![]() ![]() ![]() When those aircraft then started to use their enhanced performance and offensive capabilities to increasing effect against surface targets, another compelling reason to gain control of the air existed.įew events during the First World War caused more panic and alarm than the attacks on London in the middle of the day by German Gotha bombers in mid-1917. Consequently, specialist fighter aircraft quickly proliferated. Once pilots started shooting at each other to try to prevent reconnaissance, control of the air had become a prerequisite for all air activities. ![]() However, in the minds of airmen at least, other roles had assumed priority. Many of those same roles were repeated in support of maritime strategy, in addition to anti-submarine warfare, convoy escort, search and rescue, maritime strike, and minefield survey. ![]() For armies, roles such as close air support, airlift, reconnaissance, communications, interdiction, artillery spotting, resupply, and rescue had made the aeroplane an indispensable contributor to continental strategy. But by the end of the war four years later, almost every role performed by air power during the most successful air campaign in history – the 1991 Gulf War – had emerged, albeit in a sometimes primitive form. When the First World War started in August 1914, air services belonged to armies and navies to the extent that air doctrine existed it was concerned with reconnaissance and artillery observation in support of surface operations. ![]()
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