Night battle

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A night battle is a military battle waged under cover of darkness.

The night battle offers the attacker the advantage of the largely unnoticed approach and the associated surprising occurrence, on the other hand the great difficulties of bringing the troops up in the dark and focusing on the correct point of attack.

In the older warfare, the cavalry and the artillery were practically completely out of action during night battles, so that the fight was fought by the infantry alone , mostly with bare weapons . Since the leadership could only be active to a limited extent in the night battle, it was mostly limited to the Little War . In the night battle it is still important to bring the troops in a closed manner, avoid deployments and be silent in order to take advantage of the surprise. With the development of battlefield lighting and night vision devices , the possibilities for night battles were expanded, but also the possibility of reducing the element of surprise.

Sea battles at night were almost impossible until the development of flares and searchlights. At the present time, due to the possibilities of electronic reconnaissance and radar- based fire control, night battles at sea hardly differ from battles during the day.

Famous historical night battles were:

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