Strike from the Sky: The History of Battlefield Air Attack, 1910-1945 9780817356576, 0817356576

Table of contents :
Contents
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part One: The First World War
1. The Military and the Airplane
The Birth of Military Aviation, 1903–1914
The Nature of Conflict in the Great War
The Air War and Aviation Technology
2. Ground Attack on the Western Front, 1917–1918
From the Somme to Cambrai
The 1918 Offensive
St. Mihiel
3. The Palestine Campaign of 1918
Setting the Stage
Wadi el Far'a
4. Great War Air Support in Retrospect
Aircraft and Operations
Identification and Communications
Aircraft and Tanks
Part Two: Small Conflicts of the Interwar Years
5. Emergent Ground-Attack Doctrine and Technology
Attack Aircraft Development in the Interwar Years
Ground-Attack Aviation and Military Thought
6. Small Wars of the 1920s and 1930s
The Russo-Polish War of 1920
The British "Air Control" Experience
The Rif War in Morocco
The Sandino War in Nicaragua
Part Three: Abyssinia, Spain, and War in Asia
7. The Abyssinian War
Background to War
The Air Campaign
8. The Spanish Civil War
Myths, Realities, and the Nature of the Air War
The Beginnings of Spanish Air Support
The Battle of Guadalajara
The Maturation of Spanish Air Support: Bilbao, Brunete, Teruel, and the Ebro
9. The Spanish Legacy
Lessons Read and Misread
France
Germany
The Soviet Union
10. War in Asia
The Sino-Japanese War
The Nomonhan Incident
Part Four: The Second World War
11. The Blitzkrieg
The Invasion of Poland
The Battle for France
The Allied Riposte
The Lessons of Blitzkrieg
12. The Genesis of Anglo-American Air Support: The British Experience in the Western Desert
From Peace to War
Western Desert Beginnings
The Crusader Experience
From Crusader to El Alamein
13. The Necessary Interlude: Doctrine and the American Experience in the Pacific, Tunisian, and Italian Campaigns
The Pacific Experience: Guadalcanal, New Guinea, and Bougainville
Kasserine and Its Aftermath
FM 100-20: The AAF's "Declaration of Independence"
The Aftermath of Tunisia and FM 100-20
Sicily...
...and Italy
14. A Deadly Efficiency: Anglo-American Air Support in Western Europe
Preparations for Overlord and the Götterdammerung of the Luftwaffe
The Allied Tactical Air Forces
The Invasion and the Structure of Air Support
Air Pro and Contra Armor
Allied Air over the Battlefield
Cobra: The Heavy Bomber in Air Support
TacAir Omnipotent: Mortain and the Falaise-Argentan Pocket
Anglo-American Tactical Air Power: A Retrospective View
15. Battlefield Air Support in the East: The Case of Kursk
The Nazi Blitz and Soviet Reaction
Restructuring and Rebuilding the Soviet Army Air Force
German Schlachtflugzeug in the East
Setting the Stage for Kursk: Soviet Air Support Developments, 1941–1943
Preparations for Citadel
The Battle of Kursk
Aftermath
Epilogue: Where We Have Come, Where We Are, Where We Are Going
Glossary
Source Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Strike from the Sky

Strike from the Sky THE IllSTORY OF BATTLEFIELD AIR ATTACK

1911-1945

Richard P. Hallion

The University of Alabama Press Tuscaloosa, Alabama

Copyright © 1989 by Richard P. Hallion The University of Alabama Press Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0380 All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Smithsonian Institution Press edition /1989 The University of Alabama Press / 20lO

The paper on which this book is printed meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. Library of Congress Cataloging-in -Publication Data Hallion, Richard. Strike from the sky: the history of battlefield air attack, 19lO-1945 / Richard P. Hallion. p.cm. Originally published: Washington, D.C. : Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8173-5657-6 (pbk.: alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-8173-8543-9 (electronic) l. Close air support-History. 2. Air interdiction-History. 1. Title. UG700.H3520lO 358.4' 14209041-dc22 20lO021166

This study is dedicated to the memory of Harvey Victor. He served as a young P-47 pilot in the ETO in 1944-45, attained the rank of Captain, USAAF, and earned the Distinguished Flying Cross; he died in 1986 in an aircraft accident at Van Nuys Airport, California. Harvey Victor was typical of thousands of Allied fighter-bomber pilots: largely anonymous men who flew with courage and resolve day after day against Hitler's Wehrmacht. He, at least, lived to see his actions contribute to final victory; he retained for the rest of his life a love for the Air Force, an admiration for his comrades who flew Republic's massive "Jug:' and a detestation for all forms of totalitarianism.

Photo courtesy of AFM.

