During the years between WW1 and WW2, you see a marked increase in the power of aircraft as military weapons...

During the years between WW1 and WW2, you see a marked increase in the power of aircraft as military weapons. So it's perhaps inevitable that the air forces* would seek to assert themselves against their departmental rivals in the army and navy and the like.

But if you look at particulars, you see a split, at least between the Anglo-American world and the Germans, which is what I've been reading about lately. Over in England and the U.S., you see an attempt by the air force to distance itself from other branches, insistence that wars can be won through airpower alone, and eschewing roles like being "flying artillery" for the ground troops, or naval bombing, and attempting to push through with strategic bombing initiatives, since that's the way you can theoretically win a war just with airplanes.

Over in Germany, you get the reverse phenomenon, instead of the Air force trying to distance itself from other branches, you see the Luftwaffe trying to assimilate other branches into itself. AA was the province of the Luftwaffe, even when AA guns were often used as AT guns, it was Luftwaffe personnel manning them. Airbase "Security forces" kept expanding and organizing akin to Heer ones, until Herman Goerring had his own panzer division. The defense of Italy was commanded by a Luftwaffe man, and that front saw far more infantry and artillery use out of the Germans than plane use.


Why did England and the U.S. go one way and Germany the other? Does anyone know?
*Yes, I'm aware that in several major powers, most notably the U.S., there was no independent air force command. I'm still using the term for convenience.

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Bumping this for interest

It probably has something to do with the structure of the Nazi state, which was far less homogeneous than it looked from the outside. There were various factions within the Nazi state that were competing for power, and Goering's Luftwaffe was one of them.

It's an obvious matter of geography. Germany would be bound to fight wars primarily right across it's borders without the additional necessity or protection of naval forces and transportation over water. This means a war on the ground, so combined arms as a means of backing up infantry and armor is the most important usage of air.

The UK and US were separated from the European mainland (and other theaters) by large or not so large bodies of water, negating a purely ground warfare approach.

Yeah, I think it has to do with Nazi Germany being a political party state, if it wasn't for the fact Göring was one of the og nazis I doubt any random apolitical career airman would have gotten a panzer division named after himself in the Air Force.

Except again, Britain especially was having Trenchard preparing for a war on the ground, by insisting that instead of a repeat of WW1, all you need to do is have just enough ground forces to prevent your airbases from being overran, and just bomb the crap out of the enemy, who will be forced to surrender at that point.


The air war was seen as a way of winning the ground war, which Germany could have at least theoretically tried to go for.

It still boggles the mind that Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe is the only Airforce in the history of Airforces that has a fucking ARMORED DIVISION.

>Over in Germany, you get the reverse phenomenon, instead of the Air force trying to distance itself from other branches, you see the Luftwaffe trying to assimilate other branches into itself.
Is that even true though? One major problem with the Luftwaffe was it's subservience to the army. That's why Germany didn't try using planes for naval operations. They could have harassed a lot more of British shipping if they had done so.

Because the command structures and order of battle differed wildly between the countries thus altering the status of the airforce between them.

This is wrong.

> One major problem with the Luftwaffe was it's subservience to the army.

Tell that to the Italian front from 1943-1945.

>That's why Germany didn't try using planes for naval operations.

Ever hear of the FW-200?

> They could have harassed a lot more of British shipping if they had done so.

Yes/no. It could have had greater impact in places like that corridor up the coast of France where some imports from Africa came up, but you're limited by how far your planes can patrol out of airbases in Northern and Western France. And even though you do have bombers that can fly far (The aforementioned Condor had an operational range of almost 1,000 miles), most of your fighters to protect them can't go nearly that far out to sea. Hell, they had trouble getting their single engined fighters to London and back and still have enough fuel to fight.

The British, meanwhile, aren't so hampered: they control a lot of the islands in the Atlantic, and have developed more in the field of longer ranged fighters than Germany has, which means they can effectively cover more of the Atlantic by air than the Germans can.

>It's an obvious matter of geography.

That's a valid point.

If I recall correctly, it was the Italians that were among the first major proponents of strategic bombing, and it was they that inspired the U.S..

Regardless, ze Germans have always been innovative when it comes to war, so it's no surprise they lead the way in the development of combined arms doctrine. Sadly, they seem to have been able to develop great ideas, like combined arms fighting and mechanized warfare, while at the same time remain completely oblivious to outdated practices and concepts, like the bolt action rifle and reliance on horses for transportation.

>That's a valid point
It actually isn't for the time period. The U.S. used planes as ground support like Germany did, only differently. The Germans primarily used them for interdiction while the U.S. primarily used CAS as well as interdiction. Geography was irrelevant in both cases. What it came down to was how doctrine and command were structured.

Exceptions to the rule, user.

