Aerosphere 1942

Airpower in action (part II)

2007-10-01T16:27:00.000-07:00

by CY Caldwell

NAVAL SUPPORT

War experience has demonstrated that no army can function without the support of airpower; no navy keep the seas lacking air support. Yet airpower, in its turn, is dependent for its existence upon the support of armies and navies. While the power of the air arm is increasing, at a much greater rate than that of surface forces, no air force in the world today is truly independent, able to defend a nation by its own unsupported efforts, or able even to supply itself and remain in existence as a fighting force.

The Royal Air Force, for example, does not function solely because it has airplanes, armament, bombs, and a magnificent fighting spirit. It also requires, among other things, gas and oil. And no oil is produced in the British Isles. It must be brought to Britain in the holds of tankers, convoyed against the menace of the submarine and German air raiders by units of the Royal Navy and the U. S. Atlantic Fleet, aided by shore-based aircraft of the British Coastal Command. Nor is this the only consideration. The entire population of Britain, including the armed forces and the people who build planes for the RAF, must be maintained by a. continuous stream of shipping carrying tens of thousands of tons of supplies. These ships without whose cargoes Britain must collapse through exhaustion and starvation, must be guarded by naval and air forces working as a team. Air cargo carriers cannot now, or at any time in the forseeable future, take over this huge tonnage and maintain Britain by air transport alone. They can carry only part of the load.

United States airpower, for another example, cannot fly off to battle from the shores of New York or California. Even though our long range bombers may fly to any part of the globe where man is now industriously destroying himself and all his works. Bombers of themselves do not constitute airpower, which requires gasoline, oil, bombs, ammunition, ground bases, and thousands of tons of supplies, including food, and even bottled beer for the proper sustenance and encouragement of the fighting spirit. This part of airpower, the basic part, including also short-range fighter planes, must steam ingloriously to war in the holds of humble cargo vessels wallowing along for thousands of miles at speeds surpassed by all but the most indolent of fish. In all of that journey the ingredients of airpower must be guarded by naval units, including even the once-mighty battleship, now apparently reduced to the status of nurse-maid to a collection of tramp steamers. The mastadon passed away without suffering that indignity.

Not only American airpower, but practically all of America's war effort, including supplying our Allies with war equipment and food, must move across the surface of the sea, subject to attack from the air and from under the sea, and sometimes from the surface of the sea. It is therefore a matter of grave concern to the United States and to all of the United Nations that the power of the airplane to sink or seriously damage the surface ship, whether warship or merchant ship, is increasing day by day. With every mile added to the range of bombers, with every ton added to the load they can carry, the threat to our war effort increases; for if we cannot transport our equipment and supplies to the far-flung fighting fronts, and transport also the men in our own fighting forces, then our war effort is blocked by destruction in transit.

THE VANISHING BATTLESHIP

War experience has demonstrated the vulnerability of every type of surface vessel to air attack. The British sunk two Italian battleships and a cruiser at anchor in Tarento harbor; Japanese torpedo planes and bombers sunk two American battleships and other warships at Pearl Harbor; Japanese torpedo planes and bombers accounted tor a British battleship and a battle cruiser off Malaya; one American bomber alone accounted for a Japanese battleship. The old battleship-airplane controversy has gone to the bottom of the sea in the shattered hulks of more than half a dozen battleships whose huge guns and crews of more than a thousand officers and men had been impotent to defend them against the attacks of their relatively tiny flying antagonists.

The entire naval strategy of all nations has been disrupted and disorganized by airpower, ship-based or shore-based. The conception of the battleship as the backbone of the fleet has been discredited; the aircraft carrier has taken its place as the hardest-hitting ship in the navy. Of what use is the battleship if it cannot bring its huge guns to bear upon another of its kind. before torpedo planes and bombers from accompanying carriers, or aircraft from Army bases ashore, have sunk the enemy battleship? So far in this struggle no battleship has fired a shot at another in a fleet action. The Bismarck was brought to bay by damage inflicted by torpedo planes from aircraft carriers, slowing it down and thus permitting superior naval forces to1 close with it and finish it off.

AIRPOWER DEFINED

In the Coral Sea, Midway, and Solomon battles it was airpower that won the decision. And right here it might be well for convenience sake to define airpower as force exerted from the air; seapower as force exerted on the surface or under the surface of the sea; and landpower as force exerted on land. Airplanes carried by a navy are regarded as a part of seapower, because they fly under naval control and. are transported by naval vessels. But when they are in action it makes no difference whether they came from carriers or from land bases, operated by the army or by the navy; they function as airpower. If all the world's navies discarded their big guns and carried airplanes instead, they might still term themselves navies; but actually they then would be air forces, with the ships serving merely as floating aerodromes. The airplanes would function as well over land as over the sea. The plain fact is that the airplane itself, as a flying platform from which a blow can be delivered to the enemy, has brought a new power to war. It is airpower, irrespective of whether an admiral or a general gave the order that sent it off on its task; irrespective of whether it left the deck of a naval vessel, or the concrete runway of a Pacific island.

Considered in these simple terms, airpower exerts control over seapower. It menaces or protects, from the air, all vessels on the surface and under the surface. It is the ascendant force, and it is steadily and quickly going up in power and range and destructive ability, while the power of the surface vessel using guns to hurl its blows is going down in direct ratio to the rise of the airplane.

While there is little doubt in the minds of airmen that airpower eventually must control all movements on land and sea, the instruments for such absolute control do not yet exist. Navies are in process of evolution. The increasing emphasis on carrier construction and on the use of land-based aircraft supporting fleet actions, indicate clearly that the gun is losing ground, the bomb and the torpedo gaining ascendancy as the most effective way of delivering a blow to the enemy. But carriers do not spring into being overnight; huge land-based air forces are not quickly constructed and transported to Pacific islands or to Russia or to England or China. We must fight this war with the weapons we have on hand, using the destroyer, the cruiser, and even the reluctant battleship, while adding as rapidly as possible to the air arm. So long as surface ships ply the seas, so long as submarines menace their passage, surface war-ships will be required for their protection, and airplanes for the protection of both. Surface and air forces in our fighting services should be considered, not competitors for place, but partners in a united effort.

It seems probable that the battleship is doomed to extinction, to be supplanted by the airplane carrier. However, all carriers yet built are extremely vulnerable to bomb and torpedo attack. Their speed is no protection against enemy aircraft; and their hull construction renders them less resistant to underwater damage than the battleship. It is probable that new carrier construction will incorporate some of the protective features of battleships, at a sacrifice of speed. It would seem more essential that a carrier should remain afloat after severe damage than that it should be able to steam so quickly to a position where any determined air attack must sink it. The most reliable aircraft "carrier" in the Pacific is an island, that does not move at all, but is unsinkable.

VULNERABLE NAVAL BASES

Surface navies are menaced not only by airpower but by armies. A navy does not steam from the beginning to the end of a war; it must return at frequent intervals to land bases to replenish its supplies and to effect repairs to damaged warships. In Hong Kong, at Singapore, at Manila, the British and American navies lost their bases chiefly through the action of the Japanese Army, supported by air and naval forces. In a theater of war where the Japanese held supremacy on the sea, in the air, and on land, it is difficult to apportion credit to any one for the huge territorial gains achieved so rapidly. However, it is significant that the basic strategy of the war in the Orient, as in Europe, was planned by Army officers who by tradition and by experience naturally conceive each move of a war in terms of land positions to be wrested from the enemy. This is a conception as old as war itself, and as valid today as it was before airpower had been conceived.

Thus, in each move, the basic strategy was to place Jap troops in positions opposed to an always inferior number of defendants. Naval and air forces acting in support of these land operations also held the advantage of numerical superiority. Large balanced task forces met smaller and invariably unbalanced forces—the lack of balance particularly noticeable in airpower. It would be possible to argue that the Jap navy was the dominant factor, or that Jap airpower was the decisive element. The accomplished fact nevertheless remains that troops occupied the positions; they could then be fortified and used as bases for further moves. Man, after all, is a land animal. He uses the air and the sea as a means of gaining land on which he may firmly plant himself.

