Page 61 - Airpower in 20th Century - Doctrines and Employment

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InconclusIve experIment – brItIsh AIr power And the suez crIsIs, 1956. the AllIed AIr cAmpAIgn reAssessed

The ten principles of war were based on those introduced by Fuller in the army in
7
the 1920s. The air doctrine followed the “Douhuetic” principle of massive air power
by calling for the concentration of the greatest possible force as “THE (sic) cardinal
principle of war”.
8
Bomber Command had suffered horrifying casualties in the skies over Germany.
When German air defences were still capable of offering resolute resistance in 1943
and early 1944, the attrition rate had risen to intolerable levels. The main cause
for the losses was the German fighter defence, which had not been paralysed. The
fighter defence was properly addressed only after the introduction of long-range
9
fighter escorts. The logical conclusion of this experience was that a large-scale
bomber offensive was impractical without air superiority. The bomber formations
10
were not, after all, able to defend themselves from the determined defenders pressing
their attacks home vigorously. The requirement for air superiority was not limited to
bomber operations. Its importance was well expressed by Lord Tedder in 1947 when
he defined it as “a prerequisite for all war-winning operations, whether at sea, on land
11
or in the air”. This was particularly true for amphibious operations as expressed in
12
the Manual of Combined Operations.
The necessity for air superiority and the principle of the offensive were, of course,
closely interlinked. Air operations were to be extended over the hostile airspace
at the earliest possible moment. In the Second World War, the Allies had won air
superiority through attrition. The campaign had been a costly and time-consuming
affair due to the size and skill of the German Air Force. Another solution, suggested
in the Royal Air Force Manual, was to attempt an early aerial coup de main by
13
destroying the enemy air force in its bases, especially if the opponent was weaker.
There was a tempting and well-known example from the Second World War since
the Luftwaffe annihilated the Polish Air Force in a matter of days in the opening
phase of the invasion of Poland in 1939. 14
The bomber force could be used in achieving air superiority, but the main aim of
a bomber offensive would be the annihilation of a country’s overall capacity to wage

7 See, e.g. Field Service Regulations, Operations (London: Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1929),
pp. 8-9.
8
Royal Air Force War Manual, Part 1, Operations, p. 16.
9
The Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany 1939-1945, Vol. II: Endeavour, by Charles Webster
and Noble Frankland (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1961), pp. 87-88.
10
Air superiority was defined as “a state in which we (the British, author), are able to make use of the
air for our own purposes and the enemy air forces are unable to operate effectively against us”, see
Royal Air Force War Manual, Part 1, Operations, p. 21.
11
Andrew Vallance, The Air Weapon. Doctrines of Air Power Strategy and Operational Art (London:
Macmillan Press, 1996), p. 15.
12 The Manual of Combined Operations, (1950), p. 3 and Conduct of War, p. 13.
13 Royal Air Force War Manual, Part 1, Operations, pp. 22-24.
14
James Corum, The Luftwaffe. Creating Operational Air War, 1918-1940 (Lawrence: University
Press of Kansas, 1997), pp. 271-273.