Download or read book The Foundations of U S Air Doctrine the Problem of Friction in War written by Barry Watts and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2012-08-01 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: FROM THE AUTHOR: This study revolves around friction, meaning the ubiquitous uncertainties and inescapable difficulties that form the atmosphere of real war. More specifically, it attempts to utilize the Clausewitzian concept of general friction as a basis for assessing-and, if necessary, reshaping-the foundations of US air doctrine. This critical application of friction gives rise to four primary conclusions: (1) The key assumptions underlying mainstream US doctrine for conventional air warfare have not evolved appreciably since Air Corps Tactical School (ACTS) theorists elaborated their theory of precision, industrial bombardment during the 1930s. (2) Judged by their essential premises and logic, post-Hiroshima theories of deterrence are little more than an updating for the nuclear age of ACTS bombardment doctrine. (3) Both ACTS bombardment doctrine and deterrence theory appear fundamentally flawed insofar as they omit the frictional considerations that distinguish real war from war on paper. (4) Reflection upon the extent to which friction pervades the elemental processes of actual combat suggests that the range of situations in which greater numbers or superior weapons guarantee victory is relatively limited; even in the age of thermonuclear weapons, the outcomes of battles still turn, more often than not, on the character and intelligence of a few brave individuals. The first step in giving substance to these claims is to explain what the central beliefs of US airmen traditionally have been. The reader should be warned, however, that I have approached the writings on war of airmen like Major General Haywood S. Hansell, Jr., and nuclear strategists like Bernard Brodie-as well as those of Carl von Clausewitz himself-from the perspective of two interrelated questions. What overriding assumptions about war did these individuals embrace? And what image of war as a total phenomenon is bound up in their assumptions? In large part, answering these questions is a matter of historical inquiry and, to be candid, I have been far less concerned with writing history for its own sake than with using the past to illuminate the problems of the present. I, therefore, leave it to the reader to judge whether I have managed to do so without injuring the historical record. Air University Press.
Download or read book The Foundations of US Air Doctrine written by Barry D. Watts and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study analyzes airpower doctrine from the viewpoint of Clausewitzian friction. The study concludes that American airpower doctrine has changed very little since the 1930s and that it is fundamentally flawed.
Download or read book The foundations of US air doctrine written by Barry D. Watts and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Foundations of U S Air Doctrine written by Air University Press and published by . This book was released on 2017-12-10 with total page 143 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study revolves around friction, meaning the ubiquitous uncertainties and inescapable difficulties that form the atmosphere of real war. More specifically, it attempts to utilize the Clausewitzian concept of general friction as a basis for assessing--and, if necessary, reshaping--the foundations of US air doctrine. This critical application of friction gives rise to four primary conclusions: (1) The key assumptions underlying mainstream US doctrine for conventional air warfare have not evolved appreciably since Air Corps Tactical School (ACTS) theorists elaborated their theory of precision, industrial bombardment during the 1930s. (2) Judged by their essential premises and logic, post-Hiroshima theories of deterrence are little more than an updating for the nuclear age of ACTS bombardment doctrine. (3) Both ACTS bombardment doctrine and deterrence theory appear fundamentally flawed insofar as they omit the frictional considerations that distinguish real war from war on paper. (4) Reflection upon the extent to which friction pervades the elemental processes of actual combat suggests that the range of situations in which greater numbers or superior weapons guarantee victory is relatively limited; even in the age of thermonuclear weapons, the outcomes