Raid (military)

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A raid is an attack into enemy territory for a specific purpose, with no intent to immediately gain or hold terrain, and where the attacking unit returns to friendly territory immediately after the attack. Generally, a raid is brief and performed by a small number of people. For example the unit might be composed of commandos or irregulars or people who organize themselves for this purpose.

A raid can be conducted for many reasons. Common purposes include: to demoralize, confuse, or exhaust an enemy; to ransack or pilliage a location; to obtain property or capture people; to destroy goods or other things with an economic value; to free POWs; to kill or capture specific people; to gather intelligence.

A raid can also refer to a socio-economic activity which is different than one which is part of a larger more organized conflict. For example, many early European, Native Americans and African cultures had a well defined system of raiding (Endemic warfare) which served a different purpose than guerrilla warfare.

The Royal Air Force first used "raid" in the Second World War as an air attack. It included those by one aircraft or many squadrons, against all manner of targets on the ground and the targets defending aircraft. "Raid" was different than "battle", which was used for land, sea, or amphibious conflict. An aircraft "raid" was always planned ahead of time. Aircraft patrols (against U-Boats) and defensive launches of carrier aircraft (against recently detected enemy ships) were not called raids.