AIRPOWER STUDIES LESSON PLAN
AS 501: AIRPOWER IN WORLD WAR I
(Lesson 19)
Lesson Leader Jeffrey Skupien

LESSON THESIS:

Before men of vision developed airpower theory there were men like Alfred Thayer Mahan and Sir Julian Corbett who contributed to the growth of naval power through their writings and influence. They believed in control of the sea in much the same way that the interwar theorists you will learn about in the next lesson believed in control of the air.
The Campaign Planning Model describes the contextual elements that are important to understand before strategic objectives can be translated into military objectives and the operational arts that determine what courses of action (COAs) are feasible. These contextual elements and operational arts are essential for the students to understand and keep in mind as they review the military history of the twentieth century. It is by these elements and arts that wars are won and lost.
Over the course of World War I airpower evolved from its infancy, as a “high-ground” observation platform, to embrace essentially all of the modern functions of airpower. This lesson summarizes World War I and traces the evolution of the air arm by exploring the origin of airpower theory as a war-fighting concept through World War I.
World War I presented military leaders and theorists with the problem of positional or trench warfare. Military innovators desperately groped for alternatives to massed frontal assaults on prepared enemy positions. This lesson looks at a combined arms theory known as blitzkrieg, which combined infantry, armor, and airpower to make trench warfare a thing of the past.

LESSON OBJECTIVE(S) (LO) & SAMPLES OF BEHAVIOR(S) (SOB):

LO 501.1 Comprehend airpower development and how it influenced World War I.

SOB 501.11 Explain how naval theory of sea control relates to air superiority

The study of the theory of sea power is as valid today as it was in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries when the two classical theorists Alfred Thayer Mahan and Sir Julian Stafford Corbett were laying down the principles of maritime strategy.
Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914), an American naval officer, teacher, and strategist, is justly regarded as having laid the foundations of modern naval history. To Mahan, the careful and detailed study of naval battle, which he saw as the natural outcome of strategy and national purpose, provided lessons. His was the deductive approach. History taught that he who could command the sea could command his enemies.

Sir Julian Corbett (1854-1922) was a brilliant exponent of the principles of maritime strategy. Thus, if Mahan is to be remembered as having brought naval history to its proper, rightful place in the history of international relations and economic affairs, Corbett is to be enshrined as the person who best understood the utility of sea power, even in limited war. Like Mahan, he was a student of history.
Command of the sea, if won in battle, was not final or axiomatic. Rather, command was asserted in theaters to prevent the enemy from disrupting one’s own communications.
Eventually he who controls the sea can influence, though not totally, what goes on land (Gough p.6)
Command of the sea – being the object of a navy from which all other benefits flow, including maintenance of sea communications and sustained overseas combined operations – is the be all and end all of naval strategy. (Gough p.13)
Professor Geoffrey Till conclusion of both Mahan/Corbett
- First, security of the seas remains the key to prosperity of countries.
- Second, neither sea power nor command of the sea can be regarded as absolute or final.
- Lastly, history has lessons. We should study them.
(Gough p.13)

All of these things can be said about air power and control of the air.

SOB 501.12 Describe the way airpower was used in World War I.

With the development of the airplane, war entered a third dimension. Initially, the airplane was intended only for observation of enemy movements and artillery spotting. By the end of the war aerial photography of enemy trench lines was an indispensable tool of military planners. Such a valuable tool had to be denied to the enemy, and as a result aerial combat began shortly after the war commenced. By the war’s end, airplanes were conducting extensive air-to-air combat with sophisticated machine guns that fired directly through the propeller by the use of an ingenious interrupter gear. Airplanes also strafed enemy troops at the front and conducted bombing raids in rear areas. Finally, both sides made tentative attempts at strategic bombing. However, aircraft were not an overly important weapon in the Great War, primarily because aircraft and engine design were still primitive arts. But aerial visionaries of the war, such as America’s William “Billy” Mitchell and Britain’s Hugh Trenchard, saw possibilities for a much greater role for the airplane in the future. Between the two world wars they pressed for better designs and for the development of airpower doctrine that they believed would make airpower a decisive factory in modern warfare.

SOB 501.13 Explain how technology (operational art) affected World War I airpower development.

Engines were the largest technology innovation
Reliable technology – the airplane was reliable enough to function with the field army of the time.
By the end of the war, most every function we expected an aircraft to do was produced: lift; resupply; counter-air; counter-land.
The flush deck carrier, HMS Argus, was the ultimate answer to air war at sea

LO 501.2 Comprehend how the problem of positional warfare influenced the course of war theory and the doctrine of World War I.