Contents

Foreword

xi

Acknowledgments

xviii

Introduction

1

PART ONE: THE FIRST WORLD WAR

7

1. The Military and the Airplane The Birth of Military Aviation, 1903-1914 The Nature of Conflict in the Great War The Air War and Aviation Technology

2. Ground Attack on the Western Front, 1917-1918

9 9

12 13 19 19 22 25

From the Somme to Cambrai The 1918 Offensive St. Mihiel

3. The Palestine Campaign of 1918

29 29

Setting the Stage Wadi el Far'a

33

4. Great War Air Support in Retrospect Aircraft and Operations Identification and Communications Aircraft and Tanks

vii

37 37 38 40

viii

Contents

PART TWO: SMALL CONFLICTS OF TIlE INTERWAR YEARS 5. Emergent Ground-Attack Doctrine and Technology Attack Aircraft Development in the Interwar Years Ground-Attack Aviation and Military Thought

43 45 46 51

6. Small Wars of the 1920s and 1930s

55

The Russo-Polish War of 1920 The British "Air Control" Experience The Rif War in Morocco The Sandino War in Nicaragua

55 59

PART TIIREE: ABYSSINIA, SPAIN, AND WAR IN ASIA

67 71

77

7. The Abyssinian War

81

Background to War The Air Campaign

81 83

8. The Spanish Civil War Myths, Realities, and the Nature of the Air War The Beginnings of Spanish Air Support The Batde of Guadalajara The Maturation of Spanish Air Support: Bilbao, Brunete, Teruel, and the Ebro

9. The Spanish Legacy Lessons Read and Misread France Germany The Soviet Union

10. War in Asia The Sino-Japanese War The Nomonhan Incident

89 89 92 97 102 109 109 llO III 114

116 117 123

PART FOUR: TIlE SECOND WORLD WAR

127

11. The Blitzkrieg

131

The Invasion of Poland

131

Contents The Battle for France The Allied Riposte The Lessons of Blitzkrieg

12. The Genesis of Anglo-American Air Support: The British Experience in the Western Desert From Peace to War Western Desert Beginnings The Crusader Experience From Crusader to EI Alamein

ix 136 142 145

149 149 152 156 158

13. The Necessary Interlude: Doctrine and the American Experience in the Pacific, Tunisian, and Italian Campaigns

163

The Pacific Experience: Guadalcanal, New Guinea, and Bougainville Kasserine and Its Aftermath FM 100-20: The AAF's "Declaration of Independence" The Aftermath of Tunisia and FM 100-20 Sicily. . . ... and Italy

165 167 173 175 177 179

14. A Deadly Efficiency: Anglo-American Air Support in Western Europe

188

Preparations for Overlord and the Gotterdammerung of the Luftwaffe The Allied Tactical Air Forces The Invasion and the Structure of Air Support Air Pro and Contra Armor Allied Air over the Battlefield Cobra: The Heavy Bomber in Air Support TacAir Omnipotent: Mortain and the Falaise-Argentan Pocket Anglo-American Tactical Air Power: A Retrospective View 15. Battlefield Air Support in the East: The Case of Kursk The Nazi Blitz and Soviet Reaction Restructuring and Rebuilding the Soviet Army Air Force German Schlachtflugzeug in the East Setting the Stage for Kursk: Soviet Air Support Developments, 1941-1943

188 191 196 199 203 206 214 223 228 229 231 236 240

x

Contents Preparations for Citadel The Battle of Kursk Aftermath

246 253 259

EPILOGUE: WHERE WE HAVE COME, WHERE WE ARE, WHERE WE ARE GOING

261

Glossary

273

Source Notes

276

Selected Bibliography

299

Index

314

Foreword

An account of the first thirty-five years of the contribution of air power to land warfare has an obvious appeal to military historians. It also has

an intrinsic interest to those who are fascinated by the evolution of military aircraft and their emergence as a major influence on twentiethcentury warfare. It is easy to forget that air operations before 1945 considerably exceeded in numbers, locations, and sheer geographical scale those that have occurred in the second half of the century. In an age of rapidly advancing technology, and especially in an environment in which the contribution of technology enjoys the highest visibility, it is easy to overlook underlying continuities in warfare. Of course there have been abundant innovations in the relationship of air power to land warfare since 1945. Not necessarily in order of significance, they have included the widespread exploitation of the electromagnetic spectrum, which in turn has fostered electronic warfare; the combat hehcopter; surface-to-air missiles; precision guided munitions; standoff, air-launched missiles; surface-to-surface missiles with accuracies measured in yards; night and all-weather target identification and acquisition systems; aircraft that by vertical takeoff and landing can be independent of traditional runways; unmanned aircraft; and an array of technological advances that collectively have been labeled "stealth." In this same period much of the new technology has actually been employed in battlefield-related combat, in Korea, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, the South Atlantic, Afghanistan, and the Persian Gulf, while in several low-intensity confhcts aircraft have provided firepower in support of ground forces. The details of these conilicts have not only sustained the interest of the historian and the enthusiast, they have been analyzed exhaustively by military staffs in an attempt to draw