In the eastern Mediterranean, German landpower assisted by airpower may capture the bases of English naval power, in which event the Royal Navy must move from that theater. The Navy cannot protect Alexandria and Suez. That is a task for ground forces. Of course, the ground troops are not independent. They are dependent on the support of airpower. German and British land forces also must depend upon sea transport, protected by naval and air forces, for their supply and maintenance. All three arms work together to gain the objective, which, in the final analysis, is land. Lacking the opposition of British ground troops with their tanks and artillery, the mechanized divisions of Rommel long since would have occupied Suez. Of course, it is conceivable that vastly superior airpower alone might have won for either contestant; but no such power existed. Wars are fought with the forces available at the time. Blueprints for victory through airpower play no part in the war until they have been translated into physical weapons and into the men trained to use them.

THE ARM OF SPACE

Airpower is the arm of space. It can fly over the strongest armies guarding a nation's frontiers and rain destruction upon the industrial heart of that nation. It is subject to interference only by an opposing air force and by the action of anti-aircraft fire from the ground. Its range of action is limited only by the cruising range of the airplane; its power of destruction only by the plane's carrying capacity. Neither seas nor fortifications can stay its course. Theoretically, if its land bases can be held, and it can be supplied with all of its requirements, from aircraft and armament and bombs, to gasoline and oil and food, airpowcr alone can smash a nation's capacity to wage war. But how much British and American airpower is required so to smash Germany? How much German airpower is needed to smash Britain?

It seems obvious that if either contestant could gain air mastery and could send a thousand or more bombers a night to blast .ejremy cities and smash the war effort at its industrial source, airpower then would win the decision. Ground forces would have only to march in and occupy the devastated nation. But no such condition exists in England or in Germany today. Neither has air mastery.

With the strong air forces opposing each other, airpower takes on many of the characteristics of landpower, with all of its limitations. Granted equal forces, the nations could trade blow for blow, match destruction with destruction. It would be, in effect, the air war of attrition, each endeavoring to wear down the other by destroying his resources and by battering against the will of the nation to continue in the war. It is a game at which two can play.

As this is written, in September, 1942, the air advantage lies with the British air force, with the American force only preparing to take an active pan. There are heavy raids over German and occupied countries, only occasional light German raids over English cities. But more than half of the German air force is heavily engaged with the Russians. It is the obvious German strategy to put the air war with Britain on ice for the time being and devote most of German airpower to the task of knocking out the Russians. If the Russians can be defeated, or driven back and immobilized, a large percentage of the German air effort can be diverted to the attack on Britain which, so far as we are concerned, must be regarded as the onlv advanced air base from which we can attack Germany. The present air advantage, therefore, has been vouchsafed to the United Nations chiefly by the action of the Red Army and Air Force.

BRITAIN AS AIRPOWER BASE

Viewed as an air base for huge aerial attacks on the mainland of Europe, the British Isles are not an impregnable position. Their chief weakness is that of supply, both through submarine and air attacks on the ships en route, and through air bombardment of British ports. The eventual bottleneck of British-American airpower may be the gradual destruction of port facilities, the sinking of ships at the docks and in the harbors, resulting in the inability to unload sufficient supplies not only to run the air forces, but also to maintain other military forces and the civilian population. Docking facilities once destroyed cannot be replaced quickly; sunken ships cannot be refloated and repaired in a short time. It should be recalled that during the past three years the amount of new shipping built has not kept pace with the tonnage of shipping sunk by submarine and air action; and that docking facilities in nearly every British port are less than they were at the start of the war. To aggravate this already strained situation, we are sending large military forces to England, all to be based there for an indefinite period, all to be supplied by sea. Thus the problem of supply looms larger and larger as the war goes on, a fact that cannot have escaped the notice of the Nazis. Air cargo carriers can have no appreciable effect upon this situation for a long time to come; that is a matter not of months, but of years.

German war strategy, based primarily on the objective of acquiring territory, has been so successful that the Germans now occupy most of Europe. This gives them the power to exploit conquered nations in every way, from the seizure of raw materials to the conscription of labor to work for the German war machine. It gives them also the room to disperse their war industries in all parts of Europe, from France to Poland, an advantage not enjoyed by Britain whose industries must remain concentrated targets for German bombardment. Thus German air bombardment can be concentrated against a relatively small area; British and American bombardment must be dispersed over a wide area. To offset this, however, British defense is concentrated, German defense necessarily dispersed. In an air war of attrition it therefore might be expected that advantages will to a great extent be offset by disadvantages. American war production, for example, not yet subject to any damage by bombardment, suffers continual wastage in completed material by the hazards of transportation.

MASTERY OF THE AIR

There is one way, and only one way, for the United States and Great Britain to avoid this air war of attrition, of bombardment and counter-bombardment whose eventual outcome no man can foresee. That way is to concentrate upon assembling in the British Isles a joint Anglo-American air force of such power that it must win mastery of the air over Britain and over Europe. A preponderance of British and American bombers and fighters is not enough to guarantee victory; we must achieve an overwhelming superiority.

Various estimates have been made of the number of heavy bombers required to knock out the German war effort at its source in German factories. Time magazine estimates that a force of 3000 heavy bombers, with continuing replacements of plane and crew losses, would be required to stage 1000-plane nightly raids, weather permitting. Such a force could drop from 30000 to 50000 tons of bombs a month on German cities, could continue the destruction indefinitely. In ninety days that force could blast thirty German key cities, dropping from 6000 to 10000 tons on each—or twenty times as much on each city as the Germans dropped on Birmingham in two nights. However, as there is no patent on airpower or on air thinking, it is reasonable to assume that the Germans have made similar calculations, based on the damage suffered by Cologne, Dusseldorf, Bremen, Duisburg, and many other cities. Last summer's raids by the RAF have probably made Germany the most air conscious nation in the world. Hence we may safely assume that they are making strenuous efforts to replace their air losses on the Russian front and to build a large force of heavy bombers for a renewal of the air offensive against Britain. There is no certaintv that the present advantage enjoyed by the RAF and the small American force will continue forever. In fact, thinking that it must continue is merely another form of the complacency that so far has resulted in defeat after defeat for our side.

I remarked at the beginning that there is not yet in the world a great airpower nation: a nation that can gain control of the air as Britain and the United States gained control of the seas. Merely to be stronger in the air does not mean to have control! of the air. Mastery of the air means to be in a position to deny freedom of action to the enemy, while winning freedom of air action against the enemy. Thus the British-American objective should be to assemble a force of such power that it can deny to German bombers the air over Britain. British industry and ports-especially ports-must be made too costly in losses for German bombers to continue their attacks; and British bombing over Germany must be made with such an intensity and in such magnitude that the defending German fighter forces will be worn down and frittered away. The air action therefore must be both defensive and offensive; there must be a balance between bombers and fighters. The objective of an air force must be not only destruction of enemy industry but also destruction of the enemy air force, in the air and on the ground. Once mastery of the air has been gained, the nation having such mastery can methodically destroy everything within range of its bombers until the enemy nation admits defeat, even though its army, like the German army, still remains undefeated; or its Navy, like the Royal Navy, still holds the seas.

Germany sprawls across the continent of Europe, forced to police it and hold it in subjection, thus dispersing its armed might, but growing stronger by seizing most of the resources of Europe. Against this growth, however, must be set the continual wearing down and gnawing away of German military power, of land and air, by the stubborn resistance of the great Russian bear. Eventual victory in the cast mav leave the Germans too weakened to achieve victory also in the west; and complete victory in the east never may be achieved. The cost in German blood, in German misery and sorrow at home, must have a weakening effect on German morale. Superior British-American airpower well may add the hammer blows that will prove the vital factor in German defeat.

