A combination of global insecurity and recent aggressions within European borders has forced the Swedish Armed Forces to change its focus back to territorial defense. With this change in focus an increase in armed capabilities especially within rebuilding and reshaping the brigades with focus on the application of combined arms within maneuver warfare has been identified. With the current manuals and guidelines concerning combined arms a gap concerning its tactical success and origin has been identified which leads to how tactical success can be explained with combined arms. This study aims to explain tactical success with the help of Robert Leonhards theory of combined arms during the Yom Kippur war. Even though a clear absence of organizational structure favoring combined arms, several events during the war show a relative clear application of combined arms within the Israeli forces. The theory has partly explained the tactical successes within the given frames of the study, but several other factors could furthermore explain said tactical successes.

A trend in modern warfare is to conduct war both conventionally and unconventionally. This modern era sets high demands on conventional forces to face the contemporary threat. Most of the modern conventional forces conduct war through maneuver warfare and uses the practice of combined arms to organize and fight, but is the method of combined arms still a valid method? This study examines Robert Leonhard’s theory of combined arms in the Yom Kippur war 1973 and during the American Thunder Runs in Baghdad 2003. The research question that this study is trying to answer is how the combined arms theory can explain the tactical success in the two cases. Previous studies about the theory explains how it could be understood, not how it is used. The theory encompasses three principles which is applied to the two cases to allow a structured analysis. The results show that both the Israelis and the Americans use the combined arms theory to achieve tactical success. What the analysis also shows is that the theory is not the only element that achieved success, but also technical advantage, moral and experience made an impact on the outcome of the cases.

Recent aggressions and geopolitical insecurities in the Baltic region have made it necessary for the Swedish armed forces to change their focus from an international defense policy to a territorial defense strategy. This change focuses mainly on strengthening the defensive capabilities of the Swedish armed Forces by reshaping the brigade structures with a focus on combined arms warfare in conjunction to maneuver warfare. Current doctrine and manuals show a lack in combined arms concerning its contribution to tactical success as well as its origin. As such a question whether tactical success can be explained with combined arms has been raised. This thesis aims to examine if Robert R Leonhard’s theory on combined arms can explain success at a tactical level during Operation Desert Storm and the Yom Kippur war and the analysis focuses on Robert Leonhards three principles of combined arms. The result of the study shows that the theory can partly explain success at a tactical level in both cases. But further studies must be conducted on the subject in order to increase the theories explanatory power.