Military flight

• Definition: The use of aircraft for the purposes of warfare and national defense.
• Significance:The development of military flight added a new dimension to warfare and allowed operations to be waged more rapidly and with more impactful effects.

Background

Military aviation owes much of its initial development to the state of ground warfare in the early part of the twentieth century, specifically, World War I (WWI) (1914–18). During this conflict, advancements in technology, such as the machine gun and artillery, vastly increased the firepower and exposure of ground forces. This created a situation that neutralized mobility and forced combatants into stalemated static warfare. This environment was characterized by battles fought in trenches, with forces only able to complete minimal forward advances at the cost of catastrophic numbers of human life. This form of warfare had appeared not long befor WWI, during the American Civil War (1861–65). The development of military aircraft in the twentieth century changed the nature of warfare and fostered a return to an emphasis on offensive strategies. Since shortly after the invention of the aircraft by the Wright Brothers in 1903, military aviation has performed many functions. These have included reconnaissance and spotting; aerial bombardment; engagement with enemy fighter aircraft, protection for bombers; providing support for ground troops; causing disruption of enemy logistical movement; and, perhaps most important, the ability to deliver weapons of mass destruction in the nuclear age. The twentieth century was marked by the extremely rapid evolution of more efficient and effective aircraft designs and types, ranging from the slow and awkward biplanes of WWI to the highly sophisticated spy satellites. This trend continued into the twenty-first century, as evidenced by the widespread adoption of remotely piloted aircraft, or unmanned aerial systems (UAS).

Pioneering Efforts: 1861–1918

The age of military aircraft began with the use of balloons to gather information on enemy positions. Although military strategists experimented with balloons during the French Revolution (1792–1802), the first systematic attempt to use balloons in warfare was made during the American Civil War. A new era in warfare dawned on July 31, 1861, in Virginia, when Union general Benjamin Butler sent John LaMountain above the nearby Confederate lines in a balloon. LaMountain, who before the war had achieved fame by sailing more than 1,000 miles (1,609 kilometers) in a balloon, reported that the rebel defenses were less strong as Union commanders believed. Although both armies employed balloons for reconnaissance and to direct artillery fire, air power did not seriously challenge the use of cavalry for effective scouting and reconnaissance. Balloons, most of which were filled with hydrogen gas, were expensive and cumbersome to maintain and transport. They were also highly vulnerable to enemy fire—few stayed aloft very long. Aerial photography was contemplated during the war but never attempted.

New possibilities were developed for military aircraft in 1903 when Orville and Wilbur Wright performed the first successful series of heaver-than-air, machine-powered flights. By the beginning of WWI in 1914, two-wing, wooden aircraft were able to carry a pilot and observer over enemy lines to perform reconnaissance missions. By 1915, British, French, and German airplanes were equipped with cameras for locating enemy positions in photographs and with radios for relaying data back from the air. By the following year, armies on both sides considered air reconnaissance vital to planning any offensive.

As the effectiveness of aerial reconnaissance began to be made apparent, the combatant armies set out to deny this capability to adversaries. They soon developed single-pilot aircraft armed with machine guns synchronized to fire through aircraft propellers. The first flying aces and dogfights emerged during World War I. Perhaps the most famous flying ace was the German fighter pilot Manfred von Richthofen, “The Red Baron,” who was credited with destroying eighty enemy aircraft before being killed in April 1918.

World War I also marked the beginning of strategic bombing from the skies. In 1915, bombs rained down on London from a German zeppelin—air power now meant that not even civilians back home, far from the fighting, were truly safe. By 1918, German and British airplanes were regularly bombing enemy cities and civilians. The United States entered the war in 1917, and in 1918, during the first major American offensive against the Germans, ground troops were supported by more than one thousand aircraft. Although air power had not proved decisive in the outcome of World War I, it had proved highly effective as a reconnaissance tool, and its uses had multiplied rapidly. Furthermore, by 1918, engine and structural design was improving. Air power would become even more crucial to the outcome of future wars.

