Warning: Idiot Question Ahead

[Guest Pillar]

"Bridgehead".

Does this term mean bridges over water or is it more a metaphorical term for something else? I've seen it used even referencing ancient warfare.

Seriously here.

[Renaud]

A 'bridgehead' in military parlance describes a defensive position established on the far (enemy) side of a river or other body of water, typically organized around defending a bridge or ford exit around that side of the bridge. Thus, the name bridgehead. Bridgeheads were considered important to establish and maintain as they could be used to stage and launch further attacks into enemy territory (stockpile supplies, pack troops in). Without the bridgehead you were forced to attack across a bridge or ford or other crossing.

Ren

[Guest Pillar]

So an offensive head is on the FAR side (so you don't have to cross against the enemy), while a defensive head is on the NEAR side so that the enemy is forced to cross under your forces harrassment?

IE. Depending on your intentions, it is better to take different sides of the river and hold there.

Am I right?

Would it ever be good to hold defensively on the enemy side of the river? For example, the way they held the bridge in SPR?

[Renaud]

Pillar,

A bridgehead is always a defended salient (bulge) on the enemy side of a bridge, ford or other river crossing. There's no 'defensive' bridgehead on a friendly side of the bridge.

Yes, what you saw in SPR was a bridgehead in the tactical (CM) sense. The idea is to hold the enemy side of the bridge well enough so your reinforcements are able to cross without getting fired on.

A Strategic bridgehead miles deep gives generals the opportunity to organize large offensives to break out from the bridgehead by providing the room needed to stockpile ammo, fuel and deploy the big formations necessary for a large offensive.

Ren

[Guest Michael emrys]

Having a defensive bridgehead across a body of water is usually a bad idea *unless* you either intend to eventually attack out of it, or at a minimum you want to give the impression that you intend to do so. Also you had better be prepared and able to commit enough forces to hold that bridgehead as it will likely be the first thing the enemy attacks and it will be vulnerable to isolation and fighting with its back against the river. If you have that much force, you likely should go onto the offensive.

But then, war is the province of the exceptional and it wouldn't take too long to come with an exception to this rule too. That doesn't invalidate it as a pretty good generalization.

Michael

[Guest Pillar]

Gotcha.

Is it better to defend across a river?

[pathfinder]

Pillar, one gets that bridgehead to protect the area so one can repair existing or build one's own bridges in order to continue offensive operations further into enemy territory...

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unca pathy will show ya the path,

if only he could find it himself!

[Lorak]

yes, defending across a river is ideal.

Your enemy is going to be restricted to using bridges (great bottleneck) or attempting a crossing by boat(very leathal).

This puts the defender at a major advantage.

Lorak

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http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/combatmissionclub

Lorak's FTX for CM <--Proud member of the Combat Mission Webring

[Hunter]

Pillar,

Although it is always more fun to allow the attacker to establish a bridgehead (at cost) then cut it off and destroy his forces en masse. Much more fun than a stalemate with him on his side of the river, and you on yours.

Bruce

[Guest Michael emrys]

That assumes that the defender has sufficient resources to liquidate a bridgehead once it has been established. Historically, that is very, very rare.

I think I recall (though I could be mistaken on this) that when the German army retreated behind the Dniepr River, they attempted to maintain a bridgehead in case they could later counter-attack, and failed. But that was a case where it was the Soviets who were on the offensive.

Michael

[tss]

Michael emrys wrote about defending on the enemy side of a river:

But then, war is the province of the exceptional and it wouldn't take too long to come with an exception to this rule too.

Is this quick enough?

During the battles of Vuosalmi in late February - early March 1940 Finnish defence line was on enemy side of River Vuoksi, and it was the correct thing to do in that case.

The reason was that at Äyräpää (now, there's a word that 99% of the participants of this forum would pronounce completely wrong) the river banks were much higher (~15 m, IIRC) than on the Vuosalmi side. If the Soviets could capture the Äyräpää ridge line, they could bring in lots of direct fire guns and blow away the defences on the North side of the river. The river was also frozen enough to support light tanks.

The Red Army captured parts of the ridge line (namely, Äyräpää chucrh hill) and managed to capture two islands (Mustasaari and Vasikkasaari) but the peace came before they could form a proper beach head on the North side of the river. However, had the war continued for a week more, they would have almost certainly broken through. The final scenes of the movie Winter War are about this battle.

- Tommi

[Pacestick]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Renaud:

Pillar,

A bridgehead is always a defended salient (bulge) on the enemy side of a bridge, ford or other river crossing. There's no 'defensive' bridgehead on a friendly side of the bridge.

Ren <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Not quite correct. There are times when you have a bridgehead on the enemy side of a body of water when on the defence, it is called a "reserved demolition" in my milspeak, other armies may have a different nomenclature for the same beast

A crossing point would be set for demolition and defended by usually never less than a company sized group so long as the crossing needs to be open eg to allow withdrawal of screen troops in the case of a defence, or until the withdrawal of blocking forces is complete in the case of a withdrawal are two examples. The situation in the case of the movie saving Private Ryan was a reserved demolition. The bridge was wired for demolition but was to be defended until the relief broke through to continue offensive ops or blown if it was to fall into enemy hands to thwart german counter attack routes.

[Bertram]

If I am not mistaken it was standard German doctrine during WW2 to defend on the 'enemy side' of the river, that is to establish defensive bridgeheads and try to hold on to them. This in accordance with their doctrine that a defense has to be active, and is at best conducted by counterattacking.

Digging in on the 'friendly side' of the river implies a static defense, with very limited room for counter attacks. It also leaves the initiative entirely with the enemy, and severely limits the observation and interdition of the build up of his forces. Therefore it is contrary to the 'blitzkrieg' concept.

Of course towards the end of the war the Germans were almost constantly 'fighting backwards', and didn't have any reserves left to counterattack with, so the concept became somewhat irrelevant.

Bertram

[This message has been edited by Bertram (edited 07-05-2000).]

[paullus]

The Germans (actually European SS volunteers) held a defensive bridgehead on the eastern side of the Narva River throughout 1944 against massive Russian assaults.

The German defensive position on the Dnepr in 1943 was compromised when the Russians were able to secure a bridgehead on the western bank. It was through the bridgehead that the Russians launched their winter offensive and cleared out Kiev and most of the Ukraine.