Season Four (1965-66)

Combat 's fourth season premiered on Tuesday, September 14, 1965, and concluded on April 12, 1966. It consisted of thirty-one episodes.

This season was the final one shot in black-and-white. The three major broadcast television networks were moving toward all-color programming; NBC made the full switch to all-color primetime programming in the fall of 1965. Three major roadblocks kept Combat! from going to color until 1966: production costs, a paucity of color stock footage from World War II, and a perception that war shows worked better in black-and-white.

Vic Morrow directed the two-part episode "Hills Are For Heroes." The episode, which took 21 days to film and cost half a million dollars, was hailed by some cast members as the show's finest hour. Praise for "Hills" also came from Tom Lowell, who had left the show two years prior.

Toward the end of season four, longtime producer Gene Levitt stepped down. The workload of overseeing the show had worn him down, as had fights with star Vic Morrow. "It got to the point where Gene Levitt just hated him," Rick Jason later said. Levitt would be succeed by Richard Caffey for Combat 's fifth season.