Land Based Air Power or Aircraft Carriers?


Book Description

During the 1960s - in the midst of its retreat from empire - the British government had to grapple with complex political and military problems in order to find a strategic defence policy that was both credible and affordable. Addressing what was perhaps the most contentious issue within those debates, this book charts the arguments that raged between supporters of a land based air power strategy, and those who favoured aircraft carriers. Drawing upon a wealth of previously classified documents, the book reveals how the Admiralty and Air Ministry became interlocked in a bitter political struggle over which of their military strategies could best meet Britain's future foreign policy challenges. Whilst the broad story of this inter-service rivalry is well known - the Air Force's proposal for a series of island based airfields, and the Navy championing of a small number of expensive but mobile aircraft carriers - the complexity and previous lack of archival sources means that it has, until now, only ever been partially researched and understood. Former studies have largely focused on the cancellation of the CVA-01 carrier programme, and offered little depth as regards the Royal Air Force perspectives. Given that this was a two-Service rivalry, which greatly influenced many aspects of British foreign and defence policy decisions of the period, this book presents an important and balanced overview of the complex issues involved. Through this historical study of the British debate about maritime air power and strategic alternatives in the 1960s, the detailed arguments used for and against both alternatives demonstrate clear relevance to both historical and contemporary conceptual debates on carrier forces and land-based air power. Both from military strategy and inter-service relationship perspectives, contemporary Britain and many other nations with maritime forces may learn much from this historical case.




Nuclear Weapons and Aircraft Carriers


Book Description

With the advent of the atomic bomb in 1945 and its impact on strategic thinking, the future of naval aviation looked bleak. Rapid demobilization after the war eliminated many carriers, and most policy makers believed that future wars would be fought with nuclear weapons delivered by land-based aircraft. In Nuclear Weapons and Aircraft Carriers, Jerry Miller traces the struggle of respected naval leaders to promote a different vision and the innovations in the design and engineering of carriers and aircraft that resulted. He argues that the Navy's hard-won nuclear capability played a significant role in ending the Cold War.




One Hundred Years of U.S. Navy Air Power


Book Description

Published to coincide with the centennial celebration of U.S. Navy Aviation, this book chronicles Navy aviation from its earliest days, before the Navy’s first aircraft carrier joined the fleet, through the modern jet era marked by the introduction of the F-18 Hornet. It tells how naval aviation got its start, profiles its pioneers, and explains the early bureaucracy that fostered and sometimes inhibited its growth. The book then turns to the refinement of carrier aviation doctrine and tactics and the rapid development of aircraft and carriers, highlighting the transition from propeller-driven aircraft to swept wing jets in the period after WW II. Land-based Navy aircraft, rotary-wing aircraft and rigid airships, and balloons are also considered in this sweeping tribute.




American Carrier Air Power at the Dawn of a New Century


Book Description

This report presents the highlights of the U.S. Navy's carrier air performance during the first two major wars of the 21st century: Operation Enduring Freedom against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002 and the subsequent 3-week period of major combat in Operation Iraqi Freedom in early 2003 that finally ended the rule of Saddam Hussein. The report also addresses ongoing modernization trends in U.S. carrier air capability. In the first war noted above, U.S. carrier air power substituted almost entirely for land-based theater air forces because of an absence of suitable shore-based forward operating locations for the latter. In the second, 6 of 12 carriers and their embarked air wings were surged to contribute to the campaign, with a seventh carrier battle group held in reserve in the Western Pacific and an eighth also deployed and available for tasking. The air wings that were embarked in the 6 committed carriers in the latter campaign flew approximately half the total number of fighter sorties generated altogether by U.S. Central Command. As attested by the performance of naval aviation in both operations, the warfighting potential of today's U.S. carrier strike groups has grown substantially over that of the carrier battle groups that represented the cutting edge of U.S. naval power at the end of the Cold War. The research findings reported herein are the interim results of a larger ongoing study by the author on U.S. carrier air operations and capability improvements since the end of the Cold War. They should interest U.S. naval officers and other members of the defense and national security community concerned with the evolving role of U.S. carrier air power in joint and combined operations. An extensive bibliography is included.