xi

xii

Foreword

"lessons" from them that might point the way to the most effective future applications of air power to the battlefield. There is no shortage of evidence, and there is no shortage of technology. There is even a large measure of international agreement on the authenticity of most of the evidence and on a great deal of the current or potential impact of specific innovations. There, however, the consensus stops, and the debates are not academic. They affect the provision of defense for superpowers, medium powers, and emerging nations alike. They influence the disposal of millions of dollars, rubles, marks, yen, and riyals in procurement programs. They dictate force structures, training programs, deployments, and ultimately the disposition of governments to select, or reject, military force as an instrument of policy. In any examination of the past to seek guidance for the future, and especially in the history of warfare, it is essential to distinguish between those circumstances that are transient or unique to one occasion and those that persist or recur in slightly different forms but maintain a consistent substance. When the details of the air-land interaction in the first half of the century are distilled and added to those of the second, the likelihood of identifying reoccurrence is increased and confidence in decision making for future air-land warfare can be strengthened. Even the most cursory examination of that future suggests that the decision makers are going to require all the confidence they can muster. For example, in the central confrontation in Europe between the superpowers and their allies, the contribution of air power will be reevaluated. If the conventional arms negotiations at Vienna produce an agreement to reduce ground and air forces in Europe to the levels proposed by President Bush in May 1989, the operational environment will be transformed by far more than any technological innovation. Ground forces will be smaller, with a consequent reduction in ability to mount a large-scale offensive or to concentrate defensive forces in depth. Conversely, war of maneuver and encirclement may become less problematic. Numbers of potential targets will decrease, but the proportional impact of weapons with high kill probabilities will increase. "Battlefields" will become diffuse, possibly fragmented and fluid. The scale of logistic support may be reduced, but ensuring its availability when and where required by highly mobile forces may become more difficult. Time, and the battlefield diminutive of tempo, may increase in relative significance. In the foreseeable future, sur£ace-to-air defenses will not only be excluded from negotiations, but may well be enhanced to make good the deficiencies left by the withdrawal of manned fighters

xiii

Foreword

and fighter bombers from the European theater. Even if no formal agreements are reached in Vienna on air power, the residual impact of air power on both sides after ground-force reductions would need unilateral reassessment as a result of economic pressures in the Soviet Union and both political and economic pressures in the western democracies. At the center of those reevaluations and reassessments would be the question of how much air support would be required by ground forces, and how best, and most cost-effectively, to provide it. On the other hand, comprehensive arms reductions may be achieved in Vienna and accompanied by such political circumstances that east-west military conflict in Europe becomes so unlikely that major procurement programs and operational doctrines need no longer be driven by such a possibility. Such a judgment would, however, be likely to be accompanied by an assumption that while the location of, and possible opponent in, conflict might have changed, the possibility of conflict itself had not so unequivocally diminished. Indeed, the only certainty would be the disposition of nation states to resort from time to time to military force as a political instrument. Battlefields would reoccur. Most states possess combat aircraft. The interaction of the two would continue. Aircraft, weapons, doctrine, and tactics would all continue to be required. Dictatorships of whatever hue could place any priority they wished on arms purchases and military organizations. Democracies would continue to seek a level of defense expenditure commensurate with a government's ability to meet other obligations within acceptable levels of taxation. After forty-five years of regarding the Soviet Union as the primary source of instability and the major threat to the West, it may not be too easy to persuade the western democracies that conflicts in the third world would justify similar levels of defense commitment. That in turn would force hard decisions on projected weapon procurement programs, many of which are directly related to air attack in and around the battlefield. Those countries that were disposed to look to force to solve local regional difficulties, and that in many cases might not have the economic resources nor the indigenous technological capability to procure widely across the aircraft/weapons spectrum, would be faced with similar decisions, if not exactly the same choices. In reflecting on the Spanish Civil War, Richard Hallion observes in this book that "intelligent, well-informed critics could reach often diametrically opposite conclusions or, interpreting data correctly, nevertheless reach a flawed conclusion. Perhaps, he suggests, "critics took away from the Spanish war what they wished to believe, and they .

