Douhet was a contemporary of the 1920s air warfare advocates Billy Mitchell and Sir Hugh Trenchard. Born in Caserta, Campania, Italy, he attended the Modena Military Academy and was commissioned into the infantry (bersaglieri). Later he attended the Polytechnic Institute in Turin where he studied science and engineering.

Assigned to the General Staff shortly after the beginning of the new century, Douhet published lectures on military mechanization. With the arrival of dirigibles and then fixed-wing aircraft in Italy he quickly recognized the military potential of the new technology. Douhet saw the pitfalls of allowing air power to be fettered by ground commanders and began to advocate the creation of a separate air arm commanded by airmen. He teamed up with the young aircraft engineer Gianni Caproni to extol the virtues of air power in the years ahead.

In 1911, Italy went to war against the Ottoman Empire for control of Libya. During that war aircraft operated for the first time in reconnaissance, transport, artillery spotting and even limited bombing roles. Douhet wrote a report on the aviation lessons learned in which he suggested high altitude bombing should be the primary role of aircraft. In 1912 Douhet assumed command of the Italian aviation battalion at Turin, where he wrote a set of Rules for the Use of Airplanes in War -- one of the first doctrine manuals of its kind. However, Douhet's preaching on air power marked him as a 'radical'. After an incident in which he ordered construction of Caproni bombers without authorization, he was exiled to the infantry.

When World War I began, Douhet began to call for Italy to launch a massive military buildup—particularly in aircraft. "To gain command of the air," he said, was to render an enemy "harmless". He proposed a force of 500 bombers that could drop 125 tons of bombs daily, but was ignored. When Italy entered the war in 1915 Douhet was shocked by the army's incompetence and unpreparedness. He corresponded with his superiors and government officials, criticising the conduct of the war and advocating an air power solution. One particularly scathing letter resulted in Douhet's arrest and court-martial for spreading false news and agitation. He was sentenced to a year in a military jail.

Douhet continued to write about air power from his cell, finishing a novel on air power and proposing a massive Allied fleet of aircraft in communications to ministers. He was released and returned to duty shortly after the disastrous Battle of Caporetto in 1917. He soon became the central director of aviation at the General Air Commisariat where he worked to improve Italy's air arm.

In June 1918 Douhet left the Army, disgusted with his superiors. After the armistice he was able to have his court-martial overturned and was promoted to General. But rather than return to active duty Douhet continued writing. In 1921 he completed a hugely influential treatise on strategic bombing titled The Command of the Air.

[edit] Aerial strategyIn his book Douhet argued that air power was revolutionary because it operated in the third dimension. Aircraft could fly over surface forces, relegating them to secondary importance. The vastness of the sky made defense almost impossible, so the essence of air power was the

offensive. The only defense was a good offense. The air force that could achieve command of the air by bombing the enemy air arm into extinction would doom its enemy to perpetual bombardment. Command of the air meant victory.

Douhet believed in the morale effects of bombing. Air power could break a people's will by destroying a country's "vital centers". Armies became superfluous because aircraft could overfly them and attack these centers of the government, military and industry with impunity, a principle later called "The bomber will always get through". Targeting was central to this strategy and he believed that air commanders would prove themselves by their choice of targets. These would vary from situation to situation, but Douhet identified the five basic target types as: industry, transport infrastructure, communications, government and "the will of the people".

The last category was particularly important to Douhet, who believed in the principle of Total War.

The chief strategy laid out in his writings, the Douhet model, is pivotal in debates regarding the use of air power and bombing campaigns. The Douhet model rests on the belief that in a conflict, the infliction of high costs from aerial bombing can shatter civilian morale. This would unravel the social basis of resistance, and pressure citizens into asking their governments to surrender. The logic of this model is that exposing large portions of civilian populations to the terror of destruction or the shortage of consumer goods would damage civilian morale into submission. By smothering the enemy's civilian centers with bombs, Douhet argued the war would become so terrible that the common people would rise against their government, overthrow it with revolution, then sue for peace.

Air Marshal Arthur "Bomber" Harris set out in 1942 to prove Douhet's theories valid during World War II. Through four years under his command, RAF Bomber Command attempted to destroy the main German cities. By 1944–1945, in concert with the USAAF, they had largely achieved this aim; but no revolution toppled the Third Reich. The heavy bombers involved in the Combined Bomber Offensive did not win the war alone, as Harris had argued they would. Douhet's theories about forcing the population to starting a revolution, when subjected to practical application, were shown to be ineffective in this case. In fact, there is considerable evidence to show the bombings did nothing but antagonize the German people, galvanizing them to work harder for their country.

The entire population was in the front line of an air war and they could be terrorized with urban bombing. In his book The War of 19-- he described a fictional war between Germany and a Franco-Belgian alliance in which the Germans launched massive terror bombing raids on the populace, reducing their cities to ashes before their armies could mobilize. Because bombing would be so terrible, Douhet believed that wars would be short. As soon as one side lost command of the air it would capitulate rather than face the terrors of air attack. In other words, the enemy air force was the primary target. A decisive victory here would hasten the end of the war.

This emphasis on the strategic offensive would blind Douhet to the possibilities of air defense or tactical support of armies. In his second edition of The Command of the Air he maintained such

aviation was "useless, superfluous and harmful". He proposed an independent air force composed primarily of long-range load-carrying bombers. He believed interception of these bombers was unlikely, but allowed for a force of escort aircraft to ward off interceptors. Attacks would not require great accuracy. On a tactical level he advocated using three types of bombs in quick succession; explosives to destroy the target, incendiaries to ignite the damaged structures, and poison gas to keep firefighters and rescue crews away.

[edit] Critical receptionThough the initial response to The Command of the Air was muted, the second edition generated virulent attacks from his military peers—particularly those in the navy and army. Douhet's was an apocalyptic vision that gripped the popular imagination. But his theories would be unproven—and therefore unchallenged—for another 20 years. In many cases he had hugely exaggerated the effects of bombing. His calculations for the amount of bombs and poison gas required to destroy a city were ludicrously optimistic. World War II would prove many of his predictions to be wrong—particularly on the vulnerability of public morale to bombing. In "Rivista Aeuronautica" in July 1928 he wrote that he believed that 300 tons of bombs over the most important cities would end a war in less than a month. This can be compared with the fact that the allies during War War II dropped in excess of 2.5 million tons of bombs on Europe without this being directly decisive for the war.[1]

Outside of Italy, Douhet's reception was mixed. In Britain he remained a curio -- The Command of the Air was not required reading at the RAF Staff College. However, France, Germany and America were far more receptive and his theories were discussed and disseminated there.

A supporter of Benito Mussolini, Douhet was appointed commissioner of aviation when the Fascists assumed power but he soon gave up this bureaucrat's job to continue writing, which he did up to his death from a heart attack in 1930. More than 70 years on, many of his predictions have failed to come true, but some of his concepts—gaining command of the air, terror bombing and attacking vital centers—continue to underpin air power theory to this day.

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This article is about military aircraft. For the 1907 H.G. Wells novel, see The War in the Air.

Aerial warfare is the use of military aircraft and other flying machines in warfare, including military airlift of cargo to further the national interests as was demonstrated in the Berlin Airlift. Strategic air power is the bombing of enemy resources (by bombers); tactical air power is the battle for control of the air space (by fighters); close air support is the direct support of ground units; naval aviation refers especially to the use of aircraft carriers.[1]

Kite warfare

The earliest documented aerial warfare took place in ancient China, when a manned Kite was set off to spy for military intelligence and communication.[2] Ancient Chinese soldiers also mounted massive aerial fire arrow attacks from war kites, where they would send a volley of flaming arrows from the war kite onto the ground target, carrying out the world's first-ever air attacks.

Balloon warfare

Main article: History of military ballooning

[edit] Balloon warfare in Ancient China

In or around the 2nd or 3rd century, a prototype Hot air balloon, the Kongming lantern was invented in China serving as military communication[3][4].

[edit] Balloon warfare in Europe

Some minor warfare use was made of balloons in the infancy of aeronautics. The first instance was by the French Aerostatic Corps at the Battle of Fleurus in 1794, who used a tethered balloon, L'entreprenant, to gain a vantage point.[5][6][7]

Balloons had disadvantages. They could not fly in bad weather, fog, or high winds. They were at the mercy of the winds and were also very large targets [5][8].

Battle of Fair Oaks with one of Lowe's balloons in the background.

[edit] Union Army Balloon CorpsMain article: Union Army Balloon Corps

The American Civil War was the first war to witness significant use of aeronautics in support of battle.[5][6]. Thaddeus Lowe made noteworthy contributions to the Union war effort using a fleet of balloons he created[9] In June 1861 Professor Thaddeus S. C. Lowe left his work in the private sector as a scientist/balloonist and offered his services as an aeronaut to President Lincoln, who took some interest in the idea of an air war. Lowe's demonstration of flying his balloon Enterprise over Washington, DC, and transmitting a telegraph message to the ground was enough to have him introduced to the commanders of the Topographical Engineers[10]; initially it was thought balloons could be used for preparing better maps.

Lowe's first action was at the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861 with General Irvin McDowell and the Grand Army of the Potomac. Enterprise did a free flight observation of the Confederate positions[11].

In another demonstration, Lowe was called to Fort Corcoran by artillery General W. F. Smith. Lowe ascended to a given altitude in order to spot rebel encampments at Falls Church, Virginia[11][12]. With flag signals he directed artillery fire onto the sleeping encampment. As the

General put it, "The signals from the balloon have enabled my gunners to hit with a fine degree of accuracy an unseen and dispersed target area."

By October, Lowe had orders in hand to build four balloons with portable hydrogen gas generators for use in aerial reconnaissance. Working with several other prominent American balloonists he formed the Union Army Balloon Corps who never received commissions, working as civilian contractors, This was of great concern should the aeronauts be shot down over enemy lines, as civilian spying is summarily punishable by death. Therefore Lowe insisted on the strict use of tethered (as opposed to free) flight. By attaining altitudes from 1,000 feet (300 m) to as much as 3½ miles, an expansive view of the battle field and beyond could be had.

Lowe built seven balloons: Eagle, his first; Constitution, one of the smaller balloons; its sister, Washington; Intrepid, a larger balloon and his favorite; a sister, Union; Excelsior; and AMERICA, which never came out of storage.

As the Confederates retreated toward Richmond, the War turned into the Peninsular Campaign. Due to the heavy forests on the peninsula, the balloons were unable to follow on land. Lowe was introduced to George Washington Parke Custis, a coal barge converted to operate balloons. The balloons and their gas generators were loaded aboard and taken down the Potomac, where reconnaissance of the peninsula could continue. Custis was taken up the Pawmunkey River, where Lowe was reunited with McClellan's army.

Prof. Lowe ascending in Intrepid to observe the Battle of Fair Oaks

Lowe's most dramatic action came in the Battle of Fair Oaks, where he was able to view the advancing of Lee's army onto the isolated detachment of General Heintzelman. Working from two balloon camps, one at Mechanicsville and one at Gaine's Farm, Lowe galloped six miles (10 km) twice daily to keep up with the reconnaissance reports. McClellan was sure the rebels were feigning an attack, but Lowe could see differently. Heintzelman was left stranded on the other side of the Chickahominy River with the bridges having been taken out overnight by the swollen waters. Lowe sent a dispatch of utmost urgency to have the bridge repaired immediately and reserves sent to Heintzelman's aid.[13] He then sent dispatch from Mechanicsville to Gaine's Farm calling for the immediate inflation of the large balloon Enterprise, which would aid him in overlooking the imminent battle.

When Lowe arrived at Gaine's Farm, Intrepid will still far from being inflated. In a quick work of inventive ingenuity, Lowe had the bottom of a camp kettle cut out and joined the valve ends of the Intrepid and the partially inflated Constitution hooked together, thereby transferring the gas from the latter into the former. Within 15 minutes he was in the air to oversee the battle.

Lowe fell prey to malaria during Fair Oaks and was out of commission for more than a month. On his return he found the Balloon Corps had been stripped of horses and wagons and left out of service for Antietam. Lowe was called back into service at Sharpsburg and later responded to

Gen. Burnside's army at Vicksburg. The ensuing defeat of the Union Army in what was referred to as the "Mud March" led to Gen. Joseph Hooker relieving Burnside. By this time, the Balloon Corps had been assigned to the Engineers Corps, and a newly promoted Captain Comstock cut Lowe's pay dramatically[12][14].

Lowe tendered his resignation and was released from military duty in May 1863. The Balloon Corps continued to operate with Lowe's handlers, but Union generals' continuing ignoring and mistrust of ballooning resulted in balloon-intelligence not being utilized. By August, the Union Army Balloon Corps was disbanded[5][9][14].

[edit] Silk Dress Balloons

Due to the effectiveness of the Union Army Balloon Corps, the Confederates felt compelled to incorporate balloons as well.[15] As coke gas was not always available in Richmond, the first balloons were made of the Montgolfier rigid style, cotton stretched over wood framing and filled with hot smoke from fires made of oil-soaked pinecones. They were piloted by Captain John R. Bryant for use at Yorktown[12][16]. Though Bryant's performance was not all that bad, his handlers were poorly experienced and his balloon was left in the air spinning like a top. Another incident had one of the handlers becoming entangled in the ascending tether rope which had to be chopped loose, leaving the Captain free-flying over his own Confederate positions whose troops threatened to shoot him down.

