Combined arms
Encyclopedia
Combined arms is an approach to war
fare which seeks to integrate different branches of a military
to achieve mutually complementary effects (for example, using infantry and armor in an urban environment, where one supports the other, or both support each other). Combined arms doctrine contrasts with segregated arms where each military unit is composed of only one type of soldier or weapon system. Segregated arms is the traditional method of unit/force organisation, employed to provide maximum unit cohesion
and concentration of force in a given weapon or unit type.
Though the lower-echelon units of a combined arms team may be of homogeneous types, a balanced mixture of such units are combined into an effective higher-echelon unit, whether formally in a table of organization or informally in an ad hoc solution to a battlefield problem. For example an armored division — the modern paragon of combined arms doctrine — consists of a mixture of infantry
, tank
, artillery
, reconnaissance
, and perhaps even helicopter
units, all coordinated and directed by a unified command structure.
Also, most modern military units can, if the situation requires it, call on yet more branches of the military, such as fighter or bomber aircraft
or naval forces
, to support their operations. The mixing of arms is sometimes pushed down below the level where homogeneity ordinarily prevails, for example by temporarily attaching a tank company to an infantry battalion.
to protect their spearmen during the approach to contact. Especially in the case of the Greek hoplites however, the focus of military thinking lay almost exclusively on the heavy infantry. In more elaborate situations armies of various nationalities fielded different combinations of light, medium, or heavy infantry, cavalry, chariotry, camelry, elephantry, and artillery (mechanical weapons); the ancient Persian army is an excellent example of this. Combined arms in this context was how to best use the cooperating units, variously armed with side-arms, spears, or missile weapons in order to coordinate an attack in time and space that would best disrupt and then destroy the enemy.
Philip II of Macedon
greatly improved upon the limited combined arms tactics of the Greek city-states and combined the newly created Macedonian Phalanx with heavy cavalry and other forces. The Phalanx would hold the opposing line in place, until the heavy cavalry could smash and break the enemy line by achieving local superiority.
The pre-Marian Roman Legion
was a combined arms force and consisted of five classes of troops. Lightly equipped velites
acted as skirmishers armed with light javelins. The hastati
and principes
formed the main attacking strength of the legion with sword and pilum, whilst the triarii
formed the defensive backbone of the legion fighting as a phalanx with long spears and large shields. The fifth class were the equites, the cavalry, used for scouting, pursuit and to guard the flanks.
After the Marian reforms
the Legion was notionally a unit of heavy infantrymen armed with just sword
and pilum
, and fielded with a small attached auxiliary skirmishers and missile troops, and incorporated a small cavalry unit.
The legion was sometimes also incorporated into a higher-echelon combined arms unit, e.g. in one period it was customary for a general to command two legions plus two similarly sized units of auxiliaries, lighter units useful as screens or for combat in rough terrain.
The army of the Han Dynasty is also an example, fielding melee infantry, crossbowmen, and cavalry (ranging from horse archers to heavy lancers).
Civilizations such as the Carthaginians and Sassanids also were known to have fielded a combination of infantry supported by powerful cavalry.
The English victories of Crecy
, Poitiers
and Agincourt
were examples of a simple form of combined arms, with a combination of dismounted knights forming a foundation for formations of English longbowmen
. The lightly protected longbowmen could down their French opponents at a distance, whilst the armoured men-at-arms could deal with any Frenchmen who made it to the English lines. This is the crux of combined arms to allow a combination of forces to achieve what would be impossible for its constituent elements to do alone.
During the late Middle Ages in Western Europe, fighting men were principally organized on the basis of a combined arms team, or a Lance
. The Lance consisted of a landholder and the men in his direct service: the men he rode to war with. The classic example of a Lance, as in the royal French and their opposing Burgundian forces, featured one noble heavy cavalryman, commonly known as a Knight
, supported by at least two Sergeants (professional soldiers, as opposed to gentry, who carried similar arms as knights, only lighter and cheaper), two mounted archers, and between two and six valet
s or squire
s, non-combatant support troops in the service of the knight.
As the vast majority of Medieval European warfare consisted of performing raids and long-range patrols, the lance was an important method of providing shock effect, ranged firepower, and logistical support for a knightly retinue out for plunder. For the rare occurrence of a set-piece battle, the most senior of the gentry would break up the lances, organizing the men into the more familiar en bloc formation of individual arms: sergeants dismounting to form the main battle line with archers and crossbowmen in support.
