Combined Arms Operations
It is generally accepted that single weapons system types are much less effective without the support of the full combined arms team; the pre-World War II notion of "tank fleets" has proven to be as unsound as the World War I idea of unsupported infantry attacks. Though many nations' armored formations included an organic mechanized infantry component at the start of World War II, the proportion of mechanized infantry in such combined arms formations was increased by most armies as the war progressed.
The lesson was re-learned, first by the Pakistani Army in the 1965 War with India, where the nation fielded two different types of armored divisions: one which was almost exclusively armor (the 1st) while another was more balanced (the 6th). The latter division showed itself to be far more combat capable than the former.
Having achieved spectacular successes in the offensive with tank-heavy formations during the Six Day War, the Israeli Defense Force found in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 that a doctrine that relied primarily on tanks and aircraft had proven inadequate. As a makeshift remedy, paratroopers were provided with motorized transport and used as mechanized infantry in coordination with the armor.
Read more about this topic: Mechanized Infantry
Famous quotes containing the words combined, arms and/or operations:
“Riches have never fascinated me, unless combined with the greatest charm or distinction.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“Even though I had let them choose their own socks since babyhood, I was only beginning to learn to trust their adult judgment.. . . I had a sensation very much like the moment in an airplane when you realize that even if you stop holding the plane up by gripping the arms of your seat until your knuckles show white, the plane will stay up by itself. . . . To detach myself from my children . . . I had to achieve a condition which might be called loving objectivity.”
—Anonymous Parent of Adult Children. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, ch. 5 (1978)
“There is a patent office at the seat of government of the universe, whose managers are as much interested in the dispersion of seeds as anybody at Washington can be, and their operations are infinitely more extensive and regular.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)