Attempts at making gas-filled silk balloons were hampered by the South's inability to obtain any imports at all. They did fashion a balloon from dress silk (purportedly silk for making dresses, not from silk dresses themselves)[12]. The inflated spheres appeared as multi-colored orbs over Richmond and were piloted by Captain Landon Cheeves. Before the first balloon could be used it was captured during transportation on the James River by the crew of the Monitor[12][17]. A second balloon did see action until summer 1863, when it was blown from its mooring and taken by Union forces only to be divided up as souvenirs for members of the Federal Congress[18][19]. As the Union Army reduced its use of balloons, so did the Confederates—much to their relief.

[edit] Zeppelins, airships and blimps

As powered aircraft with wings dominated military aviation during World War I, rigid dirigibles and zeppelins were used by the Germans to attack cities. After World War I, the United States Navy researched the use of airships, including their use as a base for fighter aircraft, but efforts were cancelled after losses in storms. In World War II, barrage balloons were used as obstacles against aircraft, and blimps were used as observation and radar platforms.

[edit] Before World War IThe armies of many countries evaluated the use of aircraft for observation purposes. Naval aviation was pursued as well; several tests were made in which floatplanes were launched by catapult from ships at sea, and recovered later by crane.

A 1910 French experimental design by Aéroplanes Voisin, featuring a mitrailleuse gun fired by the passenger

The U.S. Navy had been interested in naval aviation since the turn of the 20th century[20][21]. In August 1910 Jacob Earl Fickel did the first experimenting with Glenn Curtiss shooting a gun from an airplane. In 1910–1911, the Navy conducted experiments which proved the practicality of carrier-based aviation. On November 14, 1910, near Hampton Roads, Virginia, civilian pilot Eugene Ely took off from a wooden platform installed on the scout cruiser USS Birmingham (CL-2). He landed safely on shore a few minutes later. Ely proved several months later that it was also possible to land on a ship. On January 18, 1911, he landed on a platform attached to the American cruiser USS Pennsylvania (ACR-4) in San Francisco harbor[22][23].

The first use of airplanes in an actual war occurred in the 1911 Italo-Turkish War with the Italian Army Air Corps bombing a Turkish camp at Ain Zara, Libya.[24] In the First Balkan War (1912) the Bulgarian Air Force bombed Turkish positions at Adrianople, while the Greek Aviation performed, over the Dardanelles, the first naval air co-operation mission in history.[25] Airplanes were also used by the U.S. against Pancho Villa.[26][27] Air reconnaissance was carried out in both wars too. The air-dropped bomb was extensively used during the First Balkan War (including in the first ever night bombing on 7 November 1912), and subsequently shared with the Imperial German Air Service during World War I.[28]

[edit] World War I

RAF Sopwith Camel during World War I

Initially during that war both sides made use of tethered balloons and airplanes for observation purposes, both for information gathering and directing of artillery fire[29]. A desire to prevent enemy observation led to airplane pilots attacking other airplanes and balloons, initially with small arms carried in the cockpit, but due to the technology of the time pilots couldn't have forward facing machine guns[30].

Although the addition of deflector plates to the back of propellers by French pilot Roland Garros and designer Raymond Saulnier in the Morane-Saulnier monoplane was the first example of an aircraft able to fire through its propeller, it wasn't until the Dutch aircraft designer Anthony Fokker developed the gun synchronizer in 1915 that it became possible to aim the gun and the airplane at the same time,[31][32][33][34] resulting in German Leutnant Kurt Wintgens scoring the first known victory for a synchronized gun-equipped fighter aircraft, on July 1, 1915.

The Allies were able to capture a Fokker Eindecker with a Fokker-designed Stangensteuerung synchronizer mechanism intact and reverse engineer it, leading to the birth of aerial combat, more commonly known as the dogfight. Tactics for dogfighting evolved by trial and error. The German ace Oswald Boelcke created eight essential rules of dogfighting, the Dicta Boelcke [35] [36] .

Both sides also made use of aircraft for bombing, strafing, sea reconnaissance, antisubmarine warfare, and dropping of propaganda. The German military made use of Zeppelins and, later on, bombers such as the Gotha, to drop bombs on Britain [37] [38] [39] . By the end of the war airplanes had become specialized into bombers, fighters, and observation (reconnaissance) aircraft.

By the end of World War I, aerial combat had progressed to the point where dogfighting tactics based on such doctrine as the Dicta Boelcke had progressed to the point that air supremacy could be achieved; the earliest example is the Italian air offensive against the Austro-Hungarians just before the end of World War I.

[edit] Between the warsBetween 1918 and 1939 aircraft technology developed very rapidly. In 1918 most aircraft were biplanes with wooden frames, canvas skins, wire rigging and air-cooled engines. Biplanes continued to be the mainstay of air forces around the world and were used extensively in conflicts such as the Spanish Civil War [40]. Most industrial countries also created air forces separate from the army and navy. However, by 1939 military biplanes were in the process of being replaced with metal framed monoplanes, often with stressed skins and liquid cooled engines. Top speeds had tripled; altitudes doubled; ranges and payloads of bombers increased enormously[41][42].

Some theorists, especially in Britain, considered that aircraft would become the dominant military arm in the future[43]. They imagined that a future war would be won entirely by the destruction of the enemy's military and industrial capability from the air[44]. The Italian general Giulio Douhet, author of The Command of the Air, was a seminal theorist of this school, which has been associated with Stanley Baldwin's statement that "the bomber will always get through"; that is, regardless of air defences, sufficient raiders will survive to rain destruction on the enemy's cities[45]. This led to what would later be called a strategy of deterrence and a "bomber gap", as nations measured air force power by number of bombers[46][47].

Others, such as General Billy Mitchell in the United States, saw the potential of air power to augment the striking power of naval surface fleets[48]. German and British pilots had experimented with aerial bombing of ships and air-dropped torpedoes during World War I with mixed results. The vulnerability of capital ships to aircraft was demonstrated on 21 July 1921 when a squadron of bombers commanded by General Mitchell sank the ex-German battleship SMS Ostfriesland with aerial bombs; although the Ostfriesland was stationary and defenseless during the exercise, its destruction demonstrated the potency of air planes against ships[48][49].

It was during the Banana Wars, while fighting bandits, freedom fighters and insurgents in places like Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua, that United States Marine Corps aviators would begin to experiment with air-ground tactics making the support of their fellow Marines on the ground their primary mission. It was in Haiti that Marines began to develop the tactic of dive bombing and in Nicaragua where they began to perfect it. While other nations and services had tried variations of this technique, Marine aviators were the first to embrace it and make it part of their tactical doctrine[50]

Germany was banned from possessing an air force by the terms of the World War I armistice[51]. The German military continued to train its soldiers as pilots clandestinely until Hitler was ready to openly defy the ban. This was done by forming the Deutscher Luftsportverband, a flying enthusiast's club, [52][53] and training pilots as civilians, and some German pilots were even sent to the Soviet Union for secret training; a trained air force was thus ready as soon as the word was given. This was the beginning of the Luftwaffe[54][55].

Military aviation came into its own during the Second World War. The increased performance, range, and payload of contemporary aircraft meant that air power could move beyond the novelty applications of World War I, becoming a central striking force for all the combatant nations.[56]

Over the course of the war, several distinct roles emerged for the application of air power.

[edit] Strategic bombing

Strategic bombing of civilian targets from the air was first proposed by the Italian theorist General Giulio Douhet. In his book The Command of the Air (1921), Douhet argued future military leaders could avoid falling into bloody World War I–style trench stalemates by using aviation to strike past the enemy's forces directly at their vulnerable civilian populations. Douhet believed such strikes would cause these populations to force their governments to surrender.[57][58]

[59]

Douhet's ideas were paralleled by other military theorists who emerged from World War I, including Sir Hugh Trenchard in Britain.[60][61] In the interwar period, Britain and the United States became the most enthusiastic supporters of the strategic bombing theory, with each nation building specialized heavy bombers specifically for this task.[62]

Chinese baby crying in the ruins of Shanghai South Railway Station after a bombing by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service on 28 August 1937

[edit] Imperial Japanese Air Service

Shōwa strategic bombing was independently conducted during the Second Sino-Japanese war and World War II by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service and the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service.

Bombing efforts mostly targeted large Chinese cities such as Shanghai, Wuhan and Chonging. The bombing of Nanjing and Canton, which began on 22 and 23 September 1937, called forth widespread protests culminating in a resolution by the Far Eastern Advisory Committee of the League of Nations.[63]

There were also air raids on Philippines and northern Australia (Bombing of Darwin, 19 February 1942). The Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service used tactical bombing against enemy

airfields and military positions, as at Pearl Harbor. The Imperial Japanese Army Air Service also attacked enemy ships and military installations.

[edit] Luftwaffe

In the early days of World War II, the Luftwaffe launched devastating air attacks against the besieged cities of Warsaw and Rotterdam. In the case of Warsaw, the bombings had little effect, but in the case of Rotterdam, the psychological effect of the bombings did have the intended effect—a relatively rapid ending of Dutch resistance (Buckley 129).

During the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe, frustrated in its attempts to gain air superiority in preparation for the planned invasion, turned to bombing of London and other large English cities. However, the Luftwaffe found these raids did not have the effect predicted by prewar airpower theorists.[64][65]

[edit] Royal Air Force

The Spitfire played a vital part for British victory in the Battle of Britain.

The British, started in kind - using a strategic bombing campaign in 1940 that was to last for the rest of the war. Early British bombers were all twin-engined designs and were lacking in defensive armament. Therefore, RAF Bomber Command quickly turned to a policy of night bombing, for which the crews were untrained; their inaccuracy meant they were forced to adopt area bombing and were unable to hit specific targets such as factories or power plants[66] until later in the war when pathfinder tactics, radio location plus ground mapping radar (OBOE and H2S) and very low-level bombing such as that used by the Dambusters in Operation Chastise were developed.

[edit] Soviet Red Air Force

Although the rapid industrialization the Soviet Union experienced in the 1930s had the potential to enable the Voyenno-vozdushnyye sily (VVS) to be effective against the Luftwaffe, Stalin's purges left the organization intellectually and morally weakened. However, when Germany invaded in June 1941 (Operation Barbarossa), the massive size of the VVS, in both planes and people, allowed it to absorb "horrendous" casualties and still maintain capability.[67][68]

Despite the near collapse of both the Red Army and Red Air Force in 1941, they survived, as German forces outran their supply lines and the Americans and British provided Lend Lease assistance.[69]

Fundamental flaws in the Luftwaffe were exposed during Germany's war with the Soviet Union. Although strategic bombing requires that the enemy's industrial war capacity be neutralized, some Soviet war factories were moved as much as 1,000 miles (1,600 km) east—far out of reach

of the Luftwaffe's bombers.[70] Because the Luftwaffe's resources were needed for more critical duty in supporting the German army, the Luftwaffe became overstretched, and even victorious battles damaged the overall capability of Germany's air force due to attrition.[70][71]

By 1943, the Soviets had fully rebounded from the defeats of 1941, and they were able to produce considerably more airplanes than their German rivals; for example, at Kursk, the VVS had twice the number of airplanes that the Luftwaffe had.[72] The VVS's fighter-capability rested on the Yakovlev Yak-9 and Lavochkin La-5, and its primary bombers were the Ilyushin 2 Shturmovik.[73] and Petlyakov Pe-2 [74] Utilizing overwhelming numerical superiority, Soviet forces were able to drive the Germans out of Soviet territory and take the war to Germany.

[edit] U.S. Army Air Force

When the U.S. Eighth Air Force arrived in England in 1942, the Americans were convinced they could carry out successful daylight raids. The Eighth was equipped with B-17 Flying Fortresses and B-24 Liberators, both high-altitude four-engined designs.[75][76] The new bombers also featured the strongest defensive armament yet seen - up to 13 .50 caliber machine guns, depending on the version, most of them in power-operated turrets.[77][78] Flying in daylight in large, close formations, U.S. doctrine held tactical formations of heavy bombers would be sufficient to gain air superiority in the absence of escort fighters.[79] The intended raids would hit hard on chokepoints in the German war economy such as oil refineries or ball bearing factories[76]

[80].

Part of a USAAF stream of over 1,000 B-17 bombers.