II

xiv

Foreword

searched its lessons carefully to selectively acquire data for their own particular viewpoint." Those comments should be displayed prominently in every military college and every procurement office worldwide. With the obvious reservation that writers of forewords can be equally susceptible to predispositions, several circumstances have been repeated so often during eight decades of battlefield-associated air power that the failure to identify and apply certain "lessons" to modern battlefield air operations verges on the incomprehensible. First and paramount is that without achieving at least local air superiority, the attrition suffered by friendly aircraft will neutralize their contribution to the land battle and leave friendly ground forces vulnerable not only to the opposing armies but to their air power as well. In 1945 the u.s. Army Air Force manual listed three priorities for tactical air forces. The second may be summarized in modern terms as interdiction; the third as close air support. The first was lito gain the necessary degree of air superiority." To all soldiers who had been subjected to enemy air attack in Europe during the previous four years it needed no explanation-least of all to those troops who had been demoralized in the Kasserine Pass in North Africa. Since 1940 only a handful of western troops have endured air attack. For too long the pattern of unimpeded close air support introduced by the Royal Air Force in the western desert and perfected in Europe in 1944 and 1945 has been regarded as a model. Hallion reminds us that Rommel's air force in North Africa was outnumbered, short of fuel, and ultimately technologically inferior. In the six months before the Normandy invasion, the Luftwaffe lost 2,262 pilots and, in March alone, 56 percent of its available fighters. The massacre of Falaise in August 1944 was uninterrupted by any counter air activity. In the previous year at Kursk, Soviet fighters outnumbered their opposition by two to one while Luftwaffe sortie rates were further restricted by fuel and weapon shortages. In the subsequent forty-five years air superiority has not been contested in conjunction with a land campaign, either because an opponent lacked the capability or, as in the Israeli examples of 1967 and 1982, opposing air forces were annihilated at the outset of a conflict. This may be just as well, because a recurring theme for eight decades has been the severe psychological impact on raw troops of sustained air attack, quite apart from the operational impact of destruction and dislocation.

Foreword

xv

When army commanders urge that the overriding priority of aircraft must be to redress inferiority on the ground, they should be reminded that unless air superiority is first achieved, no assistance of any sort is likely to be forthcoming. Only if an air force has the residual strength or, as with the Israeli Air Force in 1973, recourse to rapid reinforcement can heavy attrition be accepted temporarily and locally as a price for close air support to retrieve a critical position on land. Otherwise, attrition rates will again be exponential, not linearj once lost, air superiority is a difficult advantage to regain, especially in a short conflict. In this context there is sufficient evidence to debate the allocation of resources to specialist ground-attack aircraft whose survivability in airto-air combat is questionable. The JU 87 is the most notorious example, while the success ·of the IL 2 Sturmovik must be placed in the eastern front context of massive Russian air superiority and vast theaters of operationsj it is an exception that reinforces the general deduction. Similar principles apply to airborne Forward Air Control aircraft, tactical transports and, in a modem scenario, airborne early warning and control systems. Conversely, the most successful contributors to the airland batde began life as fighters, with the characteristics of speed, maneuverability, and self-defense common to the type. Undoubtedly, achievement of air superiority has become complicated by the deployment of surface-to-air missile systems, but the basic principles of physics, in the relationship between omnidirectional targets at high speed at variable heights and static or relatively slow-moving reactive forces on the ground, have not changed. Quite righdy, however, attrition exchange rates between aircraft and ground forces have continued to be questioned, introducing a further perennial question of the balance of air effort to be applied, after air superiority has been gained, between application of firepower against forces direcdy engaged with friendly troops and the "interdiction" of forces with an imminent impact on that engagement. Here, the extraction of general lessons demands even greater caution, but clear guidelines are nevertheless discernible. Interdiction of any sort is unlikely to be productive if the opponent's ground forces are not compelled either to consume resources or to maneuver. It is "either or" because disruption, delay, and dislocation as well as destruction have habitually upset the timing and coordination of offensive action. The greater the dependence on momentum, the greater the impact of delay. Conversely, the greater the dependence of defensive forces on reinforcement, the greater the impact of both delay and destruction.