The knights would remain mounted and act as scouts, flank defense, and in rare instances, the main frontal assault force. The Sergeants, also known as Men-At-Arms, were principally professional soldiers of common birth, although this was not always the case. As the number of truly professional soldiers was very low, the Lances were often supplemented by large numbers of drafted peasants, local Militia
and mercenaries
.
The shortcomings of early firearm
s forced the Spanish Army to adopt the combined arms tercio
. The slow firing arquebus
ers being protected by pikemen and the cumbersome pikemen in turn protected by agile sword and buckler men. The success of the tercio inspired similar formations and tactics being adopted by the armies of other nations.
For example the English New Model Army
consisted of intermixed musketeers and pikemen forming a base of manoeuvre for cavalry
.
The massed tercio declined with improvements in artillery, for smaller more flexible units. As muskets improved, the ratio of pikes to muskets declined until with the invention of the bayonet
, their number was reduced to a handful of shortened partisans
which were retained only as badges of rank.
eers, light infantry
, dragoon
s and artillery
in a brigade
sized force. These legions often combined professional military personnel with militia
. Perhaps the most notable example is the use of light cavalry
, light infantry
and light horse artillery
in advance detachments by France's La Grande Armée
during the Napoleonic Wars
. This was not a new idea, having been used by the Imperial Russian Army
's use of cossacks.
The use of light mobile troops in bringing about decisive action next saw application during the American Civil War
where both sides combined the speed of cavalry and the firepower of the infantry to use mounted infantry
in conducting deep raids into the enemy rear, sabotaging the logistics (often railway lines) to affect the supply of frontline troops.
The need for manoeuvre was emphasized by the American Civil War, and was used very effectively by the Prussian General Staff to combine the strategic use of railways with the new firepower of quick firing ordinance and small arms to defeat France in 1871.
. Generals on both sides applied conventional military thinking to the new weapons and situations that they faced. In these early stages, tactics typically comprised heavy artillery barrages followed by massed frontal assaults against well entrenched enemies. These tactics were largely unsuccessful and resulted in large loss of life.
As the war progressed new combined arms tactics were developed, often described then as the "all arms battle". These included direct close artillery
fire support
for attacking soldiers (the creeping barrage), air support and mutual support of tank
s and infantry. One of the first instances of combined arms was the Battle of Cambrai, in which the British used tanks, artillery, infantry, small arms and air power to break through enemy lines. Previously such a battle would have lasted months with many hundreds of thousands of casualties. Co-ordination and pre-planning were the key elements, and the use of combined arms tactics in the Hundred Days Offensive
in 1918 allowed the Allied forces to exploit breakthroughs in the enemy trenches, forcing the surrender of the Central Powers
.
After the First World War there was a significant degree of experimentation with the new technologies, including in the UK, France and the Soviet Union. By the late 1930s it was the Soviet military theoreticians who had developed and implemented a fully integrated combined arms doctrine
with some cooperation by the German Reich's Wehrmacht
. In fact the implementation was so widespread that the Red Army
's armies were known as Combined Arms (Общевойсковая) armies to distinguish them from the Tank Army. Some 95 of these were formed during WWII.
The Soviet doctrine continued in development after the end of WWII, and in attempting to further integrate the Arms and Services in combat had by early 1960s developed the first Infantry Fighting Vehicle in the shape of the BMP-1
.
The Vietnam War
had a profound influence on the development of the US Army's combined arms doctrine. Due to the very difficult terrain that prevented access to the enemy held areas of operation
, troops were often deployed by air assault
. For this reason, US troops in Vietnam saw six times more combat than in preceding wars, due to less time spent on logistic delays. The result; an infantry unit increased in effectiveness by a factor of four for its size, when supported with helicopter-delivered ammunition, food and fuel. In time the US Army in Vietnam also learned to combine helicopter operations and airmobile infantry with the armoured and artillery
units operating from fire support base
s as well as the US brown-water navy
and USAF Close Air Support
units supporting them.
In the Soviet-Afghanistan war, helicopters were treated much like flying light tanks. They were almost always the first assault element to make contact in a battle, and often the most effective. Titanium
and composite armor made them less vulnerable to fire from small arms
. Although the Soviet Army proved effective in its operations as independent unit in combined arms operations, the social nature of the conflict, the terrain
and the inadequate logistics
crippled overall effort by the 40th Army
command, eventually forcing a withdrawal
of Soviet troops from Afghanistan
.
a mix of strikes by fixed-wing aircraft including carpet bombing
and precision bombing was used in combination with large numbers of strikes by attack helicopters. During the ground assault phase tanks and other AFV's supported by attack aircraft swept over remaining forces. The front moving line moved forward at upwards of 40–50 km/h at the upper limit of the Army's tracked vehicles.
