Leapfrogging (strategy)

This article is about the World War II strategy. For the tactical counterpart, see Bounding overwatch. For the biological migration movement of island hopping, see Oceanic dispersal. For other uses of "Island hopping", see Island hopping (disambiguation).

Leapfrogging was an amphibious military strategy employed by the Allies in the Pacific War against the Empire of Japan during World War II. The key concept was to bypass heavily fortified enemy islands instead of trying to capture every island in sequence en route to a final target. The reasoning was that those heavily fortified islands could simply be cut off from their supply chains (leading to their eventual capitulation) rather than needing to be overwhelmed by superior force, thus speeding up progress and reducing losses of troops and materiel. The strategy proved to be successful; although some Japanese garrisons survived longer than the Allies expected, the enemy troops were eventually completely isolated from their main supply chains and incapable of organizing an effective defense against Allied forces.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.