England stands off the coast of Europe, territorially a David challenging a Goliath, but in spiritual strength a united people, aided now by the Americans, descendants of those who left the shores of Europe to escape older tyrannies, older privations. These free peoples face a Europe in chains, a Europe of conquered peoples, sullen, embittered, with an evergrowing hatred of the Nazi oppressor whose present overlordship is based, not upon spiritual strength, but upon tanks and guns and airplanes.

Modern war may not be decided by military force alone. For this is a war in which military forces fight not only each other, but also fight civilians, from the workman at the lathe to the infant in the cradle, knowing nothing of and caring nothing about what they may destroy. It is the war of military force arrayed against the human spirit. And in this sphere of action airpower plays the dominant role. Here is the one arm against which there is no certain defense, against which no barrier may be erected, against whose onslaughts no one is safe. The curve of. its destructive power is rising, rising faster than the power of armies or of navies, and rising, perhaps, beyond the powers of resistance of a nation on which, its shadow falls.

Source: "Aerosphere-1942". Buy this issue at Amazon.com.

Airpower in action (part I)

2007-10-01T16:15:00.000-07:00

by CY Caldwell

In any discussion of airpower it should be emphasized that there is not yet in the world a great airpower nation: that is to say, a nation that has. believed in, has developed, and has relied upon airpower as its chief defensive or offensive arm.

At the start of this war all of the great nations. considered themselves primarily as sea powers or land-powers or as a combination of the two, with airpower placed in an auxiliary or secondary position in the nation's war plans. The fact that the air forces of Great Britain, Germany, Russia, France and Italy were supposedly independent of Army or Navy control while those of the United States and Japan were part of the Army or Navy, did not to any appreciable extent alter the actual position of those air forces.

Though all of these nations possessed armies, navies_ and air forces, geographical reasons had conditioned the national thinking. Germany, Russia, and France were land powers; Great Britain and the United States, sea powers; Japan, as an island nation wit h plans tor conquest on the continent of Asia, developed an army and navy appropriate to its situation All with the exception of Britain and Italy, designed their air forces to function in support of the Army and Navy, rather than to act independently The British developed an air force to act as an mdependen force but such was the British faith in seapower that when the war started the Royal Air Force was less than a quarter the size of the Luftwaffe, so it could not have held first place in national thinking. As tor the Italian Air Force, it functioned independently. and quite as efficiently and enthusiastically as the Italian Army and Navy. In every retreat, the Italian Air Force gallantly led the way.

The Germans, starting the war with the world s laraest air force, yet considered themselves a land power and placed their chief reliance upon their army Their air force, while it enjoyed an independent political entity, yet was designed built, and trained intensively to act in support of the army. Despite its inipressivesize, it was basically an army air auxiliary. It has proven itself amazingly successful in that capacity, and as amazingly ineffective when it worked independently as an air force.

The first battle of the war, that of Poland presented the pattern that the Germans have followed awfully ever since: air forces acting as spearheads of the mechanized divisions and the infantry injlose co-operation with the tanks and ranging far ahead of them to smash the opposing air force and destroy enemy ground communications Although the German war pattern then was made clear, French and English commanders failed to learn the lesson until it was repeated in the Battle of France.

AIRPOWER THE SPEARHEAD

In France, as in Poland, superior air power was the key to victory. In the first two or three days it over-whelmed and practically destroyed all French and British opposition in the air. The French and English had only a few hundred airplanes in action and they were soon shot down or destroyed on their aerodromes. It was a battle of airpower against almost nothing in the air.

The plane-tank combination, which broke with such fury upon the 1918-minded French and British army commanders, smashed the Allied ground defenses and knifed its way through to the back areas, disrupting all communications and cutting off the troops in forward areas. The French and English were separated, disorganized as a fighting force. An army of five million men was defeated by no more than 150000 highly trained Germans in tanks and airplanes.

It is significant that in German war communiques then, and in German comment generally since then, there is no tendency to play up armies or air forces as such in any joint actions. It is taken for granted that both must work together in a common effort to win a decision on the ground. The Germans think in terms of territory gained, which is the way they have thought for centuries. It is the unity of ground and air effort, the complete understanding and co-operation between ground and air forces, that has been one of the chief factors for achieving victory in every campaign. Other factors have been superior forces and also superior planning.

Spectacular German gains in 1940 emphasized the vital necessity for airpower in war, and in a form that worked in close support of armies. In France, the army held paramount interest. In Norway it was the German air force that made the invasion possible, that smashed the British Expeditionary Force and dictated its withdrawal. Here, for the first time in history, was a clear-cut victory of land-based airpower over seapower—the second was in Crete. The British made the official admission that they could not transport to and establish in Norway sufficient airpower of their own to defeat the Luftwaffe, and that it was impossible to maintain and supply their troops with only naval support.

In Norway the Germans held the initial advantage of sneaking in and securing operating bases, without the formality of a previous declaration of war against Norway. A declaration of war, incidentally, is a relic of the days of chivalry, when a knight threw down his gauntlet as a challenge. The Germans have purged chivalry. They simply got on the ground first with the most men, planes, tanks, and guns, before the Norwegians and British realized that a state of war existed in quite an advanced stage. Even had the British counterinvasion effort not been marred by indecision the Germans enjoyed the tremendous advantage of shorter lines of communication and the ease of reinforcement by air. Even if more than small ground forces had been established on Norwegian soil, the British position eventually must have been rendered untenable by heavy German airpower. The British discreetly withdrew, thus gaining experience that was to prove invaluable in Dunkirk, Greece, and Crete.

It should be noted that the Germans did not depend upon airpower alone to capture and hold Norway. They sent to Norway by air and by sea every soldier and every piece of equipment that they could possibly transport in the time at their disposal; and they threw into the battle practically all of their small seapower, trusting in their aviation to offset superior British naval forces. The Germans demonstrated then their determined war policy: to use every weapon of land, sea, and air, propaganda, and treachery, co-ordinated to win the decision.

In Norway, as later in Holland, Belgium, and France, the outstanding fact was the perfect co-ordination of all forces to gain the objective. Where there was such superiority on land and in the air, it is difficult to apportion the credit to land or air forces, considered as such. Airmen naturally hailed these victories as triumphs of airpower; army men as naturally hailed the tank, never failing to add that even tanks couldn't occupy territory without the infantry to follow along and consolidate the positions. Armies today believe as firmly as ever in the efficacy of infantry, supported of course by tanks and aviation. If the infantry no longer is able to act alone to conquer territory, neither are tanks or aviation or artillery. The thing now is perfect co-ordination of all forces, as the Germans have so efficiently demonstrated.

BATTLE OF BRITAIN

However, nothing is perfect in this sad world. There are conditions under which even the greatest strategist faces frustration, and munches his blutwurst mit sauerkraut with less than his usual zest. Such a sad condition popped up unexpectedly in the Battle of Britain, when the numerically inferior but technically and heroically superior Royal Air Force came to grips with the lumbering Luftwaffe and knocked it groggy.

There had been a preliminary engagement between British fighters and German fighters and dive bombers above the disconsolate sands of Dunkirk during the British evacuation—evacuation No. 2, that was. The British, surprisingly enough, had won local air mastery, permitting the flotilla of small boats, excursion boats, destroyers and punts to remove the defeated troops. The Germans, still busy chasing the French, and occasionally catching up to and passing the slower ones, thought little of this air action, blaming the British triumph mostly on the fog, an element with which the British were so familiar, from childhood, that they could see through it, while the Germans couldn't.

However, after standing on the French coast with his whole victorious Army warning the British that he was coming, Hitler sent his air force over to smash the RAF and pave the way for invasion. The battle lasted from Aug. 8th to Oct. 31, 1940, between which dates 2,375 German aircraft were destroyed in daylight, with the loss of some 6000 men. The British lost 733 planes, with 375 pilots killed and 358 wounded. The figure of German losses takes no account of those lost at night or those last seen fleeing home in a damaged condition.

