amphibious warfare

amphibious warfare, military operations characterized by attacks launched from the sea by naval and landing forces against hostile shores. The main form is the amphibious assault, which may be conducted for any of several purposes: to serve as a prelude to further combat operations ashore; to seize a site required as an advanced naval or air base; or to deny the use of the site or area to the enemy. Landing of expeditionary forces on a shore or at a port already secured by friendly forces is not usually included in the concept.

Amphibious warfare has been conducted since ancient times, although specialized landing vessels are a modern development. The Greeks attacking Troy (1200 bc) had to gain a lodgment on the shore, as did the Persian invaders of Greece in the Bay of Marathon (490 bc). After the decline of Rome and during the European Middle Ages, the most successful practitioners of amphibious warfare, although on a small scale, were the Norse raiders on the coasts of northern, western, and Mediterranean Europe. During the Napoleonic Wars, Napoleon’s failure to control the English Channel and invade England is frequently cited as a classic example of the inability of a strong continental force to project its strength over even the narrowest of seas if it lacks sea power. Similarly, Germany was disadvantaged during World War II by its lack of adequate amphibious capability.

The British-led landings at Gallipoli (1915) during the disastrous Dardanelles Campaign was the principal amphibious assault during World War I. By contrast, the Allies’ counteroffensives in World War II (with the exception of those of the Soviet Union) were predicated upon a series of amphibious operations that were essential to reentering Axis-held territory. The United States’ island-hopping campaigns westward across the Pacific involved amphibious assaults against the Japanese-held islands of Guadalcanal in the Solomons, New Guinea, Kwajalein, Tarawa, the Marianas, the Philippines, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. In the Western theatre, the Normandy Invasion (1944), in which Allied forces successfully invaded the German-held coast of northern France, ranks as the greatest amphibious assault in history. The outstanding example of amphibious warfare in the Korean War was the landing of U.S. forces at Inchon on the west coast of Korea in 1950.

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World Wars

Modern amphibious warfare integrates virtually all forms of land, sea, and air operations. Its greatest advantage lies in its mobility and flexibility; its greatest limitation is that the attacker must build up his strength ashore from an initial zero. After World War II, new debarkation methods and capabilities were developed to overcome the previously slow and ponderous off-loading process. Helicopters were used for resupply and medical evacuation, as well as for landing troops. To improve tactical air support in the battle area, airfields were developed that in a matter of days provided substantially the same capabilities ashore as an attack aircraft carrier.

In the late 1940s military opinion had recognized that the great concentrations of shipping and the congested beachheads of World War II would be futile against a nuclear-equipped enemy. To eliminate such congestion, helicopters and other vertical-rising or short-takeoff aircraft were to converge on the objective area from high-speed assault transports located many miles out at sea. Though the new concepts were not put to the test by a nuclear-equipped enemy, they did add a new dimension to amphibious operations against conventionally armed enemies, as was demonstrated in landings such as those conducted during the Vietnam War in the 1960s.