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=                               Battle                               =
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                             Introduction                             
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A  battle  is a combat in warfare between two or more armed forces. A
war usually consists of multiple battles. In general, a battle is a
military engagement that is well defined in duration, area, and force
commitment. An engagement with only limited commitment between the
forces and without decisive results is sometimes called a skirmish.

Wars and military campaigns are guided by strategy, whereas battles
take place on a level of planning and execution known as operational
mobility. German strategist Carl von Clausewitz stated that "the
employment of battles ... to achieve the object of war" was the
essence of strategy.


                              Etymology                               
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Battle is a loanword from the Old French , first attested in 1297,
from Late Latin , meaning "exercise of soldiers and gladiators in
fighting and fencing", from Late Latin (taken from Germanic)  "beat",
from which the English word battery is also derived via Middle English
.


                           Characteristics                            
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The defining characteristic of the fight as a concept in Military
science has changed with the variations in the organisation,
employment and technology of military forces. The English military
historian John Keegan suggested an ideal definition of battle as
"something which happens between two armies leading to the moral then
physical disintegration of one or the other of them" but the origins
and outcomes of battles can rarely be summarized so neatly. Battle in
the 20th and 21st centuries is defined as the combat between large
components of the forces in a military campaign, used to achieve
military objectives. Where the duration of the battle is longer than a
week, it is often for reasons of planning called an operation. Battles
can be planned, encountered or forced by one side when the other is
unable to withdraw from combat.

A battle always has as its purpose the reaching of a mission goal by
use of military force. A victory in the battle is achieved when one of
the opposing sides forces the other to abandon its mission and
surrender its forces, routs the other (i.e., forces it to retreat or
renders it militarily ineffective for further combat operations) or
annihilates the latter, resulting in their deaths or capture. A battle
may end in a Pyrrhic victory, which ultimately favors the defeated
party. If no resolution is reached in a battle, it can result in a
stalemate. A conflict in which one side is unwilling to reach a
decision by a direct battle using conventional warfare often becomes
an insurgency.

Until the 19th century the majority of battles were of short duration,
many lasting a part of a day. (The Battle of Preston (1648), the
Battle of Nations (1813) and the Battle of Gettysburg (1863) were
exceptional in lasting three days.) This was mainly due to the
difficulty of supplying armies in the field or conducting night
operations. The means of prolonging a battle was typically with siege
warfare. Improvements in transport and the sudden evolving of trench
warfare, with its siege-like nature during the First World War in the
20th century, lengthened the duration of battles to days and weeks.
This created the requirement for unit rotation to prevent combat
fatigue, with troops preferably not remaining in a combat area of
operations for more than a month.

The use of the term "battle" in military history has led to its misuse
when referring to almost any scale of combat, notably by strategic
forces involving hundreds of thousands of troops that may be engaged
in either one battle at a time (Battle of Leipzig) or operations
(Battle of Kursk). The space a battle occupies depends on the range of
the weapons of the combatants.  A "battle" in this broader sense may
be of long duration and take place over a large area, as in the case
of the Battle of Britain or the Battle of the Atlantic. Until the
advent of artillery and aircraft, battles were fought with the two
sides within sight, if not reach, of each other. The depth of the
battlefield has also increased in modern warfare with inclusion of the
supporting units in the rear areas; supply, artillery, medical
personnel etc. often outnumber the front-line combat troops.

Battles are made up of a multitude of individual combats, skirmishes
and small engagements and the combatants will usually only experience
a small part of the battle. To the infantryman, there may be little to
distinguish between combat as part of a minor raid or a big offensive,
nor is it likely that he anticipates the future course of the battle;
few of the British infantry who went over the top on the first day on
the Somme, 1 July 1916, would have anticipated that the battle would
last five months. some of the Allied infantry who had just dealt a
crushing defeat to the French at the Battle of Waterloo fully expected
to have to fight again the next day (at the Battle of Wavre).


                             Battlespace                              
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Battlespace is a unified strategic concept to integrate and combine
armed forces for the military theatre of operations, including air,
information, land, sea and space. It includes the environment, factors
and conditions that must be understood to apply combat power, protect
the force or complete the mission, comprising enemy and friendly armed
forces; facilities; weather; terrain; and the electromagnetic
spectrum.


                               Factors                                
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Battles are decided by various factors, the number and quality of
combatants and equipment, the skill of commanders and terrain are
among the most prominent. Weapons and armour can be decisive; on many
occasions armies have achieved victory through more advanced weapons
than those of their opponents. An extreme example was in the Battle of
Omdurman, in which a large army of Sudanese Mahdists armed in a
traditional manner were destroyed by an Anglo-Egyptian force equipped
with Maxim machine guns and artillery.

On some occasions, simple weapons employed in an unorthodox fashion
have proven advantageous; Swiss pikemen gained many victories through
their ability to transform a traditionally defensive weapon into an
offensive one. Zulus in the early19th century were victorious in
battles against their rivals in part because they adopted a new kind
of spear, the iklwa. Forces with inferior weapons have still emerged
victorious at times, for example in the Wars of Scottish Independence
and in the First Italo-Ethiopian War. Disciplined troops are often of
greater importance; at the Battle of Alesia, the Romans were greatly
outnumbered but won because of superior training.