Deficient in armor and in armament, the German bombers without exception were easy prey for British 8-gun fighters. The Spitfires and Hurricane pilots went after the bombers, protected by swarms of Messerschmitts, and shot down bombers and fighters with equal ease. Meanwhile British bombers attacked German invasion bases along the French channel coast, destroying barges and ships. Outnumbered four or five to one—and in some engagements outnumbered twenty to one—the RAF smashed the German air attacks and handed to the Luftwaffe its first defeat. Near the end of the fight a few Italian planes came over, though as an English pilot remarked at the time, a few thoroughly frightened Italians could have but little effect on the battle. The English casually shot down seven Italian bombers and six fighters the first day, seven more bombers next day, without the loss of a single Britisher. It was thought that Mussolini had sent them over as much-needed comedy relief, which the English said was rather nice of him.

It was the consensus that the enormous losses inflicted upon the Nazi air squadrons, together with the destruction of sea invasion equipment, forced Hitler to abandon his plan to invade England in 1940. While that is undoubtedly true, it seems that there were other factors controlling the situation. It is entirely possible that the invasion plans were not meant to be carried out, and that the virtual destruction of the RAF would have been thought sufficient to force the British to sue for peace. Even had air mastery been achieved, the task still remained to send vulnerable barges and transports across the Channel against the opposition of the British Home Fleet, to which the Germans could oppose only a small navy assisted by the air force. The initial engagements to pave the way for troop crossings might well be expected to dissipate nearly all of Germany's slender seapower and much of its remaining airpower. Furthermore, an invasion at night would receive but little help from an air force; to derive any advantage whatever from airpower the attack would have to be made in daylight. Neither by day nor by night was the prospect of invasion a pleasant one. But there may have been a still more compelling reason why the invasion plan was abandoned.

BASIC GERMAN STRATEGY

Germany is a land power, and despite its air force and its submarines and its surface Navy, the main trend of German military thinking has to do with the land - it was the Kaiser himself who remarked some - what bitterly that Germans are landlubbers, and he should know the Germans if anyone does. On Germany's eastern borders lurked the huge Red Army and Air Force; and in the German official mind must have dwelt the suspicion, if not the absolute certainty, that once large Nazi forces were fully committed to ihe invasion attempt, the Red Army would gird up its loins and wade into the fray. Certainly, rather than invade Britain, the Germans turned east to smash the Russian land and air threat. Thus it is well within the realm of possibility that the Red Army had something to do with saving Britain in 1940 and '41.

I mention this speculation to indicate that in this war so far it has been difficult to determine to what extent airpower has won decisions by its own independent action; to what extent armies have functioned successfully as armies, and to what extent navies have .acted independently. In practice, of course thev work together in co-ordinated effort, so far as it can be achieved. That much is plain. But which is the debtor? Which the creditor? Even a study of the various campaigns do not afford us any conclusive answer to those questions.

The invasion of Crete offered proof that under certain conditions air forces could defeat naval forces and effect the capture of an island inadequately defended by air and ground forces. Here for the first time parachute troops were used in large numbers; and. airborne infantry in transports and gliders made their appearance. A prerequisite to their successful use was mastery of the air, which the Germans achieved in two days by shooting down in the air and smashing on the ground the few RAF squadrons based on Crete. When it was evident that the air decision had been lost, the few remaining British air units were withdrawn, after which the Germans operated unopposed in the air, landing enough troops to effect the capture of the island and British evacuation No. 4-No. 3 had been from Greece. British ground troops were forced to surrender or escape in shattered remnants in the few remaining transports and even sailboats, leaving all of their equipment behind.

Overwhelming German air power combined with an air transportation operation, that delivered German troops, machine guns, light tanks, and artillery right on the battleground proved itself an invasion combination superior to the British defense combination of a naval fleet, ground troops, anti-aircraft guns, and a few airplanes. The Germans sank two British cruisers, four destroyers, many merchant ships, defeated an army of 50000 men with some 35000 men landed in Crete. The Germans had 8000 casualties, lost 300 planes. The British lost not only Crete, but all naval and air control of the Aegean Sea, cutting off Turkey and leaving that nation in the new German zone of influence. The first wholly air-borne invasion in history had resulted in enormous strategical gains at comparatively small cost in men and material.

NEW ERA IN WARFARE

The Battle of Crete undoubtedly marks the beginning of a new era in warfare, foreshadowed as it was by the use of similar tactics on a smaller scale in Norway, Holland, and Belgium. Such vertical investment, however, depends initially upon the gaining of air masterv and the development of a situation where the invader can assure continuous supply and reinforcement of his own forces while denying them to the opponent. To jump to the conclusion that it can be used anywhere against any opponent would be unsound. But the lesson is plain that surface forces, whether of sea or land, are incapable alone of defending territory against which an opponent can hurl superior airpower. With control of the air and the requisite air transport, the attacker must be able to deliver to the invasion area a greater force than the defender can bring to bear in the same space of time, or make up for lack of such ground force by direct air action. Without such assurance, an air invasion would be more likely to tail than to succeed.

In the Battle of Russia, for example, neither opponent as vet possesses the airpower necessary to duplicate the Crete invasion, although parachute troops have been used to attack many objectives behind the lines. If or when the time comes that either Russia or Germany gains marked air superiority, if not air mastery, we may see the tactics of Crete used on a large scale and in many sectors at the same time. Smashing-frontal attacks on positions defensive in depth pile up casualties in men and wastage in material so enormous that a vertical invasion behind that protected front may be deemed well worth the risk, even though the invader has not air mastery, but only a preponderance of aircraft. The presence of a considerable ground force landed in the rear of strongly held lines must exert on the defending army a disruptive power far in excess of its physical striking ability. It can at once cut that army off from its communications, forcing it to fight its way back to its own supplies, and thus withdrawing or weakening the front it held before such back-area invasion was effected. If such maneuvers are carried out in several areas at once, the result must be to render such areas mere islands of opposition scattered along the front. It would be the air equivalent of the German ground pincer movement. It would be a ground-air column of penetration along a strongly-held front, able to attack at any point, irrespective of the strength of the forces holding the front, for it would simply tiy over such forces, which could not come into action until they knew at what points in the rear the invader would be established.

The Russo-German war is primarily a land war, airpower, while a vital factor, is used in support of the ground forces. Both air forces operate from bases behind and protected by their armies. Without this around shield, either opponent could advance along the wound and capture the air bases of the other; for no air force yet in existence has within its own organization the ability to protect ground. If the. army is driven back, the air force operating behind that army must retreat to bases further back as British, German, and Italian air forces alternately have been doing for two years in Libya. It seems evident that without the opposition of the Russian armies the German armies would have had a clear road to Moscow in 1941, despite anything the Red Air Force could do to stop them. And without the German army to block its path, the Russian army could have invaded Germany. Air forces powerful enough to smash everything on the ground, including armies with their ability to disperse and offer only scattered targets, do not exist today. In the present stage of their development, armies fight armies, air forces fight air forces. Both act in support of the other. Both are necessary.

to be continued

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Dive-bombing approaches

2007-09-23T18:21:00.000-07:00

The diagrams illustrate possible dive-bombing approaches in (1) clear weather, (2) when there are some clouds, (3) when there is an unbroken layer of clouds.

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Dive bombing

2007-09-23T16:11:00.000-07:00

A major part of the aerial warfare in the present conflict has been carried out by means of dive bombing. Originated by the U.S. Navy, it was chiefly developed by America, Great Britain and France, for use against naval vessels. The Germans have very successfully used dive-bombing tactics against every object that could be destroyed or damaged by bomb hits.