The U.S.A.A.F. was compelled to change its doctrine since bombers alone, no matter how heavily armed, could not achieve air superiority against single-engined fighters. Loss rates rose from five to twenty percent in a series of missions between August 17 and October 14, 1943, when raids against Regensburg and Schweinfurt, penetrating beyond the range of fighter cover, resulted in the loss of 60 bombers on one mission.[81][82][83]

Only the infantry suffered more enlisted casualties than the USAAF: almost 68,000 enlisted men died.[84] Overall, the Allies lost 160,000 airmen and 33,700 planes during the air war over Europe.[85]

[edit] Air superiority

During the Battle of Britain, many of the best Luftwaffe pilots had been forced to bail out over British soil, where they were captured.[86] As the quality of the Luftwaffe fighter arm decreased, the Americans introduced the long-range P-38 Lightning and P-51 Mustang escort fighters, carrying drop tanks.[87][88] Newer, inexperienced German pilots—flying potentially superior aircraft, such as the Focke-Wulf Fw 190, Heinkel He 162, and the Messerschmitt Me 262—

gradually became less and less effective at thinning the late-war bomber streams [89] . Adding fighters to the daylight raids gave the bombers much-needed protection and greatly improved the impact of the strategic bombing effort.[90][91]

Over time, from 1942 to 1944, the Allies' air forces became stronger and stronger while the Luftwaffe became weaker and weaker. During 1944, the Luftwaffe experienced a 78 percent reduction in its strength, and Germany's air force lost control over Germany's skies. As a result nothing in Germany could be securely protected—not stationary army units, nor moving army units, nor war factories, nor their workers, nor civilians in cities such as Hamburg and Dresden, nor the nation's capital—Berlin. Germans had to watch as their soldiers and civilians began to be slaughtered in the thousands by aerial bombardment—much as the Germans had done to Poland, Rotterdam, Britain, and the Soviet Union.[92][93]

[edit] Effectiveness

Strategic bombing by non-atomic means did not win the war for the Allies, nor did it succeed in breaking the will to resist of the German (and Japanese) people[94][95]. But in the words of the German armaments minister Albert Speer, it created "a second front in the air." Speer succeeded in increasing the output of armaments right up to mid-1944 in spite of the bombing[96][97]. Still, the war against the British and American bombers demanded enormous amounts of resources: antiaircraft guns, day and night fighters, radars, searchlights, manpower, ammunition, and fuel[98]

[99].

On the Allied side, strategic bombing diverted material resources, equipment (such as radar) aircraft, and manpower away from the Battle of the Atlantic (where even a couple of squadrons of B-24s could be priceless) and Allied armies. As a result, German army groups in Russia, Italy, and France rarely saw friendly aircraft and constantly ran short of tanks, trucks, and anti-tank weapons. The only option left was to create World War I–style slit trench defenses quite unlike the blitzkriegs of 1939–1941.

[edit] U.S. Bombing of Japan

Enola Gay, a Silverplate version of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress landing after delivering Little boy over Hiroshima

The long-range Boeing B-29 was used to bomb Japan. On 15 June 1944, 47 B-29s launched from Chengdu, China, bombed the Imperial Iron and Steel Works at Yawata Japan. This raid was the first attack on Japanese islands since the Doolittle Raid in April 1942. The entire B-29 effort was gradually shifted to the new bases in the Marianas Islands in the Central Pacific.

The first mission against Japan from bases in the Marianas was flown on 24 November 1944, with 111 B-29s sent to attack Tokyo. From that point, increasingly intense raids were launched regularly until the end of the war. Tactics evolved from high-altitude to lower altitude attacks,

largely removing most defensive guns and switching to incendiary bombs. These attacks succeeded in devastating almost all large Japanese cities.

The most famous B-29 was the Enola Gay, which dropped the atomic bomb 'Little Boy' on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. Bockscar, another B-29, dropped 'Fat Man' on Nagasaki three days later. Although the ethics of nuclear warfare remain controversial, these two actions, along with the Soviet invasion of Manchuria on 9 August 1945, brought about the Japanese surrender, and the official end of World War II.

[edit] Tactical air support

By contrast with the British strategists, the primary purpose of the Luftwaffe was to support the Army. This accounted for the presence of large numbers of dive bombers on strength and the scarcity of long-range heavy bombers. This 'flying artillery' greatly assisted in the successes of the German Army in the Battle of France (1940) .[100] Hitler determined air superiority was essential for the invasion of Britain. When this was not achieved in the Battle of Britain, the invasion was canceled, making this the first major battle whose outcome was determined primarily in the air [101].

The war in Russia forced the Luftwaffe to devote the majority of its resources to providing tactical air support for the beleaguered German army. In that role, the Luftwaffe used the Junkers Ju 87, Henschel Hs 123 and modified fighters—Bf 109 and FW 190 [102] .

The Red Air Force was also primarily used in the tactical support role, and towards the end of the war was very effective in the support of the Red Army in its advance across Eastern Europe [103]. An aircraft of importance to the Soviets was the Ilyushin Il-2 Sturmovik—appropriately called "flying artilery"; the Il-2 was able to make life very difficult for panzer crews, and the Il-2 was an important part of the Soviet victory at Kursk—one of the biggest tank battles in history[104].

[edit] Military transport aviation and use of airborne troops

Military transport aviation was invaluable to all sides in maintaining supply and communications of ground troops, and was used on many notable occasions such as resupply of German troops in and around Stalingrad after Operation Uranus, and employment of airborne troops [105] [106] [107] . After the first trials in use of airborne troops by the Red Army displayed in the early 1930s many European nations and Japan also formed the airborne troops, and these saw extensive service on in all Theatres of the Second World War.

However their effectiveness as shock troops employed to surprise enemy static troops proved to be of limited success. Most airborne troops served as light infantry by the end of the war despite attempts at massed use in the Western Theatre by US and Britain during the Operation Market Garden.

[edit] Naval aviation

Aircraft and the aircraft carrier first became important in naval battles in World War II. Carrier based aircraft are specialized as dive bombers, torpedo bombers, and fighters, evolving from biplanes such as the Swordfish and fighters such as the F4F Wildcat which were based on biplanes to the F4U Corsair which outperformed many land based types, and the TBF Avenger which had an enclosed gun turret.

Surface based aircraft such as the PBY Catalina help find submarines and surface fleets. The aircraft carrier replaces the battleship as the most powerful naval offensive weapons system as battles between fleets are fought entirely out of gun range by aircraft. The Yamato, the most powerful battleship ever built is first turned back by light escort carrier aircraft, and later sunk lacking its own air cover.

A Japanese Mitsubishi A6M2 "Zero" fighter

In the Doolittle Raid, the US launches normally land-based B-25 Mitchell bombers from carriers in a raid against Tokyo and other Japanese mainland targets. Small escort carriers and light carriers are built in large numbers to escort slow cargo convoys or supplement fast carriers. Aircraft for observation or light raids are also carried by battleships and cruisers, while blimps are used to search for attack submarines.

Battle of the Atlantic , aircraft carried by low-cost escort carriers are used for antisubmarine patrol, defense, and attack

Battle of Taranto Attack of Pearl Harbor [108] First attack on US territory is carried out entirely by carrier based

aircraft, destroying or sinking most US battleships, but not finding any US carriers in port. Sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse , the first time a battleship underway was sunk solely by

aircraft [108]

Battle of the Coral Sea , the first where neither fleet was in visual contact with the other and all fighting was carried out by aircraft[109]

Douglas Dauntless SBD dive-bomber in Battle of Midway.

Battle of Midway [109] Battle of the Bismarck Sea Battle of the Philippine Sea Battle of Leyte Gulf , with the first appearance of kamikazes, perhaps the largest naval battle in

history. Japan's last carriers and pilots are deliberately sacrificed as a decoy, the super battleship Musashi is sunk by aircraft. The Japanese Navy ceases to be an effective fighting force.

Battle off Samar A powerful fleet led by the Japanese battleship Yamato catches the light escort carrier "Taffy" task forces within gun range. Although largely unprepared to attack armored ships, aircraft and screening "tin-can" destroyers caused enough damage, sinking or forcing the scuttling of 3 cruisers and 1 destroyer, to turn the Japanese force back.

Operation Ten-Go The sinking of a fleet with the Yamato and nine other warships with no air cover demonstrated U.S. air supremacy in the Pacific theater by this stage in the war and the vulnerability of surface ships without air cover to aerial attack.

[edit] Cold WarMilitary aviation in the post-war years was dominated by the needs of the Cold War. The post-war years saw the almost total conversion of combat aircraft to jet power, which resulted in enormous increases in speeds and altitudes of aircraft.[110] Until the advent of the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile major powers relied on high-altitude bombers to deliver their newly developed nuclear deterrent; each country strove to develop the technology of bombers and the high-altitude fighters that could intercept them. The concept of air superiority began to play a heavy role in aircraft designs for both the United States and the Soviet Union[110][111].

The Americans developed and made extensive use of the high-altitude observation aircraft for intelligence-gathering. The U-2, and later the SR-71 Blackbird were developed in great secrecy. The U-2 at its time was supposed to be invulnerable to defensive measures, due to its extreme altitude. It therefore came as a great shock when the Soviets downed one piloted by Gary Powers with a surface-to-air missile.[112]

Air combat was also transformed through increased use of air-to-air guided missiles with increased sophistication in guidance and increased range. In the 70s and 80s it became clear that speed and altitude was not enough to protect a bomber against air defences. The emphasis shifted therefore to maneuverable attack aircraft that could fly 'under the radar', at altitudes of a few hundred feet.

[edit] Korean WarFurther information: MiG Alley and United States Air Force Aircraft of the Korean War

MiG-15 shot down by an F-86 over MiG Alley

Over the course of the war, at least 16 B-29 bombers were shot down by communist aircraft.

The Korean War was best remembered for jet combat, but was one of the last major wars where propeller-powered fighters such as the P-51 Mustang, F4U Corsair and aircraft carrier-based

Hawker Sea Fury and Supermarine Seafire were used.[113]:174 Turbojet fighter aircraft such as F-80s, F-84 Thunderjets and F9F Panthers came to dominate the skies, overwhelming North Korea’s propeller-driven Yakovlev Yak-9s and Lavochkin La-9s.[113]:182

From 1950, North Koreans flew the Soviet-made MiG-15 jet fighters which introduced the near-sonic speeds of swept wings to air combat. Though an open secret during the war, the most formidable pilots today now admit that they were experienced Soviet Air Force pilots, a casus belli [113] :182 deliberately overlooked by the UN allied forces who suspected the use of Russians but were reluctant to engage in open war with the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China.

At first, UN jet fighters, which also included Royal Australian Air Force Gloster Meteors, had some success, but straight winged jets were soon outclassed in daylight by the superior speed of the MiGs.[114] At night, however, radar-equipped Marine Corps F3D Skynight night fighters claimed five MiG kills with no losses of their own,[115] and no B-29s under their escort were lost to enemy fighters.[116]

In December 1950, the U.S. Air Force rushed in their own swept-wing fighter, the F-86 Sabre.[113]:183 The MiG could fly higher, 50,000 vs. 42,000 feet (12,800 m), offering a distinct advantage at the start of combat. In level flight, their maximum speeds were comparable — about 660 mph (1,060 km/h). The MiG could climb better, while the Sabre could turn and dive better with an all-flying tailplane. For weapons, the MiG carried two 23 mm and one 37 mm cannon, compared to the Sabre’s six .50 (12.7 mm) caliber machine guns. The American .50 caliber machine guns, while not packing the same punch, carried many more rounds and were aimed with a more accurate radar-ranging gunsight. The U.S. pilots also had the advantage of G-suits, which were used for the first time in this war.

Even after the Air Force introduced the advanced F-86, its pilots often struggled against the jets piloted by Soviet pilots, dubbed "honchos". The UN gradually gained air superiority over most of Korea that lasted until the end of the war — a decisive factor in helping the UN first advance into the north, and then resist the Chinese invasion of South Korea.[113]:182-184

After the war, the USAF claimed 792 MiG-15s and 108 additional aircraft shot down by Sabres for the loss of 78 Sabres, a ratio in excess of 10:1, though some other studies show a gap of close to 2:1 against the best Russian pilots. Some post-war research has been able to confirm only 379 victories, although the USAF continues to maintain its official credits and the debate is possibly irreconcilable.

The Soviets claimed about 1,100 air-to-air victories and 335 combat MiG losses at that time. China's official losses were 231 planes shot down in air-to-air combat (mostly MiG-15) and 168 other losses. The number of losses of the North Korean Air Force was not revealed. It is estimated that it lost about 200 aircraft in the first stage of the war, and another 70 aircraft after Chinese intervention.

Soviet claims of 650 victories over the Sabres, and China's claims of another 211 F-86s, are considered to be exaggerated by the USAF. According to a recent U.S. publication, the number

of F-86s ever present in the Korean peninsula during the war totaled only 674[citation needed] and the total F-86 losses from all causes were about 230.[117]

Helicopters like this H-19 were used in the Korean war.[118][119]

The Korean war was the first time the helicopter was used extensively in a conflict.[118] While helicopters such as the YR-4 were used in World War II,[120] their use was rare, and Jeeps like the Willys MB were the main method of removing an injured soldier. In the Korean war helicopters like the H-19 partially took over in the non combat Medevac area.[121]

[edit] Indo-Pak Wars

The wars saw the Indian Air Force and the Pakistani Air Force being involved in full scale combat for the first time since independence. Though the two forces had previously faced off in the First Kashmir War during the late 1940s, it was limited in scale compared to the '65 and 71' conflict.

During the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, both air forces engaged each other for the first time in a full blown combat. Both countries hold highly contradictory claims on combat losses during the war and hardly any neutral sources have thoroughly verified the claims of both countries' claim. PAF claimed it had shot down 104 IAF planes losing only 19 in the process. India meanwhile claimed that 35 IAF planes were lost while shooting down 73 PAF aircraft. By the end of the war, neither the numerically larger IAF, nor the PAF which possessed a qualitative advantage, achieved air superiority.

