Force dispersal is the practice of spreading out soldiers and vehicles in an army. It is used to minimize the effects of

collateral damage Collateral damage is any death, injury, or other damage inflicted that is an incidental result of an activity. Originally coined by military operations, it is now also used in non-military contexts. Since the development of precision guided ...

, such as from bombs and artillery, and increases the number of artillery rounds needed to neutralize or destroy a military force in proportion to the dispersal of the force. If a division doubles the area it takes up, it will double the number of artillery rounds needed to do the same damage to it. As more targets are spread out, more artillery and bombs are required to hit them all. It's also used on a squad level, notably in counter-insurgency, to minimize the effects of grenades,

land mine A land mine is an explosive device concealed under or on the ground and designed to destroy or disable enemy targets, ranging from combatants to vehicles and tanks, as they pass over or near it. Such a device is typically detonated automati ...

improvised explosive device An improvised explosive device (IED) is a bomb constructed and deployed in ways other than in conventional military action. It may be constructed of conventional military explosives, such as an artillery shell, attached to a detonating mecha ...

s, explosive booby traps, and to a lesser extent automatic gunfire. When individual soldiers are spaced apart, it's much more difficult for a single grenade to incapacitate them all. Force dispersal may also be used in urban guerrilla warfare and as a tactic by

militia A militia () is generally an army or some other fighting organization of non-professional soldiers, citizens of a country, or subjects of a state, who may perform military service during a time of need, as opposed to a professional force of r ...

s to combat

military intelligence Military intelligence is a military discipline that uses information collection and analysis approaches to provide guidance and direction to assist commanders in their decisions. This aim is achieved by providing an assessment of data from a ...

instead of collateral damage. In this use, breaking up into

covert cell A clandestine cell system is a method for organizing a group of people (such as resistance fighters, sleeper agents, mobsters, or terrorists) such that such people can more effectively resist penetration by an opposing organization (such as l ...

s is meant to make it harder to eliminate the whole organization at once, and to reduce the damage when portions of it are discovered. One famous example of force dispersal is the Swedish

air force An air force – in the broadest sense – is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an ...

Bas 60 Bas 60 (''Flygbassystem 60'', Air Base System 60) was an air base system developed and used by the Swedish Air Force during the Cold War. The system was based around defensive force dispersal of aircraft and its supporting ground operations acros ...

and later

Bas 90 Bas 90 (''Flygbassystem 90'', Air Base System 90) was an air base system used by the Swedish Air Force during the Cold War. Bas 90 was developed during the 1970s and 1980s from the existing Bas 60 system in response to the new threats and needs th ...

system of spread-out bases.

References

Sources

* Dunnigan, James F. How To Make War, 2003, HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022.

Force dispersal Force dispersal is the practice of spreading out soldiers and vehicles in an army. It is used to minimize the effects of collateral damage, such as from bombs and artillery, and increases the number of artillery rounds needed to neutralize or des ...

Military tactics {{Military-stub

See also

References

Sources