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

AIR SUPERIORITY
fronting the commander in search of air superiority are formidable. There
are so many factors to take into account that the prudent leader will welcome
whatever assistance he can get from published doctrine. If it does
nothing else, doctrine should alert him to what some of the probable variables
will be and where to look for problems. Unfortunately, doctrine has a
distressing tendency to harden into dogma. Solutions workable and helpful
yesterday may be outdated or superseded by new conditions today.
As the late, great Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once put it, “to rest
upon a certainty is a slumber which, prolonged, means death.” In the case
of aerial combat, this is often literally true. Any tactical advance introduced
by the enemy must be countered with a corresponding response, or
the loss rate will soar. This puts a premium on the rigor with which the air
arm’s leadership improves the procedure for perfecting doctrine and the
extent to which it encourages perceptive individuals to translate their
observations into the raw materials of doctrine. An example from the
Luftwaffe will illustrate this readily.
The experience of the Nazi Kondor Legion in the Spanish Civil War
led to important improvements in Luftwaffe fighter tactics as a result of
Werner Molder’s perceptive after-action reports. The reports analyzed the
defects in the prevailing “vic” or three-plane formation and led to the
substitution of the highly successful “finger four” formation with two
units of two aircraft each. This gave the Germans a significant tactical
advantage until it was belatedly adopted by most other air forces. In short,
one observant individual who is capable of thinking the problem through
and has a capacity for effective communication, can make a great deal
of difference. But does the system for providing fighter pilots encourage
such individuals? In an age when available technology presses hard on
the physiological limits of man in the cockpit, the commander must make
a special effort to identify, nourish, and develop those individual pilots
who are capable of withstanding the physical demands of high performance
aircraft and at the same time can reflect constructively on the everevolving
character of their calling and successfully communicate their
insights to those who formulate doctrine. Eddie Rickenbacker in World I
made many of the same observations Molders did and went on to become
an ace, but his insights on aerial combat were not integrated into doctrine.
In the struggle for air superiority, this marked a failure on the part of
command.
A more common failure is the neglect of sound doctrine by those who
give lip service to it. Here again an example from the Luftwaffe will illustrate
the point. The manuals of the German Air Force, newly reconstituted
by the Nazi government in the 1930s, clearly articulated the doctrine of air
superiority: the priority objective was the enemy air force, whether it was
to be found in the air, on the ground, or in the factory. But regardless of
what the manuals said, Germany’s geographical situation virtually dictated
622