Battle
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Battles)
This article is about combat. For other uses, see Battle (disambiguation).
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British (red) and French (blue) armies begin
engagement of the decisive Battle of Waterloo, with Prussian forces (gray) arriving from
the northeast
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. [1] An
engagement with only limited commitment between the forces and without decisive
results is sometimes called a skirmish.
The word "battle" can also be used infrequently to refer to an entire operational
campaign, although this usage greatly diverges from its conventional or customary
meaning. Generally, the word "battle" is used for such campaigns if referring to a
protracted combat encounter in which either one or both of the combatants had the
same methods, resources, and strategic objectives throughout the encounter. Some
prominent examples of this would be the Battle of the Atlantic, Battle of Britain, and
the Battle of France, all in World War II.
Wars and military campaigns are guided by military strategy, whereas battles take place
on a level of planning and execution known as operational mobility.[2] German
strategist Carl von Clausewitz stated that "the employment of battles ... to achieve the
object of war"[3] was the essence of strategy.
Etymology
[edit]
Battle is a loanword from the Old French bataille, first attested in 1297, from Late
Latin battualia, meaning "exercise of soldiers and gladiators in fighting and fencing",
from Late Latin (taken from Germanic) battuere "beat", from which the English word
battery is also derived via Middle English batri.[4][5]
Characteristics
[edit]
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The defining characteristic of the fight as a concept in military science has changed with
the variations in the organisation, employment and technology of military forces. The
English military historian John Keegan suggested an ideal definition of battle as
"something which happens between two armies leading to the moral then physical
disintegration of one or the other of them" but the origins and outcomes of battles can
rarely be summarized so neatly.[6] Battle in the 20th and 21st centuries is defined as the
combat between large components of the forces in a military campaign, used to
achieve military objectives.[7] Where the duration of the battle is longer than a week, it is
often for reasons of planning called an operation. Battles can be
planned, encountered or forced by one side when the other is unable to withdraw from
combat.
A battle always has as its purpose the reaching of a mission goal by use of military
force.[8] A victory in the battle is achieved when one of the opposing sides forces the
other to abandon its mission and surrender its forces, routs the other (i.e., forces it to
retreat or renders it militarily ineffective for further combat operations) or annihilates the
latter, resulting in their deaths or capture. A battle may end in a Pyrrhic victory, which
ultimately favors the defeated party. If no resolution is reached in a battle, it can result in
a stalemate. A conflict in which one side is unwilling to reach a decision by a direct
battle using conventional warfare often becomes an insurgency.
Until the 19th century the majority of battles were of short duration, many lasting a part
of a day. (The Battle of Preston (1648), the Battle of Nations (1813) and the Battle of
Gettysburg (1863) were exceptional in lasting three days.) This was mainly due to the
difficulty of supplying armies in the field or conducting night operations. The means of
prolonging a battle was typically with siege warfare. Improvements in transport and the
sudden evolving of trench warfare, with its siege-like nature during the First World
War in the 20th century, lengthened the duration of battles to days and weeks. [8] This
created the requirement for unit rotation to prevent combat fatigue, with troops
preferably not remaining in a combat area of operations for more than a month.
Finnish soldiers on the Raate Road[9][10] during the Winter
War
The use of the term "battle" in military history has led to its misuse when referring to
almost any scale of combat, notably by strategic forces involving hundreds of thousands
of troops that may be engaged in either one battle at a time (Battle of Leipzig) or
operations (Battle of Wuhan). The space a battle occupies depends on the range of
the weapons of the combatants. A "battle" in this broader sense may be of long duration
and take place over a large area, as in the case of the Battle of Britain or the Battle of
the Atlantic. Until the advent of artillery and aircraft, battles were fought with the two
sides within sight, if not reach, of each other. The depth of the battlefield has also
increased in modern warfare with inclusion of the supporting units in the rear areas;
supply, artillery, medical personnel etc. often outnumber the front-line combat troops.
Battles are made up of a multitude of individual combats, skirmishes and
small engagements and the combatants will usually only experience a small part of the
battle. To the infantryman, there may be little to distinguish between combat as part of a
minor raid or a big offensive, nor is it likely that he anticipates the future course of the
battle; few of the British infantry who went over the top on the first day on the Somme, 1
July 1916, would have anticipated that the battle would last five months. Some of the
Allied infantry who had just dealt a crushing defeat to the French at the Battle of
Waterloo fully expected to have to fight again the next day (at the Battle of Wavre).
