This monograph examines and analyzes two encirclement operations from the Russo-German Front of 1944 in order to determine their costs and benefits to the overall campaigns. Military theorists expect successful encirclement operations to produce...
This monograph discusses the intricacies of liquidating tactical encirclements and bypassed pockets of enemy resistance. Operational employment of U.S. Army doctrine will lead to tactical encirclements in most instances. Contemporary doctrine,...
This monograph answers the question “What must an encircled unit be provided and do in order to successfully hold?” Following the end of the Cold War and the subsequent drawdown, the United States adopted a military strategy of force...
History is replete with examples of lost opportunities to decisively defeat an enemy's army on the field of battle. All too often, tactical success has not been followed by actions to ensure operational success. This failure may be attributable to...
This study is a historical analysis of how encirclement operations have been and still are important offensive operations. These operations need to be given priority in planning and execution by the United States Military. Encirclement operations...
This study is an historical analysis of how encirclement and envelopment operations are important to current U.S. Army doctrine as professed in FM 100-5, Operations. The basic tenets of AirLand Battle, how doctrine is a guide for commonality within...
Throughout history, a common phenomenon of warfare has been the encirclement of the forces of one or both warring factions. The nature of future war -- taking place in a battlefield that will be characterized by fluid activities, greater confusion,...
An attack by the Warsaw Pact on NATO will probably be conducted with high speed armor thrust trying to encircle NATO forces. If encirclements are successful, aerial resupply will have to sustain the encircled units until breakouts or link-ups can...
This study attempts to trace the development of combined arms concepts, organization, and practices by an examination of five major powers: Great Britain, Germany, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union. The focus is on developments at and...
The purpose of this thesis was to determine the adequacy of current U.S. Army doctrine relative to encircled units and breakout operations in view of the problems encountered by the 31st Regimental Combat Team, U.S. 7th Infantry Division, on the...
Blitzkrieg has been variously described as strategy, tactics, and even operational art. This ambiguity, coupled with a misinterpretation of this form of offensive combat, can cause false conclusions when studying the history of World War II and...
This monograph analyzes America's ability to maintain its global hegemony and perpetuate freedom from general conventional war. The theories of Geoffrey Blainey and Donald Kagan are used to explain the causes of war and the causes of peace. General...
This study examines the extensive experiences of the Soviet Army as it struggled to master the night. Driven by necessity to operate in the relative safety of darkness, the Soviet Army in World War II learned to capitalize on night operations and...
This monograph assesses U.S. Army light infantry battalions training for conducting counterinsurgency operations. Military forces should be trained and ready for counterinsurgency warfare because they might be committed to fight in an insurgency....
This monograph seeks to determine if Americans have consistently favored one form of operational art over another. If we (the U.S. military) do not recognize that a tendency towards one or the other forms of operational art exists, we may...
This monograph examines the core principle of US doctrine for rear operations, economy of force. The impetus of the doctrine is the belief that the outcome of war hinges on close operations. This has two implications for rear defense. First, given...
Department of Military Art and Engineering, United States Military Academy
This account of the operations in Eastern Europe details the German invasion of Russia, the Stalingrad campaigns, the campaigns in Western Russia, and the liberation of Eastern Europe.
Soviet operational concepts part II. Charles J. Dick
Perspectives: the operational level of war. German and US operational art a contrast in maneuver. Major George A. Higgins, US Army Leadership, firepower and maneuver: the British...
Using historical analysis and survey, this study examines the sufficiency of U.S. field artillery doctrine, tactics, and techniques to support the destruction of an encircled enemy. Focus is on identifying existing weaknesses by comparing...