Case Studies in the Development of Close Air Support - Couverture souple

U S Ari Force

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1410225151 ISBN 13 : 9781410225153

Editeur : University Press of the Pacific, 2005

Synopsis

Since the introduction of aircraft to warfare, ground commanders have seen them as a powerful addition to their plans for dislodging and pursuing an enemy or for defending against assaults on friendly positions. For military aviators, battlefield support is one of a range of possible uses of aircraft in attacking hostile forces. Often, more profitable targets are in the enemy's war industries or in the opposing army's rear areas, where supplies and units are exposed on transportation nets leading to a fighting front. This book examines the development of various doctrines on the application of aviation against battlefield targets. Written by several well-known military and aviation historians, these analytical essays present examples of close air-support experience from World War I to the Arab-Israeli war of 1973. Dr. Benjamin Franklin Cooling served as the Air Force project coordinator and general editor for this volume. He received his doctor of philosophy degree from the University of Pennsylvania and began a career as a historian in the 1960s. He has served in various research and supervisory positions with the U.S. Army Center of Military History, the U.S. Army Military History Institute, and the Office of Air Force History. An authority on the history of the American Civil War, Dr. Cooling has published widely on military and naval topics of that era. He has been executive director of the American Military Institute, a research fellow at the Naval War College, and a lecturer in military history at the U.S. Army War College. In 1989, Dr. Cooling became Chief Historian of the Department of Energy.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

The introduction of airplanes to warfare led almost from the first to their application in close support of ground forces. The earliest attempts at influencing the outcome of a ground battle from the air were limited by the fragility of the craft engaged and the lack of coherent ideas on the most effective use of what was still a novelty. What began as an expedient, however, has become over nearly ten decades an essential role for air power. Taken virtually for granted by troops and aviators today, the employment of air power in this way has been controversial from the first instance in which bombs were dropped on ground combatants during the Italo-Turkish war of 1911-1912. Ground and air commanders have differed over the proper use of aviation; preferences and assumptions on doctrine have evolved in both the ground and air communities; technology has changed air systems and defensive ground weaponry; and with time different systems or techniques have developed in various military establishments for the command and control of ground and air forces operating in concert, for liaison and communications, and for delivering aerial firepower in support of land forces locked in combat with an enemy. In December 1982, Maj. Gen. Perry McCoy Smith, then the Air Force Director of Plans, asked the Office of Air Force History to prepare a number of case-study volumes on various aspects of air warfare. Col. John A. Warden III, in the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans and Operations, provided funds from the Air Force's Project Warrior Program. With further generous assistance of Dr. Andrew Marshall, then Director of Net Assessment in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Air Force History Program approached some of the foremost historians in the field of military aviation to record their assessments as a resource for planning within the Air Force and the Army for several years to come. Each author was asked to produce an original case study on a defined period or subject. The essays were to be based on all relevant published literature and on the key archival documents containing the record of how various air forces actually developed and applied their systems of close air support to ground combat. Each author was also asked to cover certain basic topics: initial doctrine, organization of forces, background and courses of the air-ground campaigns, communications systems, command and control arrangements, weaponry and technology, and the decisions and people that determined the course of action and shaped its outcome. A concluding retrospect draws generalizations from the experiences presented. The Office of Air Force History believes that this volume will be of substantial value not only to the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Army, but should also appeal to a wider audience interested in all aspects of military history and contribute to informing the American public about the characteristics and the use of air power in all of its aspects.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: University Press of the Pacific
• Date d'édition: 2005
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1410225151
• ISBN 13: 9781410225153
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 620
• Éditeur: Cooling III Benjamin Franklin
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Friedensallee 273; Hamburg; 22763; Allemagne