of battles still turn, more often than not, on the character and intelligence of a few brave individuals. The first step in giving substance to these claims is to explain what the central beliefs of US airmen traditionally have been. The reader should be warned, however, that I have approached the writings on war of airmen like Major General Haywood S. Hansell, Jr., and nuclear strategists like Bernard Brodie--as well as those of Carl von Clausewitz himself--from the perspective of two interrelated questions. What overriding assumptions about war did these individuals embrace? And what image of war as a total phenomenon is bound up in their assumptions? In large part, answering these questions is a matter of historical inquiry and, to be candid, I have been far less concerned with writing history for its own sake than with using the past to illuminate the problems of the present. I, therefore, leave it to the reader to judge whether I have managed to do so without injuring the historical record.Contents: 1 INTRODUCTION * Notes * 2 DOUHET AND MITCHELL * Douhet's Image of War: Unrestrained Offense * Mitchell's "Aerial Knights" * Notes * 3 THE FIRST US STRATEGIC AIR WAR PLAN * Daylight, High Altitude, Precision Bombardment * Doctrine * AWPD-1 * The Image of War in AWPD-1 * Notes * 4 THE POLICY AND STRATEGY OF DETERRENCE * Brodie's Assumptions * Brodie's Image of All-Out War in the Missile Age * A Paradox of Deterrence Theory * Notes * 5 A CLAUSEWITZIAN CRITIQUE * The Core Beliefs of Mainstream US Air Doctrine * Some Ramifications * Friction * Collective Risk * Notes * 6 FRICTION IN 20TH CENTURY WARFARE * Part 1: Friction in the Combined Bomber Offensive, World War II * Weather * October 1943: Information, Doctrinal Rigidity, Enemy Countermeasures * Big Week and the Problem of Industrial Impact Assessments * March and April 1944: Friction as a Weapon * Epilogue in Korea: Railway Interdiction, August 1951-May 1952 * Part 2: Friction in the Missile Age * The Not-So-Delicate Balance of Terror * The Emergence of Friction in Brodie's Thought * The Cuban Missile Crisis * Notes * 7 TOWARD A LESS MECHANISTIC IMAGE OF WAR * US Air Doctrine and Laplacian Determinism * Cartesian Hypotheses, Uncertainty, Undecidability * The Human Cost of War * Combat Psychology as Context * Some Consequences of Embracing a More Organic Image of War * Learning from History * Nurturing Military Genius * Exemplars for Future Wars: Friction as a Weapon and Entropy * Summing Up * Notes * APPENDIX * General Eaker's Presentation of the Combined Bomber Offensive Plan to the Joint Chiefs of Staff * SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Download or read book Fifty Shades of Friction written by Mark Clodfelter and published by Government Printing Office. This book was released on with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Development of Air Doctrine in the Army Air Arm 1917 1941 written by Thomas H. Greer and published by . This book was released on 1955 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: En redegørelse for doktriner for luftvåbnet i USA i perioden 1917-1941. Den medtager taktiske og strategiske erfaringer opnået under deltagelsen i Den 1. Verdenskrig 1914-1918. Emnerne er doktrinudvikling, anvendelse af luftvåbnet, langdistancebombning og doktrin for 2. Verdenskrig 1939-1941.
Download or read book Basic Aerospace Doctrine of the United States Air Force written by Dennis M. Drew and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Development of Air Doctrine in the Army Air Arm 1917 1941 written by Air University (U.S.). Extension Course Institute and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 1957 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Warfighting written by Department of the Navy and published by Vigeo Press. This book was released on 2018-10 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The manual describes the general strategy for the U.S. Marines but it is beneficial for not only every Marine to read but concepts on leadership can be gathered to lead a business to a family. If you want to see what make Marines so effective this book is a good place to start.
Download or read book The Dynamics of Military Revolution 1300 2050 written by MacGregor Knox and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2001-08-27 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book studies the changes that have marked war in the Western World since the thirteenth century.
