Tactical Airpower with Strategic Leverage: An Analysis of the Use of Tactical Airpower in Ground Attack to Support the Combined Bomber Offensive, 1943-1945

摘要

Much historical analysis of the World War II Combined Bomber Offensive (CBO) has focused on the heavy bomber aspects of Combined Bomber Offensive strategy. However one aspect of the offensive that has received little attention has been the use of tactical air assets specifically fighter-bombers to support and augment heavy bomber operations. This has meant that a comprehensive analysis of the CBO has been unavailable leaving a gap in the historical record and in our understanding of the full use of air assets in wartime. This research breaks new ground in World War II CBO analysis. By explaining tactical fighter aviation's important contribution to this campaign it expands airpower perspectives and validates key airpower theoretical and doctrinal tenets. It examines the offensive from an 'airmindedness' perspective instead of stove piping strategically significant decisions and events into either tactical or strategic categories based on aircraft type or whether missions directly or indirectly supported land forces. This is critically important because its relevance to airpower employment has timeless applicability. Furthermore this research explores effects-based logic and decision-making and shows that this mode of thinking is not necessarily new in today's airpower lexicon. Moreover this research provides fresh insight into this complex and dynamic application of combat power in the skies over Europe. Without digressing into a combat chronology it tells an important story of ingenuity adaptability and the evolutionary nature of CBO strategy driven in part by operational failure in part by operational success and immeasurably by strong and competitive airpower leadership. It highlights the complexities of inter and intra-service rivalry fueled by competition for finite airpower resources while simultaneously examining the intricate and often not so subtle demands created by the Anglo-American alliance.