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progressive development of air power to the point where, today, it is more correct to refer to aerospace power has not outdated the notions of Douhet in the slightest In fact, in many ways, the kinds of technological capabilities that we enjoy as a global air power provider attest to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 The Roots of the Command and Control of Air Power written by Francisco M. Gallei and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 421 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "To paraphrase Martin van Creveld, commanding and controlling forces has been around since time immemorial and a failure to have effective command and control is 'to court disaster.' It is no difference for warfare in the third domain. Effective command and control of air forces improves a commander's ability to make and execute good decisions in a timely manner. It provides unity of effort, massing of forces as necessary, and flexibility to react to battlefield dynamics. Nations, and specifically their military services, continuously evaluate their environment and make strategic decisions regarding force composition. In the next decade, the United States Air Force (USAF) will face many challenges. Once is ensuring an appropriate command and control system for a changing and evolving Air Force. Command and control of air forces is seldom thought of or discussed until needed, and then usually as an afterthought. Unlike aircraft, which are the highly visible symbols of airpower, command and control is generally unseen. It operates in the background, ignored until it is unavailable or fails ... In the current fiscal environment, a mission not as 'glamorous' as flying is easily neglected in search for 'savings.' History suggests this would be inadvisable -- command and control is airpower's sinew. Without it the structure has no connectivity. Discussions regarding air forces and their successes and failures generally revolve around a myriad of other topics such as strategy, doctrine, battles, aircraft quality, or production rates. A holistic examination of effective command and control of air forces is missing from the literature. No comparative historical studies exist examining how air forces developed command and control systems. How does an air force integrate organization, processes, and technology into a command and control construct? ... this study compares and contrasts three national (British, American, and German) approaches to command and control of airpower through World War II. It examines the commonalities and differences between the countries and their unique approaches to the problem of commanding and controlling air forces. It will also hopefully offer insights into the larger question of how national air forces often develop along different lines"--Pages 4-5.
Download or read book Air Power written by Jeremy Black and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2016-03-10 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Command and Control of Airpower in Irregular Warfare written by J. Ian Chambers and published by Createspace Independent Pub. This book was released on 2012-08-26 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Luftwaffe's defeat of Allied airpower in the Kasserine Pass in 1943 imprinted the principle of mass upon the US Air Force's organizational psyche. The then Army Air Corps recognized the necessity of consolidating airpower under the command and control of a single airman to mass airpower's effects. This belief in centralized control of airpower became a central reason for the creation of an independent Air Force in 1947. The linkage between centralized control and the origin of the Air Force plays a significant role in Air Force culture. This study examines the Air Force's ability to apply the centralized control approach to irregular warfare. The growing focus and literature on the differences between traditional warfare and irregular warfare challenge the US Air Force's adherence to centralized control. This study asks, “Can the Air Force's current, traditional command and control structure integrate airpower effectively into irregular warfare (IW) operations?” This research question leads to a review of the irregular warfare theory, organizational theory, and application of these theories in the current context to determine the effectiveness of centralized control in irregular warfare. The study compares the requirements identified by theory against the Air Force's command and control structure, the Theater Air Control System (TACS). Subsequent chapters discuss the TACS performance in contemporary IW environments. The discussion leads to limitations of the TACS in irregular warfare and potential improvements.
Download or read book The Air Force and the Worldwide Military Command and Control System 1961 1965 written by Office of Office of Air Force History and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2015-03-17 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Air Force and the Worldwide Military Command and Control System, 1961-1965, is a companion volume to Arthur K. Marmor's USAF Command and Control Problems, 1958-1961. It seeks to trace major developments in the continuing effort to provide the nation's leaders with command and control facilities for assessing and responding to crises which require, or might require, commitment of America's military forces. Since decisions on most of these developments are made by the President or the Office of the Secretary of Defense it is frequently difficult to pinpoint the Air Force role in them. They remain very much a part of Air Force history, however. The Air Force contributes many of its most highly skilled officers to the joint agencies that build, operate, and support elements of the worldwide military command and control system. Air Staff officers serve on the joint planning groups that conceive the facilities. And nearly every Air Staff section furnishes support to these planning groups.