Download or read book A Concise History of the U S Air Force written by Stephen Lee McFarland and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 1997 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Except in a few instances, since World War II no American soldier or sailor has been attacked by enemy air power. Conversely, no enemy soldier orsailor has acted in combat without being attacked or at least threatened by American air power. Aviators have brought the air weapon to bear against enemies while denying them the same prerogative. This is the legacy of the U.S. AirForce, purchased at great cost in both human and material resources.More often than not, aerial pioneers had to fight technological ignorance, bureaucratic opposition, public apathy, and disagreement over purpose.Every step in the evolution of air power led into new and untrodden territory, driven by humanitarian impulses; by the search for higher, faster, and farther flight; or by the conviction that the air way was the best way. Warriors have always coveted the high ground. If technology permitted them to reach it, men, women andan air force held and exploited it-from Thomas Selfridge, first among so many who gave that "last full measure of devotion"; to Women's Airforce Service Pilot Ann Baumgartner, who broke social barriers to become the first Americanwoman to pilot a jet; to Benjamin Davis, who broke racial barriers to become the first African American to command a flying group; to Chuck Yeager, a one-time non-commissioned flight officer who was the first to exceed the speed of sound; to John Levitow, who earned the Medal of Honor by throwing himself over a live flare to save his gunship crew; to John Warden, who began a revolution in air power thought and strategy that was put to spectacular use in the Gulf War.Industrialization has brought total war and air power has brought the means to overfly an enemy's defenses and attack its sources of power directly. Americans have perceived air power from the start as a more efficient means of waging war and as a symbol of the nation's commitment to technology to master challenges, minimize casualties, and defeat adversaries.
Download or read book Airpower against an Army Challenge and Response in CENTAF s Duel with the Republican Guard written by William F. Andrews and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on with total page 143 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For nearly two decades the United States Air Force (USAF) oriented the bulk of its thinking, acquisition, planning, and training on the threat of a Soviet blitzkrieg across the inter German border. The Air Force fielded a powerful conventional arm well rehearsed in the tactics required to operate over a central European battlefield. Then, in a matter of days, the 1990 invasion of Kuwait altered key assumptions that had been developed over the previous decade and a half. The USAF faced a different foe employing a different military doctrine in an unexpected environment. Instead of disrupting a fast paced land offensive, the combat wings of the United States Central Command Air Forces (CENTAF) were ordered to attack a large, well fortified, and dispersed Iraqi ground force. The heart of that ground force was the Republican Guard Forces Command (RGFC). CENTAF's mission dictated the need to develop an unfamiliar repertoire of tactics and procedures to meet theater objectives. How effectively did CENTAF adjust air operations against the Republican Guard to the changing realities of combat? Answering that question is central to this study, and the answer resides in evaluation of the innovations developed by CENTAF to improve its operational and tactical performance against the Republican Guard. Effectiveness and timeliness are the primary criteria used for evaluating innovations.
Download or read book The Paths of Heaven The Evolution of Airpower Theory written by and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Airpower is not widely understood. Even though it has come to play an increasingly important role in both peace and war, the basic concepts that define and govern airpower remain obscure to many people, even to professional military officers. This fact is largely due to fundamental differences of opinion as to whether or not the aircraft has altered the strategies of war or merely its tactics. If the former, then one can see airpower as a revolutionary leap along the continuum of war; but if the latter, then airpower is simply another weapon that joins the arsenal along with the rifle, machine gun, tank, submarine, and radio. This book implicitly assumes that airpower has brought about a revolution in war. It has altered virtually all aspects of war: how it is fought, by whom, against whom, and with what weapons. Flowing from those factors have been changes in training, organization, administration, command and control, and doctrine. War has been fundamentally transformed by the advent of the airplane.