Dive-bombing as we understand it is the release of a bomb or bombs while the airplane is diving at a steep angle towards the target. It gives two primary advantages to the bomb. First, the speed of the dive gives added acceleration to the bomb, and the effect is that penetration of the bomb is equivalent to that of a larger bomb released in level flight at a higher altitude. Second, the partial aiming effect carries the bomb with more accuracy to the target, although it is also true that after being released no bomb travels on a straight trajectory. It is evident tliat there is one point along the final dive which will produce the rfiost accurate results, but this point in turn depends upon the airplane used, the type and weight of bomb released, the weather conditions, the size of the target, whether stationary or fixed, and the type and concentration of anti-aircraft fire.

The diagrams show dive-bombing tactics under three types of weather conditions.

Dive-bombers are most vulnerable while they are making their final aiming dive bringing them down as low as 1,000 feet, during which time they are on a sustained flight path, are nearest to anti-aircraft gun defenses and therefore offer a larger target. Further, they cannot maneuver in this stage.

The tactics used by the various air forces in dive-bombing vary according to the planes employed, the type of target to be attacked, weather conditions, and several other considerations. Obviously the specific technique used in most recent combat cannot be revealed. Generally speaking, modern dive-bombing has taken the following pattern, as outlined by a foreign military expert.

The first phase is a spiral from about 10,000 feet down to 1,500 feet, the time consumed being around 90 seconds, at an assumed speed of 120 yards per second. In pliase two the horizontal speed is reduced to 40 yards per second, while maneuvering into position for attack. The flight course during this second phase is at 30 to 40 degrees to the direction of the final dive and the time consumed about 10 seconds. The actual dive comes under phase three at an angle of about 70 degrees to the target and lasts 7 seconds. At the beginning of the dive the target is 1,500 yards distant and at the end, only about 600 yards. Releasing the bomb and pulling out (phase four) takes no more than 2 seconds and the spiral getaway and climb (phase five) 90 seconds.

An analysis of this technique shows that only during phases one and five has the pilot complete control of maneuverability and therefore the ability to avoid anti-aircraft fire. The reduction of speed during pliase two also upsets anti-aircraft fire predictions. The greatest danger for the attacking airplane is in phase three, when the flight path is directly in line with the bullets and shells from the A.A. fire. Phase four is of too short duration for anti-air-craft to be effective.

The most serious obstacle to accurate dive-bombing which a pilot has to contend with is the wind. He must allow for this variable factor while aiming. It is precisely this wind factor that causes the greatest error in high-level bombing. In fact, there is now a tendency towards low-level bombing altogether. The Germans have prepared for this by constructing anti-aircraft towers at strategic points and in their cities; since normal anti-aircraft guns mounted on the ground cannot follow low flying aircraft more than a few seconds. There is a further advantage in low-altitude bombing in that fighter planes cannot dive down upon the bombers, nor can they be followed or seen so readily. These tactics have been employed by the British in successive raids upon the Continent, and by our own American Air Forces in its first Tokio raid. It appears nevertheless that there is a field for every type of bombing, high-level mass attacks, low-level darting stabs for greater accuracy and dive-bombing at specific targets. But even these tactics may be replaced by others as new equipment and ideas are developed.

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Primer detonators

2007-09-23T16:00:00.000-07:00

There are two general types of primer detonators, each type including both instantaneous and delay action detonators.

Type A has a standard shotgun cartridge head as the primer, which depends upon the blow of the firing pin to fire it. The primer composition, once aflame, ignites the uncompressed black powder in the outer retard carrier (instantaneous action type). The flame is then further transmitted to a small black powder pellet which has been compressed under a weight of 1,000 lb. and from there to a fulminate chlorate detonator. Detonation of the latter brings about explosion of the booster charge.

In the 0.05 second delay action primer detonator, the flame from the primer first ignites a mass of highly compressed black powder in the inner retard carrier (compression about 60,000 lb.). From there the flame is transmitted to the uncompressed black powder in the outer retard carrier, then to the small pellet of black powder (1,000 lb. compression), and finally to the mercury fulminate and tetryl held in the detonator case.

Type B has a solid head type of primer, which also requires a blow from the firing pin for ignition. Type B instantaneous action primer detonator transmits its flame from the primer composition to the black powder pellets in the body of the primer detonator. The flame follows through to one small pellet of powder (600 lb. compression) and thence to the mercury fulminate and tetryl contained in the detonator case.

For the 0.1 second delay action detonator the flame from the primer composition first ignites the black powder pellet contained in the retard carrier (60,000 lb. compression). This pellet requires about 0.1 second burning time. The flame is then transmitted to the black powder pellets, and further to a smaller black powder pellet (600 lb. compression) both contained in the body of the detonator. The final stage is ignition of the mercury fulminate and tetryl contained in the case, which in turn fires the booster charge.

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Bomb fuses

2007-09-23T15:55:00.000-07:00

Bomb fuses consist of two classifications, nose and tail fuses. Both are of two types, the arming vane type and the arming pin type. All demolition bombs carry both the nose and tail fuses. All fragmentation and chemical bombs carry the nose fuses of the arming vane type only. When a bomb is equipped with an instantaneous primer detonator, the nose fuse will cause it to explode immediately upon impact, as it is direct acting. The tail fuse depends upon the retardation of the bomb upon impact, so that the functioning of a tail fuse is somewhat delayed.

Bomb fuses of all types are in an unarmed or safe position before the bomb is released from an airplane. Mechanical devices prevent the firing pin from moving and striking the primer while in this safe position.

The arming pin type of fuse arms immediately upon the release of the bomb and the firing pin and primer or detonator arc actually ready at that moment to detonate upon impact. The arming vane type of fuse leaves the bomb in a safe position until the arming vanes have made a definite number of revolutions, after the homb lias fallen some distance from the airplane. In cases where it is necessary to drop bombs over friendly territory, and explosion therefore not desired, the bombs may be dropped "safe" by allowing the arming wire, a wire that connects the arming mechanism of the bomb rack with the fuse, to drop with the bomb. The fuse will not function, and the bomb may be dropped from altitudes of approximately 8,000 feet maximum without detonating. In both the arming vane and arming pin type of fuse, alternate release mechanisms are available that permit the pilot or bombardier to drop the bombs with the arming wire still attached to the bombs. This arming wire, in the case of the arming vane type of fuse, prevents the vane from rotating while the bomb drops, and keeps the fuse in a safe position, even under impact with the ground. Similarly, the arming wire attached to the arming pin type of fuse, if dropped with it, performs the same function.

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Demolition bombs

2007-09-23T15:15:00.000-07:00

The purpose of demolition bombs is clearly indicated by the name itself; they are designed to demolish and destroy enemy objectives by the detonation of its high explosive content, which normally is T.N.T. The blast caused by the detonation is the principal destructive element, this blast causing structures to shake down, walls to crumble, and in general, to break down fortifications, blow up ships, penetrate armored and otherwise protected ground units.

These bombs can be equipped with instantaneous or various 0.05 and 0.1 second delay action fuses. In the case of instantaneous action fuses, the bombs detonate on contact, and there will be added [o the blast effect, the fragmentation of the bomb case itself. These fragments are thrown outward for great distances at tremendous velocities, and they are particularly effective against personnel. Blast is limited to a more local area around the point of bomb explosion, but will cause greater damage. The use of delay action fuses enables bombs to be exploded below the surface of the ground, beneath foundations, through armor plate, and through flooring, and the effect is to accomplish more direct destruction of the target, and in cases where the surface is hit, to produce a mining effect which develops great craters.

Most of the standard demolition bombs today are thinwalled, sufficiently strong only to hold up under impact with the target. The explosive content represents about 50 per cent of the total weight. Heavier walls would reduce the explosive content and consequently the effectiveness, while adding nothing to the net result.