In 2000, the US Army began developing a new set of doctrines intended to use information superiority to wage warfare. Six pieces of equipment were crucial for this: AWACS, an air-borne look-down radar JSTARS, GPS, the lowly SINCGARS
VHF digital radio, and ruggedized PC
s. The mix is supplemented by satellite photos and passive reception of enemy radio emission, forward observers with digital target designation, specialized scouting aircraft, anti-artillery radars and gun-laying software for artillery. Everything feeds the network.
Based on this doctrine, many U.S. ground vehicles moved across the landscape alone. If they encountered an enemy troop or vehicle concentration, they would assume a defensive posture, lay down as much covering fire as they could, designate the targets for requested air and artillery assets. Within a few minutes, on station aircraft would direct their missions to cover the ground vehicle. Within a half hour heavy attack forces would concentrate to relieve the isolated vehicle. In an hour and a half the relieved vehicle would be resupplied.
War
War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...
fare which seeks to integrate different branches of a military
Military
A military is an organization authorized by its greater society to use lethal force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or perceived threats. The military may have additional functions of use to its greater society, such as advancing a political agenda e.g...
to achieve mutually complementary effects (for example, using infantry and armor in an urban environment, where one supports the other, or both support each other). Combined arms doctrine contrasts with segregated arms where each military unit is composed of only one type of soldier or weapon system. Segregated arms is the traditional method of unit/force organisation, employed to provide maximum unit cohesion
Unit cohesion
Unit cohesion is a military concept, defined by one former United States Chief of staff in the early 1980s as "the bonding together of soldiers in such a way as to sustain their will and commitment to each other, the unit, and mission accomplishment, despite combat or mission stress"...
and concentration of force in a given weapon or unit type.
Though the lower-echelon units of a combined arms team may be of homogeneous types, a balanced mixture of such units are combined into an effective higher-echelon unit, whether formally in a table of organization or informally in an ad hoc solution to a battlefield problem. For example an armored division — the modern paragon of combined arms doctrine — consists of a mixture of infantry
Infantry
Infantrymen are soldiers who are specifically trained for the role of fighting on foot to engage the enemy face to face and have historically borne the brunt of the casualties of combat in wars. As the oldest branch of combat arms, they are the backbone of armies...
, tank
Tank
A tank is a tracked, armoured fighting vehicle designed for front-line combat which combines operational mobility, tactical offensive, and defensive capabilities...
, artillery
Artillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
, reconnaissance
Reconnaissance
Reconnaissance is the military term for exploring beyond the area occupied by friendly forces to gain information about enemy forces or features of the environment....
, and perhaps even helicopter
Helicopter
A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by one or more engine-driven rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forwards, backwards, and laterally...
units, all coordinated and directed by a unified command structure.
Also, most modern military units can, if the situation requires it, call on yet more branches of the military, such as fighter or bomber aircraft
Military aircraft
A military aircraft is any fixed-wing or rotary-wing aircraft that is operated by a legal or insurrectionary armed service of any type. Military aircraft can be either combat or non-combat:...
or naval forces
Navy
A navy is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake- or ocean-borne combat operations and related functions...
, to support their operations. The mixing of arms is sometimes pushed down below the level where homogeneity ordinarily prevails, for example by temporarily attaching a tank company to an infantry battalion.
Ancient warfare
Combined arms operations dates back to antiquity, where armies would usually field a screen of skirmishersLight infantry
Traditionally light infantry were soldiers whose job was to provide a skirmishing screen ahead of the main body of infantry, harassing and delaying the enemy advance. Light infantry was distinct from medium, heavy or line infantry. Heavy infantry were dedicated primarily to fighting in tight...
to protect their spearmen during the approach to contact. Especially in the case of the Greek hoplites however, the focus of military thinking lay almost exclusively on the heavy infantry. In more elaborate situations armies of various nationalities fielded different combinations of light, medium, or heavy infantry, cavalry, chariotry, camelry, elephantry, and artillery (mechanical weapons); the ancient Persian army is an excellent example of this. Combined arms in this context was how to best use the cooperating units, variously armed with side-arms, spears, or missile weapons in order to coordinate an attack in time and space that would best disrupt and then destroy the enemy.