Download or read book The Development of Air Doctrine in the Army Air Arm 1917 1941 Hap Arnold Chennault Douhet Mitchell Foulois Drum Board Alexander de Seversky General Eaker World War I and II written by Department of Defense and published by . This book was released on 2017-05-16 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This monograph recounts the development of air doctrine in the Army air arm from 1917 to 1941. It includes concepts, both strategic and tactical, that emerged during World War I and the period following, up to the entry of the United States into World War II. The study is based primarily on official Air Force records and upon interviews with officers of the air arm who have been especially associated with air doctrine. When the debacle at Pearl Harbor thrust the United States into a war for survival, the nation marshalled its forces on land and sea and in the air. And although land, sea, and air forces all played vital roles in securing the triumph, the part of the air arm was unique. For the first time in the history of war, airpower was employed as a major striking force, drastically altering the course and nature of the struggle and decisively influencing the outcome. CHAPTER 1 - THE AIR SERVICE IN WORLD WAR I, 1917-1918 * Prewar Organization and Concepts * American Participation in World War I * General concepts of warfare and air employment * Over-all air operations, organization, and control * Pursuit aviation Bombardment aviation * Attack aviation * Air plans during the armistice * CHAPTER 2 - THE HEROIC AGE OF DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENT, 1919-1926 * Diverging Views of the Nature of War * The War Department view * Views of Air Service leaders * The Struggle for the Control of Airpower * Demands for complete separation * Arguments of the air crusaders * Rebuttal by the high command * Creation of the Army Air Corps (1926) * Evolving Doctrines of Air Employment * The general functions of military aviation * Argument with the Navy regarding coast defense * Pursuit aviation * Bombardment aviation * Attack aviation * Comparative summary of doctrines in 1926 * CHAPTER 3 - DEVELOPMENT OF THE AIR FORCE IDEA, 1926-1935 * Development of the High-speed Bomber * Efforts to stimulate improved aircraft design * Successful development of two-engine bombers: the B-9 and B-10 * The B-17 "Flying Fortress" * Trend of Doctrine at the Air Corps Tactical School * Concepts of the nature of war: influence of Mitchell and Douhet * The employment of airpower * Bombardment aviation; the precision doctrine and the escort problem * Pursuit aviation * Attack aviation * The Impasse with the Navy Regarding Land-based Bombardment * Establishment of the GHQ Air Force (1935) * CHAPTER 4 - REFINEMENT AND SUBSTANTIATION OF THE LONG-RANGE BOMBARDMENT CONCEPT, 1935-1939 * Hemisphere Defense Policy as a Factor in Strategic Concepts and Air Doctrine * Elaboration of Air Theory at the Air Corps Tactical School * The nature of war and the employment of airpower * Bombardment aviation * Pursuit aviation * Attack aviation * The Crucial Fight for Production and Development of the Long-range Bomber * Bomber program related to coast defense * Andrews presses for exclusive procurement of four-engine bombers * Air Corps demands for unlimited development of the bomber * The General Staff blocks the way * President Roosevelt removes the block * The Influence of Foreign Wars upon American Air Doctrine * China * Ethiopia * Spain * Munich * Adjustments in Air Organization * CHAPTER 5 - PREPARATION OF AIR DOCTRINE FOR WORLD WAR II, 1939-1941 * General Influence of the European War upon the Theory and Position of Airpower * Tactical Lessons from the Air War Abroad * Final Shaping of Air Doctrines on the Eve of American Involvement * Purpose and nature of warfare * The role and employment of airpower in war * Bombardment aviation * Pursuit aviation * Attack and light bombardment aviation * Blueprint for action: AWPD/1 * Establishment of Army Air Forces (1941) * CHAPTER 6 - CONCLUSIONS
Download or read book Command Of The Air written by General Giulio Douhet and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2014-08-15 with total page 620 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book John Warden and the Renaissance of American Air Power written by John Andreas Olsen and published by Potomac Books, Inc.. This book was released on 2011 with total page 603 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dr. John Andreas Olsen has written an insightful, compelling biography of retired U.S. Air Force colonel John A. Warden III, the brilliant but controversial air warfare theorist and architect of Operation Desert Storm s air campaign. Warden s radical ideas about air power s purposes and applications, promulgated at the expense of his own career, sparked the ongoing revolution in military affairs. Legendary in defense circles, Warden is also the author of "The Air Campaign: Planning for Combat" (republished by Brassey s, Inc. in 1989). Presenting both the positives and negatives of Warden s personality and impact in this objective portrait, Olsen offers a trenchant analysis of his revolutionary ideas and great accomplishments. "
Download or read book AU Press Your Air and Space Power Publisher 2003 written by and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 66 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
