Master of Airpower

Master of Airpower
Author: David Mets
Publisher: Presidio Press
Total Pages: 453
Release: 2009-04-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 0307538222

“A valuable and long-overdue biography of one of America’s greatest soldiers.”—Parameters The story of Gen. Carl “Tooey” Spaatz’s life is more than a biography of one of America’s great military leaders. It is a history of the development of airpower, and a fascinating, inside look at the long, difficult struggle to win autonomy for the U.S. Air Force. Spaatz earned his wings in 1918, when flying was a new and dangerous occupation; aviation school mortality rates were 18 percent. After gaining experience as a fighter pilot during the “Great War,” he became one of the Air Corps’ top pursuit commanders during the 1920s. During the 1930s, he moved over to bombers just as modern, long range aircraft were coming into service. As a senior bomber commander, Spaatz significantly influenced the emerging strategic bomber doctrine. By the time of the outbreak of the Second World War, Spaatz was one of America’s most experienced aviators. He was at the helm of the evolution of the new American military “strategic airpower” doctrine, which proved to be a decisive factor in World War II. After the Allied victory, planning and launching an independent Air Force would occupy Spaatz for the remainder of his career. Today’s Air Force bears his indelible stamp. “Tooey” Spaatz was a low-profile leader who was known for his open mind and pragmatic approach, and who was influential in a quiet, forceful way. Possessed of absolute integrity, even when his beliefs were unpopular, he pressed them at the risk of his career.

Airpower Applied

Airpower Applied
Author: John Andreas Olsen
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
Total Pages: 424
Release: 2017-05-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1682470768

Airpower Applied reviews the evolution of airpower and its impact on the history of warfare. Through a critical examination of twenty-nine case studies in which various U.S. coalitions and Israel played significant roles, this book offers perspectives on the political purpose, strategic meaning, and military importance of airpower. By comparing and contrasting more than seventy-five years of airpower experience in very different circumstances, readers can gain insight into present-day thinking on the use of airpower and on warfare. The authors, all experts in their fields, demystify some of airpower‘s strategic history by extracting the most useful teachings to help military professionals and political leaders understand what airpower has to offer as a “continuation of politics by other means.” The case studies emphasize the importance of connecting policy and airpower: operational effectiveness cannot substitute for poor statecraft. As the United States, its allies, and Israel have seen in their most recent applications of airpower, even the most robust and capable air weapon can never be more effective than the strategy and policy it is intended to support.

Air Power

Air Power
Author: Stephen Budiansky
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 529
Release: 2005-03-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 1101118407

No single human invention has transformed war more than the airplane—not even the atomic bomb. Even before the Wright Brothers’ first flight, predictions abounded of the devastating and terrible consequences this new invention would have as an engine of war. Soaring over the battlefield, the airplane became an unstoppable force that left no spot on earth safe from attack. Drawing on combat memoirs, letters, diaries, archival records, museum collections, and eyewitness accounts by the men who fought—and the men who developed the breakthrough inventions and concepts—acclaimed author Stephen Budiansky weaves a vivid and dramatic account of the airplane’s revolutionary transformation of modern warfare. On the web: http://www.budiansky.com/

Airpower Reborn

Airpower Reborn
Author: John Andreas Olsen
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2015-04-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1612518060

Airpower Reborn offers a conceptual approach to warfare that emphasizes airpower's unique capability to achieve strategic effects. Six world-leading theorists argue that a viable strategy must transcend the purely military sphere, view the adversary as a multi-dimensional system, and pursue systemic paralysis and strategic effects rather than military destruction or attrition. The book is divided into three parts. The first section presents a historical perspective on airpower theory and airpower strategy, tracing their evolution from the 1920s to the 1980s. The second section contains in-depth examinations of the strategic concepts that John R. Boyd and John A. Warden developed in the 1980s and 1990s, with an emphasis on their contemporary relevance. The final section provides further context on modern airpower theory and strategy. Theory, in this setting, serves as the basic paradigm, strategy represents its generic, mechanisms-centered application, and plans of campaign constitute the specific steps for any given situation. In short, the authors look beyond the land-centric, battlefield-oriented paradigm that has continued to dominate military theories and strategies long after airpower offered new options. The book acknowledges the essential role of advanced technology in improving airpower capabilities, but emphasizes that air services must cultivate and harness the intellectual acumen of airmen and encourage officers and men to think conceptually and strategically about the application of aerospace power. Modern airpower can offer political decision-makers more and better options-provided the underlying strategy coherently links the application of airpower directly to the end-state objectives rather than limiting it to “the battle.” The book recommends that all countries should consider establishing a dynamic and vibrant environment for mastering aerospace history, theory, strategy, and doctrine; a milieu for cultivating broader knowledge of and insight into airpower; and a setting in which airpower experts have the opportunity to communicate their narrative to politicians, the media, and fellow officers, and to interact to mutual benefit with experts from all sectors of governance. This effort should emphasize the potentially unique contribution of airpower to political objectives and joint operations, and in turn connect to operational headquarters that do operational planning. Mastering such strategic thought lies at the heart of the military profession, but it requires in-depth knowledge and understanding of theory, strategy, and airpower, and transcends traditional metrics.

