Enfilade and defilade

Enfilade and Defilade

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Enfilade and defilade

Enfilade and defilade are concepts in military tactics

Military tactics

Military tactics are the techniques for using weapons or military units in combination for engaging and defeating an Enemy in battle. Changes in philosophy and technology over time have been reflected in changes to military tactics....
used to describe a military formation's exposure to enemy fire. In addition, enfilade fire is used to describe gunfire directed against an "enfiladed" formation or position. The words themselves come from French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 80 million people as first language, by 190 million as second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired tongue, with significant speakers in 54 countries....
(enfiler - to skewer; défiler - to scroll).

Enfilade fire is also commonly known in English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
as "flanking fire".

rmation or position is "in enfilade" if weapons fire can be directed along its longest axis.

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Encyclopedia

Enfilade and defilade are concepts in military tactics

Military tactics

French language

English language

Enfilade

A formation or position is "in enfilade" if weapons fire can be directed along its longest axis. For instance, a trench

Trench warfare

Trench warfare is a form of warfare where both combatants have fortified positions and fighting lines are static. Trench warfare arose when a revolution in fire power was not matched by similar advances in mobility , resulting in a slow and grueling form of defense-oriented warfare in which both sides constructed elaborate and heavily arme...
is enfiladed if the opponent can fire down the length of the trench. A column

Column (formation)

A military column is a tactical formation of that can be applied to individual soldiers marching together in one or more file s in which the file is significantly longer than the width of rank in the formation....
of marching troops is enfiladed if fired on from the front or rear such that the projectiles travel the length of the column. A rank

Rank (formation)

A Rank is a line of military personnel, drawn up in line abreast .Commonly, troops called to 'On the right, fall in!' do so by forming in line abreast, determining their initial position in relation to a marker....
or line of advancing troops is enfiladed if fired on from the side (flank).

The benefit of enfilading an enemy formation is that, by firing along the long axis, it is easier to hit individual troops within that formation. Adjusting the elevation

Elevation (ballistics)

In ballistics, the elevation is the angle between the horizontal plane and the direction of the barrel of a gun, Mortar or heavy artillery. Originally, elevation was a linear measure of how high the gunners had to physically lift the muzzle of a gun up from the gun carriage to hit targets at a certain distance....
of the weapon merely directs the fire to a different point along the axis of the formation, although traversing the weapon is more likely to result in a miss. Enfilade fire takes advantage of the fact that aiming at a target is easier than correctly estimating the range to avoid shooting too long or short. Finally, projectiles that miss an intended target are more likely to hit a different target within the formation if firing along the long axis.

The picture to the right illustrates the concept of enfilading fire well. This German

Atlantic Wall

The Atlantikwall was an extensive system of Coastal artillerys built by the Germany Third Reich in 1942 until 1944 during World War II along the West Europe to defend against an anticipated Allied invasion of the continent from Great Britain....
bunker

Bunker

A military bunker is a hardened shelter, often buried partly or fully underground, designed to protect the inhabitants from falling bombs or other attacks....
was built on a bulge in the sea wall which sticks out well into the beach; any troops sheltering behind the sea wall would still have been completely exposed to fire from this gun position, and would have been neatly lined up along the gun's axis of fire. Troops hiding along the sea wall would have been enfiladed by this gun.

Raking fire

Raking fire

In naval warfare, raking fire is fire directed parallel to the long axis of an enemy ship. Although each shot is directed against a smaller target profile than by shooting broadside and thus more likely to miss the target ship to one side or the other, an individual cannon shot that hits will pass through more of the ship, thereby increasin...
is the equivalent term in naval warfare

Naval warfare

Naval warfare is combat in and on seas, oceans, or any other major bodies of water such as large lakes and wide rivers....
.

Strafing

Strafing

Strafing is the practice of attacking ground targets from low-flying aircraft. The term is usually applied to attacks with aircraft-mounted automatic weapons, but may be applied to attacks with bombs, though not high-level bomb delivery....
, firing on targets from a flying platform, is often done by enfilade fire when using forward weapons, and defilade fire when using side-mounted weapons.

Defilade

A unit or position is "in defilade" if it uses natural or artificial obstacles to shield or conceal. For an armored fighting vehicle (AFV), defilade is synonymous with a hull-down

Hull-down

The term hull-down describes the situation where the upper part of a vessel or vehicle is visible, but the main, lower body is not; the opposite term hull-up describes the situation where all of the body is visible....
or turret-down position.

Defilade is also used to refer to a position on the reverse slope

Reverse slope defence

A reverse slope defence is a Military tactics where a defending force is positioned on the slope of an elevated terrain feature such as a hill, ridge, or mountain, on the side opposite from the attacking force....
of a hill or within a depression in level or rolling terrain. Defiladed positions on hilltops are advantageous because they allow a defender to take advantage of the height of the terrain without suffering the disadvantage of being silhouetted against the sky. However, because of the slope, "dead space" that cannot be engaged with direct fire will be created in front of the position. Ideally this dead space should be covered by the interlocking fields of fire of other nearby positions, and/or by pre-planned indirect fire

Indirect fire

In the context of warfare, direct fire means aiming through a sight directly at the target. This sight may be open fore and back sight or optical....
such as mortar

Mortar (weapon)

A mortar is a Muzzleloader indirect fire weapon that fires shell at low velocities, short ranges, and high-arcing Ballistics trajectories. It typically has a barrel length less than 15 times its caliber....
s or other forms of artillery

Artillery

Artillery is a military Combat Arms which employs any apparatus, machine, an assortment of tools or instruments, a system or systems used as weapons for the discharge of large projectiles in combat as a major contribution of fire power within the overall military capability of an armed force....
.

In the case of antitank weapons, and especially short-range man-portable antitank rockets, defiladed positions behind a hill have several important advantages. This is because the dead space created by the intervening crest of the hill prevents an approaching tank from using the range of its direct-fire weapons, and neither the attacker nor defender will have a clear shot until the tank is within range of the defending antitank weapon. In such engagements the tank is usually at a further disadvantage because the defender will often be camouflaged while the attacking tank will be silhouetted against the sky, giving the defender an easier shot.

In addition, if the tank fails to detect the defending antitank weapon while the tank is still defiladed, but advances beyond that position to the crest of the hill, it may expose the relatively thinner armor of its lower hull or belly to the defender. Early detection and elimination of antitank threats is an important reason that tanks attack with infantry

Infantry

Infantry are soldiers who are primarily trained for the role of fighting on foot. A soldier in the infantry is known as an infantryman. Infantry units have more physically demanding training than other branches of armies, and place a greater emphasis on fitness, physical strength and aggression....
support.

Artificial entrenchments can provide defilade by allowing troops to seek shelter behind a raised berm

Berm

A berm is a level space, shelf, or raised barrier separating two areas. Berm is a loanword from Dutch language....
that increases the effective height of the ground, within an excavation that allows the troops to shelter below the surface of the ground or a combination of the two. The same principles apply to fighting positions for artillery and armored fighting vehicles as well.

Enfilade and defilade

Enfilade

Defilade

See also

Further reading

External links