History of aerial warfare
The history of aerial warfare began in ancient times, with the use of kites in China. In the third century, it progressed to balloon warfare. Airplanes were put to use for war starting in 1911, initially for reconnaissance, and then for aerial combat to shoot down the recon planes. The use of planes for strategic bombing emerged during World War II. Also during World War II, Nazi Germany developed many missile and precision-guided munition systems, including the first cruise missile, the first short-range ballistic missile, the first guided surface-to-air missiles, and the first anti-ship missiles. Ballistic missiles became of key importance during the Cold War, were armed with nuclear warheads, and were stockpiled by the superpowers – the United States and the Soviet Union – to deter each other from using them.
Fictional predictions
Since early history, various cultures developed myths of flying gods and deities, some of whom such as Zeus could throw thunderbolts from on high at earthbound humans. There were also fictions of humans finding ways to fly, such as the Greek Daedalus and Icarus. A logical combination was to imagine mundane humans flying – and making military use of their ability to fly. Imagination long preceded the technology needed for such warfare to be actually carried out.
In the third book of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726), the King of the flying island of Laputa resorts to bombarding enemies and rebellious subjects with heavy rocks thrown from the air.
What might be the first detailed fictional depiction of what is now called an
The story's world-conquering Prince, of boundless ambition and cruelty, orders "a magnificent ship to be constructed, with which he could sail through the air; it was gorgeously fitted out and of many colours; like the tail of a peacock, it was covered with thousands of eyes, but each eye was the barrel of a gun. The prince sat in the center of the ship, and had only to touch a spring in order to make thousands of bullets fly out in all directions, while the guns were at once loaded again". Later, the Prince develops an improved model, able to also fire "Steel Thunderbolts", and orders many thousands of them built to make up a massive air flotilla manned by his troops.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]
Balloon warfare
Ancient China
In or around the second or third century, a prototype
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]
Austrian use at Venice in 1849
The first aggressive use of balloons in warfare took place in 1849. Austrian imperial forces besieging Venice attempted to float some 200 paper hot air balloons each carrying a 24–30-pound (11–14 kg) bomb that was to be dropped from the balloon with a time fuse over the besieged city. The balloons were launched mainly from land; however, some were also launched from the side-wheel steamer SMS Vulcano that acted as a balloon carrier. The Austrians used smaller pilot balloons to determine the correct fuse settings. At least one bomb fell in the city; however, due to the wind changing after launch, most of the balloons missed their target, and some drifted back over Austrian lines and the launching ship Vulcano.
American Civil War
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 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 a balloon 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 a free flight observation of the
Lowe was called to Fort Corcoran and ascended in order to spot rebel encampments.[11][12] With flag signals he directed artillery fire on the rebels.
Lowe and other balloonists formed the Union Army Balloon Corps. Lowe insisted on the strict use of tethered (as opposed to free) flight because of concern about being shot down over enemy lines and punished as spies. 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.
As the Confederates retreated, the war turned into the
At the Battle of Fair Oaks, Lowe was able to view the enemy army advancing and sent a dispatch to have reserves sent.
The balloon corps was later assigned to the engineers corps.[12][13] By August 1863, the Union Army Balloon Corps was disbanded.[5][9][13]
Confederate Army
The
Before World War I
The Declaration Prohibiting the Discharge of Projectiles and Explosives from Balloons, part of the
The
The first use of airplanes in an actual war occurred in the 1911 Italo-Turkish War with Italian Army Air Corps Blériot XI and Nieuport IV monoplanes bombing a Turkish camp at Ain Zara in Libya.[19] 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.[20]
The
World War I
In World War I both sides initially made use of tethered balloons and airplanes for observation purposes, both for information gathering and directing of artillery fire.[24] At first, enemy pilots simply exchanged hand waves, but a desire to prevent enemy observation led to airplane pilots attacking other airplanes and balloons, initially with small arms carried in the cockpit.[25]
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, permitting Garros to score three victories in April 1915. Dutch aircraft designer Anthony Fokker developed a successful gun synchronizer in 1915,[26][27][28][29] resulting in German Leutnant Kurt Wintgens scoring the first known victory for a synchronized gun-equipped fighter aircraft, on July 1, 1915.