Battles can also be determined by terrain. Capturing high ground has
been the main tactic in innumerable battles. An army that holds the
high ground forces the enemy to climb and thus wear themselves down.
Areas of jungle and forest, with dense vegetation act as
force-multipliers, of benefit to inferior armies. Terrain may have
lost importance in modern warfare, due to the advent of aircraft,
though the terrain is still vital for camouflage, especially for
guerrilla warfare.

Generals and commanders also play an important role, Hannibal, Julius
Caesar, Khalid ibn Walid, Subutai and Napoleon Bonaparte were all
skilled generals and their armies were extremely successful at times.
An army that can trust the commands of their leaders with conviction
in its success invariably has a higher morale than an army that doubts
its every move. The British in the naval Battle of Trafalgar owed its
success to the reputation of Admiral Lord Nelson.


                                Types                                 
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Battles can be fought on land, at sea, and in the air. Naval battles
have occurred since before the 5th century BC. Air battles have been
far less common, due to their late conception, the most prominent
being the Battle of Britain in 1940. Since the Second World War, land
or sea battles have come to rely on air support. During the Battle of
Midway, five aircraft carriers were sunk without either fleet coming
into direct contact.



engagement where the opposing sides collide in the field without
either having prepared their attack or defence.

less sustainable compared to one's own losses.  These need not be
greater numerical losses - if one side is much more numerous than the
other then pursuing a strategy based on attrition can work even if
casualties on both sides are about equal.  Many battles of the Western
Front in the First World War were intentionally (Verdun) or
unintentionally (Somme) attrition battles.

thereby exposing the vulnerable flanks which can be turned.

()—surrounds the enemy in a pocket.

the classic example being the double envelopment of the Battle of
Cannae.

destroyed in the field, such as the French fleet at the Battle of the
Nile.

Battles and are usually hybrids of different types listed above.

A 'decisive battle' is one with political effects, determining the
course of the war such as the Battle of Smolensk or bringing
hostilities to an end, such as the Battle of Hastings or the Battle of
Hattin. A decisive battle can change the balance of power or
boundaries between countries. The concept of the 'decisive battle'
became popular with the publication in 1851 of Edward Creasy's 'The
Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World'. British military historians
J.F.C. Fuller ('The Decisive Battles of the Western World') and B.H.
Liddell Hart ('Decisive Wars of History'), among many others, have
written books in the style of Creasy's work.


 Land 
======
There is an obvious difference in the way battles have been fought.
Early battles were probably fought between rival hunting bands as
unorganized crowds. During the Battle of Megiddo, the first reliably
documented battle in the fifteenth century BC, both armies were
organised and disciplined; during the many wars of the Roman Empire,
barbarians continued to use mob tactics.

As the Age of Enlightenment dawned, armies began to fight in highly
disciplined lines. Each would follow the orders from their officers
and fight as a unit instead of individuals. Armies were divided into
regiments, battalions, companies and platoons. These armies would
march, line up and fire in divisions.

Native Americans, on the other hand, did not fight in lines, using
guerrilla tactics. American colonists and European forces continued
using disciplined lines into the American Civil War.

A new style arose from the 1850s to the First World War, known as
trench warfare, which also led to tactical radio. Chemical warfare
also began in 1915.

By the Second World War, the use of the smaller divisions, platoons
and companies became much more important as precise operations became
vital. Instead of the trench stalemate of 1915-1917, in the Second
World War, battles developed where small groups encountered other
platoons. As a result, elite squads became much more recognized and
distinguishable. Maneuver warfare also returned with an astonishing
pace with the advent of the tank, replacing the cannon of the
Enlightenment Age. Artillery has since gradually replaced the use of
frontal troops. Modern battles resemble those of the Second World War,
along with indirect combat through the use of aircraft and missiles
which has come to constitute a large portion of wars in place of
battles, where battles are now mostly reserved for capturing cities.


 Naval 
=======
One significant difference of modern naval battles, as opposed to
earlier forms of combat is the use of marines, which introduced
amphibious warfare. Today, a marine is actually an infantry regiment
that sometimes fights solely on land and is no longer tied to the
navy. A good example of an old naval battle is the Battle of Salamis.
Most ancient naval battles were fought by fast ships using the
battering ram to sink opposing fleets or steer close enough for
boarding in hand-to-hand combat. Troops were often used to storm enemy
ships as used by Romans and pirates. This tactic was usually used by
civilizations that could not beat the enemy with ranged weaponry.
Another invention in the late Middle Ages was the use of Greek fire by
the Byzantines, which was used to set enemy fleets on fire. Empty
demolition ships utilized the tactic to crash into opposing ships and
set it afire with an explosion. After the invention of cannons, naval
warfare became useful as support units for land warfare. During the
19th century, the development of mines led to a new type of naval
warfare. The ironclad, first used in the American Civil War, resistant
to cannons, soon made the wooden ship obsolete. The invention of
military submarines, during World War I, brought naval warfare to both
above and below the surface. With the development of military aircraft
during World War II, battles were fought in the sky as well as below
the ocean. Aircraft carriers have since become the central unit in
naval warfare, acting as a mobile base for lethal aircraft.


