Western Front since the Race to the Sea had ended the war of movement in 1914.
Most importantly, German logistical capabilities, designed for a static front, failed to sustain troops advancing far into devastated enemy territory.
Felix Steiner, former officer of the Reichswehr, introduced the principle of stormtroopers into the formation of the Waffen-SS, in order to shape it into a new type of army using this tactic.
When combined with armoured fighting vehicles and aircraft to extend the tactics' operational capabilities, this contributed to what would be called Blitzkrieg in the Second World War.
The tactics were employed with some success on the opening day of the Second Battle of Artois, 9 May 1915, by the French XXXIII Corps; they advanced 4.5 kilometres (2.8 mi) in the first hour and a half of the attack but were unable to reinforce and consolidate to hold onto all these gains against German counterattacks.
Later French infantry tactics moved away from the costly la percée towards a more practical grignotage (literally nibbling, taking in small bits) doctrine, which employed a series of smaller and more methodical operations with limited objectives; each of these were still planned at headquarters, rather than from immediate local initiative.
Note 5779 also describes an early form of rolling barrage in its artillery annex; this was employed with success and continued to be developed by the French as well as by most other nations throughout the war.
[15] Laffargue based his proposals in particular on his experiences in the initially successful but ultimately disappointing results of employing the tactics of Note 5779 at the Second Battle of Artois; he commanded a company of the 153rd Infantry Regiment, attacking immediately south of Neuville-Saint-Vaast on 9 May 1915.
The Austro-German military command was confident that these deep and extensive entrenchments, equal to those of the Germans on Western Front, could not be broken without significant Russian reinforcements.
[28] Select forces were trained and tasked with breaking through the defending lines, creating gaps to be widened by 8 total successive waves of infantry, allowing deep penetration.
Austro-Hungarian response to the unexpected offensive was slow and limited, believing that their existing forces and defenses would prove sufficient; instead, reserve units sent forward to counterattack often found their routes already overrun by the Russians.
[34] At the Battle of Neuve Chapelle, March 1915, a well-planned British attack on German trenches, coordinated with short but effective artillery bombardment, achieved a local breakthrough.
While the British hoped that this new combination of arms, once improved and properly executed, could achieve decisive breakthroughs, the French moved from their pre-war grand la percée doctrine to more limited and practical tactical objectives.
Douglas Haig, commanding the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), planned on an ambitious large-scale quick breakthrough, with an extensive artillery bombardment targeting the German front-line defenses, followed by a creeping barrage leading a mass infantry assault.
But trenches were very soon extended to avoid this; they were dug deeper and connected by deep or even underground passages to bunkers far behind the lines, where defenders could safely wait out bombardments.
The effectiveness of short bombardments was dependent on local conditions: the targets had to be identified and located beforehand, many artillery pieces were needed, each with ample ammunition, and the preparations had to be kept hidden from the defenders.
Precise aiming without registering shells requires expertise in ballistics with angles and elevation calculated from accurate maps expressly designed for artillery use, knowledge of the effects of altitude and local weather conditions, and also reliable and consistent manufacturing of guns and ammunition to eliminate uncontrolled variation.
The first phase might be bombardment against enemy communications, telegraph lines, and headquarters, roads and bridges, to isolate and confuse the defenders and delay their reinforcements.
The last phase was typically a creeping barrage that moved forward of the advancing infantry to quickly bombard positions just before they are attacked.
The phases were usually much more complicated, quickly switching between targets to catch defenders off guard; each bombardment plan was carefully tailored to local conditions.
[14] Allied and German styles of bombardments could use tricks of irregular pauses and switching suddenly between targets for short periods of time to avoid being predictable to the defenders.
Bigeard's parachute assault companies were supported by concentrated artillery and air support and received help from tanks, allowing two companies (the 1st under Lieutenant René Le Page and the 2nd under Lieutenant Hervé Trapp) numbering no more than 180 men to recapture the important hilltop position of Eliane 1 from a full Viet Minh battalion, on the early morning of 10 April 1954.
