Talk:World War II, air war

Stimson

I restored the section on Stimson, and added full citations. Please don't erase chunks of text without discussions here.Richard Jensen 05:01, 17 June 2008 (CDT)

Close air support

I was able to find full downloads of some of the references pointing to Google Books, and inserted a number of wikilinks as well as some general copy editing. Rather than indent with a colon, I put direct quotations into what I believe is CZ style, <blockquote>text [reference if any]</blockquote>

I must disagree, however, with a point about Marine aviation and CAS, which I moved here:

Marine pilots, like all aviators, fiercely believed in the prime importance of air superiority; they did not wish to be tied down to supporting ground troops. On the other hand, the ground Marines needed close air support because they lacked heavy firepower of their own.

Given the assumption, going back to the first recruits at Tun Tavern, that every Marine is, first and foremost, an infantryman, I find it hard to believe that Marine Aviation ignored CAS and concentrated on defensive counter-air for the fleet. It is plausible that they gave a higher priority to gaining air supremacy over the battlefield, so they could provide CAS undisturbed.

The Marines, indeed, had been experimenting more than the other services with forward control of both air and artillery. ANGLICO was the longest-lived organization, but JASCO units were a Corps initiative in WWII.Howard C. Berkowitz 21:46, 15 July 2008 (CDT)

P-47

I removed text that is duplicated in the excellent article about the P-47; I'm not sure that the Airacobra discussion is that critical here. One must stay aware of the mission rather than concentrating on the equipment — what if Hitler had employed Me-262's as air superiority fighters as soon as they were available?Howard C. Berkowitz 21:56, 15 July 2008 (CDT)

Proposal: separate strategic bombing article, with key points only here.

At least with respect to heading levels, strategic bombing is taking up half of this article, which is much larger than the CZ recommendation. The discussion of strategic bombing is on many levels, from broad strategy to specific attacks.

I believe that it is reasonable to include the major theories here (e.g., Douhet, Harris, etc.), the major weapons systems and their operational implications (e.g., the British not really being able to attack during the day), the lack of developments that might have made a major difference (e.g., German or Russian heavy bombers), but to branch to the other article when it comes to the campaigns and how they were fought.

Howard C. Berkowitz 01:47, 16 July 2008 (CDT)