Not him, but isn't that backwards? It was the Germans who had the CAS heavy doctrine, where it was the Americans relying primarily on interdiction?

Nah. Germans primarily used planes to tie up reinforcements on the back lines in order to exercise schwerpunkt effectively with CAS as a secondary. U.S. air support was there chew up tanks/infantry/anything on the front lines to soften them up. The U.S. also used interdiction, but not primarily. The U.S. is still the same today. CAS is heavily used to punch a hole. I can understand your confusion though, since the U.S. used extremely broad tactics during the war, including interdiction and strategic bombing, but for the purpose of this thread it's irrelevant.

>Nah. Germans primarily used planes to tie up reinforcements on the back lines in order to exercise schwerpunkt effectively with CAS as a secondary.


That does not seem to be the case at all. The Germans had a very well developed CAS doctrine, and furthermore, look at the design of their bombers themselves, short ranged, high accuracy, generally slow moving bombers were their favorites.

usacac.army.mil/cac2/cgsc/carl/download/csipubs/comparat.pdf


Meanwhile, it was the Americans who were blowing up railyards and marshalling points and doing the whole interdiction thing, like how they really devastated the infrastructure across half of France to prepare for D-Day. They were the ones focusing on building longer ranged planes that could do interdiction bombing. They didn't even HAVE a CAS doctrine until post Kasserine.

Having a doctrine for it does not make it the primary use, nor does not having a doctrine for it mean that it went unused. You also have to realize that Germany had been at war over two years before the U.S. entered the war. Also interdiction does not necessarily have to be long range. Tying up a secondary line to prevent reinforcements is interdiction and not CAS which is the tactic that Germany favored. Helping the front line punch through was secondary to preventing reinforcement while U.S. doctrine held the opposite, though interdiction was used. P-38s, P-47s and P-51s were infamous for being CAS planes as well as fighters. The P-47 was so famous for it that the A-10 was named after it.

>They didn't even HAVE a CAS doctrine until post Kasserine
This is true, but CAS was used in Torch and both offensives despite the lack of doctrine for CAS itself. The Superior Firepower doctrine that the U.S. used (and still uses) required extensive use of CAS regardless of the fact that a specific doctrine for it did not exist. Also here is the paper I'm guessing you glanced at the TOC before posting.

history.army.mil/html/books/093/93-7/cmh_pub_93-7.pdf

>The British, meanwhile, developed more in the field of longer ranged fighters than Germany

No, WWII British fighters were on par with German fighters when it came to range, it was the U.S. (and Japanese navy) that was looking to developed long ranger fighters due to the philosophy of day time strategic bombing.

Beaufighter, Mosquito fighter variants. Plus, the greater availability of bases means they don't need quite as much range, as is the fact that they know where the convoys are and can cover them, as opposed to the Germans who have to go patrolling and hope they find something.

The Japanese were simply incredible in this regard. Can you imagine if the Germans had a design like the Zero, and were able to fully escort the FW-200?

The U.S. use of CAS in support of ground forces came about as a direct result of observing German combined arms effectiveness in the initial phases of the war. Prior to that, the emphasis was on strategic bombing using dive bombers, and multi-engine aircraft.

>Beaufighter, Mosquito fighter variants.

These were ground attack aircraft pressed into the fighter role and used against German bombers, specifically because British fighters didn't have the range and/or altitude.

Mosquito actually saw use as bomber escorts towards the end of the war.

They loaded them up with radar warning receivers and hid them among bomber streams, where they'd wait for German night fighters to pop up. Once they detected night fighters, they'd go hunt them down.

Its because the US and England adopted the ideas of Douhet (an Italian) with great enthusiasm.

In Germany the major proponent of Douhet within the Luftwaffe died, and with him went the movement inside the Luftwaffe for a major strategic bombing arm.

The Germans big attempt at a strategic bomber, the He-177, was mired by a variety of problems - from qiestionable engineering choices to iffy operational requirements, plus a whole lot of management issues on the side of the RLM.

Once the plane had most of the kinks worked out, Germany was then in a position of a defensive airial war. And for a single heavy bomber like the 177, you can build 4-5 109s for the same material and man hour cost.

Furthermore, one could argue that they simply weren't in a position to sustain a strategic bombing campaign. But I think their doctrine is mostly to blame rather than prudent foresight on the RLMs part.

t. huge ww2 aviation fag

Oh and for fun

If you want a good understanding of the ideas behind the US air strategy, watch this. Its hosted and based on a book by Seversky (father of the P-47). This book was so influential that Disney made a propaganda film about it so the general public could understand why the US was sending 10+ men per bomber over Germany.

It has some really neat animation on top of it

m.youtube.com/watch?v=J1iPBvwaIkI