Editing Combined arms (section)

===Cold War years===
In 1963 the [[United States Marine Corps]] formalized the concept of the [[Marine Air-Ground Task Force]], which combined Marine aviation and Marine ground units for expeditionary missions.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.usmc.mil/13thmeu/Thunderingthird/basics.htm |title=What is a Marine expeditionary unit? |work=Home of the Thundering Third |publisher=United States Marine Corps |date=2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071117103710/http://www.usmc.mil/13thmeu/Thunderingthird/basics.htm |archive-date=17 November 2007 |df=dmy-all}}</ref>

The [[Vietnam War]] had a profound influence on the development of the US Army's combined arms doctrine. Due to the very difficult terrain that prevented access to the enemy-held [[area of operation|areas of operation]], troops were often deployed by [[air assault]]. For this reason, US troops in Vietnam saw six times more combat than in preceding wars, due to less time spent on logistic delays. The result: an infantry unit increased in effectiveness by a factor of four for its size, when supported with helicopter-delivered ammunition, food and fuel.<ref>{{cite book |last=Stanton |first=Shelby |year=1999 |title=The 1st Cav[elry] in Vietnam: Anatomy of a division |pages=111–132 |publisher=Presidio Press |location=Novato}}</ref> In time the US Army in Vietnam also learned to combine helicopter operations and [[airmobile infantry]] with the armoured and artillery units operating from [[fire support base]]s as well as the US [[brown-water navy]] and [[USAF]] [[close air support]] units supporting them.<ref>{{cite book |last=Schlight |first=John |title=Help from Above: Air Force close air support of the Army 1946–1973 |year=2003 |pages=299–352 |publisher=Air Force History and Museums Program |location=Washington, D.C.}}
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[[AirLand Battle]] was the overall conceptual framework that formed the basis of the US Army's European warfighting doctrine from 1982 into the late 1990s. AirLand Battle emphasized close coordination between land forces acting as an aggressively maneuvering defense, and air forces attacking rear-echelon forces feeding those front line enemy forces.<ref name=oart/>

In the 1991 [[Gulf War]], [[General Schwarzkopf]] used a mix of strikes by fixed-wing aircraft including [[carpet bombing]] and precision bombing in combination with large numbers of strikes by [[attack helicopters]]. During the ground assault phase, tanks and other [[armoured fighting vehicle]]s supported by attack aircraft swept over remaining forces. The front line moved forward at upwards of 40–50&nbsp;km/h at the upper limit of the Army's tracked vehicles.<ref name=scales98>Certain Victory: The U.S. Army in the Gulf War. Robert H. Scales, Potomac Books, Inc., 1998</ref><ref name=cab92>Combined Arms in Battle Since 1939. U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Press, 1992</ref><ref name=stewart10>War in the Persian Gulf: Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm : August 1990-March 1991. Richard Winship Stewart, Government Printing Office, 2010</ref><ref name=schubert95>The Whirlwind War: The United States Army in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Frank N. Schubert, Center of Military History, United States Army, 1995</ref>