Air Superiority Is Essential To The Combined Arms Revolution In 1918 And 2023

Historical perspective on long, hard battles

A British R.E.8 attack plane in 1918

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Victory on the Western Front in the final ‘Hundred Days’ campaign was a complex military endeavor. Tanks, a million fresh American allied troops, and even the derided cavalry arm all played a role. However, “at the heart of the new form of warfighting was a combination of artillery and aircraft,” Gary Sheffield and Peter Gray write in the introduction to their 2013 history anthology, Changing War: The British Army, the Hundred Days Campaign and the Birth of the Royal Air Force, 1918.

“It was air power that allowed the British Expeditionary Force to deliver overwhelming kinetic effect through predicted artillery fire” using new radio technology, Peter Dye says in the chapter on aviation logistics. Air-ground coordination with tanks proved decisive at the Battle of Hamel. British squadrons tried out a variety of interdiction and close support missions, learning what had an effect on the enemy, learning the limitations of their technology to affect battle.

As a result, David Jordan explains, “by the end of the First World War, the RAF had developed all the major air power roles that are recognized in doctrine today, demonstrating the vital importance of control of the air and of close air-land cooperation to achieve success.” Neither side in the current war has quite mastered the skies of Ukraine the same way.