In more elaborate situations armies of various nationalities fielded different combinations of light, medium, or heavy infantry, cavalry, chariotry, camelry, elephantry, and artillery (mechanical weapons) the ancient Persian army is an excellent example of this.

Especially in the case of the Greek hoplites however, the focus of military thinking lay almost exclusively on the heavy infantry. The mixing of arms is sometimes pushed down below the level where homogeneity ordinarily prevails, for example by temporarily attaching a tank company to an infantry battalion.Ĭombined arms operations dates back to antiquity, where armies would usually field a screen of skirmishers to protect their spearmen during the approach to contact. For example an armored division - the modern paragon of combined arms doctrine - consists of a mixture of infantry, tank, artillery, reconnaissance, and perhaps even helicopter units, all coordinated and directed by a unified command structure.Īlso, most modern military units can, if the situation requires it, call on yet more branches of the military, such as fighter or bomber aircraft or naval forces, to support their operations.

Though the lower- echelon units of a combined arms team may be of similar types, a balanced mixture of such units are combined into an effective higher-echelon unit, whether formally in a table of organization or informally in an ad hoc solution to a battlefield problem. Segregated arms is the traditional method of unit/force organisation, employed to provide maximum unit cohesion and concentration of force in a given weapon or unit type. Combined arms doctrine contrasts with segregated arms where each military unit is composed of only one type of soldier or weapon system. Combined arms is an approach to warfare which seeks to integrate different combat arms of a military to achieve mutually complementary effects (for example, using infantry and armor in an urban environment, where one supports the other, or both support each other).

Combat arms classic maintenance