Case Studies in the Achievement of Air Superiority - Air Force ...

LESSONS BEFORE WORLD WAR I1
arm could play a prominent role in achieving blitzkrieg victory. At the same
moment, however, this did not mean that the Luftwaffe would act simply
as handmaiden to the Army. The new Luftwaffe leadership wrestled with
questions of strategic bombardment versus traditional army support tasks
like their counterparts in other nations. Gen. Walther Wever, the Air Force
Chief of Staff before his death in 1936, produced a paper entitled “Conduct
of the Air War,” in which he advocated that Luftwaffe employment should
reflect the general dimensions of national grand strategy. The air arm’s particular
role in doing so would include attainment and maintenance of air
superiority, support of both army and navy, attacks on enemy industry, and
interdiction of enemy logistics between battlefield and homefr~nt.~’
Wever stressed in his 1935 paper that achievement of air superiority
preceded all other missions for the Air Force. But he noted the transitory
and elusive nature of air superiority. The changing technical capability of
aircraft, new production, and combat losses would cause air superiority to
pass back and forth in battle between Germany and an enemy. Striking the
enemy homeland’s industries and civil population, suggested Wever, might
actually prolong a war past that propitious moment for attaining quick victory
because it would involve the use of those precious air resources
needed to affect the land battle. Thus, for Wever, the role of strategic bom-
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