What is a Night Attack Formation?

Introduction

Night attack formation refers to the arrangement of soldiers in advancing in attack at night.

Refer to Tactical Formation and Military Tactics.

Soldiers perform a night assault at Camp Atterbury Joint Manoeuvre Training Centre during Bold Quest 2011, a combat assessment exercise to test the interoperability of target identification systems of different allied nations to reduce friendly fire incidents.

Outline

With the advances in arms that led to trench warfare, daytime attacks across open ground toward defensive positions became prohibitive and often futile. Night attacks may have the advantage of maintaining an element of surprise and reducing the ability of defenders to target their fire, but pose difficulties for the attacking forces (e.g. coordination of effort and unfamiliarity with the location/terrain).

Necessities of maintaining contact from advancing groups with groups to the side and rear, maintaining protection versus the possibility of counter-attacks, maintaining order so that sufficiently many troops are in position to obtain a sustainable breach in defences, and so on, are all more difficult at night.

It may be necessary to detail more soldiers to scouting and communication roles.

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