During the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, the Indian Air force had both the qualitative as well as numerical edge over PAF after the induction of Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 in large numbers. The war began with Operation Chengiz Khan, Pakistan's December 3, 1971 pre-emptive strike on 11 Indian airbases. After the initial preemptive strike, PAF adopted a defensive stance in response to the Indian retaliation. As the war progressed, the Indian Air Force continued to battle the PAF over conflict zones, but the number of sorties flown by the PAF gradually decreased day-by-day. The Indian Air Force flew 4,000 sorties while its counterpart, the PAF offered little in retaliation, partly because of the paucity of non-Bengali technical personnel. This lack of retaliation has also been attributed to the deliberate decision of the PAF High Command to cut its losses as it had already incurred huge losses in the conflict. The PAF also did not intervene during the Indian Navy's two raids on Pakistani naval port city of Karachi codenamed Operation Trident and Operation Python. PAF also was not able to support its troops during Battle of Longewala. In the east, the small air contingent of Pakistan Air Force No. 14 Sqn was destroyed, putting the Dhaka airfield out of commission and resulting in Indian air superiority in the east. Lasting just 13 days it is considered one of the shortest wars in history.

[edit] Vietnam War

UH-1Ds during early "Air Cav" operations, 1966.

The South Vietnamese Air Force (VNAF) was originally equipped with helicopters such as the CH-21 and propeller powered aircraft such as the T-28 Trojan when jet aircraft were disallowed by treaty. As US involvement increased, most airpower was directly flown by US forces.

Large scale use of helicopters by the US Army in Vietnam led to a new class of airmobile troops, and the introduction of "Air Cavalry" in the U.S, culminating in extensive use of the UH-1 Huey helicopter which would become a symbol of that war[97][122][123], while the CH-54 Tarhe "Skycrane" and CH-47 Chinook lifted heavier loads such as vehicles or artillery. Troops were able to land unexpectedly, strike, and leave again, and evacuate wounded[124]. The specialized AH-1 Cobra [123] [125] was developed from the Huey for escort and ground support duties, The later Soviet campaign in Afghanistan would also see widespread use of helicopters as part of the Air Assault brigades and regiments.[126]

US forces provided close support of ground force over South Vietnam, and strategic bombing of targets over North Vietnam[127]. Many types flying close support or COIN (Counter Insurgency Warfare) missions were propeller powered types such as the O-1 and OV-10 Bronco FAC spotters, A-1 Skyraider, B-26 Invader, and AC-47 [128] "Spooky" gunship. C-123 Provider and C-130 Hercules transports flew supplies into battlefields such as Khe Sanh [129] .

"Fast movers" included the supersonic F-100 Super Sabre, while the giant B-52 Stratofortress would be modified to unload a massive high explosive payload on enemy troop concentrations[127]. The AC-130 would become the ultimate gunship[128], while the AX specification to replace the Skyraider would evolve into the A-10 Thunderbolt II [130] [131] .

The USAF F-105 Thunderchiefs flew the bulk of strike missions against North Vietnam in Operation Rolling Thunder, while carrier-based A-4 Skyhawks were flown by the Navy. That first campaign was marred by carefully measured regulations that prohibited attacks against SAM missile sites and fighter bases, and frequent bombing halts, and produced little in political results[132][133][134]. Rolling Thunder saw the first combat use of electronic computers aboard PIRAZ ships to display comprehensive real-time aircraft position information for force commanders.[135]

A F-105D shoots down a MiG-17, 1967.

Lessons learned were applied to the later Operation Linebacker which employed Phantoms, B-52s, swing-wing F-111s, A-7 Corsairs and all-weather A-6 Intruders was more successful in

bringing North Vietnam to the negotiating table after a massive ground invasion. North Vietnam effectively combined Soviet and Chinese anti-aircraft artillery, SA-2 guided missiles, and MiG fighters to create the most heavily defended airspace up to that time[136][137].

US air strikes would combine the use of airbone radar platforms such as the EC-121 Warning Star, KC-135 Stratotankers for air refueling, radar jamming aircraft and specialized "Wild Weasel" units to attack SAM missile sites[133][138]. Jolly Green Giant helicopter crews escorted by A-1 "Sandy"s would retrieve downed pilots over hostile territory.With the use of "smart" guided bombs late in the war, this would set the model for future US air operations[136].

Experts were surprised when advanced F-105s were shot down in its first encounter against the elderly but nimble MiG-17. Dogfights were thought to be obsolete in the age of missiles, but pilots now needed maneuverability. The F-4 Phantom was quickly tasked with protecting against MiGs, but sorely lacked a built-in gun when missiles were often unreliable[139]. Air combat training schools such as TOPGUN would improve kill ratios[139], but combat experience started programs that would produce agile air superiority fighters with guns such as the F-15 Eagle by the 1970s[130].

South Vietnam fell without US air support when faced with a massive assault in 1975. The VNAF South Vietnamese Air Force was never supplied with powerful fighters and bombers such as the Phantom and B-52 which could strike at North Vietnam.

[edit] Middle East

In the Six-Day War of 1967, the Israeli Air Force launched pre-emptive strikes which destroyed opposing Arab air forces on the ground[140]. The Yom Kippur War of 1973 saw the Arab deployment of mobile SA-6 missiles which proved effective against low-flying Israeli aircraft until they were neutralized by ground forces[141].

[edit] Post Cold War

USS Abraham Lincoln rides out a storm in the Arabian Sea while on station in support of Operation Southern Watch and Operation Enduring Freedom.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 forced Western air forces to undergo a shift from the massive numbers felt to be necessary during the Cold War to smaller numbers of multi-role aircraft. The closure of several military bases overseas and the U.S. Base Realignment and Closure program have served to highlight the effectiveness of aircraft carriers in the absence of dedicated military or air forces bases, as the Falklands war and U.S. operations in the Persian Gulf have highlighted.

The advent of precision-guided munitions have allowed for strikes at arbitrary surface targets once proper reconnaissance is performed (network-centric warfare). In some cases such as the NATO Operation Allied Force effort against Serbian operations in Kosovo, air power was the deciding factor with ground forces mostly securing the area afterwards[citation needed]. However in most cases the standard military doctrine still applies: wars against third-world regional entities still cannot be won through air power alone.

[edit] Operation: Desert StormMain article: Gulf War air campaign

The role of air power in modern warfare was dramatically demonstrated during the Gulf War in 1991. Behind-the-lines air attacks were made on Iraqi command and control centers, communications facilities, supply depots, and reinforcement forces. Air superiority over Iraq was gained before major ground combat began.[142]

The initial strikes were composed of Tomahawk cruise missiles [142] launched from battleships situated in the Persian Gulf, F-117A Nighthawk stealth bombers[142] with an armament of laser-guided smart bombs [142] , and F-4G Wild Weasel aircraft armed with HARM anti-radar missiles[143]. These first attacks allowed F-14, F-15, F-16, and F/A-18 fighter bombers to gain air superiority over the country and then continue to drop TV and laser-guided bombs.

Armed with a gatling gun and heat-seeking or optically guided Maverick missiles, A-10 Thunderbolts bombed and destroyed Iraqi armored forces[142], supporting the advance of US ground troops. The AH-64 Apache and AH-1 Cobra attack helicopters, fired laser guided Hellfire missiles and TOW missiles which were guided to tanks by ground observers or scout helicopters[123]. The allied air fleet also made use of the E-3A Airborne Warning and Control Systems (AWACS) and a fleet of B-52 bombers[142][143].

The aerial strike force was made up of over 2,250 combat aircraft, which included 1,800 US aircraft, which fought against an Iraqi force of about 500 Soviet-built MiG-29 and French-made Mirage F-1 fighters. More than 88,000 combat missions had been flown by allied forces with over 88,000 tons of bombs dropped by the end of the fifth week.

[edit] Operation: Iraqi Freedom

An F-15E Strike Eagle from the 391st Expeditionary Fighter Squadron at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, launches heat decoys during a close-air-support mission over Afghanistan, 15 December 2008.

During the 2003 invasion of Iraq led by US and British forces putatively to defeat the regime of Saddam Hussein, aerial warfare continued to be decisive. The US-British alliance began its air campaign on March 19 with limited nighttime bombing on the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. Several days later, intensive bombardment began. About 14,000 sorties were flown, and at a cost of $1

million dollars each, 800 Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired at numerous targets in Iraq from March 19 until mid-April 2003. By this time Iraqi resistance had largely ended.

Iraqi anti-aircraft weapons were unable to open fire on high-altitude US bombers such as the B-52 or stealth aircraft such as the B-2 bomber and the F-117A. US and British aircraft used radar-detecting devices and aerial reconnaissance to locate Iraqi anti-aircraft weapons. Bunker buster bombs, designed to penetrate and destroy underground bunkers, were dropped on Iraqi command and control centers. Iraqi ground forces could not seriously challenge the American ground forces because of their air supremacy. By mid-April 2003, US-British forces controlled all of Iraq's major cities and oil fields.

[edit] 2006 Lebanon War

In the beginning of the 2006 Lebanon War Israel utilized an intensive aerial campaign aimed to eliminate Hezbollah and destroy its military, as stated by Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert. It also aimed to return kidnapped Israeli soldiers. The campaign started by destroying Lebanese infrastructure and Hezbollah targets. This continued during the 33 days of the war.

Taking into consideration the results of the 1991 and 2003 wars on Iraq and the 1999 war on the former Yugoslavia, the Israeli air force was unable to accomplish its objectives as completely. This partly results from the military doctrine that Hezbollah used in the war which proved effective. There have also been reports during the conflict that a Hezbollah-operated flying drone penetrated Israeli airspace, and returned to Lebanese territory.[144][145]

[edit] Indian Air Force-IAF

A Westland Wapiti, one of the first aircraft of the Indian Air Force.

The Indian Air Force was established in British India as an auxiliary air force[146] of the Royal Air Force with the enactment of the Indian Air Force Act 1932 on 8 October that year[147][148] and adopted the Royal Air Force uniforms , badges, brevets and insignia.[149] On 1 April 1933, the IAF commissioned its first squadron, No.1 Squadron, with four Westland Wapiti biplanes and five Indian pilots. The Indian pilots were led by Flight Lieutenant (later Air Vice Marshal) Cecil Bouchier.[150] Until 1938, No. 1 Squadron remained the only squadron of the IAF, though two more flights were added.[150]

During World War II, the red blob was removed from the IAF roundel to eliminate confusion with the Japanese Red Sun Emblem.[149] The Air Force grew to seven squadrons in 1943 and to nine squadrons in 1945.[150] The IAF helped in blocking the advance of the Japanese army in Burma, where its first air strike was on the Japanese military base in Arakan. It also carried out strike missions against the Japanese airbases at Mae Hong Son, Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai in northern Thailand. In recognition of the crucial role played by the IAF, King George VI conferred it the prefix "Royal" in 1945.[148][151] During the war, many youth joined the Indian

National Army. Forty five of them (known as the Tokyo Boys) were sent to train as fighter pilots at the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force Academy in 1944 by Subhas Chandra Bose.[152] After the war, they were interned by the Allies and were court-martialled. After Indian independence, some of them rejoined the IAF for service.[152]

Sukhoi Su-30MKI

IAF MiG-29 at Aero India 2009.

