A breakthrough occurs when an offensive force has broken or
penetrated an opponent's
defensive line, and rapidly exploits the gap.
Usually, large force is employed on a relatively small portion of the front to achieve this. While the line may have held for a long while prior to the breakthrough, the breakthrough happens suddenly when the pressure on the defender causes him to "snap".
As the first defensive unit breaks, the adjacent units suffer adverse results from this (spreading panic, additional defensive angles, threat to
supply lines). Since they were already pressured, this leads them to "snap" as well, causing a
domino-like collapse of the defensive system. The defensive force thus evaporates at the breakthrough point, letting the attacker to rapidly move troops into the gap, exploiting the breakthrough in width (by attacking enemy units at the edge of the breakthrough, so widening it), in depth (advancing into enemy territory towards strategic objectives), or a combination of both.
Terminology
The
OED records "break through" used in a military sense from the
trench warfare
Trench warfare is a type of land warfare using occupied lines largely comprising Trench#Military engineering, military trenches, in which combatants are well-protected from the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from a ...
times of 1915, when the ''Observer'' used the phrase in a headline.
The Online Etymology Dictionary dates the metaphoric use of "breakthrough" - meaning "abrupt solution or progress" - from the 1930s,
shortly after
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...
popularized the
Russian equivalent () in a pep-piece on the "
Great Breakthrough" published in November 1929,
dense with military jargon and encouraging industrialization during the Soviet Union's first
Five-Year Plan.
[
]
See also
*
Penetration (warfare)
*
Breakout (military)
References
Sources
*
Carl von Clausewitz
Carl Philipp Gottlieb von Clausewitz ( , ; born Carl Philipp Gottlieb Clauswitz; 1 July 1780 – 16 November 1831) was a Kingdom of Prussia, Prussian general and Military theory, military theorist who stressed the "moral" (in modern terms meani ...
, ''
On War''
*
Heinz Guderian
Heinz Wilhelm Guderian (; 17 June 1888 – 14 May 1954) was a German general during World War II who later became a successful memoirist. A pioneer and advocate of the "blitzkrieg" approach, he played a central role in the development of ...
, ''Achtung, Panzer!''
Military strategy
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