Philip II of Macedon
Philip II of Macedon
Philip II of Macedon "friend" + ἵππος "horse" — transliterated ; 382 – 336 BC), was a king of Macedon from 359 BC until his assassination in 336 BC. He was the father of Alexander the Great and Philip III.-Biography:...
greatly improved upon the limited combined arms tactics of the Greek city-states and combined the newly created Macedonian Phalanx with heavy cavalry and other forces. The Phalanx would hold the opposing line in place, until the heavy cavalry could smash and break the enemy line by achieving local superiority.
The pre-Marian Roman Legion
Roman legion
A Roman legion normally indicates the basic ancient Roman army unit recruited specifically from Roman citizens. The organization of legions varied greatly over time but they were typically composed of perhaps 5,000 soldiers, divided into maniples and later into "cohorts"...
was a combined arms force and consisted of five classes of troops. Lightly equipped velites
Velites
Velites were a class of infantry in the Polybian legions of the early Roman republic. Velites were light infantry and skirmishers who were armed with a number of light javelins, or hastae velitares, to fling at the enemy, and also carried short thrusting swords, or gladii for use in melee...
acted as skirmishers armed with light javelins. The hastati
Hastati
Hastatii were a class of infantry in the armies of the early Roman Republic who originally fought as spearmen, and later as swordsmen. They were originally some of the poorest men in the legion, and could afford only modest equipment — light armour and a large shield, in their service as the...
and principes
Principes
Principes were spearmen, and later swordsmen, in the armies of the early Roman Republic. They were men in the prime of their lives who were fairly wealthy, and could afford decent equipment. They were the heavier infantry of the legion who carried large shields and wore good quality armour. Their...
formed the main attacking strength of the legion with sword and pilum, whilst the triarii
Triarii
Triarii were one of the elements of the early Roman military Manipular legions of the early Roman Republic . They were the oldest and among the wealthiest men in the army, and could afford good quality equipment. They wore heavy metal armour and carried large shields, their usual position being...
formed the defensive backbone of the legion fighting as a phalanx with long spears and large shields. The fifth class were the equites, the cavalry, used for scouting, pursuit and to guard the flanks.
After the Marian reforms
Marian reforms
The Marian reforms of 107 BC were a group of military reforms initiated by Gaius Marius, a statesman and general of the Roman republic.- Roman army before the Marian reforms :...
the Legion was notionally a unit of heavy infantrymen armed with just sword
Gladius
Gladius was the Latin word for sword, and is used to represent the primary sword of Ancient Roman soldiers. Early ancient Roman swords were similar to those used by the Greeks. From the 3rd century BC, the Romans adopted swords similar to those used by the Celtiberians and others during the early...
and pilum
Pilum
The pilum was a javelin commonly used by the Roman army in ancient times. It was generally about two metres long overall, consisting of an iron shank about 7 mm in diameter and 60 cm long with pyramidal head...
, and fielded with a small attached auxiliary skirmishers and missile troops, and incorporated a small cavalry unit.
The legion was sometimes also incorporated into a higher-echelon combined arms unit, e.g. in one period it was customary for a general to command two legions plus two similarly sized units of auxiliaries, lighter units useful as screens or for combat in rough terrain.
The army of the Han Dynasty is also an example, fielding melee infantry, crossbowmen, and cavalry (ranging from horse archers to heavy lancers).
Civilizations such as the Carthaginians and Sassanids also were known to have fielded a combination of infantry supported by powerful cavalry.
Middle Ages
In the 6th century, the Byzantine emperor Maurice I wrote the Strategikon, a manual of war that codified a number of military reforms of the time. These reforms would remain relatively unchanged for 500 years. Today, the Strategikon is considered the first sophisticated formulation of combined arms theory.The English victories of Crecy
Battle of Crécy
The Battle of Crécy took place on 26 August 1346 near Crécy in northern France, and was one of the most important battles of the Hundred Years' War...
