Military tactics

Military tactics are methods for employing forces in combat, coordinating personnel, weapons, and terrain to achieve immediate operational objectives.

Combined arms: The coordinated use of different military branches or weapon systems to support one another. Tactical units combine complementary capabilities to overcome an opponent’s strengths.
Military strategy: The direction of military activity toward political and strategic objectives. Strategy sets the larger aims that tactical actions are meant to serve.
Battle of Cannae: A 216 BCE battle in which Hannibal’s army encircled and defeated a larger Roman force. Its double envelopment became a celebrated example of shaping and encirclement.
Attrition warfare: A strategy of wearing down an opponent’s forces and resources through sustained losses. It contrasts with approaches that seek advantage through position, disruption, or rapid maneuver.
Gunpowder warfare: Warfare shaped by firearms and explosive artillery using gunpowder. Gunpowder weapons transformed formations, fortifications, and the distances at which forces could fight.
Fire and movement: A maneuver in which one element suppresses an opponent while another advances or changes position. It links weapons effects and movement into a basic tactical sequence.
Military operations: The coordinated activities of military forces to achieve objectives in a campaign or theater. Operations connect individual engagements to campaigns and broader objectives.
Battle of Agincourt: A 1415 battle in which Henry V’s English army defeated a larger French force in northern France. Its muddy, constricted battlefield illustrates how terrain can blunt numerical superiority.
Guerrilla warfare: Irregular warfare using small, mobile forces and raids against a stronger opponent. Its dispersed forces and avoidance of decisive engagements differ from conventional tactical formations.
Military revolution: A major transformation in military organization, technology, and practice, especially in early modern Europe. Changes in tactics contributed to wider shifts in armies and states.

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