Maneuver warfare, or manoeuvre warfare, is the term used by military theorists for a concept of warfare that advocates attempting to defeat the enemy by incapacitating their decision-making through shock and disruption.

 

Maneuver warfare advocates that strategic movement can bring about the defeat of an opposing force more efficiently than by simply contacting and destroying enemy forces until they can no longer fight. Instead, in maneuver warfare, the destruction of certain enemy targets (command and control centers, logistical bases, fire support assets, etc.) is combined with isolation of enemy forces and the exploitation by movement of enemy weaknesses.

 

For the majority of history armies were limited in their speed to that of the marching soldier, about equal for everyone involved. This meant that it was possible for opposing armies to simply march around each other as long as they wished, with supply conditions often deciding where and when the battle would finally be fought. In prehistoric times this began to change with the domestication of the horse, the invention of chariots and the increasing military use of the cavalry. The cavalry had two major uses: one, to attack and use its momentum to break infantry formations; and two, using the advantage of speed to cut communications and isolate formations for later defeat in detail. Perhaps the last and most famous example of this ended with the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, prior to which Henry V of England avoided combat while marching to Calais to resupply, allowing him to pick the battlefield.

 

One of most famous early maneuver tactics was the double envelopment, used by Hannibal against the Romans at the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC, and by Khalid ibn al-Walid against the Persian Empire at the Battle of Walaja in 633 AD. - credit to Wikipedia