Military art (military science)

Last updated

Military art (French : L'Art de la Guerre; lit. art of war) is a field of theoretical research and training methodology in military science used in the conduct of military operations on land, in the maritime or air environments. Military art includes the study and application of the principles of warfare and laws of war that apply equally to the closely interrelated military strategy, operational art and tactics. Exercise of military art is highly dependent on the economics and logistics supporting the armed forces, their military technology and equipment, and reflects the social influences on the military organisation exercising military art. Often misunderstood due to its 19th-century perception as generally "including the entire subject of war", [1] it is primarily, as the term implies, the expression of creative thinking on the part of the decision-makers in employing their forces, [2] with the map of the area of operations as a veritable canvas, and the movement of forces commonly marked on the map with arrows, as brush strokes. Less imaginatively it was defined in France during the 19th century as

Contents

The art of war is the art of concentrating and employing, at the opportune moment, a superior force of troops upon the decisive point. [3]

and

The art of divining the intention of the enemy from slight indications is one which rarely misleads, and is one of the most precious attributes of military genius. [4]

It is not well known that many of the greatest military leaders in Europe and Asia, notably Japan, were themselves either accomplished artists, or collectors of art.

History

In history, schools of thinking about military art can be divided during the ancient and medieval periods by the influence of infantry troops on tactics in Europe, and cavalry on tactics in Asia, and the period commencing with the Early Modern period when firearms and artillery increasingly influenced employment of forces. The need for mobility, opportunity and decisiveness have tended to associate military art with offensive manoeuvre, cavalry, and therefore, before advent of late-19th century firearms, Asia. [5]

In Europe military art was primarily concerned with time of combat, understanding the best way an occupied position can enhance defensive potential of a small field army largely consisting of relatively low mobility troops, by often using high ground, terrain choke points or field entrenchments. Due to relative lack of economic and logistic support, European military art theorists advocated decisive battles that could bring a military campaign to a quick conclusion, thus reducing the economic cost of war, notably through the shock tactics of the armoured cavalry. In Asia, due to a more developed and widespread horse breeding offering enhanced mobility, military art developed a more offensive-based way of thinking about military tactics, and military art was dominated by considerations of choosing point of attack and military communications.

The confrontation between these two forms of military art that took place as a result of the Crusades and the Mongol invasion of Europe, and the contemporaneous introduction of artillery into warfare significantly changed thinking about military art in Europe, leading to wide-ranging experiments in tactical formation of troops, use of combined arms and exercise of maneuver warfare concepts and methods not only in tactics, but on a larger scale, including in use of naval forces. This later led to creation of European colonial empires.

Although European military art on land can be argued not to have reached its developed stage until the 19th century in the attempt to defeat linear tactics that led to the First World War, [6] and ultimate sophistication during the Second World War and the Cold War, great increases in the firepower of the European firearms and artillery were usually able to negate greater number and mobility of the Asian field forces, no-where more illustrated than during the French Invasion of Egypt in 1798. The defining application of firepower and manoeuvre in military art became expressed during the conduct of strategic operations of the Red Army in World War II that sought to combine the shock of armoured warfare with mobility, and the traditional reliance on infantry in strengthened positions to first stop the German advances and during counter-attacks to achieve breakthrough of the enemy position, and in conducting deep operations to destroy the logistic support, literally starving German troops of supplies and ammunition, and forcing them to surrender.

Military art in naval warfare likewise developed along the considerations of position versus speed, initially through use of galleys and later during the Age of Sail. However, increasingly naval tactics became dominated by the relative firepower of individual vessels, and this was demonstrated during the epic Battle of Trafalgar. The use of naval forces in military art significantly expanded the scale of conflicts to global ranges. For much of the 19th and 20th centuries naval military art became concerned primarily with the firepower and the ability of ships to withstand it through use of increasing their armour until the introduction of naval aviation into consideration of naval battles and naval strategy.

Introduction of aircraft into warfare drastically altered the 19th century understanding of military art, and application of its principles. Aerial warfare became the ultimate solution to manoeuvre in delivery of firepower, and drastically increased the tempo of conflicts, making blitzkrieg possible during the Second World War. Aerial warfare also finally negated the advantage of a defensive position which left the defender as an easily detected and attacked target for the bombers. While German industrial centres became just such targets for the Allied strategic bombing during World War II, on the Eastern Front the Soviet Red Army chose to adapt by developing concepts and methods suggested by theorists during the interwar period to a more offensive-based and dynamic conduct of operations coordinating ground and air offensives.

