Strike From the Sky: The History of Battlefield Air Attack, 1910-1945

4. Great War Air Support in Retrospect

4 Great War Air Support in Retrospect Aircraft and Operations As with the development of the air superiority fighter and the long-range bomber, the experience of close air support and battlefield air interdiction operations in the First World War influenced not only the conduct of actual combat operations during the war itself, but thinking and planning for the future. Taken as a whole, the record of military air combat operations in the war contributed to what French Marshal Henri Petain referred to as "the capital importance of aviation" in military affairs.39 The characteristics of close air support and battlefield air interdiction aircraft and operations had been defined in this war, and would be elaborated upon in the future; basically, the desirable design characteristics for CAS and BAI aircraft pointed to armored aircraft equipped with multiple machine guns and racks for bombs, capable of attaining high speed and operating with great maneuverability and agility (the latter being the ability to transition from one flight condition as rapidly as possible to anotherl. Already a growing split was occurring between proponents of multiseat-and eventually multiengine as well-aircraft "dedicated" to close air support and battlefield air interdiction, and those who favored modifying air superiority fighters for the role. Some of the weaknesses of slavish adherence to a particular military design philosophy were appearing, weaknesses that would become graver and more unacceptable in subsequent conflicts. For example, the slow army cooperation airplane had already demonstrated that it could not survive 37 38 STRIKE FROM THE SKY the hostile air threat and ground-fire environment likely to exist over a "modern" battlefield. Attempts to operate heavily armed but slow and unmaneuverable aircraft over the front-as with efforts to employ strategic bombers over the actual battle-tended to result in aircraft shot down with no appreciable impact on the land battle. For its part, the air superiority fighter had the ability to evade and overcome enemy air threats, but proved vulnerable to the enemy's ground defenses. Additionally , it often could not carry the amount of weaponry that infantry needed for support. What was needed was a compromise: an aircraft having fighterlike agility together with reasonable payload and selfprotection features such as armor plating-all attributes found in the more successful fighter-bombers of the Second World War. The war demonstrated the interrelationship of air superiority with airto -ground operations. Germany's excellence in support aircraft forces in 1918 was largely offset by the Allies' dominance of the skies; when support aircraft appeared, they had to be constantly vigilant to prevent being shot down not from the ground, but from the air. Then as now, without air superiority, no other airmissions can be performed; pilots are too busy just trying to stay alive. The war had also demonstrated what air-to-ground air strikes could accomplish over the battlefront. During the 1918 offensives, for example, Allied air strikes against advancing German units had in some critical cases substituted for the lack of meaningful Allied resistance on the ground. In part this was because of the airplane's psychological impact; troops under fire from the air for the first time or two tended to react defensively by seeking cover and fleeing the battle area. Subsequent exposure resulted in a hardening, a "getting used to" process, and the seeking of active defensive measures such as installing machine guns with high-angle mounts on vehicles and around bivouac areas. Accordingly, what pilots were able to get away with in 1917 was no longer possible in 1918. Identification and Communications Critical problems revealed themselves in the areas of identification and communications. Infantry that experienced an aircraft attack tended to view all aircraft from that point on as hostile, and to fire upon them. Commanders quickly recognized the importance of aircraft recognition training, but it is easy to understand the tendency of infantry to fire at any plane pointed in their direction. (This, of course, carried over to later The First World War 39 wars.) All aircraft of a design generation tend to look alike to nonexperts; for example, most WW-I biplanes tended to look like other WW-I biplanes, as with most WW-II fighters, and indeed, as many fighters look alike today. Identification cuts both ways, however, and the airmen had great difficulty sorting out where the front began and where friendly forces were located during the war of movement in 1918...