Arty is the King of Battle. Using it and other support arms (close air support) with precision and skill separates the knuckle draggers who rely on mass from the professionals. I understand that the US military proficiency in these areas fell off a lot since my day (1980s) when we prepared to go up against the vaunted Red Army and did eventually fight the less vaunted Iraqi Army. We had the ability to identify using ground and airborne observers, suppress air defenses, with ground fires (arty) and aviation (helicopters) and roll in with the close air support hammer in tight coordination. Now, you'd add UAVs to the mix for observation and fires. I'm told the timelines are longer due to lawyer intervention (political wars against terrorists and insurgents). But, in the day of my youth we had it tight.