Pincer movement The pincer movement or double envelopment is a military maneuver . The flanks of the opponent are attacked simultaneously in a pinching motion after the opponent has advanced towards the center of an army which is responding by moving its outside forces to the enemy ' s flanks , in order to surround it . At the same time , a second layer of pincers attacks on the more extreme flanks , so as to prevent any attempts to reinforce the target unit . Description . A double envelopment by definition leads to the attacking army facing the enemy in front , on both flanks , and in the rear . If the attacking pincers link up in the enemy ' s rear , the enemy is encircled . Such battles often end in surrender or destruction of the enemy force , although the encircled force can attempt a breakout , attacking the encirclement from the inside in order to escape , or a friendly external force can attack from the outside to open up an escape route for the encircled force . History . Sun Tzu in " The Art of War " speculated on the maneuver , but advised against trying it , feeling that an army would likely run first before the move could be completed . He argued that it was best to allow the enemy a path to escape , as the target army would fight with more ferocity when completely surrounded . The maneuver was probably first used at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC . The historian Herodotus describes how the Athenian general Miltiades deployed his forces of 10 , 000 Athenian and 900 Plataea n hoplite s in a U formation , with the wings manned much deeper than the center . His enemy outnumbered him heavily , and Miltiades chose to match the breadth of the Persian battle line by thinning out the center of his forces while reinforcing the wings . In the course of the battle , the weaker central formations retreated in order , allowing the wings to converge behind the Persian battle line , thus driving the much more numerous , but lightly armed Persians to panicky retreat . Hannibal executed this maneuver at the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC . This is viewed by military historians as one of the greatest battlefield maneuvers in history , and is cited as the first successful use of the pincer movement to have been recorded in detail , by the Greek historian Polybius . It was also later effectively used by Khalid ibn al - Walid at the Battle of Walaja in 633 , by Alp Arslan at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 under name of Crescent Tactic , at Battle of Mohács by Süleyman the Magnificent in 1526 and by Field Marshal Carl Gustav Rehnskiöld at the Battle of Fraustadt in 1706 . It was also used by Daniel Morgan at the Battle of Cowpens in 1781 in South Carolina . Morgan ' s cunning plan at Cowpens is widely considered to be the tactical masterpiece of the American War of Independence . A version of this maneuver was a standard tactic used by Zulu impi s , who called it the " buffalo horn " formation . A rudimentary form of this maneuver was also employed by Genghis Khan , known colloquially as the ' horns ' tactic . In this case , two enveloping flanks of horsemen surrounded the enemy although they usually remained unjoined , leaving the enemy an escape route to the rear , as described above . This was key to many of Genghis ' early victories over other Mongolian tribes . The maneuver was famously developed to its perfection in the blitzkrieg as practiced by the armed forces of Nazi Germany during World War II . In this case , rather than being a mere infantry maneuver , it developed into a complex multi - discipline endeavor involving fast movement of mechanized armor , use of artillery barrages , air force bombardment , and effective radio communications , with the primary objective of destroying enemy command and control chains , undermining enemy troop morale , and disrupting supply lines .