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 The Air Force Command and Control System 1950 1966 written by Office of Air Force History and U S Air and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2015-04-04 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Air Force Command and Control System, 1950-1966 summarizes the efforts at major headquarters-level to automate and integrate operational data processing and transmission. The Headquarters USAF command post established communications with its counterparts in the field during the early l950's. This so-called "manual command and control system" quickly evolved into a vitally important national emergency warning center. However, it never achieved what battle staffs considered their equally important mission -- to provide commanders the data that they required to decide the most effective employment of air forces during fast-breaking crises. This study seeks to trace the causes for delays in acting on the problem and developments that promised to solve it.
Download or read book Trial By Fire Forging American Close Air Support Doctrine World War I Through September 1944 written by Major Philip W. Wielhouwer and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2014-08-15 with total page 127 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Proper doctrine for close support of American ground forces by airpower has been a tumultuous issue since the first days of combat aircraft. Air and ground leaders struggled with interservice rivalry, parochialism, employment paradigms, and technological roadblocks while seeking the optimum balance of missions given the unique speed, range, and flexibility of aircraft. Neither ground force concepts of airpower as self-defense and extended organic artillery, nor air force theories focused on command of the air and strategic attack fit the middle ground of close air support (CAS), leaving a doctrinal void prior to American combat in World War II. This thesis focuses on the critical period from September 1939 through the doctrinal and practical crucible of North Africa, which eventually produced a resoundingly successful system. Theoretical and practical changes in organization and command, airpower roles, and the tactical air control system are examined, with subarea focus on cooperation and communications technology. Upon examination, discerning leadership, able to transcend earlier compromises and failures, emerges as the essential element for CAS success during the war. While many airpower concepts proved valid, air-ground cooperation through liaison proved indispensable, a lesson repeated even today.
Download or read book Evolution of Command and Control Doctrine for Close Air Support written by Office of Office of Air Force History and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2015-03-16 with total page 78 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study was prepared in response to an Air Staff request for a history of command and control procedures used in close air support (CAS). The writer, Mr. Riley Sunderland, is co-author of the official Army history of the China-Burma-India Theater, World War II, and wrote 5 RAND Corp. studies of the Communist insurgency in Malaya. He begins with brief comment on the invention of close air support during World War I, then moves on to the evolution of the modern Tactical Air Control System (TACS) from the late 1930's to the present. Only major developments are treated to keep the subject manageable. The author, distinguishing between doctrine and procedure, has focused on the former. For official definitions of "doctrine" and "close air support," the reader is referred to Air Force Manual (AFM) 11-1, USAF Glossary of Standardized Terms. Close air support is the third of 3 principal missions of tactical air forces, of which air superiority is first and interdiction second. The classic statement is in War Department Field Manual (FM) 100-20, Command and Employment of Air Power, 21 July 1943, paragraph 16. Close air support may also be provided by strategic air, e.g., St. Lo, France, 1944; Khe Sanh, South Vietnam, 1968. The responsible air commander must weigh the allocation of resources between the 3 basic tactical air missions, lest an injudicious commitment of his forces to any one mission degrades his ability to perform the others. As will be seen in Mr. Sunderland's narrative, this has been a major issue in the handling of tactical air.
Download or read book The Icarus Syndrome written by Carl H. Builder and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-12 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the end of the Reagan era, many in the U.S. Air Force began to express their concerns about the health of their institution. They questioned whether the Air Force had lost its sense of direction, its confidence, its values, even its future. For some, these concerns reflected nothing more than the maturation of the most youthful of America's military institutions. For others it was a crisis of spirit that threatened the hard-won independence of the Air Force. Although the diagnoses for this malaise are as numerous as its symptoms, The Icarus Syndrome points a finger at the abandonment of air power theory sometime in the late 1950s to early 1960s as the single, taproot cause of the problems. That provocative diagnosis is followed by an equally provocative prescription the Air Force must follow to regain its institutional health. Author Carl H. Builder begins with an overview of this crisis of values within the Air Force, along with a litany of concerns about what seems to have gone wrong within that institution. The history of the U.S. Air Force, along with the role played in it by air power theory, is explored and is used to support Builder's thesis. The remainder of the book is an analysis of what went wrong and when, how these wrongs might be corrected, and the challenges for Air Force leadership in the future. Now available in paperback, The Icarus Syndrome will be of great interest to U.S. Air Force professionals, military and aviation historians, and institutional psychologists.