xvi

Foreword

The greater the depth of the interdiction, the less the immediate impact on the batdefield engagement, the greater the opportunities for the opponent to redeploy, the fewer the aircraft sortie rates, the higher the risk of attrition to the interdictors, and the greater the demand for air-to-air escort and suppression of ground-to-air defenses. In addition, the further away the targets are located, the more difficult to find and the greater the need for updated, real-time target information. Whatever the nature of air superiority, or the extent of "smart" weapons availability, a moving tank presents a difficult target to hit, let alone destroy. When all these factors are taken into account, they constitute a very complex equation of cost-effective exchange rates for aircraft and individual ground targets. The answer has been sought in increasingly close coordination between army and air force staffs, now happily accepted as a sine qua non to achieve the synergism of combined arms operations. The natural desire of a batdefield commander to control his own firepower led to too many fruidess debates clouded by vested interests of resource allocation and force structure. It was not just the dissipation of air power into uncoordinated penny pockets that was the problem, but the failure to appreciate that any weapons system should be deployed not according to its firepower, but commensurate with its combat radius and flexibility. Thereby its impact could be directed in accordance with the requirements of the army group, corps, division, battalion, or company. When the firepower of aircraft could be directed against so many different kinds of targets--armor, artillery, logistics, airfields, and command and control centers--failure to concentrate effort with the greatest effectiveness to a theater of operations as a whole was profligate. The search for effective command and control has been continualnot just to provide accurate and timely information, but to ensure that the enemy and not friendly forces should be destroyed. Current emphasis on computerized real-time data flow together with sophisticated IFF systems would lead to greater confidence but for the neutralizing effects of electronic warfare, largely absent from the pre-1945 batdefield. However one interprets events between 1911 and 1945, there are two certainties about future air support and land warfare, certainties shared with all other aspects of combat. The first is that this area will remain the province of uncertainty, and sooner or later commanders will be called upon to deal with the unexpected. The second is that the pendulum in the advantageous application of technology will continue to

Foreword

xvii

swing between offense and defense, even against expectations at the outset of a conflict. When, before 1945, technology was harnessed to doctrine, tactics, strategy, and political objective, the unexpected was more readily absorbed. When technology was allowed to dominate theory, or when theory disregarded technology and its limitations, the ensuing doctrine hardened rapidly into a fatally dogmatic thrombosis. Strike from the Sky not only presents a fascinating historical record, it offers a considerable amount of sobering relevance to all those concerned with, and responsible for, the application of modem air power in support of ground forces. Air Vice Marshal R. A. Mason CBCBEMA

Acknowledgments

A study of this sort cannot be completed without the support and assistance of a number of organizations and individuals. First, I thank the staff of the Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, for their unfailing courtesy and help during my year as the Harold Keith Johnson Visiting Professor of Military History. In particular, I acknowledge the assistance of Col. Rod Paschall, USA j Lt. Col. Martin Andresen, USA j Judith Meck, Linda Brenneman, Dave Keough, and June Rhodes. The staff of the u.s. Army War College offered a congenial body for discussion and analysis. I thank Maj. Gen. Howard D. Graves, USA, for his support of my research and study efforts. In particular, I appreciate the comments and thoughts of my students in Advanced Course 22, Battlefield Applications of Air Power: An Historical Survey, especially Lt. Col. Mohammed Aberchane (Morocco); Capt. Dale Brown, USA j Lt. Col. John Dallager, USAF j Lt. Col. Richard Fousek, USA j Lt. Col. James Gallivan, USA j Col. Arthur Patterson, USAF j Col. Juan Peltzer (Argentina); Col. Wilhelm Romatzeck (Federal Republic of GermanY)j and Lt. Col. Alfonso Zawadski, USA (ret.). In addition, I acknowledge the comments of five other faculty members and students: Col. John Lewis, USAF j Col. Ed White, USAF (ret.); Col. Dale Streeter, USAF j Col. Bill Kosco, USA j and Mary von Briesen. lowe a special debt of thanks to my colleagues in the United States Air Force, particularly those of Aeronautical Systems Division, WrightPatterson AFB, Ohio. Lt. Gen. Thomas McMullen, USAF (ret.), and his successor Lt. Gen. William Thurman, USAF, supported my appointment to Carlisle. Additionally, I thank Lt. Gen. Mike Loh, USAF j Maj. Gen. Peter "Peet" Odgers, USAF (ret.); Brig. Gen. Philippe Bouchard, USAF (ret.); Col. William Diesing, USAF (ret.); Col. Doug McLarty, USAF (ret.)j Col. Dave Milam, USAF j Albert Misenko, and Diana Cornelisse for their help and various kindnesses.