, Poitiers
Battle of Poitiers (1356)
The Battle of Poitiers was fought between the Kingdoms of England and France on 19 September 1356 near Poitiers, resulting in the second of the three great English victories of the Hundred Years' War: Crécy, Poitiers, and Agincourt....
and Agincourt
Battle of Agincourt
The Battle of Agincourt was a major English victory against a numerically superior French army in the Hundred Years' War. The battle occurred on Friday, 25 October 1415 , near modern-day Azincourt, in northern France...
were examples of a simple form of combined arms, with a combination of dismounted knights forming a foundation for formations of English longbowmen
English longbow
The English longbow, also called the Welsh longbow, is a powerful type of medieval longbow about 6 ft long used by the English and Welsh for hunting and as a weapon in medieval warfare...
. The lightly protected longbowmen could down their French opponents at a distance, whilst the armoured men-at-arms could deal with any Frenchmen who made it to the English lines. This is the crux of combined arms to allow a combination of forces to achieve what would be impossible for its constituent elements to do alone.
During the late Middle Ages in Western Europe, fighting men were principally organized on the basis of a combined arms team, or a Lance
Lances fournies
The Lances fournies was a medieval army squad that would have surrounded a knight in battle, consisting of a small team built of squires, men-at-arms , archers, attendants and the knight himself...
. The Lance consisted of a landholder and the men in his direct service: the men he rode to war with. The classic example of a Lance, as in the royal French and their opposing Burgundian forces, featured one noble heavy cavalryman, commonly known as a Knight
Knight
A knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....
, supported by at least two Sergeants (professional soldiers, as opposed to gentry, who carried similar arms as knights, only lighter and cheaper), two mounted archers, and between two and six valet
Valet
Valet and varlet are terms for male servants who serve as personal attendants to their employer.- Word origins :In the Middle Ages, the valet de chambre to a ruler was a prestigious appointment for young men...
s or squire
Squire
The English word squire is a shortened version of the word Esquire, from the Old French , itself derived from the Late Latin , in medieval or Old English a scutifer. The Classical Latin equivalent was , "arms bearer"...
s, non-combatant support troops in the service of the knight.
As the vast majority of Medieval European warfare consisted of performing raids and long-range patrols, the lance was an important method of providing shock effect, ranged firepower, and logistical support for a knightly retinue out for plunder. For the rare occurrence of a set-piece battle, the most senior of the gentry would break up the lances, organizing the men into the more familiar en bloc formation of individual arms: sergeants dismounting to form the main battle line with archers and crossbowmen in support.
The knights would remain mounted and act as scouts, flank defense, and in rare instances, the main frontal assault force. The Sergeants, also known as Men-At-Arms, were principally professional soldiers of common birth, although this was not always the case. As the number of truly professional soldiers was very low, the Lances were often supplemented by large numbers of drafted peasants, local Militia
Militia
The term militia is commonly used today to refer to a military force composed of ordinary citizens to provide defense, emergency law enforcement, or paramilitary service, in times of emergency without being paid a regular salary or committed to a fixed term of service. It is a polyseme with...
and mercenaries
Mercenary
A mercenary, is a person who takes part in an armed conflict based on the promise of material compensation rather than having a direct interest in, or a legal obligation to, the conflict itself. A non-conscript professional member of a regular army is not considered to be a mercenary although he...
.
The shortcomings of early firearm
Firearm
A firearm is a weapon that launches one, or many, projectile at high velocity through confined burning of a propellant. This subsonic burning process is technically known as deflagration, as opposed to supersonic combustion known as a detonation. In older firearms, the propellant was typically...
s forced the Spanish Army to adopt the combined arms tercio
Tercio
The tercio was a Renaissance era military formation made up of a mixed infantry formation of about 3,000 pikemen, swordsmen and arquebusiers or musketeers in a mutually supportive formation. It was also sometimes referred to as the Spanish Square...
. The slow firing arquebus
Arquebus
The arquebus , or "hook tube", is an early muzzle-loaded firearm used in the 15th to 17th centuries. The word was originally modeled on the German hakenbüchse; this produced haquebute...
ers being protected by pikemen and the cumbersome pikemen in turn protected by agile sword and buckler men. The success of the tercio inspired similar formations and tactics being adopted by the armies of other nations.
For example the English New Model Army
New Model Army
The New Model Army of England was formed in 1645 by the Parliamentarians in the English Civil War, and was disbanded in 1660 after the Restoration...
consisted of intermixed musketeers and pikemen forming a base of manoeuvre for cavalry
Cavalry
Cavalry or horsemen were soldiers or warriors who fought mounted on horseback. Cavalry were historically the third oldest and the most mobile of the combat arms...
.
