A History of Air Warfare

Author: John Andreas Olsen
Publisher: Potomac Books, Inc.
ISBN: 1597976385
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 508

Book Description
This one-volume anthology provides a comprehensive analysis of the role that air power has played in military conflicts over the past century. Comprising sixteen essays penned by a global cadre of leading military experts, A History of Air Warfare chronologically examines the utility of air power from the First World War to the second Lebanon war, campaign by campaign. Each essay lays out the objectives, events, and key players of the conflict in question, reviews the role of air power in the strategic and operational contexts, and explores the interplay between the political framework and mil.

Air Warfare in the Missile Age

Author: Lon O. Nordeen
Publisher: Smithsonian Institution
ISBN: 1588344398
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353

Book Description
Lon O. Nordeen has completely updated his 1985 chronicle of military aviation’s evolving role in warfare, now covering the major conflicts of the past four decades. He presents the historical and political background of each conflict and includes in-depth discussions of the aircraft, weapons, tactics, training, new systems, and other factors that influenced the outcome of each war. New and existing chapters have been enhanced with information based on recently declassified material—especially regarding Vietnam—and new sources in Egypt, Israel, and the former Soviet Union. As “smart” bombs have become more successful in reducing the risks for pilots and frontline troops, air-missile warfare has become the central player in military conflicts. Air Warfare in the Missile Age, Second Edition, is a valuable resource for understanding the evolution of modern air warfare.

Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare

Author: Tami Biddle
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400824974
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 417

Book Description
A major revision of our understanding of long-range bombing, this book examines how Anglo-American ideas about "strategic" bombing were formed and implemented. It argues that ideas about bombing civilian targets rested on--and gained validity from--widespread but substantially erroneous assumptions about the nature of modern industrial societies and their vulnerability to aerial bombardment. These assumptions were derived from the social and political context of the day and were maintained largely through cognitive error and bias. Tami Davis Biddle explains how air theorists, and those influenced by them, came to believe that strategic bombing would be an especially effective coercive tool and how they responded when their assumptions were challenged. Biddle analyzes how a particular interpretation of the World War I experience, together with airmen's organizational interests, shaped interwar debates about strategic bombing and preserved conceptions of its potentially revolutionary character. This flawed interpretation as well as a failure to anticipate implementation problems were revealed as World War II commenced. By then, the British and Americans had invested heavily in strategic bombing. They saw little choice but to try to solve the problems in real time and make long-range bombing as effective as possible. Combining narrative with analysis, this book presents the first-ever comparative history of British and American strategic bombing from its origins through 1945. In examining the ideas and rhetoric on which strategic bombing depended, it offers critical insights into the validity and robustness of those ideas--not only as they applied to World War II but as they apply to contemporary warfare.

Courage and Air Warfare

Author: Mark K. Wells
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135204829
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Book Description
Colonel Wells investigates the nature of aerial warfare and the men who took part. The book analyzes aircrew selection, reaction to combat, adaptability to stress, morale, leadership and combat effectiveness, and compares the efforts of the US Eighth Air Force and RAF Bomber Command.

Aerial Warfare

Author: Frank Ledwidge
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198804318
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 161

Book Description
Aerial warfare has dominated western war-making for over 100 years, and despite regular announcements of its demise, it shows no sign of becoming obsolete. Frank Ledwidge offers a sweeping global history of air warfare, introducing the major battles, crises, and controversies where air power has taken centre stage.

Air Warfare: an International Encyclopedia: A-L

Author: Walter J. Boyne
Publisher: Abc-clio
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 432

Book Description
Written by more than 100 international scholars and experts, this encyclopedia chronicles the individuals, equipment, and drama of nearly a century of aerial combat. Air Warfare: An International Encyclopedia is the first encyclopedia to document the entire history of aerial combat, from the primitive biplanes of World War I to the sophisticated stealth fighters of the 21st century. The more than 900 entries, lavishly illustrated with photographs and maps, cover it all-the first, the fastest, the highest, the latest. More than 100 top international scholars and experts-many with personal combat experience-offer thoroughly researched, clearly written articles on the famous aces, designers, battles, air campaigns, weapons, and flying machines of air warfare's first 90 years. Accessible to student, enthusiast, and scholar alike, Air Warfare provides the reader with argument-settling expertise, lively and entertaining entries, and answers to thousands of questions: Who first used air power against civilians? How did a handful of Royal Air Force aces defeat the mighty Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain? Has bombing alone ever won a war? Where does the future of aerial warfare lie? - More than 900 A-Z entries zero in on the first, the best, the worst, the fastest, the highest, the latest - Contributions from some 100 top international experts--many with combat experience - Lavish set of illustrations with numerous photos including the Mitsubishi G4M equipped with the Okha suicide missile, the Red Baron, and the first all-female aircrew of the U.S. Air Force - Maps ranging from the Western front as stabilized in 1915 to the Persian Gulf War in 1991

