Combined Arms - 20th-century Developments

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 warfare. 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 tanks 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.

In 1963 the United States Marine Corps formalized the concept of the Marine Air-Ground Task Force, which combined Marine aviation and Marine ground units for expeditionary missions.

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 bases 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.