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Hub AI
Air supremacy AI simulator
(@Air supremacy_simulator)
Hub AI
Air supremacy AI simulator
(@Air supremacy_simulator)
Air supremacy
Air supremacy (as well as air superiority) is the degree to which a side in a conflict holds control of air power over opposing forces. There are levels of control of the air in aerial warfare. Control of the air is the aerial equivalent of command of the sea.
Air power has increasingly become a powerful element of military campaigns; military planners view having an environment of at least air superiority as a necessity. Air supremacy allows increased bombing efforts, tactical air support for ground forces, paratroop assaults, airdrops and simple cargo plane transfers, which can move ground forces and supplies. Air power is a function of the degree of air superiority and numbers or types of aircraft, but it represents a situation that defies black-and-white characterization. The degree of a force's air control is a zero-sum game with its opponent's; increasing control by one corresponds to decreasing control by the other. Air forces unable to contest for air superiority or air parity can strive for air denial, where they maintain an operations level conceding air superiority to the other side, but preventing it from achieving air supremacy.
The achievement of air supremacy does not guarantee a low loss rate of friendly aircraft, as hostile forces are often able to adopt unconventional tactics or identify weaknesses. For example, NATO forces which held air superiority over Kosovo still lost a stealth strike aircraft to a Serbian ground-based air defense system, despite it being considered "obsolete". Several engagements have occurred in asymmetrical conflicts in which relatively poorly-equipped ground forces have been able to achieve aircraft kills despite working against overwhelming air supremacy. During both the Iraq War and the War in Afghanistan, insurgents found a greater degree of success in attacking coalition aircraft on the ground than when they were operating above them in the skies.
Although the destruction of enemy aircraft in air-to-air combat is the most obvious aspect of air superiority, it is not the only method of obtaining air superiority. Historically, the most effective method of gaining air superiority is the destruction of enemy aircraft on the ground and the destruction of the means and infrastructure by which an opponent may mount air operations (such as destroying fuel supplies, cratering runways with anti-runway penetration bombs and the sowing of air-fields with area denial weapons). A historical example of this is Operation Focus in which the outnumbered Israeli Air Force dealt a crippling blow to the Egyptian, Jordanian and Syrian Air Forces and airfields at the start of the Six-Day War, achieving Israeli air supremacy.
Disruption can be carried out through ground and air attack. The main role for which the British Special Air Service was formed was to conduct raids on German aircraft and airfields. During operations in the Western Desert the SAS are reckoned to have destroyed more than 400 enemy aircraft. On 6 December 1944, the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force Raiding Group Teishin Shudan destroyed B-29 aircraft on Leyte. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union claimed it could achieve air superiority despite the inferiority of its fighters, by over-running NATO airfields and parking their tanks on the runways, similar to what they have done during Tatsinskaya Raid during the Battle of Stalingrad (note the Germans used parts of their autobahn motorways as airfields during the last war). The Soviet Union planned to use its Spetsnaz special forces in attacks on NATO airfields in the event of conflict.
Attacks by special forces have been seen by some commanders as a way to level the playing field when faced by superior numbers or technology. Given the disparity in effectiveness between their own and South Korean and US fighters, North Korea maintains a large force of infiltration troops; in the event of a war, they would be tasked, among other missions, with attacking coalition airfields with mortar, machine gun and sniper fire, possibly after insertion by some 300 An-2 low radar-observable[citation needed] biplanes. This strategy has been practiced in active conflicts even in recent decades; during the asymmetrical warfare of the War in Afghanistan, 15 fedayeen destroyed or severely damaged eight United States Marine Corps Harrier jump jets in the September 2012 Camp Bastion raid, one result of which being pilots fighting as infantry for the first time in 70 years. Similarly, during the Iraqi War, four Apaches were destroyed on the ground in 2007 by insurgents armed with mortar, which were unintentionally aided by web-published geotagged photographs taken by coalition soldiers.
The First World War saw many firsts in the field of aerial warfare, including the deployment of aircraft armed with machine guns, the first successful engagement involving synchronisation-gun-armed aircraft on the afternoon of 1 July 1915. Throughout the conflict, air superiority on the Western Front changed hands between the German Empire and the Allies several times. It became recognised that the worst losses was amongst new pilots, many of whom lasted just a day or two. The emergence of specialised fighter units, which were typically led by highly experienced pilots, some of them survivors of the Fokker Scourge period, greatly increased the effectiveness of fighter units.
Early on, the Allies gained a lead over the Germans by introducing machine-gun armed types such as the Vickers F.B.5 Gunbus fighter and the Morane-Saulnier L. In response, Germany bolstered its own aerial development efforts; a major achievement of the era was the Stangensteuerung (push rod controller), a genuine synchronisation gear, developed by the Fokker company. The device was fitted to the most suitable Fokker type, the Fokker M.5K (military designation Fokker A.III), of which A.16/15, assigned to Otto Parschau, became the prototype of the Fokker Eindecker series of fighter designs. This subsequently contributed to a period of German air superiority known as the Fokker Scourge, lasting between late 1915 and early 1916. A briefer period of German aerial dominance occurred in the Bloody April of April 1917; paradoxically, the Germans were disadvantaged on paper during Bloody April in terms of numerical inferiority; their effectiveness was increased by confining themselves to mainly operating over friendly territory, both reducing the possibility of pilots being captured and increasing the amount of time they could stay in the air. Moreover, German pilots could choose when and how they would engage, effectively dictating the terms of combat.
