Crossword clues for encirclement
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1809, from encircle + -ment.
Wiktionary
n. 1 The act of encircle or the state of being encircled 2 (context military English) The isolation of a target by the formation of a blockade around it
WordNet
n. a war measure that isolates some area of importance to the enemy [syn: blockade]
Wikipedia
Encirclement is a military term for the situation when a force or target is isolated and surrounded by enemy forces.
This situation is highly dangerous for the encircled force: at the strategic level, because it cannot receive supplies or reinforcements, and on the tactical level, because the units in the force can be subject to an attack from several sides. Lastly, since the force cannot retreat, unless it is relieved or can break out, it must either fight to the death or surrender.
Encirclement has been used throughout the centuries by military leaders, including generals such as Alexander the Great, Khalid bin Waleed, Hannibal, Sun Tzu, Shaka Zulu, Wallenstein, Nader Shah, Napoleon, Moltke, Heinz Guderian, von Rundstedt, von Manstein, Zhukov, and Patton.
People like Sun Tzu suggests that an army should be not completely encircled but should be given some room for escape, or the 'encircled' army's men will lift their morale and fight till the death. It is better to have them consider the possibility of a retreat. Once the enemy retreats, they can be pursued and captured or destroyed with far less risk to the pursuing forces than a fight to the death. Examples of this might be the battles of Dunkirk, in 1940, and the Falaise Gap in 1944.
The main form of encircling, the " double pincer," is executed by attacks on the flanks of a battle whose mobile forces of the era, such as light infantry, cavalry, tanks, or Armoured Personnel Carriers attempt to force a breakthrough to utilize their speed to join behind the back of the enemy force and complete the "ring" while the main enemy force is stalled by probing attacks. The encirclement of the German Sixth Army in the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942 is a typical example.
If there is a natural obstacle, such as ocean or mountains on one side of the battlefield, only one pincer is needed ("single pincer"), because the function of the second arm is taken over by the natural obstacle. The German attack into the lowlands of France in 1940 is a typical example of this.
A third and rarer type of encirclement can ensue from a breakthrough in an area of the enemy front, and exploiting that with mobile forces, diverging in two or more directions behind the enemy line. Full encirclement rarely follows, but the threat of it severely hampers the defender's options. This type of attack pattern is centerpiece to Blitzkrieg operations. Because of the extreme difficulty of this operation, it cannot be executed unless the offensive force has a vast superiority, either in technology, organization, or sheer numbers. The Barbarossa campaign of 1941 saw some examples.
The danger to the encircling force is that it is, itself, cut off from its logistical base; if the encircled force is able to stand firm, or maintain a supply route, the encircling force can be thrown into confusion (for example, Rommel's "Dash to the Wire" in 1941 and the Demyansk Pocket in 1942) or be comprehensively destroyed (as during the Burma campaign, in 1944).
A special kind of encirclement is the siege. In this case, the encircled forces are enveloped in a fortified position in which long-lasting supplies and strong defences are in place, allowing them to withstand attacks. Sieges have taken place in almost all eras of warfare.
Examples of battles of encirclement:
- Battle of Thermopylae (480 BC)
- Battle of Cannae (216 BC)
- Battle of Walaja (633 AD)
- Battle of Fraustadt (1706)
- Battle of Kirkuk (1733)
- Battle of Kars (1745)
- Battle of Isandlwana (1879)
- Battle of Tannenberg (1914)
- Battle of Magdhaba (1916)
- Battle of Rafa (1916)
- First Battle of Gaza (1917)
- Battle of Beersheba (1917)
- Battle of Megiddo (1918)
- Battle of Suomussalmi (1939-1940)
- Battle of Kiev (1941)
- Battle of Smolensk (1941)
- Battle of Białystok–Minsk (1941)
- Battle for Velikiye Luki (1942)
The German term for an encirclement is Kesselschlacht (cauldron battle).
- Battle of Stalingrad (1942-1943)
- Battle of the Korsun-Cherkassy Pocket (1944)
- Kamenets-Podolsky pocket (1944)
- Battle of Misrata (2011)
- Battle of Aleppo (2012–present)
- Second Battle of Tikrit (2015)
Usage examples of "encirclement".
That nest of corpulent vipers had long been used to taking their ease, content with their delving into their store of old spelling and encirclement.
Suddenly it all made sense, this mad rush to throw beachheads and encirclement forces at the Human worlds.
The fourth and fifth Zhirrzh beachheads were now established on Human-Conqueror worlds, with encirclement forces on guard overhead.
Alesia, it was fenced in between two separate encirclements of fortifications, identical but mirror images of each other.
Banner headlines bawled of Allied breakthroughs in Morocco, the flight of Rommel, the encirclement of the Germans at Stalingrad.
She took the pot from the protecting encirclement of Sebell's curved fingers and carefully upended it on the hearth, her fingers cushioning the egg until the sand spilled away from it.
But the German nation, with its strong instinct for survival and growth, had time and again rallied and thrown off foreign encirclements and yokes.
Hordes were captured, but more hordes abandoned tanks and guns to slip through our encirclements in the night.
We then exploit that benefit to perform encirclements and flanking maneuvers on the purely western forces.
Political regions were delineated by subtle encirclements of color the Core systems, the Outer Rim Territories, Wild Space, the Unknown Regions.
Political regions were delineated by subtle encirclements of color: the Core systems, the Outer Rim Territories, Wild Space, the Unknown Regions.
Hunlaki admired the riders, though the Heruls, in their vaster numbers, with their better mounts, bred for centuries for the chase and war, their superb skills, of horsemanship and war, honed by centuries of revered tradition, their swiftness, their forced marches, their encirclements, had defeated them.
The rallies and the feints, the diversions and encirclements all became one confusion.
The gobs would be watching for an encirclement, and there were certain key spots for this.
But into that din and encirclement Goll pressed and ventured, steady as a rock in water, agile as a creature of the sea, and when one of the combatants retreated it was the hag that gave backwards.