A few other spans of conflicts opened up the use of aerial warfare in recent times. In 1999, India and Pakistan were involved in a brief conflict over Kashmir. The Indian Air Force used Mirage 2000 fighter jet effectively to carry out ground assault sorties against Pakistani positions. The air operations were notable given the high altitude terrain of Kashmir. When British India was granted its independence in 1947, it was partitioned into the new states of the Union of India and the Dominion of Pakistan. The armed forces were similarly divided. India's air force retained the name of the Royal Indian Air Force, but three of the ten operational squadrons and facilities, located within the new borders of Pakistan, were transferred to the Royal Pakistan Air Force.[153] The RIAF Roundel was changed to an interim 'Chakra' roundel derived from the Ashoka Chakra.[149]

When India became a republic in 1950, the prefix 'Royal' was dropped from the Indian Air Force.[148] At the same time, the current IAF roundel was adapted.[149]

Around the same time, conflict broke out between them over the control of the princely state of Jammu & Kashmir. With Pakistani forces moving into the state, its Maharaja decided to accede to India in order to receive military help.[154] The day after instrument of accession was signed, the RIAF was called upon to transport troops into the war-zone.[154] This led to the eruption of full scale war between India and Pakistan, though there was no formal declaration of war.[155] During the war, the RIAF did not engage the Pakistan Air Force in air-to-air combat; however, it did provide effective transport and close air support to the Indian troops.[156] In 1962, border disagreements between China and India escalated to a war when China mobilised its troops across the Indian border.[157] During the Sino-Indian War, India's military planners failed to deploy and effectively use the IAF against the invading Chinese forces. This resulted in India losing a significant amount of territory to the Chinese; especially in Jammu and Kashmir.[157] By late 1971, the intensification of the independence movement in erstwhile East Pakistan lead to the Bangladesh Liberation War between India and Pakistan .[158] On 22 November 1971, 10 days before the start of a full-scale war, four PAF F-86 Sabre jets attacked Indian and Mukti Bahini positions at Garibpur, near the international border. Three of the four PAF Sabres were shot down by the IAF's Folland Gnats.[159] On 3 December, India formally declared war against

Pakistan following massive preemptive strikes by the PAF against Indian Air Force installations in Srinagar, Ambala, Sirsa, Halwara and Jodhpur. However, the IAF did not suffer significantly because the leadership had anticipated such a move and precautions were taken.[160] The Indian Air Force was quick to respond to Pakistani air strikes, following which the PAF carried out mostly defensive sorties.[161]

Within the first two weeks, the IAF had carried out almost 2,000 sorties over East Pakistan and also provided close air support to the advancing Indian Army.[162] IAF also assisted the Indian Navy in its operations against the Pakistani Navy and Maritime Security Agency in the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea. On the western front, the IAF destroyed more than 29 Pakistani tanks, 40 APCs and a railway train during the Battle of Longewala.[163] The IAF undertook strategic bombing of West Pakistan by carrying out raids on oil installations in Karachi, the Mangla Dam and a gas plant in Sindh.[164] Similar strategy was also deployed in East Pakistan and as the IAF achieved complete air superiority on the eastern front, the ordnance factories, runways, and other vital areas of East Pakistan were severely damaged.[165] By the time Pakistani forces surrendered, the IAF claimed that 94 PAF aircraft, including 54 F-86 Sabres had been shot down.[166] The IAF had flown over 6,000 sorties [162] on both East and West fronts; including sorties by transport aircraft and helicopters.[162] Towards the end of the war, IAF's transport planes dropped leaflets over Dhaka urging the Pakistani forces to surrender, demoralising Pakistani troops in East Pakistan.[167]

Three years after the Sino-Indian conflict, in 1965, India went to war with Pakistan again over Kashmir in what came to be known as the Second Kashmir War. Learning from the experiences of the Sino-Indian war, India used its air force extensively during the war. This was the first time the IAF actively engaged an enemy air force.[168] However, instead of providing close air support to the Indian Army,[169] the IAF carried out independent raids against PAF bases.[170] These bases were situated deep inside Pakistani territory, making IAF fighters vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire.[171] During the course of the conflict, the PAF enjoyed qualitative superiority over the IAF as most of the jets in IAF's fleet were of post World War II vintage. Despite this, the IAF was able to prevent the PAF from gaining air superiority over conflict zones.[172] By the time the conflict had ended, Pakistan claimed to have shot down 113 IAF aircraft while the Indians claimed 73 PAF aircraft were downed.[173] More than 60% of IAF's air combat losses took place during the battles over Kalaikunda and Pathankot; where most of the aircraft were destroyed while parked on the ground.[174]

[edit] Kargil War (1999)

IAF MiG-21s were used extensively in the Kargil war.

On 11 May 1999, the Indian Air Force was called in to provide close air support to the Indian Army at the height of the ongoing Kargil conflict with the use of helicopters.[175] The IAF strike was code named Operation Safed Sagar.[175] The first strikes were launched on the 26 May, when the Indian Air Force struck infiltrator positions with fighter aircraft and helicopter gunships.[176]. The initial strikes saw MiG-27s carrying out offensive sorties, with MiG-21s and later MiG-29s

providing fighter cover.[177] The IAF also deployed its radars and the MiG-29 fighters in vast numbers to keep check on Pakistani military movements across the border.[178] Srinagar Airport was at this time closed to civilian air-traffic and dedicated to the Indian Air Force.[176]

During the Kargil conflict IAF Mirage 2000Hs carried out strike missions.

On 27 May, the first fatalities were suffered when a MiG-21 and a MiG-27 jets were lost over Batalik Sector to enemy action and mechanical failure, respectively.[179][180] The following day, a Mi-17 was lost- with the loss of all four of the crew- when it was hit by three stingers while on an offensive sortie.[177]. These losses forced the Indian Air Force to reassess its strategy. The helicopters were immediately withdrawn from offensive roles as a measure against the man-portable missiles in possession of the infiltrators. On 30 May, the Indian Air Force called into operation the Mirage 2000 which was deemed the best aircraft capable of optimum performance under the conditions of high-altitude seen in the zone of conflict. Mirage 2000s not only had better defence equipment compared to the MiGs, but also gave IAF the ability to carry out aerial raids at night. The MiG-29s were used extensively to provide fighter escort to the Mirage 2000.[181] The Mirages successfully targeted enemy camps and logistic bases in Kargil and within days, their supply lines were severely disrupted.[182] Mirage 2000s were used for strikes on Muntho Dhalo[177] and the heavily defended Tiger Hill and paved the way for their early recapture.[177] At the height of the conflict, the IAF was conducting over forty sorties daily over the Kargil region.[181] By 26 July, the Indian forces had successfully liberated Kargil from Pakistani forces.[183]

Soviet Mi-24 epitomized combat helicopter usage in aerial warfare during the Russo-Afghan war in the '80s

Strategic bombing is a military strategy used in a total war with the goal of defeating an enemy nation-state by destroying its economic ability to wage war rather than destroying its land or naval forces. It is a systematically organized and executed attack from the air which can utilize strategic bombers, long- or medium-range missiles, or nuclear-armed fighter-bomber aircraft to attack targets deemed vital to an enemy's war-making capacity.

One of the aims of war is to demoralise the enemy, so that peace or surrender becomes preferable to continuing the conflict. Strategic bombing has been used to this end. The phrase "terror bombing" entered the English lexicon towards the end of World War II and many strategic bombing campaigns and individual raids have been described as terror bombing by commentators and historians although, because the term has pejorative connotations, others have preferred to use other terms such as "will to resist (by which I mean morale)".[1]

Contents[hide]

1 Strategic bombing 2 Methods used to deliver ordnance 3 Enemy morale and terror bombing

o 3.1 Development of the term terror bombing 4 History and origins

o 4.1 World War I o 4.2 Period between the world wars o 4.3 World War II o 4.4 Cold War o 4.5 Post-Cold War

5 Technological advances 6 Strategic bombing events 7 Pioneers of strategic bombing 8 See also 9 References

o 9.1 Explanatory notes o 9.2 Citations o 9.3 Bibliography o 9.4 Further reading

[edit] Strategic bombingWhile the distinction between tactical, operational, and strategic bombing can be blurred, they are distinct methodologies generally used for different purposes. Strategic bombing is a methodology distinct from both tactical bombing and the use of strategic air assets in an operational capacity.

Such a strategy usually involves sustained attacks over a period of time on targets that affect a nation's overall war making capability, such as factories, railroads, oil industries, and other resources. Less frequently, individual strategic attacks are made against 'point' targets, such as Britain's RAF Bomber Command attacks against the Ruhr dams by means of the bouncing bomb development in May, 1943.

As strategic bombing aims to undermine an enemy nation-state's ability to wage war, strategic bombers need to be able to reach targets throughout most or all of that nation, and so have tended to be larger, longer-ranged aircraft. Strategic bombers have also been used to support major military ground operations, such as the isolation of Normandy through the bombing of transportation hubs throughout northern France in support of the D-Day invasion, or the carpet bombing of the Axis front lines west of St. Lo in support of Operation Cobra.

An aerial attack strategy of deliberately bombing and/or strafing civilian targets in order to break the morale of an enemy, make its civilian population panic, bend the enemy's political leadership to the attacker's will, or to "punish" an enemy, while strategic in nature, is more correctly termed terror bombing.

[edit] Methods used to deliver ordnanceThere are three basic methods used to deliver ordnance onto targets in a strategic bombing campaign. The first is by gravity-dropping large numbers of iron bombs or "dumb bombs", using strategic bombers. The second is through the use of more precise ordnance, precision-guided munitions (so-called smart bombs); cruise missiles fall into this category, though they are not always air-launched. The third method involves the use of nuclear ordnance, either onto a battlefield in a method similar to carpet bombing, or onto a strategic target, as with iron bombs in WW II.

Although the deployment of nuclear weapons from aircraft falls into the category of strategic bombing, and likely represents the ultimate form of both strategic and terror bombing, the term strategic bombing is generally used in reference to the release of non-nuclear air-ground ordnance from strategic aircraft.

Area attack by multiple bombers is based upon detailed calculations of the intended Damage Expectancy or "DE" directed by the Air Tasking Order (ATO) used in a military strategy. To achieve a particular DE, planners select a bomb type based on that particular weapon's damage mechanism - blast/fragmentation or incendiary, for example. Planners then calculate the Single Sortie Probability of Damage (SSPD) and extrapolate from there, adding sorties until the probability of damage meets or exceeds the required DE.

As weapons have grown more precise, the need for mass formations dropping masses of bombs has decreased, and it is now possible for a single bomb to accomplish what in the past took many bombers. In fact, one B-52 can now drop a single bomb from many miles away that can be programmed to strike a target as small as a window or doorway from a chosen direction and at a preselected angle. This can focus the blast in a given direction and can dramatically reduce the risk of collateral damage to other buildings and consequent unintended civilian casualties.

Strategic bombing by multiple modern strategic bombers like the B-52 can be likened to an hour during the Somme bottled into a thirty-second time period. However, some believe this delivery method has been rather ineffective in attacking a nation's warmaking capability, due to the imprecise nature of the attack. Others cite the destruction of enemy infrastructure, resources expended on civil defense and physical protection of sites, and the reallocation of military resources away from the battlefield in order to staff response and air and ground antiaircraft assets as proof of its efficacy. In either case, the unintended mass civilian casualties, terror caused, and ethical questions raised draws adverse long-term attention to the morality of strategic bombing.

Carpet bombing, often confused with strategic bombing, is the use of strategic air assets for operational objectives in support of ground forces. Its use during Operation Cobra is the best-

known example. Carpet bombing is viewed ambivalently by ground forces, due to the nigh-inevitable friendly casualties caused by bombers dropping their ordnance short of the aiming point, either through error or "bomb creep".[2]

The use of "smart" weapons is preferred by some nations for two reasons. First, it can be less devastating. Due to the greater accuracy (the smaller CEP) of precision guided weapons, there is less risk of civilian casualties. The second reason is the more-focused damage associated with precision weapons. Strategic bombing can destroy an entire block, but miss the vital components of a factory. Precision weapons can attack precise components of designated targets, increasing the likelihood of a successful attack. However, the 'shock' value of precision bombing is less severe than of area bombing. Unless multiple precision weapons are used, an enemy may seek cover or disperse to different parts of the targeted area. Additionally, area bombing can have an initial significant psychological effect, as the bombing of cities early in World War II terrified their citizens.

[edit] Enemy morale and terror bombingOne of the aims of war is to demoralise the target; facing continual death and destruction may make the prospect of peace or surrender preferable. The proponents of strategic bombing between the world wars, such as General Douhet, expected that direct attacks upon a country's cities by strategic bombers would lead to rapid collapse of civilian morale, so that political pressure to sue for peace would lead to a rapid conclusion. When such attacks were tried in the 1930s—in the Spanish Civil War and the Second Sino-Japanese War—they were ineffective. Commentators observed the failures and some air forces, such as the Luftwaffe, concentrated their efforts upon direct support of the troops.[3][4]

"Terror bombing" is an emotive term used to describe aerial attacks planned to weaken or break enemy morale.[5] Use of the term to describe aerial attacks implies the attacks are criminal according to the law of war,[6] or if within the laws of war are nevertheless a moral crime.[7] According to John Algeo in Fifty years among the new words the first recorded usage of "Terror bombing" in a United States publication was in a Readers Digest article dated June 1941, a finding confirmed by the Oxford English Dictionary.[8][9]

Aerial attacks described as terror bombing are often long range strategic bombing raids, although attacks which result in the deaths of civilians may also be described as such, or if the attacks involve fighters strafing they may be labelled "terror attacks."[10]

[edit] Development of the term terror bombing

German propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and other high ranking officials of the Third Reich [11] frequently described attacks made on Germany by the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) during their strategic bombing campaigns as terror attacks.[nb 1][nb 2] The Allied governments usually described their bombing of cities with other euphemisms such as area bombing (RAF) or precision bombing (USAAF), and for most of World War II the Allied news media did the same. However, at a SHAEF press conference on 16 February 1945, two days after the Bombing of Dresden, British Air Commodore Colin McKay

Grierson replied to a question by one of the journalists that the primary target of the bombing had been on communications to prevent the Germans from moving military supplies and to stop movement in all directions if possible. He then added in an offhand remark that the raid also helped destroy "what is left of German morale." Howard Cowan, an Associated Press war correspondent, filed a story about the Dresden raid. The military press censor at SHAEF made a mistake and allowed the Cowan cable to go out starting with "Allied air bosses have made the long awaited decision to adopt deliberate terror bombing of great German population centres as a ruthless expedient to hasten Hitler's doom." There were followup newspaper editorials on the issue and a longtime opponent of strategic bombing, Richard Stokes, MP, asked questions in the House of Commons on 6 March.[12]

The controversy stirred up by the Cowan news report reached the highest levels of the British Government when on 28 March 1945 the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, sent a memo by telegram to General Ismay for the British Chiefs of Staff and the Chief of the Air Staff in which he started with the sentence "It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed...."[13][14] Under pressure from the Chiefs of Staff and in response to the views expressed by Chief of the Air Staff Sir Charles Portal, and the head of Bomber Command, Arthur "Bomber" Harris, among others, Churchill withdrew his memo and issued a new one.[14] This was completed on 1 April 1945 and started instead with the usual British euphemism for attacks on cities: "It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of the so called 'area-bombing' of German cities should be reviewed from the point of view of our own interests...."[15]

Many strategic bombing campaigns and individual raids of aerial warfare have been described as "terror bombing" by commentators and historians since the end of World War II, but because the term has pejorative connotations, others have denied that such bombing campaigns and raids are examples of "terror bombing."

