The Age of Airpower

In this title, a renowned military historian tells the story of airpower's rise in the twentieth century - and argues that its great days are over. Airpower is the most glamorous offensive and defensive instrument of war in military history. The knights of the sky duelled thrillingly above the trenc [...]
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In this title, a renowned military historian tells the story of airpower's rise in the twentieth century - and argues that its great days are over. Airpower is the most glamorous offensive and defensive instrument of war in military history. The knights of the sky duelled thrillingly above the trench warfare of World War I. Bombers and fighters, as well as the development of radar and cutting-edge reconnaissance and attack strategies helped decide the course of World War II. In the Pacific theatre, American and Japanese air carriers fought for supremacy; in the Atlantic theatre, airpower incinerated cities on strategic bombing campaigns and tracked, found, and destroyed submarines and merchant navies. Late in World War II the shadows of B-17 Flying Fortresses filled the skies, harbingers of ruin that stirred panic amongst civilians. In 1945 airpower made international headlines when B-29 American bombers dropped two atomic bombs and brought the greatest war of all time to an abrupt end. But the way war is waged has changed dramatically since World War II. A deterrent during the Cold War, in Vietnam the limitations of airpower against an elusive guerilla force were all too clear.Contrary to the conventional wisdom, modern smart munitions have not made fighter bombers more effective against many kinds of targets than their predecessors in World War II used to be; US ground troops calling for air support in Iraq in 2003 did not receive it any faster than Allied forces did in France in 1944. As guerilla warfare becomes the norm, and as ballistic missiles, satellites, cruise missiles and drones increasingly take the place of quarter-billion-dollar manned combat aircraft and their multi-million-dollar pilots, airpower triumphs are becoming a thing of the past.