The massed tercio declined with improvements in artillery, for smaller more flexible units. As muskets improved, the ratio of pikes to muskets declined until with the invention of the bayonet
Bayonet
A bayonet is a knife, dagger, sword, or spike-shaped weapon designed to fit in, on, over or underneath the muzzle of a rifle, musket or similar weapon, effectively turning the gun into a spear...
, their number was reduced to a handful of shortened partisans
Partisan (weapon)
A partisan is a type of polearm that was used in Europe during the middle ages. It consisted of a spearhead mounted on a long shaft with protrusions on the sides which aided the user in parrying sword thrusts...
which were retained only as badges of rank.
17th to 19th Centuries
In the eighteenth century, the concept of the legion was revived. Legions now consisted of musketMusket
A musket is a muzzle-loaded, smooth bore long gun, fired from the shoulder. Muskets were designed for use by infantry. A soldier armed with a musket had the designation musketman or musketeer....
eers, light infantry
Light infantry
Traditionally light infantry were soldiers whose job was to provide a skirmishing screen ahead of the main body of infantry, harassing and delaying the enemy advance. Light infantry was distinct from medium, heavy or line infantry. Heavy infantry were dedicated primarily to fighting in tight...
, dragoon
Dragoon
The word dragoon originally meant mounted infantry, who were trained in horse riding as well as infantry fighting skills. However, usage altered over time and during the 18th century, dragoons evolved into conventional light cavalry units and personnel...
s and artillery
Artillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
in a brigade
Brigade
A brigade is a major tactical military formation that is typically composed of two to five battalions, plus supporting elements depending on the era and nationality of a given army and could be perceived as an enlarged/reinforced regiment...
sized force. These legions often combined professional military personnel with militia
Militia
The term militia is commonly used today to refer to a military force composed of ordinary citizens to provide defense, emergency law enforcement, or paramilitary service, in times of emergency without being paid a regular salary or committed to a fixed term of service. It is a polyseme with...
. Perhaps the most notable example is the use of light cavalry
Light cavalry
Light cavalry refers to lightly armed and lightly armored troops mounted on horses, as opposed to heavy cavalry, where the riders are heavily armored...
, light infantry
Light infantry
Traditionally light infantry were soldiers whose job was to provide a skirmishing screen ahead of the main body of infantry, harassing and delaying the enemy advance. Light infantry was distinct from medium, heavy or line infantry. Heavy infantry were dedicated primarily to fighting in tight...
and light horse artillery
Horse artillery
Horse artillery was a type of light, fast-moving and fast-firing artillery which provided highly mobile fire support to European and American armies from the 17th to the early 20th century...
in advance detachments by France's La Grande Armée
La Grande Armée
The Grande Armée first entered the annals of history when, in 1805, Napoleon I renamed the army that he had assembled on the French coast of the English Channel for the proposed invasion of Britain...
during the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
. This was not a new idea, having been used by the Imperial Russian Army
Imperial Russian Army
The Imperial Russian Army was the land armed force of the Russian Empire, active from around 1721 to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the early 1850s, the Russian army consisted of around 938,731 regular soldiers and 245,850 irregulars . Until the time of military reform of Dmitry Milyutin in...
's use of cossacks.
The use of light mobile troops in bringing about decisive action next saw application during the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
where both sides combined the speed of cavalry and the firepower of the infantry to use mounted infantry
Mounted infantry
Mounted infantry were soldiers who rode horses instead of marching, but actually fought on foot . The original dragoons were essentially mounted infantry...
in conducting deep raids into the enemy rear, sabotaging the logistics (often railway lines) to affect the supply of frontline troops.
The need for manoeuvre was emphasized by the American Civil War, and was used very effectively by the Prussian General Staff to combine the strategic use of railways with the new firepower of quick firing ordinance and small arms to defeat France in 1871.
20th Century developments
The development of modern combined arms tactics began in the First World War. Early in the war, fighting descended into stagnant trench warfareTrench warfare
Trench warfare is a form of occupied fighting lines, consisting largely of trenches, in which troops are largely immune to the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery...
. Generals on both sides applied conventional military thinking to the new weapons and situations that they faced. In these early stages, tactics typically comprised heavy artillery barrages followed by massed frontal assaults against well entrenched enemies. These tactics were largely unsuccessful and resulted in large loss of life.
