A Holistic And Broad Spectrum Appreciation Of Air Power

“Never before had so much brain-power been focused on a single problem.”(Laurence qtd. in “Eyewitness”). Many inventions can be said to have changed the world, and the way it worked. Only a core few of these many inventions can be said to change air warfare, and few of those are as game-changing as the B-29 Superfortress by Boeing. The B-29 was the plane that dropped the atomic bombs in World War Two (“bomber”). The plane by Boeing was used most in World War Two as a strategic long-range bomber. This invention revolutionized the concept of war, and war is a factor in all life on planet earth. The B-29 bomber changed warfare by sparking the innovation of aircraft technology, saving lives, and allowing more power to be carried by the means

Most strategists during the First World War saw no military future for aviation. The French Marshal Ferdinand Foch once said, “Aviation is good sport, but for the Army it is useless” (Bailey 10); however, as air technology advanced in the 1920s, the idea of air power gained strength. World War II was the

The days of unilateral and conventional battles are history. The Army of yesterday is no longer adequate to deter and defeat our nation’s enemies. Rather, the Army needs to adapt to meet the global challenges of today, and the complexity of hybrid threats. Former Army Chief of Staff, General Ray Odierno stated, “The Army is probably the most flexible, adaptable organization across all the services”. In conjunction with that claim, the Army is implementing the regionally aligned forces (RAF) concept. Through the implementation of the regionally aligned forces concept, our nation’s Army will become a versatile, adaptable and globally ready force. Although the RAF concept is thoroughly sound, it is doomed to fail during its implementation.

Airpower’s contribution to the Allied victory did not represent the ultimate fulfillment of the prophecies and predictions that were raised in the interwar period. Airpower theorists, on both sides of the Atlantic, advocated predictions and prophecies for the future of warfare. They strongly supported ideas and expectations that airpower and especially strategic bombardment was the best answer in the quest for decisive victory. Airpower was the end and the means to destroy the enemy’s will to fight. However, the Trenchardian notion that decisive victory would come through the cumulative moral effect of aerial bombing proved false because German citizens showed a remarkable resilience to surrender. Moreover, the Allies’ rhetoric that bombers “would always get through” was far from the reality and resulted in a tremendous number of aircraft losses and fatalities. Finally, the prediction that the airpower can win alone was an overestimated expectation albeit, airpower played a significant role, the decisive victory came as result of a larger joint effort by all the services.

The operations of the Americans and the British differed from How did the operations differed considerably from Guio Douhet's ideas. These differences will be pointed out by this author in this argumentative essay analyzing Christopher R. Gabel's Military Review article on the Combined Bomber Offensive and the The United States Strategic Bombing Survey of September September 30, 1945 in order to point out the differences between British and American ideas and those of Douhet.

Thinking about historical experiences and analyzing their current relevance appears to be an important component of strategy development. Having to balance between political demands and military necessity (i.e., Luttwak’s linear versus paradoxical logic) further complicates strategic art. Regardless, as Corbett, Slessor, Wylie, and Luttwak’s books demonstrate, strategic thinking evolves through an iterative process to arrive at new concepts the fit within the social, political, and economic contexts of the strategist’s time. Although these authors demonstrate the evolution of 20th Century strategic thought, they also show the continuity of themes regarding the achievement of control through economy of effort, consideration of non-military

In the summer of 1940, shortly after the Germans successfully invaded France, the struggle to gain air superiority was fought between the Royal Air Force of Great Britain and the Luftwaffe of Germany. This air campaign, known as the Battle of Britain, was Hitler's first step in his plan to invade England. However, the Luftwaffe were unsuccessful and the battle was won by the British. This essay will examine the factors behind the victory, accounting for both the RAF's successes and the errors of the Luftwaffe.

This statement at a glance gives the reader insight into why landpower is so important to the nation’s defense. Landpower functions in concert with the whole of government; which make United States(US) policies and alliances more effective than they would be if they were employed in isolation. This paper will analyze the role of Landpower in the achievement of national strategic objectives in peace, conflict, and war, and discuss the relevant interdependencies of the domains of conflict as they relate to the application of Landpower anywhere in the world. This paper will also highlight the unique role of Landpower in a Joint, Interagency, Intergovernmental, and Multinational (JIIM) environment, as a member of

The air war in North Africa highlighted the gap in US air doctrine’s emphasis on exclusive strategic bombing. Tactical airpower

Aerial bombing in warfare is a recent addition to the technology used to wage war. Aircraft as a tool of warfare less than a hundred and ten years old but the methodology is much older in the context of waging war. Grosscup (2006), states war has always been and will always be contentious, and so to evaluate aerial bombing ethics discourse must be centered on a particular context. Aerial bombing was first used during the First World War; it brought a new dimension in war that had never been seen before. Civilians, cities and industries were exposed to the horrors of war (Grosscup, 2006). Before the battlefield was far away from civilians’ cities and industries but the introduction of planes as a weapon platform changed all this and all of a

From the skies over Great Britain, to the skies of Afghanistan, over the skies of Guam, air power has played a major role in everything that involves conflict. Air power has even played a vital role in peacetime as well. For something that is seemed to taken advantaged of today, it was a tough lesson for the pioneers of air power. Their mistakes and smart ideas have given the world today, the ability to do so much on the battle field, which is it almost unfathomable in the human mind. The possibilities are limitless in the skies that is above the heads of so many. The world has seen a lot of turmoil, but the influence of air power is continuously changing as the years go on, but the history is the one who deems what the people will remember.

In the modernized world, despite the collective efforts of dozens of nations, warfare has claimed the lives of over 100 Million people in the last century. Many pacts for peace and alliance have compacted from the rubble created in world wars and international conflicts between the US and USSR, like the Warsaw and SCO groups. The North Atlantic Treaty has been a long-standing agreement yet to be tarnished. While many treaties have used a simple agreement that was easily violated with no recourse, NATO engages its component nations in what has likely evolved to be the most successful incorporation of Liberalist Defense in the Industrial Era.

Douhet. Douhet’s theory implied that strategic bombers can also be used against civilian targets, creating a loss of morale while destroying the enemy’s will to fight. Rather than relying strictly on bombers, Mitchell’s concept of airpower could be described as a balance between pursuit and attack aircraft in order to achieve a strategic advantage on the battlefield as well as air superiority. Trenchard wholly accepted Mitchell’s demand that the Air Service become a separate branch to support both land and naval forces. These strategies would later aid Mitchell in formulating his predictions of the next world war.

Introduction (1/2) Air superiority is the single most important factor in deciding the outcome of a modern conventional war. Military operations on land, sea, or in the air are extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the side that doesn’t control the sky. In the words of Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery, “If we lose the war in the air, we lose the war and we lose it quickly.” (supremacy)[introduction] ,

The evolution of airpower is a very broad subject that you could spend a lifetime researching and writing about (definitely not my objective). It is not my intent to get into the weeds on this subject but rather, give a “30,000 foot view” as one of my Colonels was famous for asking for on almost any subject that he needed to be briefed on. With that being said, the outline I intend to follow is: