AIR POWER AND ARMIES

let's suppose this blank screen stands for a part of the world in which a war is going on this is the enemy's zone of the interior which contains the manufacturing plants which produce the materials of war here are the lines of communication the roads and railways which carry men and materials to combat this is an enemy army wherever it goes the army is linked to the industrial establishment at home by its lines of communication let's suppose this is one of our armies up until a generation ago there were not very many ways in which we could get out an enemy army one way of course was to attack him frontally a better way if you could do it was to flank him but the trouble especially in recent times was that both armies have about the same speed of movement so that neither could get around the other if both sides have enough men and supplies the result is stalemate something like that happened during the first world war the first year of the war turned into a series of efforts by each side to outflank the other this race ended at the coastline and both sides were stalemated the only thing left was the effort by each side to bludgeon its way through the others lines in the hope of achieving a breakthrough the result was four years of positional warfare attrition sometimes slow sometimes marked by pitched battles in which one side or the other would gain a few yards of useless ground at the expense of tens of thousands of lives but today's war is very different a new kind of force has come into being that fully utilizes another dimension the air overhead suppose we take a hypothetical composite case of the application of this force we can begin in the german war office because something rather like this happened there on several occasions these officers are typical of those on the joint planning staff of the german high command this officer belongs to the headquarters staff of a theater commander the subject under discussion is a proposed operation in the theater from which he comes that's the situation gentlemen and the opportunity at present we can contain the enemy with what we have as he builds his strength we can build two and go on containing him but if enough force can be made available particularly bombers fighters tanks motor transport we can annihilate him this theater then will no longer be a problem and many of the forces can be withdrawn and used elsewhere as we all know this not the most important theory however in view of the fact that we'll probably need every man and gun elsewhere within the year it would be advantageous to write it off the books as soon as possible if we can that is how about it general can we make the equipment available without any cutting down in other theaters what would you require around figures well for absolute certainty success we need at least 300 more tanks 1200 trucks 200 fighter airplanes and 250 bombers that is to begin with beyond what we have now will normally receive artillery and other types of equipment in proportion in addition to maintain our strength when the campaign has begun we need 50 fighter airplanes and 50 bombers a week our situation in trucks and tanks is good we can supply them without difficulty in airplanes the problem will be fighters how about that general grinder we can supply the fighters by allowing the expanded production of two fighter assembly plants we expect to get a little better than 75 additional fighters a week from the two plants if we allow your 50 a week you'll have your initial 200 in a month from then on we can continue giving you 50 a week without weakening ourselves elsewhere uh if i may add a word marshall certainly general besides the fighters fuel may turn out to be the biggest problem especially the transportation of it tank cars tankers for the water journey tank trucks in the event the plan is undertaken what date have you set for the opening of the offensive approximately 45 days from the date of decision general and would be necessary to start moving fuel at once on the face of it the plan seems to have merit if no fundamental objection appears when the details have been analyzed it will be presented to the armed forces operations staff which will submit it to the leader for final decision and you'll have an answer very shortly thank you sir gentlemen well it looked as if something were going to happen the basic requirements for an offensive seem to be there manufacturing capacity in the zone of the interior even in the critical items and transportation capacity to get them to the theater of operations but from the air we could observe what the enemy was doing not only in his front line positions but in his rear and along his lines of communication we could even fly over his industrial centers and get a fair idea of what was going on there we could not only see we could attack the enemy if we liked we could use our airplanes as extreme long-range artillery we could dispose their effects somewhat as we would artillery either distributed a little to each mile up front or concentrated to achieve complete destruction in one sector but we could do much more than that remember the classic land maneuver has always been to get in rear of your enemy astride is communications with air power this is perfectly feasible we could fly over the enemy's army and bomb and shoot up his supply trains his troop movements anything in his rear we couldn't take possession of his rear areas but we could interdict movement and destroy most targets that could be seen from the air under favorable conditions we could land and supply lightly armed troops behind these lines by parachute glider or troop carrying airplane and if airplanes could destroy the enemy's lines of communication they could just as well destroy the sources of his power the industrial plants which produced his weapons the factories which even now were being whipped to greater production effort by the enemy's procurement officers your production's good if these were normal times i'd stay remarkable but these times are far from normal so i've come to tell you personally that the leader expects you to increase production above your quota taking your added capacity into consideration another ten percent but it's imperative that production not only at this plant but at every other plant be increased immediately how it's done is up to you of course you'll have the help of the propaganda ministry i well where are your shelters this was something new in warfare a new military objective in every other war the enemy army had to be defeated in battle before you could get near his source of power now is the other way around you could destroy his industrial establishment in order to weaken his field army you remember the fighter airplanes for the offensive in this theater were going to be supplied from added production back home well part of that added production had just been subtracted this makes it rather awkward unless we have all the fighter protection we expected the risk will be a good deal greater does it make so much difference though we'll still get 10 more a week than we had and we still have 200 more than we had a month ago it simply means we've lost our insurance things go well it's fine if they don't it's more difficult however i do agree with you that the risk is worth taking naturally we wanted enough to make success certain now it's not certain but it is certainly probable two tankers four cargo ships full of trucks there goes some more of our insurance general it seems obvious that our situation is being changed by events outside of this theater uh what would you suggest there would seem to be two alternatives the first is to postpone the entire operation for some time the second is to take the offensive as planned but on a more limited scale both in space and in time after all we are stronger than we were we don't succeed completely we can break off the attack bombing some factories and supply ports hundreds of miles from home made a difference in the enemy's plans his margin of safety and equipment and supplies was already gone or nearly gone and don't think that advantage wasn't exploited the enemy theater commander faced with the consequences of this action was forced to resort to drastic measures well there's no chance of our taking the offensive now i never saw anything like it in four days most of our airplanes gone hangar's wrecked feels unusual not even enough fuel wait till they strike us on the ground i'm saving up a little surprise i'll hold our tanks well back until we see where they strike our 88 millimeter guns forward to deal with their tanks now we'll have to move fast they probably think because they've destroyed a few airplanes they can drive through right away well this is what they'll find from thinking of the offensive the theater commander was now planning in terms of the defensive and it wasn't a bad plan more than one army has run into a tank trap and left itself wide open for an armored counter-attack but he overlooked just one thing we on our side didn't have to open our ground offensive right away we could hold back you