Description of Combats

Military combat is defined as a violent planned form of physical interaction between two hostile opponents where one or both adversaries could be organised forces recognised by governmental or other authority. Their objectives are one or more of the following: to control the territory or people, to protect one's own territory or people, to dominate, destroy and incapacitate the opponent (Dupuy, 1987, pp. 66–69). These combats could take any form, shape and length of time. For the novice, the military terms such as action, engagement, battle, campaign and war may all mean the same but a military person will distinguish between these terms.

A tactical engagement between the opponents may last 1–5 days and is carried out by the smallest of units up to divisions and army corps under the command of line officers.

In a battle, the army corps and armies are locked for a few days to weeks and are led by subcommanders. Some of the readers may be familiar with names like the Battle of Plassey, the Battle at Trafalgar, the Battle of Waterloo, the Battle of Jutland or the Battle of Midway.

Campaigns are operations lasting weeks or months for strategic purposes and involve armies, army groups or entire branches of the service such as Napoleon's Russian Campaign, the Peninsular Campaign, and the Burma Campaign etc.

An all out military war is an armed conflict showing great belligerence where the entire armed force (army, navy, air force) are participating in the combat under the direction of the Commanderin-Chief and lasts for days, weeks, months or years.