All bombs are more than merely heavy eases containing explosives. Actually, they embody numerous parts, each one of which must function perfectly to assure proper suspension of the bombs in the bomb racks while in flight, proper release as desired by the bombardiers, safety elements which prevent explosion before release, different types of fuses to explode the bomb either on contact with the target or delayed action, and finally, special elements to explode the main explosive charge efficiently, tliese elements composing a series of actions known as the explosive train.

The explosive train is made up of a fuse or fuses, nose or tail or both, which in turn acts upon a primer detonator, the detonation of which actually sets the explosive train in action. The primer detonator's action is transmitted to an adapter booster, which sets off the main explosive charge.

The sensitivity of the train begins with the primer detonator, which is extremely sensitive, since it must react to the comparatively weak blow from the firing pin, while the main explosive charge is more insensitive and must be detonated by an intermediate charge contained in the booster, the name of which denotes its duty.

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Aircraft bombs (introduction)

2007-09-13T07:45:00.000-07:00

The prime requisite for military aircraft is to use their wide and highly mobile striking power to drop bombs of various weights and for various purposes on enemy objectives. Bombs are manufactured in many different weight classifications because military conditions require attack on numerous objectives which require specific types of bombs, and inasmuch as the load capacity of most aircraft is limited, a large number of bombs carried means smaller and lighter ones, and a small number of bombs, larger and heavier ones, by conclusion.

Bombs may be roughly classified in the following groups:

Demolition bombs

Fragmentation bombs

Chemical bombs

Incendiary bombs

Practice bombs

Bombs carry highly interesting and intricate mechanical devices which control detonation and which provide safety elements for the crew and plane and in cases where it is necessary to drop live bombs on friendly territory and it is desired to prevent their explosion. Incorporated with demolition bombs are various mechanical time fuses. Bombs may also be dropped by parachute for the purpose of having them land at points remote from the plane which dropped them, and as suprise attacks on the enemy. Among parachute equipment is such havoc making material as mines of different types.

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Kendall Refining Company (ad)

2007-09-13T07:25:00.000-07:00

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A Typical Installation of Twin Vickers guns

2007-09-13T01:31:00.000-07:00

A Typical Installation of Twin Vickers guns showing their synchronising gear, ammunition boxes, feed arrangements and sights (click to enlarge).

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Aircraft armament

2007-09-13T01:13:00.000-07:00

by Louis Bruchiss

With World War II being dominated more and more by fighting aircraft of all kinds, it is quite natural that the interest of our readers is centered on military airplanes. It is even more natural that this interest fixes itself more specifically on the equipment of military aircraft; the weapons with which they fight and defend themselves.

In recent years the performance characteristics of airplanes have been radically improved, reliable flying at tremendous speeds has been attained, more powerful engines have increased the range and useful load capacities, multiengined ships have appeared that equal in speed and maneuverability and surpass in other qualities the pursuit ships of a few years ago.

To expert and layman alike, the status of the fighting apparatus in use is eagerly sought; a very pertinent question that is asked is: "What aircraft weapons are there, what effect are they having now and what will the future bring?"

A brief review of what has preceded since the airplane became a military tool is not amiss here.

Even in the beginning of the first world war, airplanes, balloons and dirigibles were employed for observation purposes, liason work and, in isolated instances, for smoke screen effects. The first war planes were merely army cooperation units, observing and directing artillery fire and taking air photos of enemy terrain. The planes were light, slow, and generally unreliable. Development, meaning improvements fostered by wartime urgency, was rapid, however. Belligerent airplanes naturally wanted each other out of the air. Early world war Hyers had only pistols as weapons, and these really were for ground use in case of emergency. It was discovered that it was possible to shoot witli a pistol, and eventually with a rifle, at an enemy plane. Whether any hits were scored by these weapons is not recorded. The results, however, must have been discouraging, for light machine guns made their appearance in short order; the first mounted on swivel posts in rear observation cockpits, and sometimes high enough to fire ahead of the upper wing outside the propeller circle. Single-seater fighters had their machine gun mounted in this manner, and the pilot was forced to stand up to fire his gun. This was not too difficult in 1914 vintage planes. In a modern fighter, even an exposed cockpit is unthinkable.

Ever since the airplane first made its appearance, it was predicted that it would be utilized to drop bombs.

Confidence in this mission was quite high, despite the fact that innumerable difficulties had to be overcome. Early planes, constructed as they were of light, open framework materials, and powered by comparatively low output and none too dependable engines, had very little useful load capacity. In demonstration aviation meetings, these planes often dropped bags of flour and oranges in simulated bombing attacks.

The first aerial bombs were crude hand made affairs, built in cylindrical metal containers, and even in glass bottles, which airmen simply threw over the side at enemy troops. Among bombing material were steel darts feathered at the end to be thrown over in showers, and they were effective if they ever hit personnel. They were soon discontinued in 1914, and then in November of that year, grenades and incendiaries were used in the Battle of Mons. Early bombs were almost as dangerous to the crew and plane carrying them as to the enemy who was to receive them. Bombs could explode prematurely before hitting the target, and "duds," were common.

The Italians dropped real bombs from airplanes in their campaign in Tripoli in 1912. These first bombs were converted from some other type of ammunition, and being small, were effective only against personnel. But as the size and lifting capacity of the airplane increased, the number of bombs that could be carried increased, until either a significant group of small bombs could be carried, or one single large mass of explosive.

The first bombs made in the United States during the last war were based on a French design, known as the Gros Andreau bombs, which were brought here in July 1917. At first the design and manufacture of three types was undertaken, the 25-lb., 50-lb., and 100-lb. demolition bombs. These were all of streamlined design. By 1918 our army had specified bombs in additional weights up to 1,100-lb.

Our first fragmentation bombs were made from rejected 3-inch artillery shells, weighing 17-lb. Later fragmentation bombs were based on the "British Cooper bomb of 25-lb., a streamlined missile.

Bombs were made in streamlined body form because it was thought that the ballistics would be favorably affected, that a more accurate trajectory would be assured. Bombs in free flight, however, are not shells rotating at high speed, propelled with tremendous force through rifled gun barrels. Actually, streamlining oi bombs did nothing to improve their trajectory characteristics and later day practice is to make them in cylindrical form. This simplifies manufactuie.

From an embryonic stage at the beginning of the first world war, airplane armament advanced so rapidly that at the end of the war in 1918, all the weapons existing today liad passed through the early stages of experimentation. Guns of 37-mm. bore were experimentally mounted by the French to fire through the propeller hub of the Flispano-Suiza engine. The French ace, Guynemer, and the American fiver, Norman Prince, tried this installation for a time, as did Fonck.

A number of victories were recorded before the Germans even discovered that shell guns were being used, as few pilots who were shot down with the cannon ever returned to explain. The reason that the use ol large bore shell firing guns was discontinued was due to the fact that mountings were poor, gun and ammunition too heavy, firing rate very slow and recoil excessive. Unless a direct hit was made with the first shot, the enemy would bank around and riddle the cannon-equipped plane with machine gun fire. In the last war, machine gun bullets were extremely effective, as the pilot and most of the plane was quite vulnerable.

Pilots in the last war had no armor protection, although they often bewailed the lack of it. The limited useful load of the fighting planes of that time did not permit the carrying of heavy armor. Some pilots surreptitiously took along stove lids to place on their seats, and other odd pieces of metal plate. Free type parachutes were not developed until the war had ended, and the types used by balloon ists and aerial daredevils were not, suitable for fighting pilots. Pilots must jump out of their planes in a hurry if incendiaries fired their exceptionally vulnerable gas tanks, when wing coverings were ripped off, or when wounded and the necessity of making a crash landing was imminent.

Of the two types of aircraft guns, fixed and free, both were used as soon as machine guns were installed on planes in 1914. Fixed guns were mounted alongside the fuselage on twin-engined planes; on the British B.E. type of tractor plane, even at an angle to the line of flight, so that fire would clear the propeller arc. This meant that the pilot had to maneuver his plane in one direction and fire in another. To obviate this great disadvantage, the French aviator Garros, and several other world war flyers, used fuselage mounted machine guns firing straight through the propeller without any form of interrupter gear. Steel plates fixed to the leading edges of the propeller blades deflected a certain percentage of the bullets. This method was generally unsatisfactory.

