Art of War Collection

Chapter 59: Fight (9)

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The specific methods to implement the above principles are: select the best troops to form a strong guard, led by the bravest general, fully support at the most critical moment, be cautious when using the terrain, and act rashly when the enemy's avant-garde At times, when the local situation is beneficial to our side, an ambush is set up. Simply put, it is to prepare and plan a series of small-scale battles.

Because the advantageous conditions and duration of each battle are different, the difficulty of retreating after the battle is different is also different. In the Battle of Jena and the Battle of Waterloo, we can see how chaotic the retreat was when we tried our best to resist the superior enemy.

In addition, there is another proposition that separates the troops and retreats, that is, the army is divided into parts to retreat separately, or even to retreat in a eccentric direction. If the army is divided into several parts just to facilitate the retreat, and they can still fight together, and always maintain the purpose of fighting together, then it is not the issue we are going to talk about here. As for any other practice of dividing troops and retreating, it is extremely dangerous, contrary to the natural laws of things, and therefore extremely wrong. In any failed battle, the army will be in a state of disintegration. At this time, the concentration of troops is the most urgent need. In addition, we must maintain order and increase courage and confidence in the process of concentration of troops. At the moment when the enemy is winning and pursuing, the loser separates the army and wants to harass the enemy's flanks. This is completely absurd. Unless all soldiers of the enemy's army are timid and fearful nerds, then this approach can be effective; if it is not certain that the enemy has such a weakness, then this approach should not be adopted. If the strategic situation after the war requires the division of the army in order to cover its two wings, then it is only limited to the needs at the time, and cannot exceed a certain limit. In addition, even so, this can only be regarded as a last resort; at the same time, it is difficult to achieve this on the day the battle ends.

After the Battle of Colin, Frederick the Great gave up the siege of Prague and retreated in three ways. He was not willing to do so, but because of his deployment of troops and the task of covering Saxony, he had no choice. After the Battle of Brion, Napoleon ordered Marmont to retreat in the direction of the Aube, but he crossed the Seine and turned to Troyes. The reason why this action did not disadvantage him was simply because the coalition forces did not pursue him. On the contrary, the forces were equally dispersed. Blücher turned to the Marne, while Schwarzenberg worried about the lack of forces and advanced very slowly.

Night battle

How to fight at night? What are its characteristics? These are all tactical issues. Here, we only use night fighting as a special method to investigate.

In fact, any night attack can be regarded as a more powerful surprise attack. At first glance, night attacks seem to be very effective, because in people's imagination, the defender is attacked unexpectedly, and the attacker is well prepared and knows everything that is going to happen. The situation of the two is completely different! Night fighting is in people's imagination: the defender is in an extremely chaotic state, and the attacker only needs to reap the results in the extremely chaotic state of the opponent. Those who think that night attacks can be carried out often are those who do not command any army and take no responsibility. However, night attacks are rare in reality.

The above imagination is produced under these premises: the defender’s measures are understood by the attacker, because these measures are planned in advance, and it is also obvious that only through reconnaissance and research of the attacker can be known; on the contrary, The attacker's measures were decided temporarily before the attack, and the opponent would never understand. However, it is not completely impossible to know the attacker's measures, nor is it completely possible to understand the defender's measures. If the distance between us and the enemy is not so close as before the Battle of Hochkirch, the Austrian army and Frederick the Great can see each other directly, then we can only find the enemy’s configuration through reconnaissance and search. The report, as well as the captives and enemy detectives. The situation learned in this way is often incomplete, nor is it correct and reliable, because some of this information is always out of date, or the enemy has changed the original configuration. However, when the army used old-fashioned tactics and camping methods in the past, it was very easy to understand the enemy's configuration. The screen camp line is easier to identify than the factory camp or camping. The troops regularly deploy horizontal camping, which is easier to identify than the commonly used divisional column camping. Even if we can see that the entire camp where the enemy is camping in columns, we cannot fully understand his configuration.

For the attacker, it is necessary not only to understand the configuration of the defender, but also to understand the measures that the defender will take during the battle. These measures involve more than just shooting. In modern wars, these measures have caused more difficulties for night attacks than in previous wars, because in modern wars, these measures are much more difficult than those taken before the battle. In modern combat, defenders are more able to counterattack the enemy unexpectedly than in the past. The reason is that the configuration of defenders is mostly determined temporarily, rather than in the future.

Therefore, during a night attack, in addition to direct observation, the attacker has little or no knowledge of the defender.

However, the defender has a more favorable condition. Compared with the attacker, he is more familiar with the terrain and configuration of his position. It is like a person in his own home. Even in darkness, he is easier to discern the direction than a stranger. Compared with the attacker, he is more aware of where the various parts of his army are allocated, which helps him to transfer forces or provide assistance.