Battlespace
[edit]
Main article: Battlespace
Battlespace is a unified strategic concept to integrate and combine armed forces for
the military theatre of operations, including air, information, land, sea and space. It
includes the environment, factors and conditions that must be understood to apply
combat power, protect the force or complete the mission, comprising enemy and
friendly armed forces; facilities; weather; terrain; and the electromagnetic spectrum.
Factors
[edit]
Battles are decided by various factors, the number and quality of combatants and
equipment, the skill of commanders and terrain are among the most prominent.
Weapons and armour can be decisive; on many occasions armies have achieved
victory through more advanced weapons than those of their opponents. An extreme
example was in the Battle of Omdurman, in which a large army of
Sudanese Mahdists armed in a traditional manner were destroyed by an Anglo-Egyptian
force equipped with Maxim machine guns and artillery.
On some occasions, simple weapons employed in an unorthodox fashion have proven
advantageous; Swiss pikemen gained many victories through their ability to transform a
traditionally defensive weapon into an offensive one. Zulus in the early 19th century
were victorious in battles against their rivals in part because they adopted a new kind of
spear, the iklwa. Forces with inferior weapons have still emerged victorious at times, for
example in the Wars of Scottish Independence. Disciplined troops are often of greater
importance; at the Battle of Alesia, the Romans were greatly outnumbered but won
because of superior training.
Battles can also be determined by terrain. Capturing high ground has been the main
tactic in innumerable battles. An army that holds the high ground forces the enemy to
climb and thus wear themselves down. Areas of jungle and forest, with dense
vegetation act as force-multipliers, of benefit to inferior armies. Terrain may have lost
importance in modern warfare, due to the advent of aircraft, though the terrain is still
vital for camouflage, especially for guerrilla warfare.
Generals and commanders also play an important role, Hannibal, Julius Caesar, Khalid
ibn Walid, Subutai and Napoleon Bonaparte were all skilled generals and their armies
were extremely successful at times. An army that can trust the commands of their
leaders with conviction in its success invariably has a higher morale than an army that
doubts its every move. The British in the naval Battle of Trafalgar owed its success to
the reputation of Admiral Lord Nelson.
Types
[edit]
The Battle of Poltava between Russia and Sweden,
by Denis Martens the Younger
Battles can be fought on land, at sea, and in the air. Naval battles have occurred since
before the 5th century BC. Air battles have been far less common, due to their late
conception, the most prominent being the Battle of Britain in 1940. Since the Second
World War, land or sea battles have come to rely on air support. During the Battle of
Midway, five aircraft carriers were sunk without either fleet coming into direct contact.
Battle Scene-Detail from Deccan miniature painting, c.
19th century
• A pitched battle is an encounter where opposing sides agree on the time and
place of combat.
• A battle of encounter (or encounter battle) is a meeting engagement where
the opposing sides collide in the field without either having prepared their
attack or defence.
• A battle of attrition aims to inflict losses on an enemy that are less sustainable
compared to one's own losses. These need not be greater numerical losses –
if one side is much more numerous than the other then pursuing a strategy
based on attrition can work even if casualties on both sides are about equal.
Many battles of the Western Front in the First World War were intentionally
(Verdun) or unintentionally (Somme) attrition battles.
• A battle of breakthrough aims to pierce the enemy's defences, thereby
exposing the vulnerable flanks which can be turned.
• A battle of encirclement—the Kesselschlacht [de] of the German battle of
manoeuvre (bewegungskrieg)—surrounds the enemy in a pocket.
• A battle of envelopment involves an attack on one or both flanks; the classic
example being the double envelopment of the Battle of Cannae.
• A battle of annihilation is one in which the defeated party is destroyed in the
field, such as the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile.
Battles are usually hybrids of different types listed above.
A decisive battle is one with political effects, determining the course of the war such as
the Battle of Smolensk or bringing hostilities to an end, such as the Battle of Hastings or
the Battle of Hattin. A decisive battle can change the balance of power or boundaries
between countries. The concept of the decisive battle became popular with the
publication in 1851 of Edward Creasy's The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World.
British military historians J.F.C. Fuller (The Decisive Battles of the Western World)
and B.H. Liddell Hart (Decisive Wars of History), among many others, have written
books in the style of Creasy's work.