As the war progressed new combined arms tactics were developed, often described then as the "all arms battle". These included direct close artillery
Artillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
fire support
Fire support
Fire support is long-range firepower provided to a front-line military unit. Typically, fire support is provided by artillery or close air support , and is used to shape the battlefield or, more optimistically, define the battle...
for attacking soldiers (the creeping barrage), air support and mutual support of tank
Tank
A tank is a tracked, armoured fighting vehicle designed for front-line combat which combines operational mobility, tactical offensive, and defensive capabilities...
s and infantry. One of the first instances of combined arms was the Battle of Cambrai, in which the British used tanks, artillery, infantry, small arms and air power to break through enemy lines. Previously such a battle would have lasted months with many hundreds of thousands of casualties. Co-ordination and pre-planning were the key elements, and the use of combined arms tactics in the Hundred Days Offensive
Hundred Days Offensive
The Hundred Days Offensive was the final period of the First World War, during which the Allies launched a series of offensives against the Central Powers on the Western Front from 8 August to 11 November 1918, beginning with the Battle of Amiens. The offensive forced the German armies to retreat...
in 1918 allowed the Allied forces to exploit breakthroughs in the enemy trenches, forcing the surrender of the Central Powers
Central Powers
The Central Powers were one of the two warring factions in World War I , composed of the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria...
.
After the First World War there was a significant degree of experimentation with the new technologies, including in the UK, France and the Soviet Union. By the late 1930s it was the Soviet military theoreticians who had developed and implemented a fully integrated combined arms doctrine
Doctrine
Doctrine is a codification of beliefs or a body of teachings or instructions, taught principles or positions, as the body of teachings in a branch of knowledge or belief system...
with some cooperation by the German Reich's Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
. In fact the implementation was so widespread that the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
's armies were known as Combined Arms (Общевойсковая) armies to distinguish them from the Tank Army. Some 95 of these were formed during WWII.
The Soviet doctrine continued in development after the end of WWII, and in attempting to further integrate the Arms and Services in combat had by early 1960s developed the first Infantry Fighting Vehicle in the shape of the BMP-1
BMP-1
The BMP-1 is a Soviet amphibious tracked infantry fighting vehicle. BMP stands for Boyevaya Mashina Pekhoty 1 , meaning "infantry fighting vehicle". The BMP-1 was the world's first mass-produced infantry fighting vehicle...
.
The Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
had a profound influence on the development of the US Army's combined arms doctrine. Due to the very difficult terrain that prevented access to the enemy held areas of operation
Area of operation
In U.S. military parlance, an area of operations is an operational area defined by the force commander for land, air, and naval forces conduct of combat and non-combat activities...
, troops were often deployed by air assault
Air assault
Air assault is the movement of ground-based military forces by vertical take-off and landing aircraft—such as the helicopter—to seize and hold key terrain which has not been fully secured, and to directly engage enemy forces...
. For this reason, US troops in Vietnam saw six times more combat than in preceding wars, due to less time spent on logistic delays. The result; an infantry unit increased in effectiveness by a factor of four for its size, when supported with helicopter-delivered ammunition, food and fuel. In time the US Army in Vietnam also learned to combine helicopter operations and airmobile infantry with the armoured and artillery
Artillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
units operating from fire support base
Fire support base
A fire support base is a military encampment designed to provide indirect fire artillery fire support to infantry operating in areas beyond the normal range of direct fire support from their own base camps....
s as well as the US brown-water navy
Brown-water navy
Brown-water navy is a term that originated in the United States Navy, referring to the small gunboats and patrol boats used in rivers, along with some of the larger ships that supported them as "mother ships," from which they operated...
and USAF Close Air Support
Close air support
In military tactics, close air support is defined as air action by fixed or rotary winged aircraft against hostile targets that are close to friendly forces, and which requires detailed integration of each air mission with fire and movement of these forces.The determining factor for CAS is...
units supporting them.
In the Soviet-Afghanistan war, helicopters were treated much like flying light tanks. They were almost always the first assault element to make contact in a battle, and often the most effective. Titanium
Titanium
Titanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ti and atomic number 22. It has a low density and is a strong, lustrous, corrosion-resistant transition metal with a silver color....
and composite armor made them less vulnerable to fire from small arms
Small arms
Small arms is a term of art used by armed forces to denote infantry weapons an individual soldier may carry. The description is usually limited to revolvers, pistols, submachine guns, carbines, assault rifles, battle rifles, multiple barrel firearms, sniper rifles, squad automatic weapons, light...