Download or read book The Emerging Shield written by Kenneth Schaffel and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Air Power and the Ground War in Vietnam written by Donald J. Mrozek and published by The Minerva Group, Inc.. This book was released on 2002 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dr. Donald J. Mrozeks research sheds considerable light on how the use of air power evolved in the Vietnam War. Much more than simply retelling events, Mrozek analyzes how history, politics, technology, and the complexity of the war drove the application of air power in a long and divisive struggle. Mrozek delves into a wealth of original documentation, and his scholarship is impeccable. His analysis is thorough and balanced. His conclusions are well reasoned but will trouble those who have never seriously considered how the application of air power is influenced by factors far beyond the battlefield. Wether or not the reader agrees with Mrozek, the quality of his research and analysis makes his conclusions impossible to ignore. John C. Fryer, Jr. Brigadier General, United States Air Force Commander, Center for Aerospace Doctrine, Research and Education
Download or read book Air Power in Modern Warfare written by Jasjit Singh and published by Lancer Publishers. This book was released on 1985 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Air Power s Lost Cause written by Brian D. Laslie and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-05-14 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first comprehensive treatment of the air wars in Vietnam. Filling a substantial void in our understanding of the history of airpower in Vietnam, this book provides the first comprehensive treatment of the air wars in Vietnam. Brian Laslie traces the complete history of these air wars from the beginning of American involvement until final withdrawal. Detailing the competing roles and actions of the air elements of the United States Army, Navy, and Air Force, the author considers the strategic, operational, and tactical levels of war. He also looks at the air war from the perspective of the North Vietnamese Air Force. Most important for understanding the US defeat, Laslie illustrates the perils of a nation building a one-dimensional fighting force capable of supporting only one type of war. ,
Download or read book Air Command and Control in Small Wars written by Mark R. Heusinkveld and published by Createspace Independent Pub. This book was released on 2012-08-25 with total page 62 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There has been much discussion about the best use of airpower in small wars, specifically with regard to current operations in Afghanistan. Coalition air forces involved in Operation Enduring Freedom use the same command and control (C2) structures doctrinally established for all types of operations. The Air Force doctrine of centralized control and decentralized execution drives the makeup of C2 within the operation. Is there a better way to structure airpower in small wars? Although neither France nor the United States met their strategic objective, air operations by the French in Algeria and the United States in Vietnam provide contrasting models of C2 structures for a comparative case study. The French saw the importance of a decentralized model to maximize the support of ground troops. To use modern terminology, the French set up a joint task force in each geographic section of Algeria. Each geographic area had its own air command post collocated with the French Army command post within the region. The United States, on the other hand, centralized control of aircraft. United States Air Force (USAF) doctrine, in Vietnam, required that air assets be under the centralized control of a single air commander. Interservice rivalry heated this debate; the USAF was unwilling to allow anyone other than an air commander to control aircraft. The USAF argued that decentralization of airpower could easily have wasted the scarce air resources found in theater. However, it was centralized in name only. Aircraft were commanded and controlled under a variety of organizations to include, 7th Air Force, 13th Air Force, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the US Embassy. Both operations provide insight into the effectiveness and efficiency of the air C2 structures. This monograph asks if the structures used by the air forces in these conflicts can provide lessons for the United States in small wars today. If current structures are not as effective or efficient, commanders can modify the structures, using the insights gained by this monograph, to provide better support to ground operations in today's small wars.
Download or read book Aerospace Science written by United States. Air Force Junior ROTC. and published by . This book was released on 1986 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Gulf War Air Power Survey written by Thomas A. Keaney and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