Land
[edit]
There is an obvious difference in the way battles have been fought. Early battles were
probably fought between rival hunting bands as unorganized crowds. During the Battle
of Megiddo, the first reliably documented battle in the fifteenth century BC, both armies
were organised and disciplined; during the many wars of the Roman
Empire, barbarians continued to use mob tactics.
As the Age of Enlightenment dawned, armies began to fight in highly disciplined lines.
Each would follow the orders from their officers and fight as a unit instead of individuals.
Armies were divided into regiments, battalions, companies and platoons. These armies
would march, line up and fire in divisions.
Native Americans, on the other hand, did not fight in lines, using guerrilla tactics.
American colonists and European forces continued using disciplined lines into
the American Civil War.
A new style arose from the 1850s to the First World War, known as trench warfare,
which also led to tactical radio. Chemical warfare also began in 1915.
By the Second World War, the use of the smaller divisions, platoons and companies
became much more important as precise operations became vital. Instead of the trench
stalemate of 1915–1917, in the Second World War, battles developed where small
groups encountered other platoons. As a result, elite squads became much more
recognized and distinguishable. Maneuver warfare also returned with an astonishing
pace with the advent of the tank, replacing the cannon of the Enlightenment Age.
Artillery has since gradually replaced the use of frontal troops. Modern battles resemble
those of the Second World War, along with indirect combat through the use of aircraft
and missiles which has come to constitute a large portion of wars in place of battles,
where battles are now mostly reserved for capturing cities.[citation needed]
Naval
[edit]
The Battle of Scheveningen of 1653: episode from the First Anglo-Dutch War.
One significant difference of modern naval battles, as opposed to earlier forms of
combat is the use of marines, which introduced amphibious warfare. Today, a marine is
actually an infantry regiment that sometimes fights solely on land and is no longer tied
to the navy. A good example of an ancient naval battle is the Battle of Salamis. Most
ancient naval battles were fought by fast ships using the battering ram to sink opposing
fleets or steer close enough for boarding in hand-to-hand combat. Troops were often
used to storm enemy ships as used by Romans and pirates. This tactic was usually
used by civilizations that could not beat the enemy with ranged weaponry. Another
invention in the late Middle Ages was the use of Greek fire by the Byzantines, which
was used to set enemy fleets on fire. Empty demolition ships utilized the tactic to crash
into opposing ships and set it afire with an explosion. After the invention of cannons,
naval warfare became useful as support units for land warfare. During the 19th century,
the development of mines led to a new type of naval warfare. The ironclad, first used in
the American Civil War, resistant to cannons, soon made the wooden ship obsolete.
The invention of military submarines, during World War I, brought naval warfare to both
above and below the surface. With the development of military aircraft during World War
II, battles were fought in the sky as well as below the ocean. Aircraft carriers have since
become the central unit in naval warfare, acting as a mobile base for lethal aircraft.
Aerial
[edit]
Heinkel He 111 bombers during the Battle of Britain
Although the use of aircraft has for the most part always been used as a supplement to
land or naval engagements, since their first major military use in World War I aircraft
have increasingly taken on larger roles in warfare. During World War I, the primary use
was for reconnaissance, and small-scale bombardment. Aircraft began becoming much
more prominent in the Spanish Civil War and especially World War II. Aircraft design
began specializing, primarily into two types: bombers, which carried explosive payloads
to bomb land targets or ships; and fighter-interceptors, which were used to either
intercept incoming aircraft or to escort and protect bombers (engagements between
fighter aircraft were known as dog fights). Some of the more notable aerial battles in this
period include the Battle of Britain and the Battle of Midway. Another important use of
aircraft came with the development of the helicopter, which first became heavily used
during the Vietnam War, and still continues to be widely used today to transport and
augment ground forces. Today, direct engagements between aircraft are rare – the
most modern fighter-interceptors carry much more extensive bombing payloads, and
are used to bomb precision land targets, rather than to fight other aircraft. Anti-aircraft
batteries are used much more extensively to defend against incoming aircraft than
interceptors. Despite this, aircraft today are much more extensively used as the primary
tools for both army and navy, as evidenced by the prominent use of helicopters to
transport and support troops, the use of aerial bombardment as the "first strike" in many
engagements, and the replacement of the battleship with the aircraft carrier as the
center of most modern navies.
Naming
