Watch: M1 Abrams tanks, Apache attack choppers, and Army Rangers converge in live fire training

Independent of one another, America’s M1 Abrams tanks, AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, and special operations troops from the U.S. Army Rangers are each capable of engaging and destroying our nation’s enemies with extreme prejudice, but when you put those disparate combat elements together on a single battlefield, the whole becomes even greater than the sum of its parts.

In this footage, you can each of those elements, as well as U.S. Airforce Airmen and MLRS launchers take part in a Joint Forcible Entry Exercise during Operation Dragon Spear at Fort Irwin in August of 2015.  This live-fire exercise was intended to enhance the interoperability of America’s special operations and conventional forces by recreating a complex and dynamic combat scenario that closely resembles that of real combat operations.

While honing individual skill sets is an imperative for America’s military forces, developing the ability to call on those skill sets in conjunction with other combat elements is ultimately what decides battles; a mindset that we’ve seen expand into a more significant emphasis on international interoperability in places like the Pacific and the Baltics in recent years.  But of course, before American forces can learn to cooperate with elements from nations like Japan, South Korea, Estonia or Poland, they have to develop their cooperative skills with domestic partners from other units, disciplines, and branches.

Watch the video below to see how the different gears of America’s war machine begin turning in unison toward the ultimate goal of swift and devastating victory of the nation’s enemies.

Image courtesy of YouTube