[edit] History and origins[edit] World War I

A 1918 Air Raid rehearsal, evacuating children from a hospital.

Strategic bombing was used in World War I, though it was not understood in its present form. The first strategic bombing mission of the war was likely the dropping of five bombs on the Gare L'Est train station in Paris on August 30, 1914. Within a year or so, specialized aircraft and dedicated bomber squadrons were in service on both sides. These were generally used for tactical bombing; the aim was that of directly harming enemy troops, strongpoints, or equipment, usually within a relatively small distance of the front line. Eventually, attention turned to the possibility of causing indirect harm to the enemy by systematically attacking vital rear-area resources.

The first-ever dirigible aerial bombardment of civilians was on January 19, 1915, when two German Zeppelins dropped 24 fifty-kilogram (110 pound) high-explosive bombs and ineffective three-kilogram incendiaries on the Eastern England towns of Great Yarmouth, Sheringham, King's Lynn, and the surrounding villages. In all, four people were killed and sixteen injured, and monetary damage was estimated at £7,740 (about US$36,000 at the time). German dirigibles also bombed Liepaja in Latvia on the Eastern Front in January 1915.

In 1915 there were 19 more raids, in which 37 tons of bombs were dropped, killing 181 people and injuring 455. Raids continued in 1916. London was accidentally bombed in May, and in July the Kaiser allowed directed raids against urban centers. There were 23 airship raids in 1916, in which 125 tons of ordnance were dropped, killing 293 people and injuring 691. Gradually British air defenses improved. In 1917 and 1918, there were only 11 Zeppelin raids against England, and the final raid occurred on August 5, 1918, which resulted in the death of KK Peter Strasser, commander of the German Naval Airship Department.

By the end of the war, 51 raids had been undertaken, in which 5,806 bombs were dropped, killing 557 people and injuring 1,358. The Zeppelin raids were complemented by the Gotha bomber, which was the first heavier-than-air bomber to be used for strategic bombing. It has been argued that the raids were effective far beyond the material damage caused, in diverting and hampering wartime production and in diverting twelve squadrons and over 10,000 men to air defenses.

The French army on June 15, 1915, attacked the German town of Karlsruhe, killing 29 civilians and wounding 58. Further raids followed until the Armistice in 1918. In a raid in the afternoon of June 22, 1916, the pilots used outdated maps and bombed the location of the abandoned railway station, where a circus tent was placed, killing 120 persons, most of them children.

In contrast, the British launched their own form of strategic bombing. At the start of the war, there were attacks by bombers of the Royal Navy Air Service (RNAS) against the Zeppelin production lines and their sheds at Cologne and Düsseldorf on September 22 and October 8, 1914. In late 1915, the order was given for attacks on German industrial targets and the 41st Wing was formed from units of the RNAS and Royal Flying Corps. The RNAS took to strategic bombing in a bigger way than the RFC, who were focussed on supporting the infantry actions of the Western Front. At first the RNAS attacked the German submarines in their moorings and then steelworks further in targeting the origin of the submarines themselves.

In early 1918 they operated their "round the clock" bombing raid, with lighter bombs attacking the town of Trier by day and large HP O/400s attacking by night. In April 1918, the Independent Force, an expanded bombing group, was created and by the end of the war had aircraft that could reach Berlin but were never used.

Following the war, the concept of strategic bombing developed. The calculations which were performed on the number of dead to the weight of bombs dropped would have a profound effect on the attitudes of the British authorities and population in the interwar years because as bombers became larger it was fully expected that deaths from aerial bombardment would approach those

anticipated in the Cold War from the use of nuclear weapons. The fear of aerial attack on such a scale was one of the fundamental driving forces of British appeasement in the 1930s.[16]

[edit] Period between the world wars

In the period between the two world wars, military thinkers from several nations advocated strategic bombing as the logical and obvious way to employ aircraft. Domestic political considerations saw to it that the British worked harder on the concept than most. The British Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air Service of the Great War had been merged in 1918 to create a separate air force, which spent much of the following two decades fighting for survival in an environment of severe government spending constraints.

Royal Air Force leaders, in particular Air Chief Marshal Hugh Trenchard, believed the key to retaining their independence from the senior services was to lay stress on what they saw as the unique ability of a modern air force to win wars by unaided strategic bombing. As the speed and altitude of bombers increased in proportion to fighter aircraft, the prevailing strategic understanding became "the bomber will always get through". Although anti-aircraft guns and fighter aircraft had proved effective in the Great War, it was accepted there was little warring nations could do to prevent massive civilian casualties from strategic bombing. High civilian morale and retaliation in kind were seen as the only answers. (A later generation would revisit this, as Mutual Assured Destruction.)

In Europe, the air power prophet General Giulio Douhet asserted the basic principle of strategic bombing was the offensive, and there was no defence against carpet bombing and poison gas attacks. Douhet's apocalyptic predictions found fertile soil in France, Germany, and the United States, where excerpts from his book The Command of the Air (1921) were published. These visions of cities laid waste by bombing also gripped the popular imagination and found expression in novels such as Douhet's The War of 19-- (1930) and H.G. Wells's The Shape of Things to Come (1933) (filmed by Alexander Korda as Things to Come (1936)).

Douhet's proposals were hugely influential amongst airforce enthusiasts, arguing as they did that the bombing air arm was the most important, powerful and invulnerable part of any military. He envisaged future wars as lasting a matter of a few weeks. While each opposing Army and Navy fought an inglorious holding campaign, the respective Air Forces would dismantle their enemies' country, and if one side did not rapidly surrender, both would be so weak after the first few days that the war would effectively cease. Fighter aircraft would be relegated to spotting patrols, but would be essentially powerless to resist the mighty bombers.

In support of this theory he argued for targeting of the civilian population as much as any military target, since a nation's morale was as important a resource as its weapons. Paradoxically, he suggested that this would actually reduce total casualties, since "The time would soon come when, to put an end to horror and suffering, the people themselves, driven by the instinct of self-preservation, would rise up and demand an end to the war...". As a result of Douhet's proposals airforces allocated greater resources to their bomber squadrons than to their fighters, and the 'dashing young pilots' promoted in propaganda of the time were invariably bomber pilots.

Pre-war planners, on the whole, vastly overestimated the damage bombers could do, and underestimated the resilience of civilian populations. The speed and altitude of modern bombers, and the difficulty of hitting a target while under attack from improved ground fire and fighters which had yet to be built was not appreciated. Jingoistic national pride played a major role: for example, at a time when Germany was still disarmed and France was Britain's only European rival, Trenchard boasted, "the French in a bombing duel would probably squeal before we did".[17] At the time, the expectation was any new war would be brief and very savage. A British Cabinet planning document in 1938 predicted that, if war with Germany broke out, 35% of British homes would be hit by bombs in the first three weeks. (This type of expectation should be kept in mind when considering the conduct of the European leaders who appeased Hitler in the late 1930s.)[17]

Douhet's theories were successfully put into action in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) where RAF bombers used conventional bombs, gas bombs, and strafed forces identified as engaging in guerrilla uprisings. Arthur Harris, a young RAF squadron commander (later nicknamed "Bomber"), reported after a mission in 1924, "The Arab and Kurd now know what real bombing means, in casualties and damage. They know that within 45 minutes a full-sized village can be practically wiped out and a third of its inhabitants killed or injured."[18]

In reality, RAF forces took great care when striking at targets. RAF directives stressed:

In these attacks, endeavour should be made to spare the women and children as far as possible, and for this purpose a warning should be given, whenever practicable. It would be wrong even at this stage to think that air power was simply seen as a tool for rapid retribution.[19]

A statement clearly pointed out that the ability of aircraft to inflict punishment could be open to abuse:

Their power to cover great distances at high speed, their instant readiness for action, their independence (within the detachment radius) of communications, their indifference to obstacles and the unlikelihood of casualties to air personnel combine to encourage their use offensively more often than the occasion warrants.[20]

In strikes over Yemen in over a six month period, sixty tons of bombs were dropped in over 1,200 hours of flying. By August 1928, total losses in ground fighting and air attack, on the Yemeni side, were 65 killed or wounded (one RAF pilot was killed and one airman wounded).[21]

Between the wars the RAF conducted 26 separate air operations within the Aden Protectorate. The majority were conducted in response to persistent banditry or to restore the Government’s authority. Excluding operations against Yemeni forces – which had effectively ceased by 1934 – a total of twelve deaths were attributed to air attacks conducted between 1919 and 1939.[22] Bombing as a military strategy proved to be an effective and efficient way for the British to police their Middle East protectorates in the 1920s. Fewer men were required as compared to ground forces.[18]

[edit] World War II

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Main article: Strategic bombing during World War II

1943 USAAF raid on ball bearing works at Schweinfurt, Germany

Victims of a September 1944 raid on Berlin.

The strategic bombing conducted in World War II was unlike anything the world had seen before. The campaigns conducted in Europe, in China and at the end of the war over Japan, could involve thousands of aircraft dropping tens of thousands of tons of munitions over a single city.

Strategic-bombing campaigns were conducted in Europe and Asia. The Germans and Japanese made use of mostly twin-engined bombers with a payload generally less than 5000 pounds, and never produced larger craft to any great extent. By comparison, the British and Americans (who started the war with predominantly similarly-sized bombers) developed their strategic force based upon much larger four-engined bombers for their strategic campaigns. The payload carried by these planes ranged from 4,000 lb (1,800 kg) for the B-17 Flying Fortress (on long-range missions),[23] to 8,000 lb (3,600 kg) for the B-24 Liberator,[24] 14,000 lb (6,400 kg) for the Avro Lancaster,[25] and 9 tons for the B-29 Superfortress, with some specialty aircraft, such as the 'Special B' Avro Lancaster carrying an 11-ton (22,000 lb (10,000 kg)) Grand Slam.[26]

During the first year of the war in Europe, strategic bombing was developed through trial and error. The Luftwaffe had been attacking both civilian and military targets from the very first day of the war, when Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939. A strategic-bombing campaign was launched to break British morale and achieve a peace agreement after the Luftwaffe proved unable to defeat the RAF in the air, and the proposed invasion of Great Britain had to be indefinitely postponed.

Initially, the raids took place in daylight, then changed to night bombing attacks when losses became unsustainable. The RAF, initially espousing a precision-bombing doctrine, also switched to night bombing due to excessive losses. After the Butt Report (released in September, 1941) proved the inadequacy of Bomber Command training and equipment to carry it out, the RAF adopted an area-attack strategy, attempting to break German civilian morale.

The United States Army Air Forces adopted a policy of daylight precision bombing for greater accuracy as, for example, during the Schweinfurt raids. That doctrine, which included the fallacious theory that bombers could adequately defend themselves against air attack with their

own armament, entailed much higher American losses until long-range fighter escorts became available.

Strategic bombing was initially a way of taking the war into Europe while Allied ground forces were no closer to fighting Germans there than North Africa. Between them, the Allied air forces claimed to be able to bomb around the clock. In fact, few targets were ever hit by British and American forces the same day, the strategic isolation of Normandy on D-Day and the bombing of Dresden in February, 1945 being exceptions rather than the rule. There were generally no coordinated plans for "around the clock" bombing of any target.

Even single missions have been considered to constitute strategic bombing. The British bombing of Peenemünde was such an event, as was the bombing of the Ruhr dams. The Peenemünde mission delayed Nazi Germany's V-2 program enough it did not become a factor in the outcome of the war.

Strategic bombing in Europe never reached the decisive completeness the American campaign against Japan achieved, helped in part by the fragility of Japanese housing, which was particularly vulnerable to firebombing through the use of incendiary bombs. The destruction of German infrastructure became apparent, but the Allied campaign against Germany only really succeeded when the Allies began targeting oil refineries and transportation in the last year of the war. At the same time, strategic bombing of Germany was used as a morale booster for the Allies in the period before the land war resumed in Western Europe.

If the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service and the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service frequently used strategic bombing over large Chinese cities such as Shanghai, Guangzhou, Nanjing, and Chongqing, in the Pacific theatre, organized strategic bombing on a large scale by the Japanese seldom occurred. The Japanese military in most places advanced quickly enough that a strategic bombing campaign was unnecessary, and the Japanese aircraft industry was incapable of producing truly strategic bombers in any event. In those places where it was required, the smaller Japanese bombers (in comparison to British and American types) did not carry a bombload sufficient to inflict the sort of damage regularly occurring at that point in the war in Europe, or later in Japan.

The development of the B-29 gave the United States a bomber with sufficient range to reach the Japanese Home Islands from the safety of American bases in the Pacific or Western China. The capture of the Japanese island of Iwo Jima further enhanced the capabilities that the Americans possessed in their strategic bombing campaign. Conventional bombs and incendiary bombs were used against Japan to devastating effect.

