Would it be “battlespace” for an aerial battleground (i.e., Battle of Britain)? I can’t think of a water equivalent for a naval battle at sea. “Battlefield” seems to only describe land.
I have heard the term battle site used.
Current US doctrine likes the word “battlespace” to describe a 3-d integrated combined arms equivalent of “battlefield”. Nowadays cyber/information space is counted as part of battlespace.
My cite is the last 7 years of my military career attending way too many systems acquisition and doctrine/strategy type meetings. You buy “weapon systems” to use them in a “battlespace”.
ETA: All of that said, most of the heavy lifting of combat is still done on a battlefield. As much as the Air Force and Navy might disagree, the most important killing is done on the ground, and “only infantry can hold ground”. As long as most humans are surface-bound and most societies land-based, that’s where war really matters.
Agree “battlespace” is the combined arms buzzword du jour and has been for 5-10 years.
The term “airspace” has been used for both civil ATC and military ops to refer to a geographically bounded chunk of air. “Maverick, your mission today is to control the airspace over the enemy 3rd Guards Division.”
Planning to avoid/minimize fratricide between friendly air interceptors, friendly anti-aircraft SAMs, and friendly outgoing artillery are (or at least were) referred to as “airspace deconfliction orders.”
“Battle area” and “battle zone” were also used to refer to the hotter versus cooler parts of the total airspace. USAF also imported some Army terminology for our ops over their heads. In my era terms like FLOT, FEBA, & zone of influence were used to refer to the airspace directly above the corresponding ground combat zones.
I asked my father about this; he was a gunner on a destroyer in all the major naval battles in the Pacific – Midway, Iwo Jima, etc., went through the typhoon where three American ships were lost, saw the mushroom cloud, the whole schmear. He wasn’t aware of any particular term for the area in which a naval battle took place.
He did tell me a story which ties in with the “battlespace” concept, though. As the fleet was nearing Japan his and two other destroyers were sent out one night to sink some Japanese boats and barges which were moving stuff around in preparation for the impending invasion; they went at night to avoid the kamikazes. After they sunk the boats and were preparing to go back to the main fleet the radar operator spotted one boat riding low in the water but still floating. Dad got the order to finish it off. He put a 5 inch shell through the conning tower of an American submarine that wasn’t supposed to be there. The sub quickly broke radio silence; no one was killed but Dad figures the captain probably lost his job.