ABSTRACTThe modern warfare concepts place emphasis on telescoping time and space dimensions in order to achieve mobility ascendancy. This when combined with balanced forces and fire power, ensures success of an operation. The contemporary warfare has become complex and intricate and armies rely more and more on the use of third dimension.
The art of warfare is ever progressing and military commanders are looking forward to achieve ascendancy over their rivals. The face of conflict is ever changing and so are the doctrines and concepts.With the changing trends in the art of warfare the importance of air power and vertical dimension to the ground manoeuvre is ever increasing. Reliance of modern armies on air power, cyber warfare, heliborne troops and aerial weapon platform gives ample evidence to the dimensions of future battlefield. The concept of Air Assault is getting credence due to its obvious integration with other members of the combined arms team to form a powerful punch with the field commander to achieve his defensive or offensive task. The ever-increasing defensive capabilities with hardened defences, intriguing water obstacles, accurate and lethal defensive fire has made the task of assaulting troops most difficult.
Ground friction so created has made the army rely more and more on the third dimension at least to gain the first foothold or to expedite the culmination of the operation on a favourable note. This paper encompasses the concept of Air Assault from historic perspective emphasizing its impact on future battlefield. To this end, an endeavour has been made to study the whole gamut of Air Assault concept underlining the organizational structure and employment doctrines of contemporary armies, thereby laying down the efficacy of this concept for Pakistan Army, signifying measures to harness the true purport of this concept for implementation at Army and Formation level.