The most radical and important development in air weapons was the synchronizing gear which enabled the machine guns to be mounted flush with the fuselage in front of the pilot and fire through the propeller blades. The gun mechanism was geared with the engine so that shots were spaced nearly between the whirling blades.

Vickers began experimenting with interrupter mechanism as early as 1915, and several types were sent out on Bristol fighters in the following year. The German mechanism was far superior, having been developed by Anthony H. G. Fokker in a three day period in 1915.

Fokker accomplished his ingenious feat with a mechanical device that locked the firing mechanism of the gun as each propeller blade approached the line of lire. When the blade passed this point, the gun began firing again, assuming that the trigger was held down meanwhile. In this system, cams and push rods connected to the engine operated the firing mechanism. But in 1916, Georges Constantinesco, a Rumanian engineer, assisted the British in building an efficient interrupter or synchronizing mechanism based on the hydraulic system.

During the last war, A. L. Nelson developed a mechanical interrupter gear for the U. S. army, which was highly successful, although the war ended before many of them saw service. Mr. Glenn D. Angle, as an engine expert, collaborated in the development of this device, which formed the basis for all later U. S. synchronization gear.

Modern versions are very similar, with improvements only in the apparatus used. A pneumatic system has also functioned satisfactorily, although the hydraulic method of allowing small impulse generators attached to the engine to control pulsations of oil under pressure has also proved efficient. Synchronization limited the rate of fire of the machine guns then just as it does today. In 1914-1918, however, the engine r.p.m. was lower, and this, coupled with a machine gun rate of fire lower than on free guns, resulted in a total cyclic firing rate that was quite low.

Aircraft guns in the last war were standard land machine guns, usually fitted with speeding up equipment or recoil increasers which built up the rate of fire. In land guns a high firing rate is not always desired. In the air the higher the firing rate, the better. The free guns used by rear gunners and observers were also converted land guns, but because the hanging cartridge belts interfered with the movements of the gunner, the British adopted the Lewis gun as their free gun, and still use it today as the standard movable gun.

The mounting of free guns in rear cockpits and forward cockpits of twin engined ships was a great problem in 1914. Simple swivel post mountings were unsatisfactory, and in an attempt to improve mountings, an experimental airplane was supplied to each R.F.C. squadron, so that any ideas that the pilots had could be tried immediately. W. 0. Scarff, R.N.A.S., developed a ring type mounting that was highly efficient, and taken as standard equipment during the war. A modified form of Scarff mounting is still being used, supplanted only by power turrets.

The war's end saw a complete stop to armament development. Aircraft stagnated for a time, and it was only by dint of hard work on the part of enthusiastic flyers and farsighted business men that commercial aviation helped to keep the flame of flying alive. The progress of the past decade requires no repetition. Both airplanes and the weapons which make them military machines have reached a stage that necessitates the air forces taking a leading place as a military arm, with ground and sea forces cooperating on an equal footing.

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Curtiss Electric Propellers (ad)

2007-09-07T17:10:00.000-07:00

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The meaning of Soviet aviation

2007-09-07T16:59:00.000-07:00

by Lucien Zacharoff

In its life-and-death grapple with the Luftwaffe on the Eastern Front, the Red Air Force has done more than smash forever the myth of Nazi invincibility. It has registered tactical and strategic exploits that will shine as long as history of aerial warfare remains of interest to mankind. Indeed, those achievements will outlast preoccupation with military history and will live as long as appreciation of sublime courage and moral stamina endures.

That this Soviet performance in the air is also a reflection of phenomenal aviation advances for years before the outbreak of World War II is quite obvious today. Had the full story of Soviet aerial preparedness been known to us in good time, our own course in world affairs, diplomatic and military, would have been utterly different.

Every now and then a glimmer of truth would come and receive but scant attention. For instance, early in 1940 the first edition of AEROSPHERE had offered details of performance and specifications of the twin-engined Soviet TB-6 bomber. The machine carried a 6,600-pound load of explosives and made 310 miles an hour at 26,240 feet. Nor was it the latest Russian specimen. Among the very few perspicacious commentators to note the significance of the TB-6 revelations was Devon Francis, then Associated Press Aviation Editor, who exclaimed in his review: "Sensational"! Please note that the year was 1940, that America was rushing headlong into the bloody vortex of the global war, and that at that late stage there was no further recognition of Russia aeronautically in our responsible aviation circles.

Over a period of years I strove, unheeded, to tell of the Soviet flying progress, step by step, in the aviation journals, general newspapers and periodicals in America, England and elsewhere, so that our industry, public and authorities might keep intelligently posted and make an informed approach to the grave problems precipitated by the rising tide of fascist imperialism.

But mine remained a small, still voice in the wilderness. There was no respectable seconder to be found for my facts and conclusions. On the contrary, in an overwhelming majority, fellow writers and editors would gang up on me, either through a conspiracy of silence or of ridicule and insinuation that here was a specimen of evil incarnate, alias Red propagandist.

To be sure, there were publishers willing to print the truth about Soviet aviation at least once, though they themselves gave little credence to the stuff, presenting it to the readers as a freakish novelty with no other than flitting entertainment value.

In part, the campaign to minimize and obscure the Soviet Union's aeronautical accomplishments may be attributed to sheer ignorance and insular apathy, but very largely it had far more subtle and sinister implications. Let's glance over them to make sure that in these critical war times and the equally delicate'era of post-war readjustment we may not repeat the same tragic errors of misunderstanding which is apt to hurt us more than anyone else.

Preparing for their drive to conquer the world, the fascist forces of Europe and Asia and their accomplices in our own midst had shown incomparably greater foresight than their intended victims among the nations in realizing that the greatest barrier to the blitz aggression was to be the land of the Soviets. Hence, the Axis fifth columns organized a planetwide program of sowing distrust and destruction of mutual confidence, of respect and collaboration between the future United Nations and their most effective potential ally, the U.S.S.R.

Inasmuch as air. power was such a dominant factor in modern warfare, alien and native Nazis on our soil strained with all their might to belittle the numbers and quality of the hard-hitting, effective Red fighting aircraft and their highly trained, intelligent and loyal crews. As long as the enemy lies enjoyed the status of truth,'Hitler & Co. serenely proceeded in knocking out their victims one by one. For, what was the use of enlisting the Soviet Union as an ally if a few squadrons of Goering's Air Weapon could blast to bits, overnight, all there was to the Red Air Force? Had not Lindbergh said that there was no Russian air force worth taking seriously? Was it not better to appease and do business with the Fuehrer if, within a week after his anti-Russian incursion, he was going to make a triumphant entry into Moscow and sleep in the Kremlin?

Luckily for the cause of the Four Freedoms, the Soviet Government and people knew that compromise with fascism was impossible in the long run either for capitalist democracies or for their own socialist democracy. The Soviets acted accordingly. Their message to the freedom-loving countries of the world was in effect: If we don't hang together, we shall hang separately. The present Soviet Ambassador to the

United States, Maxim Litvinoff, then head of the Foreign Office, spent many pre-war years preaching the gospel of collective security in the League of Nations and everywhere else. Stalin and his associates frankly pleaded with the nations that cherished their national independence to band together for economic sanctions against Mussolini's savagery in Ethiopia. They wanted to curb, in concert with other governments, Japan at the beginning of her depredations in China. Also in vain were the exertions of Ivan Maisky, Soviet Ambassador in London, to induce the democracies to present a united front to the Axis rape of Spain during the Franco rebellion.

Stalin and his people did not confine themselves to diplomatic appeals. Realistically, they went ahead building up their army, navy and air force. With equal realism these master strategists had grasped soon after the armistice of 1918 the fundamental fact, namelv, that in future international conflicts air forces 'would be pre-eminent.