Air Power and Total War: 1918–1945

Between WWI and the outbreak of World War II (WWII) in 1939, military aircraft were improved through a number of technical developments. First, new and more powerful engines were devised, greatly improving both speed and carrying capacity. Next, aircraft design shifted from that of biplanes, with wings that were supported by external structures, to monoplanes with internally supported single wings. The amount of dead or empty weight dropped dramatically, as the space given to pilots, fuel, and cargo expanded. Following this development, retractable landing gear appeared, and aircraft became much more destructive, with additional bombing ordnance and defensive armament. Speed, maneuverability, and firepower all increased as a result. Once aircraft carriers were developed, this greatly widened the range of aircraft in a number of military roles. After this, and most significantly, the major world powers developed aircraft industries that could produce aircraft tailored to specific uses while constantly updating and improving models. Finally, military strategists developed complex theories of air warfare, most of which continued to see air power as playing a supporting role for ground operations.

However, a few analysts devised more ambitious theories of air power. The Italian general Giulio Douhet emphasized the use of aircraft to bomb enemy cities, including not only the military targets in those cities but the people themselves. Such strategic bombing would demoralize the enemy’s population while destroying its production capabilities. This theory was put into effect during the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) by the German Luftwaffe, which bombed undefended civilians in cities with little or no military value. During the Spanish conflict, the Germans also placed voice-operated radios in their bombers and fighters, enabling true coordination between ground and air forces for the first time. Meanwhile, the British had installed the first radar system to provide early warning of enemy attack.

By September 1, 1939, when the Germans invaded Poland, all the major nations who would eventually be involved in WWII had been producing fighters, bombers, and other specialized aircraft for several years. At the beginning of the war, Germany was ahead of the field both in numbers of aircraft and in performance.

One example of the German air arsenal was the Messerschmitt Me-109 fighter plane. More Messerschmitts were produced during World War II than any other fighter by any combatant. The Me-109 saw action in all theaters of the war, and although it was out-performed by the American P-51 Mustang and the British Spitfire, it remained a formidable weapon. Another of Germany’s most effective aircraft was the Stuka bomber, a light and small plane designed to prepare the way for the advance of ground troops disrupting and destroying communication and supply routes.

Although German air power dominated the skies of Europe during 1939 and 1940, the Luftwaffe failed in its attempt to reduce England to submission through air power alone in the summer and fall of 1940. British radar stations and the information they provided about the direction and strength of German attacks gave the Royal Air Force (RAF) a great advantage. Equally important, however, was the skill with which British pilots intercepted and destroyed German aircraft during the campaign. Of great importance was the Spitfire fighter plane, which was superior to German fighter planes in speed and maneuverability.

From 1939 to 1941, air power in the form of bombers and fighters ranged over Europe and the Pacific, wreaking havoc and supporting ground and naval operations, mainly for the Axis Powers of Japan and Germany. However, the use of aircraft launched from carriers was also introduced. The most dramatic example of the use of aircraft carriers was the Japanese attack on the US naval fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941. The Japanese bombers were protected by the very effective Japanese Zero fighter planes. The Zero had a maximum speed of 330 miles per hour (531 kilometers per hour), two cannons mounted on its wings, and two machine guns that fired through its propeller. Despite inflicting considerable damage on American cruisers and destroyers at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese missed the US aircraft carriers, which were not in Hawaii. Only five months after the Pearl Harbor attack, the Americans’ carrier-based air fleet inflicted a crushing defeat upon the Japanese at the Battle of Midway, which shifted the momentum of the war in the Pacific.

By the beginning of 1943, the balance of power in both the European and Pacific theaters had shifted to the Allies, who had matched and were rapidly surpassing German and Japanese air power. Moreover, Allied air superiority was crucial to the success of Allied ground troops in 1944 and 1945. For example, for weeks before the D-Day invasion of June, 1944, Allied bombers and fighters prowled behind German lines in France, hitting supplies and reinforcements moving by rail and road and thereby helping to ensure a successful landing at Normandy. The dropping of 1,000 airborne troops behind German lines was another important part of D-Day’s success.

In 1943 and 1944, a new type of aircraft took center stage in the Allied air campaign—the long-range heavy bomber. Both British and American bombers began raids over German cities in 1943, and despite heavy losses from enemy antiaircraft fire and enemy fighters, these bombing runs did tremendous damage to German war production. By 1944, air fields recaptured in Western Europe were being used as bases from which to reach cities throughout Germany.