Billy Mitchell's War with the Navy


Book Description

When Billy Mitchell returned from WWI, he brought with him the deep-seated belief that air power had made navies obsolete. However, in the years following WWI, the U.S. Congress was far more interested in disarmament and isolationist policies than in funding national defense. For the military services this meant lean budgets and skeleton operating forces. Billy Mitchell’s War with the Navy recounts the intense political struggle between the Army and Navy air arms for the limited resources needed to define and establish the role of aviation within their respective services in the period between the two world wars. After Congress rejected the concept of a unified air service in 1920, Mitchell and his supporters turned on the Navy, seeking to substitute the Air Service as the nation's first line of defense. While Mitchell proved that aircraft could sink a battleship with the bombing of the Ostfriesland in 1921, he was unable to convince the General Staff of the Army, the General Board of the Navy, the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, or Congress of the need for an independent air force. When Mitchell turned to the pen to discredit the Navy, he was convicted by his own words and actions in a court-martial that captivated the nation, and was forced to resign in 1925. Rather than ending the rivalry for air power, Mitchell’s resignation set the stage for the ongoing dispute between the two services in the years immediately before WWII. After Mitchell’s resignation, the rivalry for air power between the two services resurfaced when the Navy's plans to procure torpedo planes for the defense of Pearl Harbor and Coco Solo were brought to the attention of the Army. The book concludes with a description of the events surrounding the Air Corps' abysmal performance at Pearl Harbor and Midway followed by a critical assessment of how the development of aviation was pursued by the Army and the Navy after WWII.




Carrier Warfare in the Pacific


Book Description

Capturing the times when lives and victory were in peril, this book records the exploits of the men who fought in WWII in the air and on the sea, including pilots and air crewmen of carrier squadrons, officers and men of the ship's company, and admirals and their staffs. Compelling personal accounts. Illus.




CVAN-70 Aircraft Carrier


Book Description







The Kokoda Campaign 1942


Book Description

The fighting on the Kokoda Track in World War II is second only to Gallipoli in the Australian national consciousness. The Kokoda campaign of 1942 has taken on mythical status in Australian military history. According to the legend, Australian soldiers were vastly outnumbered by the Japanese, who suffered great losses in battle and as a result of the harsh conditions of the Kokoda Track. In this important book, Peter Williams seeks to dispel the Kokoda myth. Using extensive research and Japanese sources, he explains what really happened on the Kokoda Track in 1942. Unlike most other books written from an Australian perspective, The Kokoda Campaign 1942: Myth and reality focuses on the strategies, tactics and battle plans of the Japanese and shows that the Australians were in fact rarely outnumbered. For the first time, this book combines narrative with careful analysis to present an undistorted picture of the events of the campaign. It is a must-read for anyone who is interested in the truth of the Kokoda campaign of 1942.




The Paths of Heaven The Evolution of Airpower Theory


Book Description

Airpower is not widely understood. Even though it has come to play an increasingly important role in both peace and war, the basic concepts that define and govern airpower remain obscure to many people, even to professional military officers. This fact is largely due to fundamental differences of opinion as to whether or not the aircraft has altered the strategies of war or merely its tactics. If the former, then one can see airpower as a revolutionary leap along the continuum of war; but if the latter, then airpower is simply another weapon that joins the arsenal along with the rifle, machine gun, tank, submarine, and radio. This book implicitly assumes that airpower has brought about a revolution in war. It has altered virtually all aspects of war: how it is fought, by whom, against whom, and with what weapons. Flowing from those factors have been changes in training, organization, administration, command and control, and doctrine. War has been fundamentally transformed by the advent of the airplane.




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