The final development in military art came with the increased influence of the electronics and its implications for the ability by infantry to halt the breakthroughs using increasingly powerful infantry support weapons, and the effect on the military communications by a new form of combat, electronic warfare. The potential of losing ability to exercise command and control over forces, particularly strategically significant forces, completely undermined much of the theoretical thinking of the Cold War. Some have argued that this was one of the factors, along with those of economic considerations, that eventually led to the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, and Dissolution of the USSR.

Since the end of the Cold War in Europe, application of military art has been sought primarily by conventional forces in combat operations against unconventional opponents, and this has many attempts to review military history in the effort to find solutions to successful conduct of operations against these forces.

Citations and notes

  1. ↑ p.37, Halleck
  2. ↑ p.140, De La Barre Duparcq
  3. ↑ p.7, De La Barre Duparcq
  4. ↑ p.294, De La Barre Duparcq
  5. ↑ p.97, De La Barre Duparcq
  6. ↑ p. 115, Halleck

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle</span> Military engagement

A battle is an occurrence of combat in warfare between opposing military units of any number or size. A war usually consists of multiple battles. In general, a battle is a military engagement that is well defined in duration, area, and force commitment. An engagement with only limited commitment between the forces and without decisive results is sometimes called a skirmish.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Infantry</span> Soldiers who fight on the ground on foot

Infantry is a specialization of military personnel who engage in ground combat on foot. Infantry generally consists of light infantry, irregular infantry, heavy infantry, mountain infantry, motorized infantry, mechanized infantry, airborne infantry, air assault infantry, and naval infantry. Other types of infantry, such as line infantry and mounted infantry, were once commonplace but fell out of favor in the 1800s with the invention of more accurate and powerful weapons.

Military tactics encompasses the art of organizing and employing fighting forces on or near the battlefield. They involve the application of four battlefield functions which are closely related – kinetic or firepower, mobility, protection or security, and shock action. Tactics are a separate function from command and control and logistics. In contemporary military science, tactics are the lowest of three levels of warfighting, the higher levels being the strategic and operational levels. Throughout history, there has been a shifting balance between the four tactical functions, generally based on the application of military technology, which has led to one or more of the tactical functions being dominant for a period of time, usually accompanied by the dominance of an associated fighting arm deployed on the battlefield, such as infantry, artillery, cavalry or tanks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Combined arms</span> Approach to warfare

Combined arms is an approach to warfare that seeks to integrate different combat arms of a military to achieve mutually complementary effects—for example, using infantry and armour in an urban environment in which each supports the other.

Military science is the study of military processes, institutions, and behavior, along with the study of warfare, and the theory and application of organized coercive force. It is mainly focused on theory, method, and practice of producing military capability in a manner consistent with national defense policy. Military science serves to identify the strategic, political, economic, psychological, social, operational, technological, and tactical elements necessary to sustain relative advantage of military force; and to increase the likelihood and favorable outcomes of victory in peace or during a war. Military scientists include theorists, researchers, experimental scientists, applied scientists, designers, engineers, test technicians, and other military personnel.

Military strategy is a set of ideas implemented by military organizations to pursue desired strategic goals. Derived from the Greek word strategos, the term strategy, when first used during the 18th century, was seen in its narrow sense as the "art of the general", or "the art of arrangement" of troops. and deals with the planning and conduct of campaigns, the movement and disposition of forces, and the deception of the enemy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charge (warfare)</span> Military tactics of rapid all-out attack

A charge is an offensive maneuver in battle in which combatants advance towards their enemy at their best speed in an attempt to engage in a decisive close combat. The charge is the dominant shock attack and has been the key tactic and decisive moment of many battles throughout history. Modern charges usually involve small groups of fireteams equipped with weapons with a high rate of fire and striking against individual defensive positions, instead of large groups of combatants charging another group or a fortified line.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Skirmisher</span> Light infantry or light cavalry soldier

Skirmishers are light infantry or light cavalry soldiers deployed as a vanguard, flank guard or rearguard to screen a tactical position or a larger body of friendly troops from enemy advances. They are usually deployed in a skirmish line, an irregular open formation that is much more spread out in depth and in breadth than a traditional line formation. Their purpose is to harass the enemy by engaging them in only light or sporadic combat to delay their movement, disrupt their attack, or weaken their morale. Such tactics are collectively called skirmishing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Air assault</span> Military movement of ground forces by air into combat or unsecured areas

Air assault is the movement of ground-based military forces by vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft, such as helicopters, to seize and hold key terrain that has not been fully secured, and to directly engage enemy forces behind enemy lines. In addition to regular infantry training, air-assault units usually receive training in rappelling, fast-roping techniques, and air transportation. Their equipment is sometimes designed or field-modified to allow better transportation and/or carrying within aircraft.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maneuver warfare</span> Military strategy focused on movement