. Although the Soviet Army proved effective in its operations as independent unit in combined arms operations, the social nature of the conflict, the terrain
Terrain
Terrain, or land relief, is the vertical and horizontal dimension of land surface. When relief is described underwater, the term bathymetry is used...
and the inadequate logistics
Military logistics
Military logistics is the discipline of planning and carrying out the movement and maintenance of military forces. In its most comprehensive sense, it is those aspects or military operations that deal with:...
crippled overall effort by the 40th Army
40th Army (Soviet Union)
The 40th Army of the Soviet Union's Red Army was an army-level command active from 1941 to 1945 and then again from 1979 to circa 1990.It was first formed, after Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, had commenced, from elements of the 26th and 37th Armies under the command...
command, eventually forcing a withdrawal
Withdrawal
Withdrawal can refer to any sort of separation, but is most commonly used to describe the group of symptoms that occurs upon the abrupt discontinuation/separation or a decrease in dosage of the intake of medications, recreational drugs, and alcohol...
of Soviet troops from Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
.
American post-Cold War experience
In the 1991 Gulf WarGulf War
The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...
a mix of strikes by fixed-wing aircraft including carpet bombing
Carpet bombing
Carpet bombing is a large aerial bombing done in a progressive manner to inflict damage in every part of a selected area of land. The phrase invokes the image of explosions completely covering an area, in the same way that a carpet covers a floor. Carpet bombing is usually achieved by dropping many...
and precision bombing was used in combination with large numbers of strikes by attack helicopters. During the ground assault phase tanks and other AFV's supported by attack aircraft swept over remaining forces. The front moving line moved forward at upwards of 40–50 km/h at the upper limit of the Army's tracked vehicles.
In 2000, the US Army began developing a new set of doctrines intended to use information superiority to wage warfare. Six pieces of equipment were crucial for this: AWACS, an air-borne look-down radar JSTARS, GPS, the lowly SINCGARS
SINCGARS
SINCGARS is a Combat Net Radio currently used by U.S. and allied military forces. The radios, which handle voice and data communications, are designed to be reliable, secure and easily maintained...
VHF digital radio, and ruggedized PC
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
s. The mix is supplemented by satellite photos and passive reception of enemy radio emission, forward observers with digital target designation, specialized scouting aircraft, anti-artillery radars and gun-laying software for artillery. Everything feeds the network.
Based on this doctrine, many U.S. ground vehicles moved across the landscape alone. If they encountered an enemy troop or vehicle concentration, they would assume a defensive posture, lay down as much covering fire as they could, designate the targets for requested air and artillery assets. Within a few minutes, on station aircraft would direct their missions to cover the ground vehicle. Within a half hour heavy attack forces would concentrate to relieve the isolated vehicle. In an hour and a half the relieved vehicle would be resupplied.
See also
- Armoured warfareArmoured warfareArmoured warfare or tank warfare is the use of armoured fighting vehicles in modern warfare. It is a major component of modern methods of war....
- Battlegroup (army)Battlegroup (army)A battlegroup , or task force in modern military theory, is the basic building block of an army's fighting force. A battlegroup is formed around an infantry battalion or armoured regiment, which is usually commanded by a Lieutenant Colonel...
- BlitzkriegBlitzkriegFor other uses of the word, see: Blitzkrieg Blitzkrieg is an anglicized word describing all-motorised force concentration of tanks, infantry, artillery, combat engineers and air power, concentrating overwhelming force at high speed to break through enemy lines, and, once the lines are broken,...
- Close air supportClose air supportIn military tactics, close air support is defined as air action by fixed or rotary winged aircraft against hostile targets that are close to friendly forces, and which requires detailed integration of each air mission with fire and movement of these forces.The determining factor for CAS is...
- Organic (military)Organic (military)In military terminology, organic refers to a military unit that is a permanent part of a larger unit and provides some specialized capability to that parent unit...
- Marine Air-Ground Task ForceMarine Air-Ground Task ForceThe Marine Air-Ground Task Force is a term used by the United States Marine Corps to describe the principal organization for all missions across the range of military operations. MAGTFs are a balanced air-ground, combined arms task organization of Marine Corps forces under a single commander that...
- White Knights
- Network-centric warfareNetwork-centric warfareNetwork-centric warfare, also called network-centric operations, is a military doctrine or theory of war pioneered by the United States Department of Defense in the 1990's....