The American B-17 Flying Fortress, with a range of 3,750 miles (5,954.6 kilometers), could carry up to 17,600 pounds (7,983 kilograms) of bombs. The B-17 carried a crew of ten. Its ceiling was 35,000 feet (10,668 meters), and its cruising speed was 170 miles per hour (273.6 kilometers per hour). The more than 12,000 B-17s built during the war dropped about 640,000 tons (580,598 metric tons) of bombs; about 4,750 B-17s were lost in combat. The British Lancaster bomber could hold more bombs than could any other Allied aircraft except the B-29 Superfortress. The destruction produced by such heavy bombers, flying with fighter escorts, was tremendous. In February, 1945, the German city of Dresden was flattened, and more than 100,000 people, many of whom were civilians, were killed. By the war’s end, almost 600,000 German civilians had been killed in air raids, while the death toll for British victims of German bombing totaled about 60,000.

By 1945, air power had helped to create what military historians call total war—an expansion of the battlefield to encompass all enemy cities and their civilian occupants, along with a total dedication of a nation’s economy to the production of war matériel. A new stage in warfare and military flight was also dawning, with the use of atomic power and the development of jet and missile technology. By 1943, Germany was working toward the creation of a massive bomb that could be delivered not by an airplane, but by a rocket. The V-1 and V-2 flying bombs, as they were called, were the world’s first intercontinental ballistic weapons. Although these weapons killed more than two thousand London citizens during 1944 and 1945, they could not change the war’s outcome. About 35,000 V-1 rockets were produced, of which about 5,000 actually hit the British. These bombs, with enough power to destroy a city block, indicated the future direction of air power, as did the jet-powered fighter planes that were being produced by Germany by the end of the war.

Of even greater importance for the future of military flight was the use of air power to deliver the first atomic weapons in warfare. The American bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, heralded the Cold War, in which enemies could destroy not only each other but the earth itself. In this new era, when the doctrine of mutual assured destruction (MAD) would paradoxically help to maintain peace, aircraft would be an essential part of nuclear arsenals and military strategy.

Military Flight During the Cold War: 1945–1990

After the Soviet Union attained atomic power in 1949, the ensuing arms race included aircraft of many types. The first important innovation in military flight after WWII was the replacement of propeller-driven aircraft with jet aircraft, which were first produced in World War II as fighter planes. The Germans produced the first operational model, the Messerschmitt Me-262E. The Me-262E was clearly superior to its rivals, but it had arrived too late in the war to make much of an impact. In 1943, a British twin-engine jet plane named the Gloster Meteor flew in combat formation. The first US jet aircraft was the Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star, which first flew in 1944 but never saw combat in WWII. The first Soviet jet fighter plane appeared in 1946.

In addition to jet fighter planes, jet-powered bombers also became a part of the Cold War arms race. One such aircraft was the US B-52 Stratofortress, which appeared in 1955 and became an important part of the US nuclear arsenal. A nuclear bomb was first dropped successfully from an airplane in 1956. By 1960, each B-52 could drop up to four nuclear bombs and more than forty 750-pound (340-kilogram) bombs. By 1955, the Soviet Union had produced its own long-range bombers, including the Tu-95 Bear, capable of reaching US cities from Northern Siberia. By 1960, US bombers substantially outnumbered those of the Soviets, although there was a perception of a so-called bomber gap, in which the Soviets had the advantage.

Air reconnaissance was also revolutionized during the Cold War by jet power and new designs. Planes with extremely high ceilings and long ranges gathered information on the enemy—one example was the US U-2, which flew its first mission in 1956 and was able to fly above 70,000 feet (21,336 meters). In 1960, a Soviet fighter plane shot down a U-2 piloted by Gary Powers over Soviet airspace, and a tense series of allegations between the United States and the Soviet Union followed. It was also a U-2 that photographed clear evidence of offensive Soviet missiles being built in Cuba in 1962. Later, satellites would replace such aircraft as the principal means of gathering intelligence.

Another innovation in military flight after WWII was the development of ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads thousands of miles. By 1960, the debate over the bomber gap between the two superpowers had turned into a discussion over the missile gap. During the 1950s, America produced two classes of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs): the Titan and the Atlas. Both were designed to deliver a 1-megaton warhead over a distance of 5,000 miles (8046.7 kilometers). By 1960, such ICBMs could be launched from US submarines.