Lacking nothing in the way of strategic raw materials, manpower resources, or enthusiastic recognition of aviation's role in war and peace. Soviet Russia became the world's most air-minded nation, placing flying within the reach of all interested citizens who were qualified mentally and physically. Such vision and pioneering has stood the U.S.S.R. in good stead when faced with the Wehrmacht onslaught in 1941 and since. Will the future historians say that the tangible Russian air-mindedness for a generation before the opening of World War II hostilities was the principal factor in frustrating Hitler's outspoken ambition to have this war determine whether Naziism was to rule all continents and oceans for the next 1,000 vears?

In recalling the status of aviation in the Soviet Union before the war we need only mention that in addition to an enormously advanced industry, air sports, such as parachuting and gliding, were as popular in every corner of the country as baseball is in America. Thanks to the Osoaviakhim, the civilian society for the promotion of aviation and anti-chemical defense, the air is a native element for millions of men and women, boys and girls.

Remember the thrilling landing at the North Pole in May 1937, of a whole group of Soviet transports commanded by Hero of the Soviet Union Vodopyanoff? And the same year two transpolar flights from Moscow to the United States- one by Chkaloff, Bavdukoff and Beliakoff, the other by Gromoff, Yumashev and Danilin, Heroes of the Soviet Union all!

And still the same year- 1937 alone- Soviet airmen registered eighteen different world records with the International Aeronautical Federation, the number for one year in itself constituting a world record.

It is not for the purpose of a comprehensive survey that I am mentioning- some of the Russian flying accomplishments, but in order to remind the American friends of the U.S.S.R. that they are dealing with an aviation power quite adjusted to this age of human flight and consequently not only capable of formidable cooperation with its allies in wartime, but also prepared psychologically and physically to assume a leading part in the peaceful reconstruction of the world when air transportation and other aeronautical activities will come into their own on a scale of which we can now scarcely dream.

A child of the great November Revolution of 1917, Russian aircraft industry started from scratch, tapping the huge resources of Russian inventive genius and other national talents essential to progressive development of aeronautics. Brilliant research combined with far-sighted public-spirited statesmanship, plus strategic concepts and insight worthy of the greatest military captains of history, have endowed the Soviets with splendid planes and engines. A courageous forward-looking people has yielded legions of skilled flying specialists, competent ground crews, keenly interested and actively participating citizenry of all ages and in all walks of life. This is a setup that we in the United States admire and appreciate, especially in its framework of Russia's unsparing devotion to the cause of the United Nations, devotion indelibly written in blood.

Source: "Aerosphere-1942". Buy this issue at Amazon.com.

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2007-09-07T12:58:00.000-07:00

Source: "Aerosphere-1942". Buy this issue at Amazon.com.

Major General W.R.Weaver

2007-09-07T11:43:00.000-07:00

Born in Charleston, S. C., February 23, 1885. Graduated from United States Military Academy, appointed second lieutenant. Infantry, February 14, 1908, assigned to llth Infantry, Fort D. A. Russell (now Francis E. Warren), Wyom. In July, 1910, transferred to 28th Infantry, Fort Snelling, Minn., and in May 1912 to 24th Infantry in the Philippines. In October 1914, accompanied 15th Infantry to Tientsin, China. First lieutenant, December 4, 1915. Served with 22nd Infantry, Fort Thomas, Ky., until March 1917. Commandant of Flying Cadets, Wilbur Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio. Captain, May 15, 1917, and major (temporary), November 5, 1917. From February 1918 to January 1919 commanded Air Service Mechanics School, St. Paul, Minn. Office of Director of Air Service, Washington, D. C. Major, July 1, 1920. September 1920 to March 1921 attended Air Corps Primary Flying School and Advanced Flying School, March Field, Calif. Bombardment training, Kelly Field, Tex. Office of Chief of Air Service, Washington, D. C., until December 14, 1921. Commandant at Mitchel Field, N. Y., until July 1923. After Commanding Officer, Boston Airport, course at Harvard University until June 1924. Commandant at Boiling Field, D. C., and Middletown Air Intermediate Depot, Middletown, Pa., until April 1927. Special observation course. Advanced Flying School, Kelly Field, Tex. Commanding Officer, Maxwell Field, Ala. Office of Chief of Air Corps, Washington, D. C., as Chief of Plans Division. Lieutenant colonel. August 1, 1932. Army Industrial College, D. C. Office of Chief of Air Corps as Chief of Information Division. Air Corps procurement planning representative in N. Y. April 1935, Inspector, General Headquarters Air Force, Langley Field, Va. Colonel (temporary), February 15, 1936, and four months later made Commanding Officer, 1st Air Base, Langley Field. Colonel (permanent), May 7, 1937. Maxwell Field, Ala., as Commanding Officer of Air Corps Tactical School in April, 1939. Brigadier general (temporary), October 1, 1940. Commanding Officer, Southeast Air Corps Training Center, Montgomery, Ala., December 17, 1940. Major general (temporary), July 11, 1941. Acting Chief of Air Corps, Washington, D. C., December 30, 1941. Commanding Air Forces Technical Training Command, Southern Pines, N. C., March 7, 1942.

TECHNICAL TRAINING COMMAND

The United States is creating the world's largest air force. For every plane that our vast Air Forces will require, there must be a number of skilled mechanics on the ground to service and repair these planes. The task of the Army Air Forces Technical Tracing Command is to indoctrinate and train, all officers and men necessary to perform the vital ground and technical functions for the Army Air Forces.

"Keep 'em flying" not only symbolizes flying the planes, but it also means keeping the planes in perfect fighting condition. It is the all-important job of the Technical Training Command to provide the highly skilled technicians who are necessary to keep America's fighting craft in the air and in fighting trim.

A plane that cannot fly is one of the most useless things in the world, and planes will not fly unless they have sufficient ground crews of expert mechanics for proper maintenance. There is, and, must continue to be, a mutual respect, admiration, and. trust between the mechanic and the pilot. It would be fatal for a pilot to have a shaken faith in the men who have charge of the maintenance of his ship. When a plane leaves the ground, the pilot must KNOW that the men who conditioned his ship before it took off were skilled, thorough, and dependable. It is the responsibility of the Technical Training Command to see that the individuals who make up the ground crews ate trained to efficiently perform their assigned duties.

As recently as 1938 the Technical Training Command had but one school, Chanute Field, at which only three technical subjects were taught. In a little more than two years the command has expanded, from a handful of schools to include more than 100 at the present time. These schools give instruction in some twenty-two essential and highly technical courses in "airplane maintenance. Some of these courses are given at Air Force Schools; others in civilian mechanic schools; still others in aircraft factories. All, Jiowever, are under the jurisdiction of the Technical Training Command. Their goal is to turn out the maximum number of trained technicians in the minimum amount of time.

An effort is made to give the finest instruction obtainable. Similar courses in civilian life would cost the student several thousand dollars. Out of these courses of instruction must come the men with the ability to guarantee the combat crew fi.gh.ting aircraft which will not fail.

The selection of these soldier-craftsm.en of the Technical Training Command must be as careful as their training. Tests devised by practical personnel experts must assure the Technical Training Command a steady supply of men with real mechanical aptitude—men from every walk. of life who share the great American, genius for mechanics. These men have to be imbued with a deep sense of responsibility. They should need no reminder that theirs is an important assignment. It is essential that they go to their posts with trained hands and strong bodies.

The motto of the Technical Training Command is "Sustineo Alas" (I sustain the wings). Wherever American planes are sent, our mechanics will keep 'em flying. This trust which the Nation has placed in the hands of tizesc men will be safeguarded with zeal.

Major General W.R.Weaver
Commanding the AAF Technical Training Command

Source: "Aerosphere-1942". Buy this issue at Amazon.com.