Battle A battle is a combat in warfare between two or more armed forces , or combatants . A war sometimes consists of many battles . Battles generally are well defined in duration , area , and force commitment . 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 . Battle is a loanword from the Old French " bataille " , first attested in 1297 , from Late Latin " battualia " , meaning " exercise of soldiers and gladiators in fighting and fencing " , from Late Latin ( taken from Germanic ) " battuere " " beat " , from which the English word battery is also derived via Middle English " batri " . Characteristics . The defining characteristic of the fight as a concept in Military science has been a dynamic one through the course of military history , changing with the changes in the organisation , employment and technology of military forces . While the English military historian Sir 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 " , the origins and outcomes of battles can rarely be summarized so neatly . In general a battle during the 20th century was , and continues to be , defined by the combat between opposing forces representing major components of total forces committed to a military campaign , used to achieve specific military objective s . Where the duration of the battle is longer than a week , it is often for reasons of staff operational planning called an " operation " . Battles can be planned , encountered , or forced by one force on the other when the latter 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 , or to surrender its forces , or rout s the other , i . e . , forces it to retreat or renders it militarily ineffective for further combat operation s . However , 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 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 by employment of siege warfare . Improvements in transportation and the sudden evolving of trench warfare , with its siege - like nature during World War I 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 . Trench warfare had become largely obsolete in conflicts between advanced armies by the start of the Second World War . 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 a single battle at one time ( Battle of Leipzig ) or multiple operations ( Battle of Kursk ) . The space a battle occupies depends on the range of the weapon s 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 , on the whole , made up of a multitude of individual combats , skirmishes and small engagement s within the context of which the combatants will usually only experience a small part of the events of the battle ' s entirety . To the infantry man , there may be little to distinguish between combat as part of a minor raid or as a major 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 , July 1 , 1916 , would have anticipated that they would be fighting the same battle in five months ' time . Conversely , 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 . Battlespace is a unified strategy 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 successfully apply combat power , protect the force , or complete the mission . This includes enemy and friendly armed forces ; facilities ; weather ; terrain ; and the electromagnetic spectrum within the operational areas and areas of interest . Factors . Battles are decided by various factors . The number and quality of combatants and equipment , the skill of the commanders of each army , and the terrain advantages are among the most prominent factors . A unit may charge with high morale but less discipline and still emerge victorious . This tactic was effectively used by the early French Revolutionary Armies . Weapons and armour can be a decisive factor . On many occasions armies have achieved victories largely owing to the employment of 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 gun s . On some occasions , simple weapons employed in an unorthodox fashion have proven advantageous , as with the Swiss pikemen who gained many victories through their ability to transform a traditionally defensive weapon into an offensive one . Likewise , the Zulus in the early 19th century were victorious in battles against their rivals in part because they adopted a new kind of spear , the iklwa . Even so , 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 . Discipline within the troops is 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 , for example , has been the central strategy in innumerable battles . An army that holds the high ground forces the enemy to climb , and thus wear themselves down . Areas of dense vegetation , such as jungles and forest , act as force - multipliers , of benefit to inferior armies . Arguably , terrain is of less importance in modern warfare , due to the advent of aircraft , though terrain is still vital for camouflage , especially for guerrilla warfare . Generals and commanders also play a decisive role during combat . Hannibal , Julius Caesar , Khalid ibn Walid and Napoleon Bonaparte were all skilled generals and , consequently , their armies were extremely successful . 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 , for example , owed its success to the reputation of celebrated admiral Lord Nelson . Types . Battles can be fought on land , at sea and , in the modern age , in the air . Naval battle s 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 . However , since the Second World War land or sea battles have come to rely on air support . Indeed , during the Battle of Midway , five aircraft carrier s were sunk without either fleet coming into direct contact . There are numerous types of battles : Battles frequently do not fit one particular type perfectly , and are usually hybrids of different types listed above . A " decisive battle " is one of particular importance ; often by bringing hostilities to an end , such as the Battle of Hastings or the Battle of Hattin , or as a turning point in the fortunes of the belligerent s , such as the Battle of Stalingrad . A decisive battle can have political as well as military impact , changing 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 historian s 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 throughout time . Early battles were probably fought between rival hunting bands as disorganized mobs . However , during the Battle of Megiddo , the first reliably documented battle in the fifteenth century BC , actual discipline was instilled in both armies . However , during the many wars of the Roman Empire , barbarians continued using 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 single unit instead of individuals . Each army was successively 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 , utilizing instead guerrilla tactics . American colonists and European forces continued using disciplined lines , continuing into the American Civil War . A new style , during World War I , known as trench warfare , developed nearly half a century later . This also led to radio for communication between battalions . Chemical warfare also emerged with the use of poisonous gas during World War I . By World War II , the use of the smaller divisions , platoons and companies became much more important as precise operations became vital . Instead of the locked trench warfare of World War I , during World War II , a dynamic network of battles developed where small groups encountered other platoons . As a result , elite squads became much more recognized and distinguishable . Maneuver warfare also developed with an astonishing pace with the advent of the tank , replacing the archaic cannons of the Enlightenment Age . Artillery has since gradually replaced the use of frontal troops . Modern battles now continue to resemble those of World War II , though prominent innovations have been added . Indirect combat through the use of aircraft and missiles now constitutes 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 submarine s , 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 . Battles are usually named after some feature of the battlefield geography , such as the name of 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 chronicler s . For example , 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 and Second Battle of Bull Run , which are also referred to as the First and Second Battle 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 the battles that took place there , such as the Passchendaele , Pearl Harbor , the Alamo , Thermopylae , or Waterloo . Military operation s , 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 historian s 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 would call the " Battle of the Ancre " . Many combats are too small to merit a name . Terms such as " action " , " skirmish " , " firefight " , " raid " or " offensive patrol " are used to describe small - scale battle - like 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 passed off as merely an " action " . Effects . 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 . Some suffer flashbacks . Physical effects of battle can include scars , amputations , lesions , loss of bodily functions , blindness , paralysis — and death . Battles also 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 long - term goals . Battles in civil wars have often decided the fate of monarchs or political factions . Famous examples include the War of the Roses , as well as the Jacobite Uprisings . Battles also affect the commitment of one side or the other to the continuance of a war , for example the Battle of Incheon and the Battle of Hue during the Tet Offensive .