Jump to content

Choke point

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Battle of Stirling Bridge had a choke point at a narrow wooden bridge near Stirling Castle
The Strait of Gibraltar is an important naval choke point, as entry to the Mediterranean Sea can be blocked there by a small number of vessels.

In military strategy, a choke point (or chokepoint), or sometimes bottleneck, is a geographical feature on land such as a valley, defile, isthmus or bridge, or maritime passage through a critical waterway such as a strait, which an armed force is forced to pass through in order to reach its objective, sometimes on a substantially narrowed front and therefore greatly decreasing its combat effectiveness by making it harder to bring superior numbers to bear.

A choke point can allow a numerically inferior defending force to use the terrain as a force multiplier to thwart or ambush a much larger opponent, as the attacker cannot advance any further without first securing passage through the choke point.

Historical examples

[edit]

Some historical examples of the tactical use of choke points are King Leonidas I's unsuccessful defense of the Pass of Thermopylae during an invasion led by Xerxes I of Persia; the Battle of Covadonga, in which the army of Pelagius of Asturias defeated the much larger forces of the Umayyad Caliphate; the Battle of Stamford Bridge, in which Harold Godwinson defeated Harald Hardrada; William Wallace's victory over the English at the Battle of Stirling Bridge (Wallace had around 2,300 men against the English army of about 9,000 to 12,000 men and the bridge collapsed during the battle); and the Battle of Agincourt in which Henry V of England decisively defeated the French using a small army (consisting mainly of lightly equipped longbowmen) when the much larger force of French heavy cavalry were forced to charge at the Englishmen through a narrow muddy gap in the Azincourt Woods.

The many archipelagos of the Caribbean offered several maritime choke points that attracted pirates and buccaneers during the height of their activities in the 17th and early 18th century.[citation needed] The Spanish treasure fleets leaving the Americas would have to pass through those waters to pick up the strong, prevailing westerly winds that would take them back to Spain across the North Atlantic.

Some choke points, with important locations in parentheses:

The Fulda Gap was seen as one of the potentially decisive bottleneck battlegrounds of the Cold War in Germany.

Royal Navy choke points

[edit]

From the 18th to the early 20th centuries, the sheer size of the United Kingdom's Royal Navy meant it had control over much of the world's oceans and seas. Choke points were of huge importance to the British Empire, which often used them to control trade in British colonies and, to a lesser extent, for defense. Choke points have also been a source of tension, notably during the Suez Crisis. The Royal Navy still deems its choke points as strategically vital. Indeed, the importance of choke points was first recognised by British Admiral John Fisher.[2]

A map of the English Channel, south of England, north of France
The English Channel, a choke point south of England and north of