page_title: Infiltration tactics
section_title: Hurricane bombardment
hierarchical_section_title: Infiltration tactics / Development during World War I / Hurricane bombardment
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Oberst Bruchmüller, Rheinisches Fußartillerie-Regiment Nr. 8 von Preußen.
context_page_description: In warfare, infiltration tactics involve small independent light infantry forces advancing into enemy rear areas, bypassing enemy frontline strongpoints, possibly isolating them for attack by follow-up troops with heavier weapons. 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.
  Forms of these infantry tactics were used by skirmishers and irregulars dating back to classical antiquity, but only as a defensive or secondary tactic; decisive battlefield victories were achieved by shock combat tactics with heavy infantry or heavy cavalry, typically charging en masse against the primary force of the opponent. By the time of early modern warfare, defensive firepower made this tactic increasingly costly. When trench warfare developed to its height in World War I, most such attacks were complete failures. Raiding by small groups of experienced soldiers, using stealth and cover was commonly employed and often successful, but these could not achieve decisive victory.
context_section_description: A new method of artillery use evolved during World War I, colloquially called "hurricane bombardment". This is a very quick but intense artillery bombardment, in contrast to the prevailing artillery tactic of long bombardments. Various forms of quick bombardments were employed at several times and places during the war, but the most successful use of hurricane bombardment was when it was combined with German infiltration tactics in which local forces take immediate advantage of any enemy weak points they find.
  After the start of trench warfare in World War I, and artillery moved from direct fire to indirect fire, the standard use of artillery preceding any friendly infantry attack became a very long and deliberate artillery bombardment, often lasting several days, intending to destroy the opponent's defences and kill the defenders. 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. When the bombardment stopped, this signaled the start of the attack to the defenders, and they quickly moved back to their forward positions. This practise of very long bombardments expanded over the course of the war, in hopes of at least causing a few casualties, damaging surface defenses like barbed wire lines and machine gun nests, and exhausting and demoralizing the defenders by the strain of being forced underground for so long.
  The Allies, led by the British, developed alternative artillery tactics utilizing shorter bombardments; these sought to achieve more success by surprise. (This was also to use limited ammunition supplies more efficiently.) The effectiveness of short bombardments was dependent on local conditions: the targets had to be precisely identified and located beforehand, a large number of artillery pieces were needed, each with ample local stockpiles of ammunition to ensure the bombardment intensity for its short duration, and all these preparations had to be kept hidden from the defenders.
  To further increase the chance of success, these short bombardments were followed by a series of barrages. Many variations were devised, including moving barrages, block barrages, creeping barrages, standing and box barrages. The goal of an artillery barrage is to target a line of impact points repeatedly so as to create a barrier to infantry movement; these lines can be held in position or slowly moved over time to inhibit movement by the opponent or even force them into poor positions. These barrage plans were often quite complicated and could be notably effective.
  The Germans also experimented with short bombardments and barrages. German Colonel Georg Bruchmüller tailored these significantly to integrate well with infiltration tactics. He began to perfect this while serving as a senior artillery officer on the Eastern Front in 1916. Hurricane bombardments avoided giving the defender several days' warning of an impending attack – vital for infiltration tactics. Barrages had to be carefully limited for use with infiltration tactics, as both the barrage movement and infantry advance must keep to a timetable, necessarily very methodical and slow to avoid casualties from friendly artillery; this takes away almost all initiative from the advancing infantry. Barrages with infiltration tactics had to be more intense and precise, and quickly moved to deeper targets. Bruchmüller enforced having artillery aim "from the map", avoiding the typical practise of firing several "registering shells" before a bombardment to adjust the aim of each gun by trial-and-error, alerting the defenders before the full bombardment. 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.
  Bruchmüller devised intricate, centrall
caption: Colonel Georg Bruchmüller, nicknamed Durchbruchmüller as a combination of the German word Durchbruch ('breakthrough') with his name, for his fame with using "hurricane" artillery bombardments for breakthroughs in World War I
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