List of established military terms

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This is a list of established military terms which have been in use for at least 50 years. Technology has changed so not all of them are in current use, or they may have been superseded by more modern ones. However they are still in current use in articles about previous military periods. Some of them like Camouflet have been adapted to describe modern versions of an old techniques.

[edit] General terms

Ambush To make a surprise attack on an enemy that passes a concealed position.
Battlespace
Blockade
Booby traps
Breach (military) in fortified lines or a battle line.
Breakout
Bridgehead see also Beachhead and Airhead
Camouflet
Charge (warfare)
Counter attack
Coup de Main, a swift pre-emptive strike.
Defilade A unit or position is "defiladed" if it is protected from direct exposure to enemy fire. See also Hull-down
Encirclement
Enfilade A unit (or position) is "in enfilade" if enemy fire can be directed along the long axis of the unit. For instance, a trench is enfiladed if the enemy can fire down the length of the trench. Also, to place a unit in a position to enfilade, or the position so enfiladed.
Envelope
Fabian strategy, avoiding pitched battles to wear down the enemy in a war of attrition
Flank attack is to attack an enemy or an enemy unit from the side.
Frontal assault
Hors de combat, out of the fight, surrendered, wounded etc.
Killing field
Lodgement an enclave made by increasing the size of a bridgehead
Infiltration
Interdiction is to attack and interrupt enemy supply lines.
Logistics
Materiel (also Matériel)
Military Supply Chain Management
Melee (also Mêlée)
No man's land
No quarter no mercy, all are killed. It is now a war crime to order that no quarter be given. (It may still be the practise in fact at times.)
Overwatch when one small unit can support another.
Parade Ground
Patrolling
Parthian shot
Pickets — sentries or advance troops whose job is to warn of contact with the enemy. A soldier who has this job is on "picket duty".
Pincer maneuver
Pitched battle
Pocket
Pyrrhic Victory
Raiding
Reconnaissance
The "refuse"
Sack The deliberate destruction and/or looting of a city usually after an assault.
Salients The enemy's line facing a salient is referred to as a re-entrant.
Scorched earth
Shoot and scoot - type of fire and movement tactic used by artillery to avoid counter-battery fire
Skirmish
Staging area

[edit] Entrenchment

[edit] Formations

Column (formation)
Echelon formation a military formation in which members are arranged diagonally
File (formation) single column of soldiers
Infantry square, Pike square and Schiltron
Phalanx
Rank (formation) single line of soldiers
Shield wall

[edit] Fortification

Fortification
Barbed wire
Banquette or a fire step
Bastion
Blockhouse
Breastwork (fortification)
Bunker
Counterscarp, is the side of a ditch, infront of the wall of a fortress, furthest from the wall.
Coupure
Castle
- Medieval fortification
  - Arrow slit (arrow loop, loophole)
  - Barbican
  - Concentric castle
  - Drawbridge
  - Portcullis
  - Moat
  - Machicolation
  - Murder-hole
Citadel
Dragon's teeth
Fort
Fortress
Glacis
Hill fort (New Zealand Pa (Māori))
Lunette
Ravelin
Redoubt
Sangar (fortification), a small temporary fortified position with a breastwork originally of stone, but now built of sandbags and similar materials.
Sally port also "to sally" out and Sortie
Scarp (fortification) fortress side of a ditch infront of a wall.
Sconce (fortification), a small protective fortification, such as an earthwork often placed on a mound as a defensive work for artillery.
Slighting is the deliberate destruction of a fortification without opposition from its builders or its last users.
Trace italienne. Star-shaped fortresses surrounding towns and even cities

[edit] Naval

Crossing the Tee
In the van--leading
Line astern, Line ahead, or Line of battle
Raking fire
Scuttling
Weather gage

[edit] Siege

Siege
circumvallation
contravallation
escalade
Forlorn hope
Chevaux de frise sword blades chained together to cut up people trying to charge into a breach in the walls.
Invest
parallel trenches
Sapping Mine Counter mine
Siege engines
Siege train
Siege tower
Storm to move quickly and noisily like a storm
Sortie also "to sally".

[edit] Vehicles

[edit] Land combat vehicles types

[edit] Combat aircraft types

[edit] Combat vessel types

[edit] Weapons types

[edit] Bombs

Bomb
Grenade
- Hand grenade
- Rifle grenade (see also Grenade launcher)
- Rocket propelled grenade

[edit] Edged weapons

[edit] Pole weapon

[edit] Incendiary weapons

[edit] Mines

[edit] Missile Weapons

[edit] Artillery

[edit] Gunpowder artillery types

[edit] Mechanical artillery types

[edit] Hand held firearms

[edit] Torpedoes

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

A Glossary of Victorian Military Terms by the Palmerston Forts Society. A more comprehensive version has been published by the PFS: A Handbook of Military Terms by David Moore
A Dictionary of Military Architecture: Fortification and Fieldworks from the Iron Age to the Eighteenth Century by Stephen Francis Wyley, drawings by Steven Lowe
Military Earthworks Terms by the National Park Service, United States Department of the Interior

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Categories: Military terminology | Military lists