"Enfilade and Defilade - Are These US Terms?" Topic

"enfilade (n.)
1706, from French enfilade, from Old French enfiler (13c.) "to thread (a needle) on a string, pierce from end to end," from en- "put on" (see en- (1)) + fil "thread" (see file (v.))."
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"defilade (n.)
1828, from defile (n.) + -ade."
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Both were common terms used in British infantry training in the late 80s (when I went through Sandhurst). 'Enfilade fire from a defilade position' was considered to be the optimum way of attacking enemy moving in the open. That meant hitting them in the flank (ideally while they were moving in line down a track or road) from a dug-in defensive position where all your unit's firepower could be brought to bear.

I assume that the terms are originally French, but I would expect that they've been used by the British Army for some time. Not sure if they still are, as I've been a civvie for 20 years.

"Enfilade" is certainly long-established in British English. However, I can understand a tank man using "flank". The two terms do not mean quite the same thing. Obviously it is possible to attack infantry en fil, in a row, from the front, if they are daft enough to come at you in single file. As anti-tank shooting is against individual point targets, there is no value in enfilade per se, but there is value in hitting the weaker side armour, regardless of the formation the targets are in.

"Defilade", on the other hand, I think used to be more rarely used, only to refer to things in defiles. Our adoption of "hull defilade" to mean "hull-down" is I think part of our continuing adoption of American military English, and rather worse French. Similarly, until Op Granby I never heard a Brit abuse the French term from fortification, "berm", to mean an embankment.

All the best,

John.

Yes I would agree that enfilade and defilade were in use in the early 1980's, I'm pretty sure they were used at Platoon Commanders Divison of the School of Infantry. Never heard the term Berm though until at the Royal School of Signals after Gulf War II

As a sapper officer, we used the term 'berm' to describe a low embankment, often raised around the perimeter of a fuel or ammo dump, used to protect from enemy direct fire, or more likely to contain potential fuel spills or ammo incidents. The word 'bund' was also used.

Defilade is in the 1997 version of US Army FM 101-5-1, I could not find the 85 version online. It's interesting that enfilade is not, but enfilading fire is.

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If you go to the document and find the terms, you'll see that defilade is a US Joint Term as well as a NATO term.

Enfilading fire is apparently considered a US term (from the US FM 101-5-1 perspective).

I can verify that "Enfilade" is an American term, because it's what we in the Northwest call our local historical minatures convention:

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