National Experiences - British Commission for Military History

More documents

Recommendations

Info

346 ai r p o w e r in 20 t H Ce n t u ry do C t r i n e s a n d em p l o y m e n t - nat i o n a l ex p e r i e n C e s Later that year, American airpower again played a key role in slowing the onslaught of the Chinese forces that had intervened in the war. However, although airpower could severely hurt the enemy, it could not prevent the Chinese forces from holding a defensive line across the peninsula and stalemating the conflict from 1951 until an armistice was negotiated in 1953. The American military found the Korean War to be an exceptionally frustrating experience. Although the Communist nations had been foiled in their attempt to overrun South Korea, the readiness of Communist China and North Korea to lose vast numbers of soldiers, and the relative lack of strategic nodes and targets in North Korea, meant that American airpower could not have the kinds of effects it had demonstrated in world War II. 32 While Korea was a new type of limited war that was played out on the margins of the American national interest, the extensive use of airpower in that conflict resulted in few new doctrines for American airpower. The indecisive nature of the war convinced American airmen to avoid limited wars if at all possible. So during the 1950s and early 1960s American airpower thought concentrated on the issue of nuclear warfare. The initial delivery method of nuclear weapons was the heavy bomber. With the invention of the hydrogen bomb in the early 1950s a single bomber could carry more firepower than was deployed by all the armed forces of World War II. It was not just an issue of destruction and heavy casualties— such firepower threatened the very existence of civilization. By 1954 the situation became more interesting when America fielded its first tactical nuclear weapons. These bombs, ranging in effect from a few kilotons to 100 kilotons, weighed less than one ton and could easily be carried by a jet fighter bomber. Such small weapons meant that naval aircraft could also be nuclear capable. The army developed artillery pieces that fired small nuclear rounds. Soon the army, Navy and Air Force all began development of a host of missile systems ranging from small tactical cruise missiles to huge intercontinental missiles that could be based in America and send huge warheads onto targets deep in the Soviet Union within an hour of launch. The sheer variety of nuclear weapons made available in the 1950s changed military thinking to accept the idea that a nation might fight a largely conventional war with small nuclear weapons in support, or employ small nuclear weapons as a signal to an aggressor nation as a means of stopping an invasion before total nuclear war was initiated. 33 Vietnam and the Era of Limited War By the late 1950s American strategic and military thinkers realized that an approach to war that emphasized the nuclear holocaust option did not answer the likely threat of small, limited wars initiated outside of Europe by allied or client states of the 32 On the U.S. Air Force response to the Korean War and the issue of limited war see Futrell, Vol. 1. pp. 273-352. 33 For a discussion of U.S. Air Force thinking in this era and the debate about flexible response see Futrell, Volume 2, pp. 39-64.
u.s. air fo r C e do C t r i n e:. tH e se a r C H f o r deCisive effeCt 347 communist powers. An Air Force study headed by Bernard Brodie concluded that the traditional strategy of striking at the enemy’s “sources of national power” might not be applicable in a limited conflict. US Air Force General Weyland, head of the Air Force’s Tactical Air Command, remarked that “we must have adequate tactical air forces in being that are capable of serving as a deterrent to the brush-fire kind of war, just as SAC (Strategic Air Command) is the main deterrent to global war.” 34 By the early 1960s the doctrine of “flexible response” became the American war doctrine and strategy. The United States was to have a variety of options to deal with threats from total nuclear war to the limited “Korea-type” wars. General Maxwell Taylor, special military advisor to President Kennedy and later chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff noted in 1962. .. “Mindful of the awful dangers of atomic warfare, we require a military policy which takes it primary purpose the deterrence of that disaster. At the same time, … it must giver due recognition to the need to cope with many situations short of general war—particularly para-war.” 35 Beginning in the Kennedy presidency, American conventional military forces were again built up as the confrontations between the Western and communist nations began to heat up—especially in Southeast Asia. The doctrine of flexible response would soon be tested in the conflict in Vietnam. When the question of how America ought to respond to North Vietnam’s support of the insurgent movement in South Vietnam arose the Kennedy and Johnson administrations looked to air power as a means of decisively defeating the North Vietnamese. Curtis LeMay, the famous bomber commander of World War II, was chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force in the early 1960s and directed his staff to develop an airpower solution to stopping the North Vietnamese. The Air Force developed a list of 94 strategic targets whose destruction would cripple North Vietnam’s armed forces and military capability. The 94 targets included transportation, industry, command centers, and fuel storage. LeMay and the Air Force believed that the destruction of all these targets in a quick, sharp campaign would quickly force North Vietnam to sue for peace. 