What is breaking contact?
Breaking contact is the act of deliberately disengaging an active enemy and withdrawing from contact, instead of defeating the enemy.
We can break contact from the enemy for multiple reasons, including but not limited to:
- The engaged element is no longer combat effective (Through either casualties or lack of ammunition)
- The engaged element is not able to defeat the enemy (e.g. Has no AT capability strong enough to defeat the OPFOR vehicle attacking them)
- Engaging the enemy would expose the Task Force tactically (e.g. the leader wishes to ensure the engaged element is available to assist another element, rather than engaged in their own fight
It is not the case that if the instruction is given to break contact, that the lead element does not believe that the engaged element could have won the fight! We often break contact from fights we can win due to operational/tactical reasons.