SOB 501.21 Explain the problem of positional warfare as confronted by military theorists and commanders during World War I.
Technological advancements in defensive firepower, combined with linear defense lines that had no tactical flanks, created huge problems for theorists and commanders. There was no mobility to the battlefield once the trenchlines were firmly in place. This created a new challenge – how to mount offensive operations that could effectively restore mobility to the battlefield. Commanders, by their lack of ingenuity, simply resorted to throwing more soldiers and ammunition to the front line trenches and paid a heavy toll in human life for every inch of ground gained. After a side dug in, their position did not change. Two new technologies were introduced in World War I to try and overcome positional warfare – the tank and the aircraft. Neither were that successful. Tanks were too slow and were used as a supplement to the infantryman and became an easy target for heavy artillery. Airplanes were mostly used for observation. Heavy artillery and the machine gun were new technologies that caused heavy casualties and increased trench warfare.
The development of rapid-fire weapons and heavy artillery pieces significantly affected the way in which World War I was fought. The most obvious effect was in the number of casualties. The human toll of the war dwarfed all previous experience. The second major effect was to give the advantage to the defense, a phenomenon which thoroughly surprised most military planners. WWI ended up being a war of attrition, and the side that could no longer supply the front lines would eventually be defeated.

SOB 501.22 Give examples of effectiveness of innovations in tactics and technology on the outcome of the war.
World War I was a watershed in the evolution of modern warfare because of the technological innovations first demonstrated during the conflict. Two technological developments were of primary importance, either having a direct impact on the conduct of the war itself or foreshadowing the nature of warfare in the future.
The development that had the most immediate impact was the widespread use of rapid-fire weapons. Key to this development was the perfection of smokeless powder that did not obscure the field of fire or foul weapons to the extent previously common. Field artillery followed the rapid-fire of smaller weapons. The development of rapid-fire weapons and heavy artillery pieces significantly affected the way in which World War I was fought. The most obvious effect was in the number of casualties. The second major effect was to give the advantage to the defense, a phenomenon which thoroughly surprised most military planners. Against rapid-fire weapons and heavy artillery, the techniques of previous wars led only to failure and casualties of unprecedented proportions.
Although the development of rapid-fire weapons had a significant impact on the war itself, a revolution in transportation would portend the nature of wars to come, even if its impact on World War I was less than decisive. The transportation revolution was caused by the invention and application of the internal combustion engine, which led to the development of not only cars and trucks but also tanks, submarines, and heavier-than-air aircraft. These weapons would eventually change the face of warfare.
Railroads had revolutionized military transportation, but they also brought with them some unwanted baggage. First, they were relatively inflexible, since a great deal of preparation and construction was required to establish a rail line, particularly one that would be used heavily. Second, because they were both important and inflexible, they tended to dominate strategy. Trucks, on the other hand, provided flexibility. They required no ties and rails. Troops and materials could be hauled rapidly from railheads to far-flung battlefields. Large-scale battles could now be fought wherever there were roads. Railroads did not, however, lose their military importance. In World War I they remained critical to military success because of the quantity of men and materiel they could carry.
The tank was first introduced by the British in 1916. Its purpose was to break through enemy trench lines and clear the way for infantry to advance. The World War I vintage tank did have severe limitations. Although impervious to small arms fire, their slow speed, especially when used as infantry support weapons, made them tempting artillery targets. In the last offensive thrusts of the war, the Allies massed tanks for attach rather than using them in small concentrations. In the interwar years, the relationship between tanks and infantry began to reverse, and infantry would be used for the support of armor. With this change of tactics and improved tank design, armored warfare would come of age in World War II.
The internal combustion engine was also important to the development of submarines. Designs improved in the years preceding the war, and submarine warfare became an important part of overall German strategy as the Germans sought to starve Britain out of the war by cutting her sea-lanes.
The development of weapon systems based on the internal combustion engine represented a watershed in the evolution of modern warfare, and yet these weapons had only a limited impact on the techniques of warfare in World War I.
Another innovative method was gas warfare. When first used on both the Eastern and Western fronts, it had considerable success. However, its effects often depended on the weather (especially which way the wind was blowing), and the introduction of protective equipment made gas a progressively less effective weapon.
The most innovative tactics (aside from the use of tanks) to achieve breakthrough were developed by the German General Oskar von Hutier. He employed a very short barrage combined with infiltration by specially trained assault troops who avoided strong points. Regular infantry, who reduced the bypassed strong points, followed the assault troops. The Germans used these tactics extensively during their final offensive in 1918 and had considerable success in achieving deep breakthroughs quickly. However, they could not move artillery and supplies forward fast enough to sustain the attacks. Hutier’s tactics foreshadowed the blitzkrieg tactics of World War II.
For the most part, the tactics of World War I resembled the worst displayed in the American Civil War. Time after times masses of men lunged across open ground to assault well-entrenched defenders and were slaughtered at an incredible rate. It seemed the generals had learned nothing from experience. World War I tactics were not a tribute to human wisdom.

