Bringing Order to Chaos: Historical Case Studies of Combined Arms Maneuver in Large-Scale Combat Operations

This book has maps, pictures, charts, and footnotes. It was published in 2018. It is part of a series but can be read standalone. “In Afghanistan in 2001 and 2003 in Iraq were the last times the US Army conducted joint multi-divisional offensive campaigns, which then resulted in 17 years of the Army attempting to master stability and counterinsurgency operations while fighting a deadly enemy. These 17 years of combat experience — while valuable for our smaller tactical unit leaders — have not been without challenges. “The definition of combined arms maneuver is the application of the elements of combat power in a complementary and reinforcing manner to achieve physical, temporal, or psychological advantages over the enemy; preserve freedom of action; and exploit success. As our Army continues to prepare for an unknown future regarding large-scale combat operations against a peer or near-peer adversary, our combined arms maneuver formations will most likely be outnumbered; the enemy may be technologically more advanced in some areas and, for first time since World War II, the enemy may have air superiority. “Part of The US Army Large-Scale Combat Operations Series, Bringing Order to Chaos provides 10 case studies written by a diverse group of military historians. In addressing the issue of adroit maneuver — or the simple need to kill the enemy in large numbers to gain victory — this volume presents two chapters on the First World one on the German experience late in the war in the East and the other about US V Corps operations, also very late in the war. World War II has three on Buna, crossing the Moselle, and the reduction of Manila. One of the two essays on Korea discusses the US approach to the start of the stabilized period and the other addresses the approach of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) through the mythology of People’s Volunteers, in the same period. The Vietnam War, the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, and Operation Iraqi Freedom I (2003) are all explored in single chapters. The chapters each analyze the necessity of tactical and occasionally even operational combined arms in large-scale combat operations against peer-threats since 1917. While the focus is on the US Army’s approach, the German, Chinese, Egyptian, Israeli, and South Vietnamese approaches are explored as well." Included in this book Chapter 1 Beyond the First Planning and Conducting Field Army and Corps Operations, by General (Retired) William Wallace and Colonel (Retired) Kevin C.M. Benson; Chapter 2 Fire and The 2nd Infantry Division’s Assault on Korea’s “Punchbowl,” August–October 1951, by Colonel Bryan R. Gibby; Chapter 3 Isolate, Encircle, and Chinese Operational Maneuver during the First and Second Phase Offensive (October–December 1950), Major Mike Kiser; Chapter 4 Lightning on the German Combined Arms Innovation in the Baltic Theatre, Fall 1917, by R. David Pressley II; Chapter 5 Escaping No Man’s Combined Arms Adaptation in the Meuse-Argonne, by Major John M. Nimmons; Chapter 6 Stalemate to Combined Arms in World War II’s New Guinea Campaign, by Robert M. Young; Chapter 7 The 80th Infantry Division’s Crossing of the Moselle A Case Study in Combined Arms Maneuver, by Major Paul P. Cheval; Chapter 8 Field Artillery and Flying Combined Arms Maneuver in the Advance on and Seizure of Manila, 1945, by Captain James Villanueva; Chapter 9 Into The 1970 US Cross-Border Campaign, byLieutenant General (Retired) Daniel P. Bolger; Chapter 10 Egypt vs. Combined Arms in the Yom Kippur War and the Lessons for the US Army, by Tal Tovy; Chapter 11 Today and Echelons Above Brigade — Combined Arms Maneuver in Large-Scale Ground Combat Operations, by Lieutenant General Michael D. Lundy