Air supremacy
Air supremacy (as well as air superiority) is the degree to which a side in a conflict holds control of air power over opposing forces. There are levels of control of the air in aerial warfare. Control of the air is the aerial equivalent of command of the sea.
Air power has increasingly become a powerful element of military campaigns; military planners view having an environment of at least air superiority as a necessity. Air supremacy allows increased bombing efforts, tactical air support for ground forces, paratroop assaults, airdrops and simple cargo plane transfers, which can move ground forces and supplies. Air power is a function of the degree of air superiority and numbers or types of aircraft, but it represents a situation that defies black-and-white characterization. The degree of a force's air control is a zero-sum game with its opponent's; increasing control by one corresponds to decreasing control by the other. Air forces unable to contest for air superiority or air parity can strive for air denial, where they maintain an operations level conceding air superiority to the other side, but preventing it from achieving air supremacy.
The achievement of air supremacy does not guarantee a low loss rate of friendly aircraft, as hostile forces are often able to adopt unconventional tactics or identify weaknesses. For example, NATO forces which held air superiority over Kosovo still lost a stealth strike aircraft to a Serbian ground-based air defense system, despite it being considered "obsolete". Several engagements have occurred in asymmetrical conflicts in which relatively poorly-equipped ground forces have been able to achieve aircraft kills despite working against overwhelming air supremacy. During both the Iraq War and the War in Afghanistan, insurgents found a greater degree of success in attacking coalition aircraft on the ground than when they were operating above them in the skies.
Although the destruction of enemy aircraft in air-to-air combat is the most obvious aspect of air superiority, it is not the only method of obtaining air superiority. Historically, the most effective method of gaining air superiority is the destruction of enemy aircraft on the ground and the destruction of the means and infrastructure by which an opponent may mount air operations (such as destroying fuel supplies, cratering runways with anti-runway penetration bombs and the sowing of air-fields with area denial weapons). A historical example of this is Operation Focus in which the outnumbered Israeli Air Force dealt a crippling blow to the Egyptian, Jordanian and Syrian Air Forces and airfields at the start of the Six-Day War, achieving Israeli air supremacy.
Disruption can be carried out through ground and air attack. The main role for which the British Special Air Service was formed was to conduct raids on German aircraft and airfields. During operations in the Western Desert the SAS are reckoned to have destroyed more than 400 enemy aircraft. On 6 December 1944, the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force Raiding Group Teishin Shudan destroyed B-29 aircraft on Leyte. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union claimed it could achieve air superiority despite the inferiority of its fighters, by over-running NATO airfields and parking their tanks on the runways, similar to what they have done during Tatsinskaya Raid during the Battle of Stalingrad (note the Germans used parts of their autobahn motorways as airfields during the last war). The Soviet Union planned to use its Spetsnaz special forces in attacks on NATO airfields in the event of conflict.
Attacks by special forces have been seen by some commanders as a way to level the playing field when faced by superior numbers or technology. Given the disparity in effectiveness between their own and South Korean and US fighters, North Korea maintains a large force of infiltration troops; in the event of a war, they would be tasked, among other missions, with attacking coalition airfields with mortar, machine gun and sniper fire, possibly after insertion by some 300 An-2 low radar-observable[citation needed] biplanes. This strategy has been practiced in active conflicts even in recent decades; during the asymmetrical warfare of the War in Afghanistan, 15 fedayeen destroyed or severely damaged eight United States Marine Corps Harrier jump jets in the September 2012 Camp Bastion raid, one result of which being pilots fighting as infantry for the first time in 70 years. Similarly, during the Iraqi War, four Apaches were destroyed on the ground in 2007 by insurgents armed with mortar, which were unintentionally aided by web-published geotagged photographs taken by coalition soldiers.
The First World War saw many firsts in the field of aerial warfare, including the deployment of aircraft armed with machine guns, the first successful engagement involving synchronisation-gun-armed aircraft on the afternoon of 1 July 1915. Throughout the conflict, air superiority on the Western Front changed hands between the German Empire and the Allies several times. It became recognised that the worst losses was amongst new pilots, many of whom lasted just a day or two. The emergence of specialised fighter units, which were typically led by highly experienced pilots, some of them survivors of the Fokker Scourge period, greatly increased the effectiveness of fighter units.
Early on, the Allies gained a lead over the Germans by introducing machine-gun armed types such as the Vickers F.B.5 Gunbus fighter and the Morane-Saulnier L. In response, Germany bolstered its own aerial development efforts; a major achievement of the era was the Stangensteuerung (push rod controller), a genuine synchronisation gear, developed by the Fokker company. The device was fitted to the most suitable Fokker type, the Fokker M.5K (military designation Fokker A.III), of which A.16/15, assigned to Otto Parschau, became the prototype of the Fokker Eindecker series of fighter designs. This subsequently contributed to a period of German air superiority known as the Fokker Scourge, lasting between late 1915 and early 1916. A briefer period of German aerial dominance occurred in the Bloody April of April 1917; paradoxically, the Germans were disadvantaged on paper during Bloody April in terms of numerical inferiority; their effectiveness was increased by confining themselves to mainly operating over friendly territory, both reducing the possibility of pilots being captured and increasing the amount of time they could stay in the air. Moreover, German pilots could choose when and how they would engage, effectively dictating the terms of combat.
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