Combined arms operations
At the outset of the Great War
in 1914, armies were still dominated by the same three arms familiar to all
commanders for the previous three hundred years, namely infantry, cavalry and
artillery. By its close in 1918,
the horsed cavalryman had largely been swept from the battlefield, his place
taken by the new tank arm. Engineers
were increasingly required to operate alongside the attacking infantry units, in
order to breach ever more complex enemy defences, while the bewildering speed of
aircraft development brought with it an entirely new sphere of conflict that
many failed to grasp the true significance of.
During the interwar years, there
seemed little enthusiasm amongst the military community to develop combined arms
tactics. A handful of theorists put
the case, however their arguments often centred on using the tank as the new arm
of decision on the battlefield, something rejected out of hand by many
traditionalists who cited the poor reliability and performance of the machines
then in service. The absence of a
major conflict between the industrialised powers meant the whole debate was
conducted in something of a vacuum until the outbreak of war in 1939.
Many of the doctrines developed in the previous decades were found
wanting while others were, sometimes quite literally, shot to pieces.
Combined arms operations sought to mould infantry, armour, artillery, assault engineers and perhaps even tactical airpower into a unified force, which would use its all round capabilities to overwhelm and defeat its enemy. As is often the case, what sounded great on paper proved much harder to achieve in reality. Centuries of experience helped the relationship between infantry and artillery to run smoothly for the greater part. That between infantry and tanks however was often a fraught affair, dogged by misconceptions and to an extent mutual distrust. In many armies combined arms training was limited to armoured formations, which possessed all the various elements except airpower. Normal infantry divisions could often expect their first taste of combined operations to come in action, requiring a sizeable amount of on the job training.
The following sections will offer some thoughts on the tactics employed by infantry when working in concert with armour, artillery, assault engineers and air support. As mentioned above, many of the methods used were devised in the field, often under fire, some even running contrary to the doctrines laid down in training. Combined arms tactics evolved throughout the course of the war, guided as much by operational realities and equipment shortages as by lessons learned. As with the other sections in the Infantry Tactics of World War Two series, this can only claim to be a glance into a truly complex subject, but hopefully some may find if of interest.
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Infantry Tactics of World War Two