Although the Soviet Union initially lagged behind the United States in missile production during the 1950s, it launched its first successful ICBM in Siberia in 1957. Soon afterward, the Soviets sent by rocket into Earth orbit two satellites, Sputnik 1 and Sputnik 2, the latter of which carried a live dog. During this period, the Soviets also began to fit their submarines with nuclear warheads with short initial ranges. By the early 1960s, a second generation of US ICBMs, the Minuteman I and Titan II, were in production. The numbers of Soviet ICBMs soared during the 1960’s, with series such as the SS-11, the SS-9, and the SS-13. By 1970, the Soviet Union’s 1,299 ICBMs surpassed the US total of 1,054. However, the United States retained superiority in numbers of bombers and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SBLMs). The range of the US Polaris missile, carried by nuclear submarines, increased from 1,375 to 2,850 miles (2,212.8 to 4,586.6 kilometers) during this period.

Cold warfare also promoted the development of the helicopter. Although helicopters appeared in World War II, they came into their own in the 1950s and 1960s, during the Korean War and Vietnam War. Used for a variety of needs, the helicopter was suited to the rugged terrain of many battle zones during this period. An example was the American UH-1 Huey, which served many functions: troop transport, evacuation of wounded, and attack on enemy ground troops. The Huey was part of the air cavalry created by the US Army in Vietnam. The First Airmobile Cavalry Division, created by the United States in 1965, was capable of moving 10,000 troops into battle within a few hours. The Soviet Union began regular production of military helicopters in 1948, with many models of various sizes to follow.

Still another and more advanced form of Cold War military flight was the use of surveillance satellites. In 1957, after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the world’s first satellite, into space, the United States began work on the Corona satellite, designed to snap photographs of selected territory at regular intervals from space. Although often unsuccessful, by 1972, the Corona series of satellites had provided more information about the Soviet Union than all previous surveillance flights by U-2 planes. By 1962, the Soviets had launched its first Cosmos satellite, larger than the Corona and with more cameras. During the 1970s and 1980s, satellite surveillance was improved as it was employed by more nations. Satellites helped to detect telemetry signals and to wage electronic warfare by jamming transmission signals. The administration of US President Ronald Reagan called for the development of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a satellite missile defense system that could block incoming ICBMs.

Beyond the Cold War: The Persian Gulf War

In the 1991-92 Persian Gulf War, the American-led coalition air operations employed in Operation Desert Storm took the form first envisioned by early airpower theorists of the 1930s. Operating under the principle of centralized planning but decentralized execution, Coalition aircraft flew thousands of missions daily. Planners used airpower to systematically destroy Iraqi military capabilities at all levels. These included disrupting the ability to Iraqi leadership to communicate with their forces to the physical destruction of enemy personnel and equipment on the battlefield. This conflict is perhaps best remembered by the effective employment of new technologies. In addition to recently developed aircraft types, such as the F-15E fighter-bomber to the F-117 Stealth fighter. Operation Desert Storm also saw the inclusion of cruise missiles launched from ships and submarines that were synchronized with the intense bombing campaign. Also notable was the transportation of US military personnel by air, most by commercial aircraft. Coalition aircraft struck Iraqi targets with smart bombs, providing new and astounding accuracy levels. So effective were Coalition air operations that many suggested that the Iraqis could be brought to terms through air power alone. This notion, nonetheless, demonstrates a misunderstanding of the best utilization of airpower. The Persian Gulf War demonstrated that air assets are most effective when employed, not as a stand-alone capability but in conjunction with other military components, such as ground, naval, and space forces. This is perhaps best illustrated by the destruction wreaked on Iraqi forces during the six-week air war in Operation Desert Storm that allowed Coalition ground forces to defeat their counterparts in 100 hours.

Military Aviation in the Twenty-First Century

As was the case in the twentieth century, the development of military aircraft and operational concepts was accelerated during a period of war. The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, accelerated the development of military aviation, particularly in intelligence, surveillance, and precision strike capabilities. These primarily counterinsurgency operations saw the introduction of advanced aircraft, including the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II, but the most transformative development was the widespread use of unmanned aerial systems. The MQ-1 Predator and its successor, the MQ-9 Reaper, demonstrated the value of long-endurance surveillance combined with precision weapons. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the role of drones expanded further, with both commercial quadcopters and purpose-built loitering munitions providing real-time targeting and low-cost strike capability on the battlefield.

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