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

AIR SUPERIORITY
high performance “flying machinegun” with a performance radius measured
“in time in the air at full power that is about an hour” with speeds in
excess of 300 miles per hour. This would be the defensive force used
against enemy bombers escaping the American bombardment offensive by
GHQ Air Force. A second type of pursuit wanted by the Air Corps would
be an offensive “air battle cruiser” to accompany the bombers. This aircraft
could be a multi-seat fighter, with an operating range up to 1,000 miles
as well as greater speed than the bombers so as to “accompany or rendezvous
with bombardment when the support of additional fire power is required
by the latter.” Since it sometimes took 5 years to evolve new
aircraft, Arnold once noted, constant experimental and interim models
might be required.s7
This search for modernized materiel forms something of an unsung
chapter in America’s involvement with air superiority. While remaining
detached from Europe’s internal feuding, and even from involvement during
the initial years of a Second World War, the United States profited from
watching foreign technical developments in aircraft. A second heavy
bomber appeared during this period of neutrality, styled the B-24 Liberator
(after rejection of experimental B-15 and B-19 models). The twin-engine
attack bombers like the Douglas A-20 (or DB-7), North American B-25,
and B-26, as well as the Navy’s single-engine Douglas torpedo and dive
bombers also emerged. Most important were Army and Navy attempts to
secure improved pursuit or fighter aircraft for their services. The Navy
found its solution among the Brewster F2A Buffalo and Grumman 4F4
Wildcat aircraft. The Air Corps settled upon the Republic P-35 and subsequent
variants of the famous Curtiss “Hawk” family which ranged from the
P-36 to P-40. All of these models reflected the trend toward all-metal, lowwing
monoplanes with speed and range to meet service requirements.
Other promising Army aircraft on the drawing boards at this time included
the twin-engine Lockheed P-38 and the Bell P-39, though none could equal
first-line European or Japanese counterparts.88
Interestingly enough, the Munich settlement in September 1938 provided
what Arnold later styled the Army Air Corps’ “real Magna Charta”
of independence because it caused President Franklin D. Roosevelt to
actively pursue rearmament and particularly to emphasize aviation in that
rearmament. Roosevelt and his close civilian advisers probably knew or
cared little about the semantic nuances of doctrinal debate within the Air
Corps. They thought in terms of quantity and quality of aircraft with which
to counter threats to national security. Put in simple terms, the American
approach to the concept of air superiority at highest government levels was
typically concerned less with concept and more with production of overwhelming
quantities of what it thought American industry could provide.
American faith in the inherent greatness of its industrial capacity promised
to overcome the qualitative and numerical deficiencies of an Army Air
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