The Allies quickly developed their own synchronization gears, leading to the birth of aerial combat, more commonly known as dogfighting. Tactics for dogfighting evolved by trial and error. The German ace Oswald Boelcke created eight essential rules of dogfighting, the Dicta Boelcke.[30][31]
Both sides also made use of aircraft for
Interwar period
Between 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.[35] 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.[36][37]
Some theorists, especially in Britain, considered that aircraft would become the dominant military arm in the future.[38] They imagined that a future war would be won entirely by the destruction of the enemy's military and industrial capability from the air.[39] 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.[40] 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.[41][42]
Others, such as General
It was during the
Germany was banned from possessing an air force by the terms of the World War I armistice.
World War II
Military aviation came into its own during the
Over the course of the war, several distinct roles emerged for the application of air power.
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.[53][54][55]
Douhet's ideas were paralleled by other military theorists who emerged from World War I, including Sir Hugh Trenchard in Britain.[56][57] 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.[58]
- Japanese strategic bombing
Strategic bombing, mostly targeting large Chinese cities, was independently conducted during the
- Luftwaffe
In the early days of World War II, the
- Soviet Red Air Force
Although the rapid industrialization the Soviet Union experienced in the 1930s had the potential to enable the
Although strategic bombing requires that the enemy's industrial war capacity be neutralized, some Soviet factories were moved far out of reach of the Luftwaffe's bombers.[64] Because the Luftwaffe's resources were needed to support the German army, the Luftwaffe became overstretched, and even victorious battles degraded Germany's air force due to attrition.[64][65] By 1943, the Soviets were able to produce considerably more airplanes than their German rivals; for example, at Kursk, the Soviets had twice the number of airplanes that the Luftwaffe had.[66] Utilizing overwhelming numerical superiority, Soviet forces were able to drive the Germans out of Soviet territory and take the war to Germany.
- Allied air forces in Europe
The British started 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 the 1939
When the USAAF arrived in England in 1942, the Americans were convinced they could carry out successful daylight raids. The U.S.
The USAAF was compelled to change its doctrine since bombers alone, no matter how heavily armed, could not achieve air superiority against single-engined fighters. In a
- 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.[77] As the quality of the Luftwaffe fighter arm decreased, the Americans introduced the long-range escort fighters, carrying drop tanks such as the North American P-51 Mustang.[78][79] Newer, inexperienced German pilots—flying potentially superior aircraft, gradually became less and less effective at thinning the late-war bomber streams.[80] Adding fighters to the daylight raids gave the bombers much-needed protection and greatly improved the impact of the strategic bombing effort.[81][82]
Over time, from 1942 to 1944, the Allies' air forces became stronger while the Luftwaffe weakened. During 1944, Germany's air force lost control of Germany's skies. As a result, nothing in Germany could be protected whether it was army units, factories, civilians in cities, or even the nation's capital. German soldiers and civilians began to be slaughtered in the tens of thousands by aerial bombardment.[83]
- Effectiveness
Strategic bombing by non-atomic means did not however win the war for the Allies, nor did it succeed in breaking the will to resist of the German (and Japanese) people.[84][85] 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.[86][87] 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.[88][89]
On the Allied side, strategic bombing diverted material resources, equipment (such as radar) aircraft, and manpower away from the Battle of the Atlantic 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.
- U.S. Bombing of Japan
In June 1944, Boeing B-29 Superfortresses launched from China, bombed Japanese factories. From November 1944, increasingly intense raids were launched from bases closer to Japan. Tactics evolved from high-altitude to lower altitude attacks, largely removing most defensive guns and switching to incendiary bombs. These attacks devastated many Japanese cities.
In August 1945, B-29 Superfortresses dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki while the Soviets invaded Manchuria. The Japanese then surrendered unconditionally, officially ending World War II.
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 medium bombers and
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 such as Messerschmitt Bf 109s and Focke-Wulf Fw 190s.[92]
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
Military transport and use of airborne troops
Military transport 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
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 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 Operation Market Garden.
Aircraft and the aircraft carrier first became important in naval battles in World War II. Carrier-based aircraft were specialized as dive bombers, torpedo bombers, and fighters.
Surface-based aircraft such as the Consolidated PBY Catalina and Short Sunderland helped finding submarines and surface fleets. The aircraft carrier replaced the battleship as the most powerful naval offensive weapons system as battles between fleets were increasingly fought out of gun range by aircraft. The Yamato, the most powerful battleship ever built was first turned back by light escort carrier aircraft, and later sunk due to it lacking its own air cover.
