Flying column

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A flying column, in military organization, is an independent corps of troops usually composed of all arms, to which a particular task is assigned. It is almost always composed in the course of operations, out of the troops immediately available.

Mobility being its raison d'etre, a flying column is composed of picked men and horses accompanied with the barest minimum of baggage. The term is usually, though not necessarily, applied to forces under the strength of a brigade. The mobile columns employed by the British in the South African War of 1899-1902, were usually of the strength of two battalions of infantry, a battery of artillery, and a squadron of cavalry, almost exactly half that of a mixed brigade.

Flying columns are often used in guerrilla warfare, notably the mobile armed units of the Irish Republican Army during the Irish War of Independence 1919-1921.

[edit] References

• Jim Maher (1988). The Flying Column - West Kilkenny 1916-1921. Geography Publications. 
• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.