 Aerial 
========
Although the use of aircraft has for the most part always been used as
a supplement to land or naval engagements, since their first major
military use in World War I aircraft have increasingly taken on larger
roles in warfare. During World War I, the primary use was for
reconnaissance, and small-scale bombardment. Aircraft began becoming
much more prominent in the Spanish Civil War and especially World War
II. Aircraft design began specializing, primarily into two types:
bombers, which carried explosive payloads to bomb land targets or
ships; and fighter-interceptors, which were used to either intercept
incoming aircraft or to escort and protect bombers (engagements
between fighter aircraft were known as dog fights). Some of the more
notable aerial battles in this period include the Battle of Britain
and the Battle of Midway. Another important use of aircraft came with
the development of the helicopter, which first became heavily used
during the Vietnam War, and still continues to be widely used today to
transport and augment ground forces. Today, direct engagements between
aircraft are rare - the most modern fighter-interceptors carry much
more extensive bombing payloads, and are used to bomb precision land
targets, rather than to fight other aircraft. Anti-aircraft batteries
are used much more extensively to defend against incoming aircraft
than interceptors. Despite this, aircraft today are much more
extensively used as the primary tools for both army and navy, as
evidenced by the prominent use of helicopters to transport and support
troops, the use of aerial bombardment as the "first strike" in many
engagements, and the replacement of the battleship with the aircraft
carrier as the center of most modern navies.


                                Naming                                
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Battles are usually named after some feature of the battlefield
geography, such as a town, forest or river, commonly prefixed "Battle
of...". Occasionally battles are named after the date on which they
took place, such as The Glorious First of June. In the Middle Ages it
was considered important to settle on a suitable name for a battle
which could be used by the chroniclers. After Henry V of England
defeated a French army on October 25, 1415, he met with the senior
French herald and they agreed to name the battle after the nearby
castle and so it was called the Battle of Agincourt. In other cases,
the sides adopted different names for the same battle, such as the
Battle of Gallipoli which is known in Turkey as the Battle of
Çanakkale. During the American Civil War, the Union tended to name the
battles after the nearest watercourse, such as the Battle of Wilsons
Creek and the Battle of Stones River, whereas the Confederates
favoured the nearby towns, as in the Battles of Chancellorsville and
Murfreesboro. Occasionally both names for the same battle entered the
popular culture, such as the First Battle of Bull Run and the Second
Battle of Bull Run, which are also referred to as the First and Second
Battles of Manassas.

Sometimes in desert warfare, there is no nearby town name to use; map
coordinates gave the name to the Battle of 73 Easting in the First
Gulf War. Some place names have become synonymous with battles, such
as the Passchendaele, Pearl Harbor, the Alamo, Thermopylae and
Waterloo. Military operations, many of which result in battle, are
given codenames, which are not necessarily meaningful or indicative of
the type or the location of the battle. Operation Market Garden and
Operation Rolling Thunder are examples of battles known by their
military codenames. When a battleground is the site of more than one
battle in the same conflict, the instances are distinguished by
ordinal number, such as the First and Second Battles of Bull Run. An
extreme case are the twelve Battles of the Isonzo—First to
Twelfth—between Italy and Austria-Hungary during the First World War.

Some battles are named for the convenience of military historians so
that periods of combat can be neatly distinguished from one another.
Following the First World War, the British Battles Nomenclature
Committee was formed to decide on standard names for all battles and
subsidiary actions. To the soldiers who did the fighting, the
distinction was usually academic; a soldier fighting at Beaumont Hamel
on November 13, 1916 was probably unaware he was taking part in what
the committee named the Battle of the Ancre. Many combats are too
small to be battles; terms such as "action", "affair" "skirmish",
"firefight" "raid" or "offensive patrol" are used to describe small
military encounters. These combats often take place within the time
and space of a battle and while they may have an objective, they are
not necessarily "decisive". Sometimes the soldiers are unable to
immediately gauge the significance of the combat; in the aftermath of
the Battle of Waterloo, some British officers were in doubt as to
whether the day's events merited the title of "battle" or would be
called an "action".


                               Effects                                
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Battles affect the individuals who take part, as well as the political
actors. Personal effects of battle range from mild psychological
issues to permanent and crippling injuries. Some battle-survivors have
nightmares about the conditions they encountered or abnormal reactions
to certain sights or sounds and some suffer flashbacks. Physical
effects of battle can include scars, amputations, lesions, loss of
bodily functions, blindness, paralysis and death. Battles affect
politics; a decisive battle can cause the losing side to surrender,
while a Pyrrhic victory such as the Battle of Asculum can cause the
winning side to reconsider its goals. Battles in civil wars have often
decided the fate of monarchs or political factions. Famous examples
include the Wars of the Roses, as well as the Jacobite risings.
Battles affect the commitment of one side or the other to the
continuance of a war, for example the Battle of Inchon and the Battle
of Huế during the Tet Offensive.


                               See also                               
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                              References                              
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;Sources




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=========
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License URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle


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