The US launched
In the
Cold War
Military 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.[99] Until the advent of the intercontinental ballistic missile major powers relied on high-altitude bombers to deliver their newly developed nuclear deterrent and 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.[99][100]
The Americans developed and made extensive use of the high-altitude observation aircraft for intelligence-gathering. The
Air combat was also transformed through increased use of air-to-air guided
Korean War
The Korean War was best remembered for jet combat, but was one of the last major wars where propeller-powered fighters such as the
From 1950, North Koreans flew the Soviet-made
At first, UN jet fighters, which also included
In December 1950, the
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
After the war, the USAF claimed 792 MiG-15s and 108 additional aircraft shot down by Sabres for the loss of 78 Sabres. Later research reduced the total to 379 victories which is still higher than the 345 losses shown in USSR records.[106]
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-15s) 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.[106]
The Korean war was the first time the
Indo-Pakistani Wars
During the
By the time of the
Vietnam War
The
Large scale use of helicopters by the US Army in Vietnam led to a new class of
US forces provided close support of ground force over South Vietnam, and strategic bombing of targets over North Vietnam.
"Fast movers" included the supersonic North American F-100 Super Sabre, while the giant Boeing B-52 Stratofortress would be modified to unload a massive high explosive payload on enemy troop concentrations.[116] The Lockheed AC-130 would become the ultimate gunship,[117] while the AX specification to replace the Skyraider would evolve into the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II.[119][120]
Lessons learned were applied to the later
US air strikes would combine the use of airborne radar platforms such as the
Experts were surprised when advanced
South Vietnam fell without US air support when faced with a massive assault in 1975. The
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.[129] The Yom Kippur War of 1973 saw the Arab deployment of mobile 2K12 Kub (SA-6) missiles which proved effective against low-flying Israeli aircraft until they were neutralized by ground forces.[130]
Iran–Iraq War
In the Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988), the use of aerial warfare was continuous. At the war's beginning Iraq attempted to destroy the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force by bombing its airfields but failed due to lack of pilot training and Iranian air base defenses.[131] The war also saw the first helicopter vs. helicopter engagements between the Iraqi and Iranian air forces.
Falklands War (1982)
During the six-week Falklands War British carrier-based British Aerospace Sea Harrier and Hawker Siddeley Harrier flew over 1500 sorties and Avro Vulcans flew long-range bombing missions. 21 Argentine fixed-aircraft were destroyed in the air by British Harriers and Sea Harriers. A further 18 Argentine fixed-wing aircraft were destroyed by British Surface to Air Missiles. 15 Argentine fixed-wing aircraft were destroyed on the ground and 14 were captured. Sixty eight Argentine fixed-wing aircraft were captured or destroyed by British Forces, representing 28% of the 240 fixed-wing aircraft the Argentinians had at the start of the war. When accidents and friendly fire are included, 31% of the total 240 fixed-wing aircraft were lost.
Post Cold War
The collapse of the
The advent of precision-guided munitions have allowed for strikes at arbitrary surface targets once proper reconnaissance is performed (network-centric warfare).
The
Gulf War (1991)
The role of air power in modern warfare was dramatically demonstrated during the Gulf War in 1991. 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.[133]
The initial strikes were composed of
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 primarily composed of
Kargil War (1999)
On 11 May 1999, the
On 27 May, the IAF lost a
Eritrean–Ethiopian War (1998–2000)
The war became the first to see 4th-generation jet fighters battle with each other. Most of the losses to Eritrean MIG-29s were caused by dogfights with Ethiopian Su-27s.[141]
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Iraq War (2003–2011)
During the
Iraqi anti-aircraft weapons were unable to open fire on high-altitude US bombers such as the
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.[142][143]
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
The Russo-Ukrainian War became in 2022 the first conflict in two decades to feature large-scale aerial warfare.
Additionally, the conflict in Ukraine has seen a rise in a new type of aerial warfare involving small, commercially available civilian drones (generally quadcopters) that have been modified to attack enemy positions such as those in buildings, vehicles, and trenches. These attacks are often done by modifying these drones to be able to drop explosives such as grenades, or equipping the drone with explosives and flying it directly towards enemies to self-destruct.[144]
This differs from previous warfare involving unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in that these drones are readily available in large quantities, easily accessible to civilian populations, and require substantially less space and resources to operate compared to traditional larger, fixed-wing UAVs. Apart from being far more accessible to civilian combatants and carrying little to no risk of casualties for the attacking side, they provide the added benefit of quick, high-precision attacks at a fraction of the cost of traditional UAVs. This makes them ideal for the type of urban warfare seen throughout the conflict in Ukraine. The majority of these types of attacks are from Ukrainians against Russian invaders.[145]
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (March 2022) |
See also
References
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- ^ Boyne (2003), pp. 227–8
- ^ a b Gross (2002), p. 151
- ^ Boyne (2003), p. 303
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