Maneuver warfare, or manoeuvre warfare, is a military strategy which emphasizes movement, initiative and surprise to achieve a position of advantage. Maneuver seeks to inflict losses indirectly by envelopment, encirclement and disruption, while minimizing the need to engage in frontal combat. In contrast to attrition warfare where strength tends to be applied against strength, maneuver warfare attempts to apply strength against weakness in order to accomplish the mission.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Operational level of war</span> Between strategic and tactical warfare

In the field of military theory, the operational level of war represents the level of command that connects the details of tactics with the goals of strategy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Armoured warfare</span> Use of armored fighting vehicles in war

Armoured warfare or armored warfare, is the use of armoured fighting vehicles in modern warfare. It is a major component of modern methods of war. The premise of armoured warfare rests on the ability of troops to penetrate conventional defensive lines through use of manoeuvre by armoured units.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pitched battle</span> Where both sides commit to fight at a location

A pitched battle or set-piece battle is a battle in which opposing forces each anticipate the setting of the battle, and each chooses to commit to it. Either side may have the option to disengage before the battle starts or shortly thereafter. A pitched battle is not a chance encounter such as a meeting engagement, or where one side is forced to fight at a time not of its choosing such as happens in a siege or an ambush. Pitched battles are usually carefully planned to maximize one's strengths against an opponent's weaknesses and use a full range of deceptions, feints, and other manoeuvres. They are also planned to take advantage of terrain favourable to one's force. Forces strong in cavalry, for example, will not select swamp, forest, or mountain terrain for the planned struggle. For example, Carthaginian General Hannibal selected relatively flat ground near the village of Cannae for his great confrontation with the Romans, not the rocky terrain of the high Apennines. Likewise, Zulu Commander Shaka avoided forested areas or swamps, in favour of rolling grassland, where the encircling horns of the Zulu Impi could manoeuvre to effect. Pitched battles continued to evolve throughout history as armies implemented new technology and tactics.

Deep operation, also known as Soviet Deep Battle, was a military theory developed by the Soviet Union for its armed forces during the 1920s and 1930s. It was a tenet that emphasized destroying, suppressing or disorganizing enemy forces not only at the line of contact but also throughout the depth of the battlefield.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Infantry tactics</span> Foot-soldier combat methods

Infantry tactics are the combination of military concepts and methods used by infantry to achieve tactical objectives during combat. The role of the infantry on the battlefield is, typically, to close with and engage the enemy, and hold territorial objectives; infantry tactics are the means by which this is achieved. Infantry commonly makes up the largest proportion of an army's fighting strength, and consequently often suffers the heaviest casualties. Throughout history, infantrymen have sought to minimise their losses in both attack and defence through effective tactics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Firepower</span> Military capability to direct force at an enemy

Firepower is the military capability to direct force at an enemy. Firepower involves the whole range of potential weapons. The concept is generally taught as one of the three key principles of modern warfare wherein the enemy forces are destroyed or have their will to fight negated by sufficient and preferably overwhelming use of force as a result of combat operations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shock tactics</span> All-out attack to break enemy lines

Shock tactics, shock tactic, or shock attack is the name of an offensive maneuver which attempts to place the enemy under psychological pressure by a rapid and fully-committed advance with the aim of causing their combatants to retreat. The acceptance of a higher degree of risk to attain a decisive result is intrinsic to shock actions.

An offensive is a military operation that seeks through an aggressive projection of armed forces to occupy or recapture territory, gain an objective or achieve some larger strategic, operational, or tactical goal. Another term for an offensive often used by the media is "invasion", or the more general "attack". An offensive is a conduct of combat operations that seek to achieve only some of the objectives of the strategy being pursued in the theatre as a whole. Commonly an offensive is carried out by one or more divisions, numbering between 10 and 30,000 troops as part of a combined arms manoeuvre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Infantry in the Middle Ages</span> Overview about the infantry in the Middle Ages

Despite the rise of knightly cavalry in the 11th century, infantry played an important role throughout the Middle Ages on both the battlefield and in sieges. From the 14th century onwards, it has been argued that there was a rise in the prominence of infantry forces, sometimes referred to as an "infantry revolution", but this view is strongly contested by some military historians based High Medieval practice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of infantry</span>

Although the term infantry dates from the 15th century, the foot troops of the previous eras in history who fought with a variety of weapons before the introduction of the firearms are also referred to as infantry. During the Ancient and Middle Ages infantry were often categorized by the types of weapons and armour they used, such as heavy infantry and light infantry. Generally, light infantry acted as skirmishers, scouts, and as a screening force for the more heavily armed and armored heavy infantry, the latter of which often made up the bulk of many historic armies.

References

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.