> The next war would be fought at the cutting edge of technology, which is to say, with airplanes.
That's still an open question at this point. For sure the West's dreadful aerial campaign against Germany's industrial and civilian assets didn't win the war for the Allies, and as far as I know aviation was not that important on the Eastern Front, where the war was actually won (by the Allies) and lost (by the Germans).
It's a good thing though that Hitler and the German military high command had made the same mistake in treating aviation as make or break when it came to the war, and as such they diverted lots of resources to the Luftwaffe, resources that could have been better (from the Germans' pov) spent on artillery. Not that Hitler hadn't already invested a lot in artillery and in making shells, but when you fight a land-war on the steppes of Eurasia you cannot ever have enough artillery shells (as the current war in Ukraine is proving).
>as far as I know aviation was not that important on the Eastern Front, where the war was actually won (by the Allies) and lost (by the Germans).
I recently heard a historian say that the shortages caused by the bombing of Germany were probably decisive in allowing the Red Army to prevail on the Eastern Front. Most of the US and Britain capacity to gather intelligence for example was directed at learning what choice of bombing targets (in Germany) would most effectively cripple German war-making capacity.
The problem with this theory is that... German industrial production increased throughout the war, only really collapsing when the advancing land forces overran German territory containing those factories. That is to say, at best, strategic aerial bombing was slowing the rate of increase of German capacity. The Allied attempts to make pinpoint disruptions to German warmaking through aerial bombing were mostly abject failures, at best crippling German production for a month or two before the Germans got it restarted.
One side effect of the Allied bombing campaign was wiping out the Luftwaffe as a force. Luftwaffe pilots flew until they died, that's why they had aces with high kill counts, and pilots like Rudel decimating Russian tanks. In contrast, the US rotated pilots home and they helped train the next batch of fliers.
The hard question is, what would have been the effect of using the bombing campaign for tactical missions? Would that have sped up Operation Cobra? Would it have helped in the Sicily campaign?
I also think that Germany might have been a unique case; strategic bombing against Japan seems to have done a better job affecting their economy; alongside the submarine campaign against their shipping.
AFAIR the most significant part of crippling Germany MIC was denying the resources for production. I wouldn't agree with the parent theory, but I definetly remember how the quality deteriorated in the last two years of war. Same applies for USSR, there was a significant decrease in quality (especially in things like the tank armour) till the supply lines were re-established after evacuating the manufactories to Ural.
Depends if you include drones and missiles in aviation. I am not sure what you can infer from ww2 when the only way to hit a factory was a risky and imprecise carpet bombing raid when today it takes a single missile. Warships have basically become floating missile launching platforms. And in a US-China war I don't think any of the two parties is contemplating a land invasion anyway. So it will be all air force and navy.
You need feet on the ground to try and win a war for good, and even then, chances are you won’t be able to win it in the long run anyway.
I get it though, more than two thirds of the US’s defense money goes into its Navy and its Airforce, so I guess that, ideologically, most of the US military strategy is focused on using those assets instead of using “mere” infantry and artillery.
Let’s hope we won’t get to see that opinion tested in real life anytime soon.
I am not sure what "winning the war for good" means between two nuclear powers. Certainly not nazi-germany style full capitulation. I think the definition of victory or defeat will be whether Taiwan remains independent or not.
> strategic bombers did win the war against Japan.
Only after the Japanese navy had been almost completely sunk, the Japanese merchant marine even more thoroughly sunk. And even then, it's not clear if the atomic bombs or the Soviet entry into the war against Japan (threatening to roll up the Japanese position in China as completely as the above) played the bigger role in compelling Japanese surrender. (And this is the best example anyone can give of strategic airpower achieving victory).
No, submarines sank 200 IJN warships and aircraft and surface ships claimed another 134. While aircraft sank some of the more important ships (carriers), subs were really responsible for the defeat of the IJN.
Also, mines were responsible for a huge percentage of shipping losses.
I honestly don’t see how the US could have conquered both Japan and Japan-controlled Manchuria (or Taiwan, for that matter) with aviation and the navy alone, that’s where the Manhattan Project came along well.
Which gets us back to the article itself, as I don’t see the current US MIC being able to replicate a project like the one that gave the Americans the atomic bomb anytime soon, if ever.
I'm reading a nice book on Zhukov [1] just now, I stand by my opinion, it wasn't with aviation that the Soviets defeated the Germans.
I live in Bucharest, there used to be a (civilian) building just close to where I now live that got raised to the ground by aerial bombings, but it wasn't the Russians who had bombed it, even though by then, April of 1944, they were really close, it was the Americans. It wasn't those bombings, nor the US bombings on nearby Ploiesti [2], that got us defeated, it was Soviet tanks, artillery and men. For example the photos from this article [3] of the Soviets on the streets of Bucharest in late August 1944 were taken in the intersection that I can now see from my apartment's building.
That's still an open question at this point. For sure the West's dreadful aerial campaign against Germany's industrial and civilian assets didn't win the war for the Allies, and as far as I know aviation was not that important on the Eastern Front, where the war was actually won (by the Allies) and lost (by the Germans).
It's a good thing though that Hitler and the German military high command had made the same mistake in treating aviation as make or break when it came to the war, and as such they diverted lots of resources to the Luftwaffe, resources that could have been better (from the Germans' pov) spent on artillery. Not that Hitler hadn't already invested a lot in artillery and in making shells, but when you fight a land-war on the steppes of Eurasia you cannot ever have enough artillery shells (as the current war in Ukraine is proving).