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History of aerial warfare
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History of aerial warfare
The history of aerial warfare began in ancient times, with the use of kites in China. In the third century, it progressed to balloon warfare. Airplanes were put to use for war starting in 1911, initially for reconnaissance, and then for aerial combat to shoot down the recon planes. The use of planes for strategic bombing emerged during World War II. Also during World War II, Nazi Germany developed many missile and precision-guided munition systems, including the first cruise missile, the first short-range ballistic missile, the first guided surface-to-air missiles, and the first anti-ship missiles. Ballistic missiles became of key importance during the Cold War, were armed with nuclear warheads, and were stockpiled by the superpowers – the United States and the Soviet Union – to deter each other from using them.
Since early history, various cultures developed myths of flying gods and deities, some of whom such as Zeus could throw thunderbolts from on high at earthbound humans. There were also fictions of humans finding ways to fly, such as the Greek Daedalus and Icarus. A logical combination was to imagine mundane humans flying – and making military use of their ability to fly. Imagination long preceded the technology needed for such warfare to be actually carried out.
In the third book of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726), the King of the flying island of Laputa resorts to bombarding enemies and rebellious subjects with heavy rocks thrown from the air.
What might be the first detailed fictional depiction of what is now called an Air Force can be found in "The Wicked Prince" by Hans Christian Andersen (1840). The story's world-conquering Prince, of boundless ambition and cruelty, orders "a magnificent ship to be constructed, with which he could sail through the air; it was gorgeously fitted out and of many colours; like the tail of a peacock, it was covered with thousands of eyes, but each eye was the barrel of a gun. The prince sat in the center of the ship, and had only to touch a spring in order to make thousands of bullets fly out in all directions, while the guns were at once loaded again". Later, the Prince develops an improved model, able to also fire "Steel Thunderbolts", and orders many thousands of them built to make up a massive air flotilla manned by his troops.
H. G. Wells in The War in the Air (1907) grasped the full implications of aerial warfare and air power and how it would revolutionize warfare. Many of the book's predictions – such as the devastating strategic bombing of cities or how bombing from the air would make surface dreadnoughts obsolete in naval warfare – only came about in World War II rather than the first which broke out a few years after the book's publication.
The earliest documented aerial warfare took place in ancient China, when a manned kite was set off to spy for military intelligence and communication.
In or around the second or third century, a prototype hot air balloon, the Kongming lantern, was invented in China, serving as a military communication station.
Some minor warfare use was made of balloons in the infancy of aeronautics. The first instance was by the French Aerostatic Corps at the Battle of Fleurus in 1794, who used a tethered balloon, L'entreprenant, to gain a vantage point.
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History of aerial warfare
The history of aerial warfare began in ancient times, with the use of kites in China. In the third century, it progressed to balloon warfare. Airplanes were put to use for war starting in 1911, initially for reconnaissance, and then for aerial combat to shoot down the recon planes. The use of planes for strategic bombing emerged during World War II. Also during World War II, Nazi Germany developed many missile and precision-guided munition systems, including the first cruise missile, the first short-range ballistic missile, the first guided surface-to-air missiles, and the first anti-ship missiles. Ballistic missiles became of key importance during the Cold War, were armed with nuclear warheads, and were stockpiled by the superpowers – the United States and the Soviet Union – to deter each other from using them.
Since early history, various cultures developed myths of flying gods and deities, some of whom such as Zeus could throw thunderbolts from on high at earthbound humans. There were also fictions of humans finding ways to fly, such as the Greek Daedalus and Icarus. A logical combination was to imagine mundane humans flying – and making military use of their ability to fly. Imagination long preceded the technology needed for such warfare to be actually carried out.
In the third book of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726), the King of the flying island of Laputa resorts to bombarding enemies and rebellious subjects with heavy rocks thrown from the air.
What might be the first detailed fictional depiction of what is now called an Air Force can be found in "The Wicked Prince" by Hans Christian Andersen (1840). The story's world-conquering Prince, of boundless ambition and cruelty, orders "a magnificent ship to be constructed, with which he could sail through the air; it was gorgeously fitted out and of many colours; like the tail of a peacock, it was covered with thousands of eyes, but each eye was the barrel of a gun. The prince sat in the center of the ship, and had only to touch a spring in order to make thousands of bullets fly out in all directions, while the guns were at once loaded again". Later, the Prince develops an improved model, able to also fire "Steel Thunderbolts", and orders many thousands of them built to make up a massive air flotilla manned by his troops.
H. G. Wells in The War in the Air (1907) grasped the full implications of aerial warfare and air power and how it would revolutionize warfare. Many of the book's predictions – such as the devastating strategic bombing of cities or how bombing from the air would make surface dreadnoughts obsolete in naval warfare – only came about in World War II rather than the first which broke out a few years after the book's publication.
The earliest documented aerial warfare took place in ancient China, when a manned kite was set off to spy for military intelligence and communication.
In or around the second or third century, a prototype hot air balloon, the Kongming lantern, was invented in China, serving as a military communication station.
Some minor warfare use was made of balloons in the infancy of aeronautics. The first instance was by the French Aerostatic Corps at the Battle of Fleurus in 1794, who used a tethered balloon, L'entreprenant, to gain a vantage point.
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