6.7 KiB
| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Combat effectiveness | 4/5 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_effectiveness | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T14:30:00.300484+00:00 | kb-cron |
=== Ancient === In ancient times, adequate supplies of consumables including food and water for both men and animals was considered a basic aspect of military success, strategically and tactically. Donald Engels comments that an adequate supply could support the morale and combat potential of an army. There were limitations to the load carried by pack animals in past militaries. The limitations varied depending on the type of animal and its travelling speed, the amount of time needed for the animal to travel throughout the campaign, the weight to be carried, weather and terrain. Weight needed to be distributed evenly on either side of the animal to avoid losing them to injury and overworking them. Additionally, food needed to be transported for both men and animals and if they were not sufficiently fed, they would struggle to perform tasks effectively and efficiently. In terms of artillery and weapons used in Greece and Rome, a wide range of war machines such as siege towers and siege engines, rams and throwing machines were advantageous to armies during the period between 70 BC to 15 AD when fighting against those who were less technologically advanced. Throwing machines posed as useful and versatile tools that were used not only in sieges but open battlefields and infantry support weapons. Throwing machines include the ballista which was a torsion machine operated by a crew of two people including the catapult and carroballista.
=== Modern ===
==== 19th and 20th centuries ==== In the early 19th century, weapons in general use included large-calibre ordnance, breech-loading artillery, muskets and armoured warships that were powered by steam. Western countries such as the United States and France could produce transport, ammunition, food supplies and other resources with more ease than the period before the Industrial Revolution. In the 19th and the 20th centuries, improved means of communication were introduced in the forms of radio, television, high-performance computer systems and telephones. Radio communication was one of the main forms of communication used on the battlefield. It became a factor for the Allied victory in the First World War when codebreakers were able to decode the radio communications of German, Japanese and Italian forces. Firepower grew from the 20th century since the number of soldiers and battle equipment increased rapidly. During the American Civil War, an infantry division had around 5,000 soldiers with up to 24 pieces of artillery, and the numbers grew by World War II, when an American division had up to 15,000 soldiers with 328 pieces of artillery. In 1918, on the Western Front, artillery of the Allied Forces became a major weapon suppressing enemy defences. Aerial photographic reconnaissance, flash-spotting and sound-ranging improved target acquisition and could predict map-shooting. The maintenance of operating histories for each gun had an improved accuracy since each weapon could be individually calibrated in reference to factors of weather such as wind speed, wind direction, humidity, and temperature.
==== 21st century ==== In the United States, improvements in support vehicles and packaging for shipping allowed for greater mobility of U.S. forces. During the Iraq War, radio frequency identification tags (RFID) provided unique codes for packages and systems and were attached to small radio transponders. The tags allowed for the speedy updates of online databases worldwide. Armoured uniforms have been developed to protect soldiers from incoming bullets and damage from explosions as well as military robots to aid in reconnaissance and bomb disposal.
== Domestic political factors == A number of scholars have posited that domestic political factors strongly affect the skills, cohesion, will, and organizational structures of military organizations, with implications for their combat effectiveness. The implication of this scholarship is that military capabilities are not necessarily the key determinant of combat effectiveness. In a 2010 study, Michael Beckley pushed on this scholarship, finding that economic development (an indicator) of power was a strong predictor of victory in war, and that factors such as "democracy, Western culture, high levels of human capital, and amicable civil-military relations" were not consequential.
=== Civil-military relations === Civil-military relations may shape combat effectiveness, as adverse civil-military relations can lead to poor strategic assessments, and undermine battlefield flexibility and survivability. When regimes are concerned about the prospects of coups, military organizations may be constructed in a way so as to reduce the risk of a coup (through "coup-proofing"), but this limits the conventional military capabilities of those military organizations.
=== Military inequality === According to research by Jason Lyall, state discrimination against the ethnic groups that comprise the state's military adversely affects the military's battlefield performance. In societies where ethnic groups are marginalized or repressed, militaries struggle to simultaneously obtain cohesion and combat power, as the soldiers will lack belief in a shared common purpose, as well as lower trust. Lyall shows that as a state's pre-war ethnic repression and marginalization is higher, the military will have greater casualties, mass defections, and mass desertions. Such militaries will also be more likely to use barrier troops. It is not ethnic diversity that undermines battlefield performance, but whether ethnic groups are discriminated against. Elizabeth Kier similarly argued in 1995 that the U.S. military's discrimination against LGBT service members undermined U.S. military readiness.
=== Regime type === According to Allan C. Stam and Dan Reiter, liberal democracies have an advantage in battlefield performance than non-democracies and illiberal democracies. They argue that this democratic advantage is derived from the fact that democratic soldiers fight harder, democratic states tend to ally together in war, and democracies can employ more economic resources towards combat. However, critics argue that democracy itself makes little difference in war and that some other factors, such as overall power, determine whether a country would achieve victory or face defeat. In some cases, such as the Vietnam War, democracy may even have contributed to defeat. Jasen Castillo argues that autocratic states may in certain circumstances have an advantage over democracies; for example, authoritarian regimes may have ideologies that require unconditional loyalty, which may contribute to military cohesion.