(Snow/Drew p.33-35)

SOB 501.23 Identify the contextual elements and operational arts that contributed to the evolution of blitzkrieg tactics.

Contextual Elements

strategic objectives and their translation into military objectives requires the use of six contextual elements of campaign planning: politics, international relationships, sociocultural norms, economics, leadership, and environment. The following contextual elements contributed to the development of blitzkrieg tactics.

Politics— Under the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was left with a token 100,000-man defense force. General Hans von Seeckt reasoned that with a tiny army, Germany would have to rely on mobility and initiative to prevail The “roots of blitzkrieg” were solidly planted in the soil of Weimar—rather than Nazi—Germany. Germany was determined by whatever means necessary to circumvent the humiliating restrictions of the Versailles Treaty.
International Relationships: German officers to experimented with forbidden technologies, including tanks and aircraft, in the Soviet Union, while Russia received much-needed industrial and economic aid.
Leadership: Seeckt, the most distinguished German commander to survive World War I with his reputation intact, was the head of the army’s troop office (Truppenamt), which was actually a clandestine general staff. ). He was determined by whatever means necessary to circumvent the humiliating restrictions of the Versailles Treaty.

Operational Arts

- Logistics: The blitzkrieg theorists could not revolutionize the entire German army before WWII, so they put into place an exceedingly well trained and well led WWI style force with a mobile, armored tip.
- Technology: Armored tank, airplane, artillery (combined arms)
- Targeting Science: A swift armored thrust as part of a combined arms approach to rapidly punch through linear defenses and exploit newfound mobility.
- Measuring Success: German forces punched through Polish linear defenses in 2 days and were operating in the clear by the third day to complete the campaign. The Germans then routed the French within 6 weeks.

The term “blitzkrieg” refers to an operational combined-arms concept that emphasized aggressive use of independent armored and mechanized formations, trained in rapid exploitation, assisted by lavish use of tactical aviation, in effecting breakthroughs and encirclements.
Post-World War I German doctrine owed a great deal to the German experience with the trench warfare stalemate during the Great War. Germans faced the same dilemma as the allies, how to cross the killing zone of the modern battlefield The Germans developed the elastic defense. Under this new elastic defense concept, the forward line was to be very thinly held, and enemy breakthroughs were allowed to occur. These were then channeled and dealt with by squads of counterattacking infantry, sallying forth from well-constructed strong points in the rear. The Germans made the subsequent intellectual jump from defensive to offensive tactics in the course of a successful program of military innovation.
German officers such as infantry officer Colonel Fritz von Lossberg and army artillery expert Colonel Georg Bruchmüller crafted a new operational concept. Instead of a lengthy preparatory barrage, an attack would begin with a very short (but very intense) hurricane barrage to knock the defenders off balance. Then, squads of highly motivated, well-trained storm troopers (Stosstruppen) would infiltrate the enemy defensive system, simply bypassing strong pockets of resistance. Flights of ground attack aircraft, known as battle squadrons, armed with machine guns, grenades, and light fragmentation bombs, assisted the storm troop detachments in punching through the frontline defenses. The concept of infiltration, breakthrough, and exploitation provided the intellectual model for later German armored doctrine.
Under the Treaty of Versailles, imposed by the victorious allied powers in 1919, Germany was left with a token 100,000-man Reichswehr (defense force). General Hans von Seeckt reasoned that with a tiny army, Germany would have to rely on mobility and initiative to prevail It would employ mobility, airpower, and the ability to concentrate rapidly to make up for its small size.
One of the ironies of modern military history was that the British armor advocates J. F. C. Fuller and Basil H. Liddell Hart were more avidly read in Germany than in their native land. German operational practice in World War I did not depend upon the tank, but the tank concept ultimately fitted quite well into German tactical doctrine. It was a short step to adapt British ideas for the use of armor to fit the evolving German concepts of mobility and exploitation. Combining the tank with German World War I doctrine as refined by Seeckt and his collaborators would, in time, give the world blitzkrieg which incorporated speed, surprise, mobility, and exploitation as well as the key role of modern airpower.