Toward Combined Arms Warfare: A Survey of 20th-Century Tactics, Doctrine, and Organization

The concept of "Combined Arms" has existed for centuries, but the nature of the combination and the organizational level at which it occurred have varied greatly. In the past, the general trend has been to combine the arms at progressively lower levels of organization. The concern of commanders has gone from coordinating the separate actions of separate arms, to gaining greater cooperation between them, and finally to combining their actions to maximize the effect of their various properties. Since then, twentieth century warfare and especially mechanized warfare have developed to the point at which some form of combined arms is essential for survival, let alone victory, on the battlefield. Yet the very complexity of this warfare leads to specialization in both training and maintenance, a specialization that is currently reflected in the formation of companies and battalions consisting of one or at most three different major weapons systems. The trends in terms of proportions of different arms and levels at which those arms were integrated can be illustrated with a limited number of line and block charts. Such trends should provide an historical framework and background for readers who are developing their own more detailed concepts of how to organize and employ the combined arms today.