The final development of strategic bombing in WWII was the use of nuclear ordnance. On August 6 and 9, 1945, the United States conducted nuclear bombing raids on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Both cities were destroyed with enormous loss of life and psychological shock. On August 15 the Emperor announced the surrender of Japan, stating:

"Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is indeed incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should We continue to

fight, it would not only result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization. Such being the case, how are We to save the millions of Our subjects; or to atone Ourselves before the hallowed spirits of Our Imperial Ancestors? This is the reason why We have ordered the acceptance of the provisions of the Joint Declaration of the Powers."

[edit] Cold War

Nuclear weapons defined strategic bombing during the Cold War. The age of the massive strategic bombing campaign had come to an end. It was replaced by more devastating attacks using improved sighting and weapons technology. Strategic bombing by the Great Powers also became politically indefensible. The political fallout resulting from the destruction being broadcast on the evening news ended more than one strategic bombing campaign.

In the Vietnam war, the strategic bombing of North Vietnam in Operation Rolling Thunder could have been more extensive, but fear by the Johnson Administration of the entry of China into the war (and misapprehension of the nature and technique of strategic bombing) led to restrictions on the selection of targets, as well as only a gradual escalation of intensity.

The aim of the bombing campaign was to demoralize the North Vietnamese, damage their economy, and reduce their capacity to support the war in the hope that they would negotiate for peace, but it failed to have those effects. The Nixon Administration continued this sort of limited strategic bombing during the two Operation Linebacker campaigns. Images such as that of Kim Phuc Phan Thi (although this incident was the result of close air support rather than strategic bombing) disturbed the American public enough to demand a stop to the campaign.

Due to this, and the ineffectiveness of carpet bombing (partly because of a lack of identifiable targets), new precision weapons were developed. The new weapons allowed more effective and efficient bombing with reduced civilian casualties. High civilian casualties had always been the hallmark of strategic bombing, but later in the Cold War, this began to change.

The Israeli Air Force used strategic bombing during its brief but intense wars with its neighbors during the Six Day and Yom Kippur wars. Strategic bombing was entering a new phase of high-intensity attacks, specifically targeting factories taking years and millions of dollars to build.

[edit] Post-Cold WarSee also: 1999_NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia#Strategy

Strategic bombing in the post-Cold War era is defined by American advances in and the use of smart munitions. Beginning with the First Gulf War, and then more frequently in the Kosovo War and the initial phases of the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, strategic bombing campaigns were notable for the heavy use of precision weaponry by those countries that possessed them. Although bombing campaigns were still strategic in their aims, the widespread area bombing tactics of World War II had mostly disappeared. This led to significantly fewer civilian casualties associated with previous bombing campaigns, though it has not brought about a complete end to civilian deaths or collateral property damage.

Additionally, strategic bombing via smart munitions is now possible through the use of aircraft that have been considered traditionally tactical in nature such as the F-16 Fighting Falcon or F-15E Strike Eagle, which had been used during Operation Desert Storm, Operation Allied Force, Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom to destroy targets that would have required large formations of strategic bombers during WWII.

Some people refer to such pinpoint destruction of strategic, logistical or communications/command targets as "strategic interdiction" in order to distinguish from the large concentrated use of conventional or nuclear weapons against highly concentrated population centers or industrial targets, which is what "strategic bombing" had traditionally connoted during WWII and the Cold War. That said, such bombing still may have a place, as evidenced during the 2008 South Ossetia war when Russian aircraft attacked the shipbuilding center of Poti.[27]

[edit] Technological advancesWith the advent of precision-guided munitions, many feel that strategic bombing has once again become a viable military strategy. Exactly how precise precision munitions are is still open to question. However, others predict that 21st century warfare will more often be asymmetrical, and therefore viable strategic bombing options may not exist.

A further question is raised when some see the blurring of strategic and tactical targets and missions, particularly when tactical aircraft are frequently used to carry out strikes on targets with significant strategic importance as a result of technological advances in aircraft design and munition guidance and penetration. For example, tactical strike aircraft such as F-16s were frequently used to destroy command and communications bunkers during Operation Iraqi Freedom while large "strategic" bombers such as the B-1 and B-52 were frequently used to provide sustained close air support at high altitude during Operation Enduring Freedom.

[edit] Strategic bombing eventsAmong the controversial instances of strategic bombing (and it should be noted that there is still significant controversy over whether all of these events even constitute strategic bombing, as opposed to other forms, such as terror bombing) are:

Strategic bombing of "uncivilized tribes" during the British mandate of Iraq

Spanish Civil War o The Bombing of Guernica: the first

aerial bombardment in history in which a civilian population was targeted with the apparent intent of producing civilian casualties.

World War II o The Japanese bombing of Wuhano The Japanese bombing of

Vietnam War o United States bombing of the Ho

Chi Minh Trailo United States bombing of Hanoio United States bombing of Cambodia

Gulf War (1990–1991) Yugoslav Wars (1991–1999)

o NATO bombing of Republika Srpska (1995) (Operation Deliberate Force)

o Kosovo War (1999) NATO bombing of industry

Chongqingo The Japanese attack on Pearl

Harboro The German bombing of Warsawo The German bombing of Rotterdamo German attacks on the UK during

The Blitz and afterwards, through the V-1 and V-2 attacks in the last year of the war.

o The German bombing of Belgradeo The German bombing of Moscow.o Allied bombing of Hamburgo Allied bombing of Berlino Allied bombing of Dresdeno Allied bombing of Milano United States bombing of Tokyoo United States bombing of Kobeo United States atomic bombings of

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

and other civilian infrastructure in Serbia. Examples include the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade (claimed to have been done by mistake) and the deliberate bombing of the main TV center in Belgrade.

Iraq War (2003) o Precision laser and GPS guided

bombs were used extensively, not only to damage and destroy Saddam Hussein's army but also to damage infrastructure such as communications, utilities, and various government buildings. The campaign moved into asymmetric warfare once strategic targets no longer existe

THE CLASSICAL APPROACH

Giulio Douhet and Strategic Air Force Operations a study in the limitations of theoretical warfare

Michael J. Eula

The Italian General Giulio Douhet reigns as one of the twentieth century's foremost strategic air power theorists. Along with William "Billy" Mitchell, Douhet understood that the technological advances in weaponry made during World War I were not fully utilized by Allied commanders. Douhet thus spent the decade after the war constructing a theory that would facilitate the strategic use of what he conceived to be the biggest technological breakthrough of all, the airplane. As such scholars as Raymond Flugel have pointed out, Douhet's theories were crucial at a pivotal pre-World War II Army Air Force institution, the Air Corps Tactical School.1 Over time, these theories became institutionalized to the point that they were rarely questioned. Their influence was subsequently evident in strategic Air Force operations.

From the perspective of past missions, we can now assess the applicability of Douhetism to actual operations. If his theories have been generally invalidated, then how much importance can we attach to Douhet's writings? All too often, strategists tend to skirt the evidence in favor of the model.2 But as eminent social theorists outside of history per se will be the first to say, models are, at least ideally, heuristic devices.3 They provide ports of entry, but they do not replace

vigorous empirical analysis. Even such eminent measurement-error sociologists as R. W. Hodge and P. M. Siegel have been moved to write:

Any measure is subject to both errors incurred through definition of a less than completely valid measure [of] a theoretical construct and error incurred through an operational measure which is not perfectly reliable.4

Scholars have the privilege of living with "operational measures" not "perfectly reliable." Military strategists, however, do not.

Before testing the central concepts of Douhet's arguments against actual developments under combat conditions, it is first imperative to reconstruct Douhet's model. Probably its most striking feature is its essential simplicity. Accordingly, some of its most renowned phrases are also its most enticing––"the new form of war" and "the aerial field as the decisive field" are crucial here.5 The effect of such slogans is almost magical. Douhet manages to reduce complex entities, i.e., "war," into easily mastered concepts. While doing so might serve the purpose of inducing militaristic zeal, it does little to address the serious, rational concerns of planning military objectives.

Thus war itself––with its enormously complicated industrial, political, and logistical problems––is reduced to the relatively clear issues emanating from Douhet's consideration of the offensive use of aircraft.6 In this regard, the offensive capabilities of aircraft seem to erase completely the analogous reality of defensive measures.7 Douhet thus argued that "such offensive actions cannot only cut off an opponent's army and navy from their bases of operations, but can also bomb the interior of the enemy's country so devastatingly that the physical and moral resistance of the people would also collapse."8

What did Douhet propose to do with this offensive power? Quite clearly, his most pressing goal was twofold. On the one hand, he argued that air power should be directed toward the utter obliteration of the enemy's industrial base. Typically, Douhet minced no words when he argued that a strike force "should always operate in mass" to "crush the material ... resistance of the enemy."9 Second, Douhet was convinced that the effect of this was to, without doubt, demoralize the enemy population. He thus wrote:

In terms of military results, it is much more important to destroy a railroad station, a bakery, a war plant, or to machine-gun a supply column, moving trains, or any other behind-the-lines objective, than to strafe or bomb a trench. The results are immeasurably greater in breaking morale ... in spreading terror and panic...10

Such offensive striking power precluded the need for a large number of fighter aircraft. What would be the use of tactical weaponry in an era of massive strategic bombing? Douhet's war was swift and sure, decisive beyond question. He did not call for the abolition of tactical aircraft in the way that such scholars as Edward Warner have implied.11 In light of twentieth-century developments, however, it might be said that Douhet put it in its proper perspective. It is crucial to remember, nevertheless, that this balance was not conceived of in an overly theoretical way. Accordingly, Douhet pointed out:

There must be both combat planes and bombers in an Independent Air Force.... As for bombers, it is obviously desirable to have the greatest possible number, because, whatever the circumstances, it is always opportune to launch major offensives. Therefore, there can be no set proportion of combat planes and bombers since both depend upon diverse independent circumstances.12

The phrase "independent circumstances" is crucial, for it suggests Douhet's almost intuitive grasp of the very essence of war. I refer here to the quality of instability and vagueness inherent in the process of fighting––at least at certain historical moments.13 The problem with Douhet's position, though, is that it was formulated during the prenuclear age in general and the ICBM era in particular. The ICBM is not the long-range bomber or even the V-I rocket, as Bernard Brodie made clear in a passage noteworthy for its brilliant simplicity:

Nuclear weapons also made defense against strategic bombing enormously more difficult and disheartening to the defender. The defense of London against the V-I was considered effective, and yet in eight days, 2,300 hit the city. The record bag was that of August 28, 1944, when out of 101 bombs approaching London 97 were shot down and only four got through. But if those four had been atomic bombs the record of defense would not have been considered good.14

Another surface appeal of Douhet's argument lies in its mathematical "certainty." In a discussion of bombing patterns, Douhet conveys the impression that such tactics could be worked out in advance––to the letter.15 This sort of thinking, in certain quarters, has worked to the disadvantage of strategic operations.16 Indeed, such a posture assumes that air strikes can be directed at the industrial base of the enemy.

Combat experiences during the Korean conflict are a stark example of Douhet's utter inability to grasp the intricacies of international relations. I am not suggesting that he should have foreseen the quagmire of mainland Asia. My point, rather, is that the Fifteenth Air Force, in spite of overwhelming superiority, was unable to strike a final blow at the material base of the communist war effort because that base was located in Mainland China and the Soviet Union.17 Strategic bombing thus came to a screeching halt on 26 September 1950.18 International political concerns, in this instance, overrode purely strategic necessities. It was not simply a matter, as Douhet put it, of maintaining "violent, uninterrupted action against surface objectives to the end that it may crush the material and moral resistance of the enemy."19

"Uninterrupted" operations suggests a vital element in Douhet's scheme. This perspective held grave implications for army and naval strategists, as it implied the obsolescence of their forces. Certainly, Douhet discussed the role of fixed fortifications on land.20 He also paid attention to the defensive functions of naval forces.21 But clearly, sea and land-power would, inevitably, be rendered pointless in a massive attack swiftly carried out.22 The demoralization of the enemy population would be crucial at this point, as would a suitable lack of enemy defenses.

For Douhet, one fundamental way of sustaining the potential for massive, uninterrupted strikes was to employ all of a society's available aircraft. This could best be accomplished, he argued, through a reliance on civil aviation. The state thus maintains civil aircraft "in active service . . . [so] that the planes [can] be easily and rapidly converted into warplanes."23 Douhet thus assumed

that the typical civil airplane could be easily converted into a heavy bomber, a premise that was highly questionable even in his own day.24 This is a point which such scholars as Warner have failed to fully grasp. Just because Douhet later modified his position, relegating civil aircraft to "secondary functions," does not mean that he regarded those subsidiary capacities as inconsequential.25

More on that subject later. At this juncture, let me complete the outline of Douhet's main points. Two aspects stand paramount here. The first of these was his apathetic attitude toward defensive strategy. The second was his notion of total war.

