Night Combat offers exceptional opportunities for success because of the possibility of achieving surprise and capitalizing on adverse psychological effects on the enemy during darkness basically the fundamentals involved in night attacks are the same as in tonight attacks however in a night attack the problem of control and coordination is much greater dispersion is less and movement is considerably slower you will now see an example of a tank company team conducting a night attack this is the general situation the first Brigade 25th Armored Division has been exploring north with the mission of seizing objective red task force 2 / 11 has been leading the advance at dusk Team Alpha the task force advance guard is stopped by accurate anti-tank small arms and artillery fires from Hills 501 and 420 south of objective read the commander of task force 2 / 11 Lieutenant Colonel Hart has decided to eliminate the enemy positions because he is unable to bypass he is now issuing his attack order since the enemy's major security forces have been driven in by Team Alpha he feels that surprise can be gained by starting his attack that night without illumination and illuminating when detected by the enemy he plans to employ teams Charlie and Bravo to conduct the attack from a new direction when team charlie has seized Hill 501 designated objective green and team Bravo has seized Hill 420 designated objective yellow team alpha will lead out in a continuation of the advance to objective Red Team Charlie commanded by captain horton consists of three tank platoons and one mechanized rifle platoon team Bravo the mechanized rifle company team is under the command of captain O'Hare team alpha is commanded by captain Krebs at the conclusion of the task force commanders order the team commanders and the representatives of the support elements will formulate their plans for the operation our attention in this film will be focused on Captain Horton and team charlie as they prepare for the coming attack captain Horton is now back at his own command post prior to returning he issued a warning order to his unit now he briefs his subordinates on his tentative plan this is the plan team Charlie will move in column formation from its present location to the attack position then to the line of departure on these platoon routes the reason the line of departure is along this main road is because in night operations control is facilitated by use of readily identifiable terrain features such as highways ridge lines and streamlines wood lines and so forth captain Horton will move his platoons across the line of departure in platoon columns phase line white assigned by the task force commander will be utilized to assist the team commander in controlling the movement of his unit when Team Charlie reaches a probable line of deployment established by the task force commander it will take up attack formations and assault the objective however if it