xviii

Acknowledgments

xix

The Office of Air Force History deserves special mention for support and assistance, both at Bolling AFB, Washington, D.C., and at the Historical Research Center, Maxwell AFB, Alabama. I thank Richard H. Kohn, the Chief of Air Force History, and his staff, particularly Pat Harahan, Eduard Mark, B. Frank Cooling, and Lloyd Cornett. Bill Stacey of the Foreign Technology Division History Office, Dave Mets of the Armament Division History Office, and Jim Young and Cheryl Hortel of the Air Force Flight Test Center History Office furnished useful materials for the study. The Air Force Museum offered every consideration and assistance to my research. I thank Col. Richard Uppstrom, USAF (ret.), Dr. Jack Hilliard, and the staff of the research archives for their help. Present and former colleagues at the Air Force Flight Test Center provided many useful insights, particularly Maj. Gen. Philip Conley, USAF (ret.); Maj. Gen. Mike Hall, USAF; Col. Bob Ettinger, USAF (ret.); Col. John Hoffman, USAF; Col. Cal Jewett, USAF (ret.); Col. Doug Joyce, USAF; Col. William "Pete" Knight, USAF (ret.); Col. Jim McFeeters, USAF (ret.); Col. Jim Manly, USAF (ret.); Col. Mike Marks, USAF; Col. John Taylor, USAF (ret.); Lt. Col. Jim Doolittle, USAF; Lt. Col. Bill "Flaps" Flanagan, USAF (ret.); Lt. Col. Dave Spencer, USAF; Maj. Jack Hudson, USAF; and Maj. Harry Walker, USAF. Col. Ken Alnwick, USAF (ret.); Col. Tom Fabyanic, USAF (ret.); Col. Jack Schlight, USAF (ret.); Lt. Col. Price Bingham, USAF, Lt. Col. Bob Ehrhart, USAF (ret.), and Lt. Col. George Reed, USAF, offered provocative insights, materials, and thoughtful comments, as did Bob Perry and Caroline Ziemke of the RAND Corporation; Lt. Col. Joe Shipes, USA, of the Army's Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC); and Capt. Kevin Stubbs, USAFR, of the Center for Strategic Technology, Texas A & M University. Danny Crawford, Head, Reference Section, Marine Corps Historical Center, Washington, D.C., furnished a very useful package of material relating to Marine close air support (CAS) development. I benefited from discussions with Lt. Gen. Willard W. Scott, USA (ret.), Col. John Benson, USA, and Richard "Hap" Miller of the Institute for Defense Analysis. Von Hardesty, Dom Pisano, and Brian Nicklas of the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, were, as usual, most helpful. Brig. Gen. Jay Hubbard, USMC (ret.) offered personal insights into the application of Marine CAS in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. I also benefited from discussions with Bill Bettis; Brig. Gen. Bob Strauss, USAF (ret.); and Col. Walter Flint, USAF (ret.). The late Harvey Victor

xx

Acknowledgments

furnished much useful material and recollections of flying the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt in combat against the Nazis; he is missed. I express my appreciation to the U.S. Army Aviation Engineering Flight Activity and the U.S. Air Force's F-16 Combined Test Force, both at Edwards AFB, California, for the opportunity to obtain somewhat of an "operator's" perspective on air-to-ground operations via familiarization sorties in the Bell AH-IS Cobra gunship and the General Dynamics F-16B Fighting Falcon. In particular, I wish to thank Col. Alan Todd, USA; Maj. Austin Omlie, USA; CW4 Mark E. Metzger, USA; and Col. Bob Ettinger, USAF Iret.l. Finally, this study should not be construed as representing an official position or viewpoint of the Department of Defense or any of its personnel. Richard P. Hallion Military History Institute Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania

Introduction

Throughout the history of warfare, new developments in technology have had a profound effect upon the conduct of military affairs. The twentieth century has witnessed many of these: the tank, the airplane, the submarine, the atomic bomb, radar and electronic communications, and the long-range guided missile, to name just a few. Traditionally, the air forces of the world have set three major missions for themselves and have rank-ordered these in a specific priority. First are missions to gain and retain air superiority-control of the air-by destroying any opposing air force and thus inflicting a policy of air denial upon opposing aviation. Second are strike missions. These may take the form of long-range strategic missions directed against strategic targets, such as industrial facilities located deep within an opponent's heartland, or they may be so-called "interdiction" missions, conducted over shorter distances in the hope of isolating the battle area and denying an opponent the ability to move, provision, and support his forces in the field. Third are missions involving actual battlefield support: the application of air strikes to support one's own ground forces engaged-or soon to be engaged-in close combat with an enemy. Variously termed through the years-beginning with "trench strafing" and "ground strafing" during the Great War-these are generally broken down into two subcategories of air support: close air support (CAS), and battlefield air interdiction (BAI). The difference between close air support and air interdiction has existed primarily in requirements for integrating air action with the action of ground forces. For example, the Department of Defense's Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms (yCS Pub. 1, January 1, 1986) defines close air support as

1

2

Introduction

air action against hostile targets which are in close proximity to friendly forces and which require detailed integration of each air mission with the fire and movement of those forces.

Air interdiction, on the other hand, is defined as air operations conducted to destroy, neutralize, or delay the enemy's military potential before it can be brought to bear effectively against friendly forces at such distance from friendly forces that detailed integration of each air mission with the fire and movement of friendly forces is not required.