I have already implied that Douhet largely ignored the possibilities inherent in defensive measures. His assumptions concerning, say, bombing patterns, certainly illustrate this. So does his embryonic conception of the blitzkrieg. Throughout, the potential for resistance is overlooked. Accordingly, he asserted that "the decision will be quick in this kind of war . . .."26 Bombing patterns, however, do not mean as much when the enemy knows that you are coming. He thus manifested an acutely ahistorical frame of mind––one that was unable to transcend the experiences of the First World War. In short, he failed to understand that technology tends to develop in a multilinear way that is very seldom predictable. An even cursory examination of the medieval longbow and its relationship to the armored, mounted knight, for instance, would have raised doubts about the assumption that defensive strategies remain dormant in the face of offensive threats.

Douhet's view of total war also presumes too much. For one thing, the centralization of command has seldom proved to be an easily attainable goal. Indeed, given such realities as interservice rivalries (as well as intraservice ones) and vague, contradictory national political goals, one might conclude that such command efficiency is a hopelessly utopian ideal." Further, to assert the idea of a national "will"––indeed, to assume the existence of a civic spirit with theoretical roots in continental liberalism––is to thoughtlessly project European models onto fundamentally different societies––such as the United States. Strategists in America cannot assume the viability of this approach, particularly within the seamless web of American culture.

This, then, is the basic outline of Douhet's argument as it appears in The Command of the Air. The task now is to illustrate its basic theoretical weaknesses in light of actual Air Force operations. Only then can its use as a heuristic guide be questioned.

I have already pointed, in an admittedly cursory way, to the inappropriateness of some of Douhet's arguments, given actual Air Force sorties. Korea and the assumptions surrounding bombing offensives is one stark case in point. There are four issues that need to be discussed within the context of the Air Force's institutionalization of Douhetism. These are Douhet's deemphasis of defensive measures, the assumed demoralization of the enemy population, the alleged mathematical certainty of uninterrupted bombing, and the reliance on civil aviation.

In the matter of defensive measures versus offensive potential, it is indeed surprising that Douhet failed to grasp the historical reality of defensive technological development and its necessary correlation with offensive innovations. Early on in his career, Douhet built a reputation as an electronic technician at Turin Polytechnic.28 As early as 1904, he was studying the "Calculations

of Rotating Field Engines."29 His "Outlines of Electrotechnics" was later published as a pamphlet while, simultaneously, he delivered a lecture at the Sorbonne on the separation of hydrogen and oxygen from air.30

Despite such impressive credentials, Douhet's argument concerning the inevitability of offensive superiority points to a profoundly distorted view of air warfare. Given the technical aspects of actual operations, it does not have much credibility. Look, for example, at a relatively effective attack on 2 November 1943. Three hundred twelve tons of bombs were dropped on the Wiener Neustadt Messerschmitt Me-109 airframe works in Austria.31 Despite Douhet's claims that the "only really effective aerial defense cannot but be indirect..." the Fifteenth lost ten B-17s on that one day alone.32 But this was only the beginning. During the February bombing runs on aircraft plants in Austria and Germany, approximately eighty-nine Fifteenth bombers were lost.33 As one analyst put it, bomber "losses per sortie were nearly five times as great as those of the escorts."34 Axis defensive measures, such as radar, flak, and large numbers of tactical aircraft, were thus far more effective than Douhet had anticipated. For the 340th, this fact was painfully learned. As James Cate and Wesley Craven tell us, there were about "ten of twelve planes holed by AA fire on a mission against Venafro." During the October runs over Leghorn-Pontedera, the loss of Liberators on loan from the Eighth Air Force was also heavy. Cate and Craven tell us that the Liberator force

... met heavy flak and around sixty fighters, some with a 37-mm cannon in their wings and others which lobbed rocket-type shells into the bomber formation with considerable accuracy. Fourteen of the bombers were shot down and fifty-two damaged. Enemy losses were undetermined, but apparently did not equal the Liberator losses.35

This was also, in the same sort of scenario, apparent in Vietnam. During the Linebacker II missions of December 1972, B-52s carried on an offensive against Haiphong and Hanoi that made runs on Fortress Europe look paltry indeed. The losses suffered due to SAMS, MiGs, and antiaircraft batteries were very heavy. SAMs in particular were quite effective, as the Fifteenth lost five bombers during this period.36 Fifteen bombers were lost in all.37 Richard Nixon was forced to admit that his "major concern during the first week of bombing was not the sharp wave of domestic and international criticism, which I had expected, but the high losses of B-52s."38

Linebacker II is a particularly good example of Douhet's underestimation of the enemy's morale. Despite intensive bombing at unprecedented rates, the will of the North Vietnamese was not broken. Here, the key to understanding lies in the realm of culture. Douhet and his Air Force adherents operated from a certain level of rationality concerning "acceptable" levels of death. What is acceptable to one people, particularly from the West, is not, however, necessarily applicable somewhere else. Technology does not necessarily overcome anger and a sense of nationalist zeal. Conversely, technocrats are not necessarily fighters.

Vietnam is also a useful laboratory to consider Douhet's belief in the mathematical certainty of uninterrupted bombing operations. Of course, "uninterrupted" is itself quite an assumption. Most attempts to predict accurately the probable effect of precise bombing patterns failed in Southeast Asia. I have already pointed to the inability of B-52s to undercut North Vietnamese morale. But I have in mind even more than that. Douhet, in chapter 3 of The Command of the Air, offers very

precise equations, i.e., 50 bombing units = the destruction of 500 surface meters.39 The luxury of such sureness has not been proved in reality. Consistent pounding of North Vietnamese targets, all based on often intricate quantitative models, failed to yield the desired result––the complete and utter halting of the enemy's logistical efforts. Ironically, the efforts involved in planning pinpoint bombings were themselves perceived by some as signs of weakness, not power. High-ranking officials, such as George Ball, were thus moved to argue that dropping "bombs was a pain-killing exercise that saved my colleagues from having to face the hard decision to withdraw."40 This was not the sort of decisiveness that Douhet had argued would result from awesome offensive striking power.

There is, finally, Douhet's point concerning the use of civil aviation. Nowhere in Air Force strategic history has this measure been even remotely relevant. Complex bombing operations, even as early as 1943, have precluded the possibility of using aircraft designed for civilian use. To go into the technical reasons for my position is redundant, given the general knowledge of rigorous strategic requirements. Within the context of this knowledge, it is silly to take seriously Douhet's assertion that as

... for the planes themselves, even in military aviation circles, the misconception is held that civilian planes cannot be used for war purposes because the two types of planes must have different characteristics. I call this opinion a misconception.... Such compromise would be of advantage to military aviation for this reason: by basing itself upon civil aviation, which is constantly active, it would always have at its disposal the latest types of plane; whereas, if it relied upon its own means, it would often find itself armed with antiquated models.41

Douhet then went on to make the incredible argument:

This misconception also results from the fact that military aviation today uses almost entirely planes of extreme characteristics; whereas civil aviation uses planes of moderate characteristics. And, I repeat, aerial war is not fought with planes of extreme characteristics, in spite of occasional air battles.42

More than anything else, the theoretical irrelevance of The Command of the Air is rooted in Douhet's insensitivity to historical development and cultural diversity. Even a nodding acquaintance with the history of warfare would have alerted him to the correlation between offensive capabilities and developments in defensive technology.43 His failure to grasp the complex cultural history of peoples, regarding death, for instance, translated into false assumptions concerning the enemy population's tolerance of intensive bombing. Such oversights proved disastrous by the time of Vietnam. For social scientists, our Vietnam experience has added credibility to Max Weber's warnings concerning bureaucratic inertia. For Air Force commanders, it illustrated the clear weaknesses of Douhet's model.

Hitler’s Germany lay in ruins. It’s major cities a smoldering shell of their once great majesty. Her industry’s all but destroyed. Her infrastructure a mere ghost of what was once. It can be argued that what ultimately led to the demise of the Axis was airpower. Many would think that things develop as they may when situations arise. However in the case of strategic air power, this was a carefully tried and tested field.

At the end of the first war to end all wars, Europeans feared a second. Many felt that a second war would bring unimaginable horror to the cities of Europe via the new third arm of the military. With the bombing of Guernica, by the Germans during the Spanish civil war, Airpower was here to stay.

An early supporter of strategic bombing and the military superiority of air forces was General Giulio Douhet. He argued that command of an enemy’s air space and subsequent bombing of industrialized centers would be so disruptive and destructive that the pressure for peace would be overwhelming. He maintained that control of the air could win a war regardless of land or sea power. History was to prove him correct in his assumption.We have seen his theories put to the test in conflicts as recent as “Kosovo Crisis”, Douhet’s theories remain very popular to this day

The Man and His Theory

Douhet was born in Caperata, Italy to a family that, for many generations, maintained a tradition of military service to the House of Savoy. He was also a poet and playwright. Douhet was an outspoken man who did not care who he offended with his revolutionary ideas. At a time when the military was going the way of the “Zeppelin” it was Douhet who had been strongly advocating his idea of using bomber aircraft.

Douhet had never flown an aircraft and had only seen three airplanes in his life up to this point, but he had intuitively seen the potential of airpower.

Douhet’s involvement with the Italian Air Force began around 1909. By this time he had written two significant books on the mechanization of war. In an article he had written for a military journal he predicated that air weapons were the way of future. He wrote, ” to us who have until now been inexorably bound to the surface of the earth, it must seem that the sky, too, is to become another battlefield no less important than the battlefields on land and at sea. For if there are nations that exist that are untouched by the sea, there are NONE that exist without the breath of air”. “The army and the navy must recognize in the air force the birth of a third brother-younger, but none the less important, in the great military family”.

By 1911, the Turkish Empire was in it’s death throes while Italy was keen to rebuild her empire of the past and seized the opportunity presented to them. She became involved in a conflict with Turkey and set out to exploit the opportunities presented within Italy’s perceived sphere of influence. Her invasion of the Turkish possession of Libya marked the beginning of this conflict (1911-1912). The Italian army sent along it’s aircraft complement of 9 aircraft, commanded by Douhet and a series of first’s were then recorded: The first combat reconnaissance, October 23 1911; The first bombing mission November 1 1911; The first aerial photo reconnaissance; the first aircraft shot down (Turkish rifle fire)!

Based on the results of fledgling airpower in Libya, the army formed an aviation battalion under the command of Douhet. Like those who came before him and those who would come after him, Douhet became impatient with the foot dragging of his superiors and commissioned his friend, Gianni Caproni, to build a three engine, 300 horse power bomber that, as it turned out, was years ahead of it’s time. This was the first in a series of affronts to the powers that be, the military, that led to his being relived of command of the aviation battalion and being reposted to an infantry division!

With the outbreak of the first world war, a particularly offensive memorandum became known to the public. In it he detailed various types of military shortcomings as well as predicting disaster for the Italian military. This “affront” was seen as the last straw by his detractors. He was court-martialed and imprisoned for a year. Following his release, the very type of disaster he had prophesized came to pass at Caparetto. Approximately 600,000 Italian casualties resulted from this action becoming the worst disaster in the history of the Italian armed forces.

Having been “vindicated” via the event’s of World War 1, Douhet still found road blocks to his theories. After serving 8 more months in the military Douhet resigned from active duty. He settled upon writing as a way of life. In 1921 he produced his definitive work, “Command of the Air” . It was within the pages of this work that he laid out in detail the foundations for a “modern war”. The book represented a culmination of his writings and teachings while in the military, the very thoughts and ideas that had caused him so much grief during his tenure in the armed forces.

The genesis behind his writings was his belief that with the advent of modern technology in his case this represented, poison gas, tanks, planes & machine guns, modern warfare between large land armies had become obsolete. Further he believed that modern warfare favored defense. As can be inferred, his assumptions were based on the experience’s of the first world war. Douhet had approached his theoretical writings from an amoral prospective. That is he took a scientific approach to the matter of war and all things that go with it. For example, he reasoned that; A defender in a prepared position with a gun that fired one shot per minute would be overrun by an attacker if an attacker sent two men to assault the position given that it took the attacker one minute to cover the territory to reach the defender. Therefore one attacker would die and the other would capture the position. If there are obstacles that impeded the attackers, the amount of attackers would rise proportionally to the time it took to reach the position. Therefore a five minute crossing would need six men. Five consumed by enemy fire and one to capture the position. Of course his premise was based in “a perfect world” with no “magic bullets”.

Central to his theory was the premise that control of the air alone could win a war regardless of those armies on land or at sea. Douhet believed that bomber’s would reign supreme by bringing the war to the civilian population centers. The use of high explosive’s, incendiaries, and gas were to be used. To be sure, the use of such ordnance is quite horrifying, however Douhet reasoned that the end result would be saving lives. The civilian population, “driven by an instinct for self preservation”, would force her government to sue for peace, thus ending a war quickly.

Douhet’s vision was of bombers that would be self-defending and fly as fast or faster than fighter aircraft. Fighter planes would be limited to a secondary role of defending bomber formations. Pre-emptive air strikes should be the order of the day. There was no need for the niceties of civilized society (declaration of war) as war itself was an uncivilized action. Lastly, the air arm should be independent of all other services and receive the lion’s share of military expenditures.

Interestingly, while Douhet’s vision of “future” war while quite frightening, was meant to save lives & property. War, he viewed, was inevitable, and naturally the sooner it was over the better. His ideas were meant as a way of achieving this.

While there is much to discuss and debate about his theories, the intent of this essay was to give a general overview of a visionary and his work. I offer no opinion as to the validity or morality of his theories as it is beyond the scope of this writing.