36 Academic theorists working for the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, notably Walt Rostow and Assistant Secretary of State William Bundy, favored the use of airpower against North Vietnam and the bombing of the 94 targets advocated by the Air Force. But Rostow and Bundy also advocated a strategy of using bombing as a means of sending signals to the North Vietnamese. The destruction of the target list would be gradual and would escalate in violence until the North Vietnamese gave in to a negotiated settlement. 37 34 Cited in Budiansky, pp. 374-375. 35 Cited in Futrell, Vol. 2, p. 40. 36 Budiansky, pp. 378-379. 37 Donald Milne, Our Equivalent of Guerrilla Warfare: Walt Rostow and the Bombing of North Vietnam, 1961-1968, “Journal of Military History” Vol. 71/1. January 2007, pp. 169-203. See 183.
Page 1:
CIHM Commissione internazionale di
Page 4 and 5:
© 2011 ICMH International Commissi
Page 6 and 7:
Joseph Abboudi - Israele The milita
Page 8 and 9:
8 ai r p o w e r in 20 t H Ce n t u
Page 10 and 11:
10 ai r p o w e r in 20 t H Ce n t
Page 12 and 13:
Page 15 and 16:
pr e s e n ta z i o n i / pr é s e
Page 17 and 18:
Introduzione / Introduction MassiMo
Page 19 and 20:
In t r o d u z I o n e • Av I A z
Page 21 and 22:
Page 23 and 24:
Page 25 and 26:
MassiMo d e Le o n a r d i s * Avia
Page 27 and 28:
In t r o d u c t I o n • Av I At
Page 29 and 30:
Page 31:
Page 34 and 35:
Page 36 and 37:
Page 38 and 39:
Page 40 and 41:
Page 42 and 43:
Page 44 and 45:
Page 46 and 47:
Page 48 and 49:
Page 50 and 51:
Page 52 and 53:
Page 55 and 56:
Ma n u e L ca M b e s e s Jú n i o
Page 57:
As f o r ç A s A r m A d A s b r A
Page 60 and 61:
Page 62 and 63:
Page 64 and 65:
Page 66 and 67:
Page 68 and 69:
Page 70 and 71:
Page 72 and 73:
Page 74 and 75:
Page 76 and 77:
Page 79 and 80:
Pat r i c k fa c o n * Francia L’
Page 81 and 82:
l’ar m é e d e l’air f r a n
Page 83 and 84:
Page 85 and 86:
Page 87 and 88:
Page 89 and 90:
e i n e r po m m e r i n * Between
Page 91 and 92:
e t w e e n “do u h e t I s m”
Page 93 and 94:
Page 95 and 96:
Page 97 and 98:
Page 99 and 100:
Page 101 and 102:
Page 103 and 104:
Page 105 and 106:
Jo H n Pe at y * The Place of Douhe
Page 107 and 108:
tH e pl a C e o f do u H e t: a rea
Page 109 and 110:
Page 111 and 112:
Page 113 and 114:
Page 115 and 116:
Page 117 and 118:
Page 119 and 120:
Page 121 and 122:
tr i a n ta f y L L i a ka i s a r
Page 123 and 124:
o ya l He l l e n i C air fo r C e
Page 125 and 126:
Page 127 and 128:
Page 129 and 130:
Page 131 and 132:
Page 133 and 134:
Page 135 and 136:
Page 137 and 138:
Page 139 and 140:
Page 141:
Page 144 and 145:
Page 146 and 147:
Page 148 and 149:
Page 150 and 151:
Page 152 and 153:
Page 154 and 155:
Page 156 and 157:
Page 158 and 159:
Page 160 and 161:
Page 162 and 163:
Page 164 and 165:
Page 166 and 167:
Page 168 and 169:
Page 170 and 171:
Page 172 and 173:
Page 174 and 175:
Page 176 and 177:
Page 178 and 179:
Page 180 and 181:
Page 182 and 183:
Page 184 and 185:
Page 186 and 187:
Page 188 and 189:
Page 190 and 191:
Page 192 and 193:
Page 194 and 195:
Page 196 and 197:
Page 198 and 199:
Page 200 and 201:
Page 202 and 203:
Page 204 and 205:
Page 207 and 208:
o L f d e Wi n t e r * Paesi Bassi
Page 209 and 210:
a Ce n t u ry o f mi l i ta ry av i
Page 211 and 212:
Page 213 and 214:
Page 215 and 216:
Page 217 and 218:
Page 219 and 220:
Page 221 and 222:
Page 223 and 224:
Page 225 and 226:
Page 227:
Page 230 and 231:
Page 232 and 233:
Page 234 and 235:
Page 236 and 237:
Page 238 and 239:
Page 240 and 241:
Page 242 and 243:
Page 244 and 245:
Page 246 and 247:
Page 248 and 249:
Page 250 and 251:
Page 252 and 253:
Page 254 and 255:
Page 256 and 257:
Page 258 and 259:
Page 260 and 261:
Page 262 and 263:
Page 264 and 265:
Page 266 and 267:
Page 268 and 269:
Page 271 and 272:
tH e a n Po t G i e t e r * - de r
Page 273 and 274:
tH e so u t H af r i C a n air fo r
Page 275 and 276:
Page 277 and 278:
Page 279 and 280:
Page 281 and 282:
Page 283 and 284:
Page 285 and 286:
Page 287 and 288:
Page 289 and 290:
Page 291 and 292:
La r s er i c s o n Wo L k e * Svez
Page 293 and 294:
do u H e t o r n o t do u H e t. sw
Page 295 and 296: do u H e t o r n o t do u H e t. sw
Page 297 and 298: do u H e t o r n o t do u H e t. sw
Page 299: do u H e t o r n o t do u H e t. sw
Page 302 and 303: 302 ai r p o w e r in 20 t H Ce n t
show all

National Experiences - British Commission for Military History

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?