However, this latter definition, while useful for characterizing traditional interdiction operations (such as those that preceded the invasion at Normandy) does not completely satisfy the needs for a definition for battlefield air interdiction, which differs from traditional air interdiction in that it is conducted within the battle area, and differs from traditional close air support in that detailed integration of these missions with the fire and movement is not generally required. Battlefield air interdiction is a subcategory of air interdiction and is generally considered that portion of air interdiction used to support close-in battle. (Contemporary views on BAI are discussed in the epilogue to this work.) It is in the sense of these definitions and understandings that the terms "close air support" and "battlefield air interdiction" are used in this study. This study is an attempt to trace the emergence of battlefield air support and to show how it evolved from trial and error in the midst of the First World War to a military necessity by the time of the Second World War. Too often two equally fallacious viewpoints concerning battlefield air support have reigned: that air support has not been of significance to the land battle and that air support has been decisive in land warfare. The actual answer, of course, is in the middle. AB might be expected, the advent of air attack did not immediately radically reshape the battlefield or, for that matter, radically influence it. But over time air attack evolved from an unpleasant exception to an even more unpleasant common occurrence. By the end of 1918, the airplane had already demonstrated its natural partnership with the tank in mechanized warfare and the havoc that it could wreak against unprotected troops. It had likewise demonstrated its vulnerability to light antiaircraft fire, particularly when operated across the front at low altitudes. These traits of "attack" aviation would be accentuated in years to come, and new missions would be added to the airplane's roster of duties, notably its use against tanks and road transport during the Second World War and its use in so-called counterinsurgency warfare. It is this role, perhaps, that

Introduction

3

is the most familiar, courtesy of the long conflict in Southeast Asia, as well as other conflicts, both past and present, around the world. There are four significant concerns that must be considered when examining the history of battlefield air support: doctrine, command and control procedures, operational circumstances, and aircraft technology. All of these have been controversial, and all have the potential for either making a battlefield air support system that works or one that is seriously flawed. Doctrine traditionally has been an area in which the air forces of the world have been most weak. Too often air forces allow the state of technological research and development to push them down acquisition paths that mayor may not be appropriate. In the history of ground attack, for example, the existing air doctrines of the world's air arms often rejected any real need for it: the major missions would be strategic, operating deep within an enemy's territory, in classic Douhet or Mitchell fashion. The realities of war, specifically the wars of the 1930s, quickly revealed the fallaciousness of such thought, and the Second World War demonstrated the absolute necessity of appropriate doctrine to address ground-attack needs. Hand-in-hand with doctrine is the problem of command and control: who should control ground-attack aviation, and what kind of mechanism should exist so that ground forces have an expectation that when they need air support it will be forthcoming? In the era of /I Army" air forces, around the time of the First World War, this question was of less significance than in the era of separate air forces wedded increasingly to a doctrine of long-range strategic air war. But the problems here have not been exclusively those of air forces reluctant to support their comrades on the ground. In virtually every case where a ground commander has exerted direct command authority over subordinate air units, the quality of the air support has proven deficient: the commander is typically so concerned about what is happening on his section of a front that he concentrates the available air assets at that portion of the front to the detriment of what is happening along other portions of the front. The French made this mistake in 1940, as did the United States early in the Second World War, during fighting in Tunisia. (We, fortunately, had the opportunity to profit from our mistakes and refine what would become a masterfully smooth air-ground operation by the time of the breakout across France in 1944.) Though it was Nazi Germany that graphically demonstrated the impact that systematic battlefield air operations could have on the progress of a ground war (notably during the period of the blitzkrieg in 1939-40), it was the British who, in the hot crucible of

4

Introduction

Western Desert fighting, refined and honed a system of air support that served as the basis of the subsequent Anglo-American system that devastated the Third Reich. The operational circumstances under which air forces employ battlefield air support are crucial to its success. Traditionally, air support has worked best when the side employing it also has air superiority. Under these circumstances the attack aviation forces can go about their job with minimal concern about being subject to attack from enemy aircraft. They can concentrate on the IIair to mud" mission in evading and suppressing enemy air defenses, locating the target, and destroying it. Such conditions existed for the Luftwaffe in 1939 and 1940 when the Stuka dive bomber was able to get away with attacks that would have been suicidal in other circumstances las the Battle of Britain would reveal). Such conditions also existed for the Royal Air Force and the U.S. Army Air Forces during the 1944-45 campaign in Western Europe when, arguably, the Allies had not merely air superiority, but air supremacy as well. In fluid air war situations, such as existed on the Russian front during the Second World War, opposing forces were able to get away with air operations that simply would not have worked, or which would have worked only with exorbitant cost, on other fronts. For example, both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union operated relatively slow aircraft on ground-attack missions, often without fighter escort, and managed to do so without experiencing devastating losses. In part, this was because the Russian front was so vast in relation to the forces employed across it that both German and Soviet air commanders could generally achieve local air superiority when they chose by massing air units over some selected portion of the front. At the battle of Kursk, for example, both Soviet and German antiarmor aircraft operated with great efficiency, not experiencing the kinds of losses that one would have expected had the air war been less fluid and more dominated by one or the other side over a smaller section of front. Such conditions did not exist in Western and Southern Europe in 1944; Germany had to withdraw its close-support aircraft from both those areas in 1944 and transfer them to the more conducive climate of the Russian front, because they simply could not survive in the air, owing to the Allies' overwhelming air superiority. This latter problem-the ability of the close-support aircraft to survive the "threat environment"-is one in which aircraft technology is critical. During the First World War, when the disparity between the performance of single-seat fighters and larger two-seat ground-attack