Air Power

Author: Jeremy Black
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442250976
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 388

Book Description
This essential book offers a compelling and original interpretation of the rise of military aviation. Jeremy Black, one of the world’s finest scholars of military history, provides a lucid analysis of the use of airpower over land and sea both during the two world wars and the more limited wars of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Considering both the theory and praxis of air power, the author begins with hot air balloons, and then highlights the use of zeppelins, piston engine fighters, jet bombers, and finally the so-called Military Revolution of today. While discussing the growth of American and European military aviation, Black, a pioneer in emphasizing the importance of non-Western military history for understanding global developments, also traces the emergence of air power in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Black breaks new ground by exploring not only to conventional war—both inside and outside Europe—but also to the use of air power in unconventional wars, especially critical given to the spread of insurgencies around the globe. He vividly describes traditional debates over the pros and cons of strategic bombing and aircraft carriers versus battleships and gives equal attention to managerial, doctrinal, and technological innovations. The author shows how better management resulted in increasing lethality of close air support of the RAF during the latter part of World War II and at the same times highlights the limits of air power with case studies of the two Gulf Wars. The author goes beyond our traditional understanding of air power associated with bombing and fighter engagements, adding the important elements associated with naval power, including ground/logistics support, anti-aircraft measures, and political constraints. As he explains, air power has become Western politicians’ weapon of choice, spreading maximum destruction with the minimum of commitment. His current and comprehensive study considers how we got to this point, and what the future has in store. Anyone seeking a balanced, accurate understanding of air power in history will find this book an essential introduction.

Command Of The Air

Author: General Giulio Douhet
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 1782898522
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 620

Book Description
In the pantheon of air power spokesmen, Giulio Douhet holds center stage. His writings, more often cited than perhaps actually read, appear as excerpts and aphorisms in the writings of numerous other air power spokesmen, advocates-and critics. Though a highly controversial figure, the very controversy that surrounds him offers to us a testimonial of the value and depth of his work, and the need for airmen today to become familiar with his thought. The progressive development of air power to the point where, today, it is more correct to refer to aerospace power has not outdated the notions of Douhet in the slightest In fact, in many ways, the kinds of technological capabilities that we enjoy as a global air power provider attest to the breadth of his vision. Douhet, together with Hugh “Boom” Trenchard of Great Britain and William “Billy” Mitchell of the United States, is justly recognized as one of the three great spokesmen of the early air power era. This reprint is offered in the spirit of continuing the dialogue that Douhet himself so perceptively began with the first edition of this book, published in 1921. Readers may well find much that they disagree with in this book, but also much that is of enduring value. The vital necessity of Douhet’s central vision-that command of the air is all important in modern warfare-has been proven throughout the history of wars in this century, from the fighting over the Somme to the air war over Kuwait and Iraq.

The Early Air War in the Pacific

Author: Ralph F. Wetterhahn
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 147666997X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Book Description
During the first 10 months of the war in the Pacific, Japan achieved air supremacy with its carrier and land-based forces. But after major setbacks at Midway and Guadalcanal, the empire's expansion stalled, in part due to flaws in aircraft design, strategy and command. This book offers a fresh analysis of the air war in the Pacific during the early phases of World War II. Details are included from two expeditions conducted by the author that reveal the location of an American pilot missing in the Philippines since 1942 and clear up a controversial account involving famed Japanese ace Saburo Sakai and U.S. Navy pilot James "Pug" Southerland.

Marked for Death

Author: James Hamilton-Paterson
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1681771977
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 311

Book Description
A dramatic and fascinating account of aerial combat during World War I, revealing the terrible risks taken by the men who fought and died in the world's first war in the air. Little more than ten years after the first powered flight, aircraft were pressed into service in World War I. Nearly forgotten in the war's massive overall death toll, some 50,000 aircrew would die in the combatant nations' fledgling air forces. The romance of aviation had a remarkable grip on the public imagination, propaganda focusing on gallant air 'aces' who become national heroes. The reality was horribly different. Marked for Death debunks popular myth to explore the brutal truths of wartime aviation: of flimsy planes and unprotected pilots; of burning nineteen-year-olds falling screaming to their deaths; of pilots blinded by the entrails of their observers. James Hamilton-Paterson also reveals how four years of war produced profound changes both in the aircraft themselves and in military attitudes and strategy. By 1918 it was widely accepted that domination of the air above the battlefield was crucial to military success, a realization that would change the nature of warfare forever.