Air Power

Air Power
Author: Jeremy Black
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 388
Release: 2016-03-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 1442250976

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.

Military Strategy, Joint Operations, and Airpower

Military Strategy, Joint Operations, and Airpower
Author: Ryan Burke
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2022
Genre: Air power
ISBN: 1647122503

This second edition of Military Strategy, Joint Operations, and Airpower introduces contemporary strategy at the operational level of war. Developed as foundational reading for all US Air Force Academy cadets, this textbook is designed to close the gap between military theory and practice.

Air Power and Warfare

Air Power and Warfare
Author: Elwood L. White
Publisher:
Total Pages: 100
Release: 2002
Genre: Air power
ISBN:

This highly selective bibliography supplements the original bibliography developed in 1978 by Ms. Betsy C. Kysely, to support the Eighth Military History Symposium While this bibliography focuses primarily on materials published since the earlier bibliography was developed, it does include some significant materials that were published prior to 1978, but that were omitted from that edition. Emphasis in this supplement is on scholarly analysis of air power itself and scholarly depictions of its history. Like most editions of the United State Air Force Academy Directorate of Libraries' publication, Special Bibliography Series, this compilation is limited to current holdings of the Academic Library at the Academy. It includes books, reports, government documents, and journal articles. Excluded are pictorial works, newspaper articles, works of fiction, studies of the technology of aircraft and associated weaponry, and items focused on the general history of aviation. Readers wanting information on the history of aviation, certainly prior to the Wright Brothers, are encouraged to consult the U S. Air Force Academy Friends of the Library publication, The Genesis of Flight: The Aeronautical History Collection of Colonel Richard Gimbel.

The Age of Airpower

The Age of Airpower
Author: Martin Van Creveld
Publisher:
Total Pages: 530
Release: 2011-04-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 158648981X

A renowned military historian tells the story of airpower's rise in the twentieth century-- and argues that its great days are over

Airpower in Small Wars

Airpower in Small Wars
Author: James S. Corum
Publisher:
Total Pages: 536
Release: 2003
Genre: History
ISBN:

The use of airpower in wartime calls to mind the massive bombings of World War II, but airplanes have long been instrumental in small wars as well. Ever since its use by the French to put down rebellious Moroccan tribes in 1913, airpower has been employed to fight in limited but often lengthy small conflicts around the globe. This is the first comprehensive history of airpower in small wars-conflicts pitting states against non-state groups such as insurgents, bandits, factions, and terrorists-tracing it from the early years of the twentieth century to the present day. It examines dozens of conflicts with strikingly different scenarios: the Greek Civil War, the Philippine Anti-Huk campaign, French and British colonial wars, the war in South Vietnam before the American escalation, counterinsurgency in southern Africa, Latin American counterguerrilla operations, and counterinsurgency and counterterrorist campaigns in the Middle East over the last four decades. For each war, the authors describe the strategies employed on both sides of the conflict, the air forces engaged, and the specific airpower tactics employed. They discuss the ground campaigns and provide the political background necessary to understand the air campaigns, and in each case they judge the utility of airpower in its broadest sense. In their historic sweep, they show how forms of airpower evolved from planes to police helicopters, aircraft of the civilian air reserve, and today's unmanned aircraft. They also disclose how small wars after World War II required new strategies, operational solutions, and tactics. By taking this broad view of small-war airpower, the authors are able to make assessments about the most effective and least effective means of employing airpower. They offer specific conclusions ranging from the importance of comprehensive strategy to the need for the United States and its allies to expand small-wars training programs. Airpower in Small Wars will be invaluable for educating military professionals and policy makers in the subject as well as for providing a useful framework for developing more effective doctrine for employing airpower in the conflicts we are most likely to see in the twenty-first century.

LIFE

LIFE
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 160
Release: 1942-12-14
Genre:
ISBN:

LIFE Magazine is the treasured photographic magazine that chronicled the 20th Century. It now lives on at LIFE.com, the largest, most amazing collection of professional photography on the internet. Users can browse, search and view photos of today’s people and events. They have free access to share, print and post images for personal use.