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The basic idea of combined arms operations dates back to antiquity, where armies would usually field a screen of skirmishers to protect their spearmen during the approach to contact. In more elaborate situations the armies of various nationalities fielded different combinations of light, medium, or heavy infantry, cavalry, chariotry, camelry, elephantry, and artillery (mechanical weapons), with 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.
For example, the classical era Roman legion was notionally a unit of heavy infantrymen, but it was normally fielded with integral or attached skirmishers, and some legions even 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.
Operational level combined arms operations in modern warfare proceeds by securing logistic paths first, and then using these paths to deliver damage. The first stage is to control space. From space, one then controls the sea and air. From the sea and air, one can control the land.
In U.S. doctrines, control of space is secured by outspending other countries, and diplomatic efforts to control antisatellite and antiballistic weapons. It is possible that the U.S. military covertly opposes inexpensive civilian access to space because it could permit a less-wealthy opponent to gain military access to space.
The U.S. controls oceans using naval warfare, especially using carrier-based aircraft and nuclear attack submarines to interdict undesired foreign naval and ship traffic.
The first stage of a campaign is an extended intelligence-gathering phase, at least several weeks long. This attempts to identify command and control nexus, the enemy's assets and order of battle, significant enemy personnel, their habits, radio traffic, telephone systems, cable traffic, decryption, etc. The U.S. uses significant space and human intelligence assets in this phase. There are satellites designed for multispectral imaging, and radio collection. The U.S. also has high-resolution radar mounted in aircraft, to detect land warfare assets and aircraft. These are crucial for maintaining battlefield situational awareness.
Because of range limitations of chemically-powered aircraft, modern air power is local. When the U.S. desires air superiority, it follows a standard plan. In peace-time, airmen train very hard, with realistic air combat training. In war, the U.S. first acquires a local base, or concentrates aircraft carriers. Next, enemy anti-aircraft defenses are systematically attacked. Anti-air defense attacks use stealth aircraft and precision-guided bombs and cruise missiles to damage control centers, search radars and air-defense missile systems. Next, command and control centers are systematically, persistently attacked to hinder formation and coordination of enemy forces. Unlike earlier doctrines, major airports are not intentionally damaged, because they provide logistics beachheads. Aircraft are still attacked at outlying military airports, however.
During the air war, psychological warfare efforts begin to reduce civilian and paramilitary resistance. An essential component of this activity is to minimize civilian casualties, and give reassurances of continued property rights. It is essential that troops be disciplined to prevent looting and rape, in order for the psychological warfare operations to succeed.
The next phase of the war is to infiltrate target-location soldiers, and begin to use helicopters and ground attack aircraft to destroy the enemy's land-warfare assets, such as command and control nexi, tanks and troop concentrations. The attacking aircraft of this phase are slower, less-agile aircraft. They would be in more danger if enemy air-defense assets had not first been removed.
The next phase according to U.S. doctrines is to begin a sweep of enemy territory using tanks, supported by troops mounted in armored personnel carriers, and air power. The goal of these forces is to destroy any remaining troop concentrations and pacify areas.
Although the above is the "by the book" description of U.S. tactics, some changes occurred in other conflicts.
The helicopter has had profound influences on modern warfare.
In the Vietnam War, troops were deployed in large part by helicopters. For this reason, U.S. troops in Vietnam saw more than six times as much combat as in any preceding war, because so much less time was spent on logistic delays. The result was that the same size of infantry became at least four times as effective for its size, when supported with fuel, ammunition and helicopters.
In the Soviet war in Afghanistan, 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 invulnerable to fire from light arms.
In the 1991 Gulf War at times the line of battle moved at more than 50kph, and tank commanders were unable to keep up. Chinese authorities have said that the U.S. attacks in that war were primarily helicopter-borne, and the tanks were used merely to consolidate areas already reduced by air attacks, including especially close helicopter attack.
In 2000, the U.S. 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 SINCGARSSINCGARS stands for "Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System. It provides U. and allied military commanders with a reliable, secure, easily maintained Combat Net Radio (CNR) that handles voice and data. Vehicle-mount, backpack, airborne, and now h VHF digital radio, and ruggedized PCs. 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.
The coordination software is based in large part on software originally debugged as part of large-scale war-games with data distributed over the Internet. Basically, every item on the battlefield is identified by its location, direction and speed to every vehicle in the network. This position is then recalculated in real time in every local computer. Thus, every local computer knows the position of every vehicle in a theatre of battle. When a vehicle changes course, the new course is distributed. When the view on a local computer's screen is "pulled back" more vehicles are included in the calculation. Unfriendly vehicles are identified by the air-defense and look-down radars.
The "god's eye view" reduces the fog of warFog of war is the name given to the lack of knowledge that occurs during a war. Most importantly it refers to each side's uncertainty about the enemy's capabilities and plans, but it also includes the chaos that can occur in one's own forces, for instance. A typical example is that ammunition trucks can always find their battalion artillery and resupply it- not so easy when it shoots and scoots to avoid enemy artillery fire.
In the invasion of Iraq, U.S. forces used these assets in "swarm" tactics. For the first time, U.S. forces did not have to be organized in lines of advance to avoid friendly fire. Instead, every friendly vehicle was identified by GPS coordinates transmitted through the digital network. Any other military vehicle could be identified as hostile.
Therefore, many U.S. ground vehicles moved across the landscape alone. If they encountered an enemy troop or vehicle concentration, they would hunker down, lay down as much covering fire as they could, designate targets and call for help. Within a few minutes, loitering aircraft would concentrate fire to cover the ground vehicle. Within a half hour or so, heavy attack forces would concentrate to relieve the isolated vehicle. In an hour and a half, the relived vehicle would be resupplied.
While very frightening for the troops in the isolated vehicle, this technique moved the battle very fast, and rapidly located and destroyed enemy assets.
The above sounds frighteningly effective. However, in war games, opposing forces have found the system vulnerable to deception and asymmetric attack.
One of the most disruptive actions of simulated opponents was to substitute motorcycle couriers for electronic communications. This effectively made the location of enemy command and control centers invisible to radio-surveillance satellites.
Another significantly disruptive activity was to move assets and use decoys. Relatively simple decoys fooled aircraft ground-search radars and satellite scanning.
Many U.S. doctrines assume naval and space superiority. In simulated conflicts, massed torpedo attacks on off-shore naval assets were extremely disruptive to the U.S. order of battle. It would appear that another crucial asymmetric weapon would be a fast, stealthy torpedo boat to attack U.S. naval forces, especially aircraft carriers and transports. Another would be an effective anti-satellite missile.
Once an area is pacified, and civil populations docile, achieving political goals is usually possible.
See also: Organic_(military)In military terminology, organic refers to a military unit of one type within a larger unit predominantly of a different type. For example, an infantry division might incorporate an organic armour battalion to improve its combined arms capability. Militar
Military terms