Talk:Enfilade and defilade

Enfilading of a gun
I was wondering what a phrase like "enfilading to 400 meters" means. See the page on the Jarmann M1884. One of its specs is "Enfilading	438 m (1,437 ft)", and it gives no explanation to what that means on the page (or anywhere convenient I can find on the internet). Fresheneesz 19:56, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Separate articles?
Although these sound like intimately related concepts, I think that is just a linguistic coincidence, ie. they happen to rhyme. they actually refer to different concepts, firing position and type of cover, and I think they should be in separate articles.

Second Throktar 23:57, 25 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree. I don't see why they are presented together. Tijfo098 (talk) 14:55, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I also agree. They seem to be vaguely related, but not so close that they should share a single article. cmadler (talk) 13:13, 8 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I think the intro section misdefines the term defilade, and this is why you fail to see relation. Enfilade is for firing position, yes. But defilade is a much simpler idea than "type of cover [...]", defilade means "defense against enfilade". No sense to discuss one without discussing other. Split the article and you will have close to 100% content duplication and all the hassle. --Kubanczyk (talk) 12:13, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
 * If that's the case, then the article is in desperate need of rewriting by someone who understands the relationship. (Not me!) cmadler (talk) 12:39, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
 * ✅ --Kubanczyk (talk) 11:26, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I disagree with this assessment, User:Kubanczyk. From page 24 of The Evolution of Modern Land Warfare, what I'm seeing is that a defile effectively eliminates one or more flanks and so allows a unit or weapon to ignore its flank, and a weapon is said to be in enfilade if it can apply fire to a formation within a fairly small cone. In our article's figure, the red soldiers are said to be in enfilade. It's more correct to say that they are exposed to fire in enfilade.
 * To better address your understanding of defilade, I'm prepared to say that if a unit is in the bottom of a cut (as demonstrate in the book's figure), it will be very exposed to enfilade fire assuming an enemy weapon could reach the entrance.
 * What I get from the book is that "in enfilade" means "can attack a sizeable fraction of an enemy formation in a small cone" and "in defilade" means "can safely ignore potential attack from one direction and thus can safely present a flank to that direction", and neither of these refers to the enemy that is being attacked from a weapon in enfilade nor the enemy that approaches the unit or weapon that is behind a defile.
 * Either we do away with this reference and find a new one that better supports our article's body, or we should correct our article to match it, and as part of this, the figure that is currently attached should be fixed as needed. D. F. Schmidt (talk) 17:48, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

rotate
In this article's discussions of aiming a gun, people talk about "rotation", but there are different kinds of rotation...optics nomenclature has "tip and tilt", while pilot jargon has "yaw, pitch and roll". I understand the artillery term for the kind of rotation discussed here is "traverse"...but it actually took some thinking to figure out what the text of this article meant. --Joel 17:53, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
 * ✅ --Kubanczyk (talk) 11:26, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Illustration
Two frigates exchanging fire side by side point blank can not possibly be an illustration of the concept of "defilade" as defined in the article ("protected from direct exposure to enemy fire"). Either "defilade" has a second naval-specific meaning along the lines of "firing on an enemy perpendicularly to the long axis of their formation", which would clarify (by contrast) its relation to "enfilade" (or more specifically, to "raking fire"), or the picture included to exemplify the concept is simply wrong and needs to be changed/removed.

I also wondered about the photo, and the only definitions of "defilade" I can find all refer to the "reverse-slope" protected position in land warfare. I've removed the photo, which to me is an example of ships exchanging broadside fire. GMan552 04:28, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
 * ✅ --Kubanczyk (talk) 11:26, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Pronunciation?
Could someone who knows how to pronounce these words add pronunciation to the article?

Also, I agree with the commentor above who suggested that these should really be separate articles; they don't seem to be related concepts (or at least, not closely related). cmadler (talk) 19:41, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅ I've edited the article so it says what the main source (Bellamy) says, so now the concepts are related. I've linked wiktionary for pronunciation. --Kubanczyk (talk) 11:26, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

this article doesn't make any sense
Apart from the single description of the direction of fire through a column or line, and protection by means of natural barriers etc. nothing else in this article makes any sense. i'd normally just delete whole parts of it and declare it a stubby stub!! But i'll instead let user:Kubanczyk JUST DO IT!!! lol 115.242.20.61 (talk) 10:05, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Origins of the strategies
I've added the actual origins of the strategies which were invented after the Battle of Bannockburn and before the start of the Battle of Dupplin Moor in 1332. It seems the French have been in English articles again lol. Twobells (talk) 12:34, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Changing English invention to English reinvention/re-emphasis?
Currently the article claims that the English first invented the concept of enfilading fire sometime in the fourteenth century A.D. This is dubious since deliberately positioning archers for enfilade fire is well attested in battles many centuries beforehand, including enfilade being explicitly called out in other articles on this encyclopedia (e.g., Battle_of_Taginae in the sixth century A.D., which is slightly earlier than the fourteenth). Enfilade is also well known in classical fortification as well as pitched battles (as noted in, e.g., Encyclopedia Britannica, on fortifications in classical antiquity, "Fortifications in antiquity were designed primarily to defeat attempts at escalade, though cover was provided for archers and javelin throwers along the ramparts and for enfilade fire from flanking towers. [...] Roman fortresses of the 2nd century CE, largely designed for logistic and administrative convenience, tended to have square or rectangular outlines, and were situated along major communication routes. By the late 3rd century, their walls had become thicker and had flanking towers strengthened to support mechanical artillery.").

Considering such sources I don't think a claim that the fourteenth-century English invented the entire concept of enfilade can be made. It seems likelier that they reinvented or perhaps re-emphasized a tactic that had existed long before. Comments on changing the article to reflect this?

(Also, I tried to check the BB link that this claim is cited to, but it seems to have fallen to link rot). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aithiopika (talk • contribs) 22:50, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Diagram should be changed
Kubancyk made a good point about keeping both terms in one article, and the intro is clear enough now. However, someone got over-efficient in trying to show both terms in one drawing. What are the blue guys doing? They are simply demonstrating the old misleading intro about taking cover. The clarified definition doesn't save the drawing: the blues are neither exposing their long axis nor firing from it.

Keep the article unified but split the drawing, please. Martindo (talk) 11:53, 13 April 2019 (UTC)


 * I agree that either the diagram or the definition is incorrect. According to the article, "in defilade" means that a unit is protected against enfilading fire. But the diagram shows a unit that is vulnerable to enfilade -- they are not protected against fire along their long axis. Only the short axis is covered.
 * Merrian-Webster defines "in defilade" as "to arrange (fortifications) so as to protect the lines from frontal or enfilading fire and the interior from fire from above or behind", which would indeed make this diagram show a unit in defilade, but would then make the definition used in the article incorrect. Etherealflux (talk) 23:51, 5 March 2021 (UTC)