Four primarily elements – maneuver, firepower, protection, and leadership - combine to create combat power - the ability to fight. Their effective application will decide the outcome of campaigns, major operations, battles and engagements. Firepower provides destructive force in defeating the enemy’s ability to fight.
Protection conserves the fighting potential of a force so that commanders can apply it at decisive time and place. In modern warfare any combined arms combat will be conductedjointlyby forces of allied nations acting together for the successful accomplishment of a single mission.