It can be seen that in the night battle, both the attacker and the defender need to understand the situation. Therefore, unless there are special reasons, night battles cannot be effectively conducted.

Most of these special reasons are only related to a certain part of the army, and rarely involve the overall state of the army. Therefore, night attacks are usually carried out only in subordinate battles, and night attacks are rare in general battles.

If there are other favorable circumstances, we can attack a certain subordinate part of the enemy's army with a powerful superior force, surround it and wipe it out; or make it suffer heavy losses in an unfavorable battle. However, our actions must be unexpected, otherwise it will be impossible to achieve this intention. Because no army of the enemy will willingly engage in such unfavorable battles, but will only do everything in its power to avoid such battles. However, high-intensity surprises can only be achieved by fighting at night, with the exception of very rare cases where concealed terrain is used. Therefore, if you want to achieve the above intention, you must not only take advantage of the inadequacy of a certain subordinate part of the enemy army, but also try to choose in the dark. Even if the official battle begins at dawn, at least the battle deployment must be prepared in advance at night. . This is how the outpost or small-scale night attack on the enemy is launched. The key lies in the use of superior forces and circuitous tactics to unexpectedly force the enemy to engage in an unfavorable battle, causing the enemy to suffer great losses, otherwise he cannot escape .

The stronger the force being attacked, the more difficult this attack will be. Because the larger troops have the ability to use more means, and before the arrival of reinforcements, he has the ability to resist for a longer period of time.

In summary, under normal circumstances, the enemy’s entire army cannot be used as a night attack target, because even without external reinforcements, it has sufficient means to deal with various attacks. Especially in modern times, any army will be wary of such ordinary night attacks from the beginning. Whether a multi-faceted attack can be effective is usually not determined by surprise, but completely depends on other conditions. We don't want to study these conditions here, but just want to point out: Although roundabout tactics can receive greater results, they also have great dangers. Therefore, except in special circumstances, in order to use circuitous tactics, it is necessary to have superior forces, just like when attacking a certain subordinate part of the enemy.

Especially in the dark night, a small unit that surrounds or detours around the enemy is quite effective. Because even though the force we use has an advantage over the enemy, it is after all a subordinate part of our own army. In this kind of hugely dangerous gambling, everyone will only use a part of the army as a bet, and not the entire army as a bet. In addition, in order to reduce the risk of operations, most of the army's strength, or even all of its strength, has the ability to support or contain this part of the force that went to risk.

In addition, the reason why only a small part of the team is allowed to carry out night attacks is not only because it is an adventure, but also because it is very difficult in actual operations. Since the basis of a night attack is surprise, the basic condition of a night attack is to hide one's own behavior. Small troops are easier to hide than large troops, but the whole army rarely can do this. Therefore, night attacks are usually only effective on individual enemy outposts; as for night attacks on larger units, they can only be effective when they do not have enough outpost strength. For example, in the Battle of Hochkirch, Frederick the Great was attacked at night because of insufficient outpost forces. Compared with the subordinate part, it is very rare for the entire army to be attacked at night.

Nowadays, the war is going faster and more intense, and the two sides have been in a state of tension before deciding the victory or defeat. Therefore, the two armies are often close to each other, and there is no strong outpost. But at this moment, the two sides They will be vigilant and fully prepared for battle. On the contrary, in previous wars, there was often a habit. In addition to restraining each other, even if there were no other attempts, the two armies still had to face each other to set up camps for a long time. When Frederick the Great and the Austrians were very close to each other, they did not engage in artillery battles, but stalemate for several weeks.

However, in modern warfare, this convenient method of setting up a camp at night is no longer used. In modern warfare, we will no longer carry all the supplies and camping necessities. Therefore, we will always maintain a one-day distance between the enemy and ourselves. If we want to further investigate the issue of night attacks by the entire enemy army, we can see that there are very few factors that are sufficient to promote night attacks, which can be summarized as follows:

(1) The enemy is particularly careless or reckless, but this situation does not happen often; even if this situation exists, the enemy's spiritual advantage can make up for this shortcoming.

(2) The enemy is panicked, or our military's spiritual superiority can replace command.

(3) Break through the encirclement of the enemy's superior forces, because at this time everything depends on the surprise of the enemy, and only by breaking through the encirclement can our forces be better assembled.

(4) There is a huge disparity in the strength of the enemy and ours. Our situation is very difficult and dangerous. To win, we can only take great risks.

In the above situation, one more condition must be met, that is, the enemy army in front of us does not have any avant-garde cover.

In fact, the vast majority of night battles will end with the sunrise. The attacker must approach the enemy in the dark and launch an attack. In this way, they can make better use of the enemy's chaos to create favorable conditions for themselves. If the battle does not begin until dawn, and the night is only used to approach the enemy, then this cannot be counted as a night battle.

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