Introduction

5

airplanes was slight, the technological and performance differences between fighter and attack aircraft were largely insignificant. But by the time of the late 1930s, this had changed dramatically. The "dedicated" attack airplane-the airplane intended from the outset for attack of enemy forces on the battlefield-had grown appreciably in size and weight, and had evolved in two directions: as a twin-engine design (such as the Douglas A-20 or the French Breguet 693) that was largely indistinguishable from the twin-engine medium bomber, and as the twoseat overspecialized dive bomber (such as the vaunted Stuka). Both kinds of aircraft were very vulnerable to enemy defenses, namely light antiaircraft fire and fighters. By the end of the Second World War, the best kind of ground-attack aircraft for battlefield air support had proved to be the modified bomb-loaded fighter (which had first appeared in 1917 over the Western Front}---the fighter-bomber of Great Britain and the United States, the Tagdbomber ("fighter bomber") of Nazi Germany. In the postwar years, this trend predominated-and predominates to the present day, with certain exceptions-with the development of jet fighter-bombers such as the Republic F-84 family, Hawker Hunter, Dassault Mystere, Sukhoi Su-7, McDonnell F-4, Mikoyan MiG-23, General Dynamics F-16, and numerous others. Why the fighter? Simply put, such aircraft offer a degree of flexibility, performance, and safety unknown to the special-purpose attack aircraft. The fighter is a swing-role aircraft that can turn from an air-to-ground mission to an air-to-air mission if need bej it has performance, agility, and handling qualities that give it a far better chance of evading both ground-to-air and air-toair threats than the single-purpose attack aircraft. Even the Soviet Union, which had profound success in operating special purpose attack aircraft over the Eastern Front (the famous ilyushin il-2 Shturmovik), recognized that the era of such aircraft had passed with the introduction of genuine jet fighter-bombers in the early 1950s, typified by the Su-7. The final section of this study (first written in 1988) examines how battlefield air support evolved over the Cold War. Today, in the post-Gulf War, post 9-11 era, new methods for battlefield attack have appeared, the most remarkable of which are remotely piloted aircraft dropping and firing precision munitions, guided by satellite navigation, and piloted by operators thousands of miles away. As noted in the first edition of this work, developments such as this hint at the continuing need for scholarship to document the constant evolution of air warfare and its impact upon global events.

PART ONE

The First World War

1 The Military and the Airplane

For many years, military aviation in the First World War has been regarded as a mere sideshow to the war on land and at sea. This attitude has generated a belief that the roles and missions of modern military airpower grew out of the experiences in the Second World War, and over time has resulted in a more generalized feeling that any military airpower experience prior to 1939-45 has little to offer the student of present-day military affairs. In. point of fact, of course, the roles and missions of modern military airpower were first promulgated, explored, verified, and undertaken during the First World War. This is particularly true of the missions of air superiority, interdiction, and close air support. The air leaders of the Second World War were, by and large, conditioned by their experiences in the First World Warj they elaborated upon trends and doctrines first undertaken in that earlier conflict, and what differences existed between the nature of military airpower in 1914-18 (particularly during the last two years of that conflictl and 1939-45 were more in the nature of technological change than in the nature of doctrine and strategy.

The Birth of Military Aviation, 1903-1914 The advent of the man-carrying powered airplane did not immediately revolutionize military affairs. Rather, for five years after the Wrights' success at Kitty Hawk, the secretive tendencies of the brothers, coupled with popular skepticism and bureaucratic inertia, tended to repress any effort to apply the new technology to the military. (In. the United States, this may have stemmed in part from the embarrassment the Federal 9

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STRIKE FROM THE SKY

government suffered by the well-publicized failure of Smithsonian Institution Secretary Samuel Langley's man-carrying "Aerodrome" in two unsuccessful flight attempts in October and December 1903; the Aerodrome had been built with a $50,000 grant from the War Department, the first governmentally financed heavier-than-air flying machine in the world.) This situation, incidentally, was not unique to the United States; following Santos-Dumont's hop off the ground in France in 1906-