Misplaced Pages

#849150

89-499: Space Corps , may refer to: Space force , a military branch of a country's armed forces Space Corps (comics) , the outer-space arm of the Mega-City One Judges United States Space Corps , a proposed name for the U.S. Space Force See also [ edit ] Space Force (disambiguation) Space Command (disambiguation) Topics referred to by

178-469: A 3 mi (4.8 km) radius from point of aim in any case. The United States Army Air Forces adopted a policy of daylight precision bombing for greater accuracy as, for example, during the Schweinfurt raids. That doctrine, based on the erroneous supposition that bombers could adequately defend themselves against air attack, entailed much higher American losses until long-range fighter escorts (e.g.

267-563: A combined-arms attack which would be developed to a significant degree by Germany , and which contributed much to the success of the Wehrmacht during the first four years (1939–42) of World War II. The Luftwaffe became a major element of the German blitzkrieg . Some leading theorists of strategic air warfare , namely strategic bombing during this period were the Italian Giulio Douhet ,

356-435: A future war as exemplified by Stanley Baldwin 's 1932 comment that the bomber will always get through . One of the aims of war is to demoralize the enemy; facing continual death and destruction may make the prospect of peace or surrender preferable. The proponents of strategic bombing between the world wars, such as General Douhet, expected that direct attacks upon an enemy country's cities by strategic bombers would lead to

445-425: A high proportion of incendiary devices , to bomb the target region indiscriminately—to kill war workers, destroy materiel , and demoralize the enemy. In high enough concentration, it was capable of producing a firestorm . The high explosives were often delay-action bombs intended to kill or intimidate those fighting the fires caused by incendiaries. At first this required multiple aircraft, often returning to

534-467: A military strategy proved to be an effective and efficient way for the British to police their Middle East protectorates in the 1920s. Fewer men were required as compared to ground forces. Pre-war planners, on the whole, vastly overestimated the damage bombers could do, and underestimated the resilience of civilian populations. Jingoistic national pride played a major role: for example, at a time when Germany

623-487: A raid in the afternoon of June 22, 1916, the pilots used outdated maps and bombed the location of the abandoned railway station, where a circus tent was placed, killing 120 persons, most of them children. The British also stepped up their strategic bombing campaign. In late 1915, the order was given for attacks on German industrial targets, and the 41st Wing was formed from units of the RNAS and Royal Flying Corps . The RNAS took to

712-579: A rapid collapse of civilian morale so that political pressure to sue for peace would lead to a rapid conclusion. When such attacks were tried in the 1930s—in the Spanish Civil War and the Second Sino-Japanese War —they were ineffective. Commentators observed the failures and some air forces, such as the Luftwaffe , concentrated their efforts upon direct support of the troops. Terror bombing

801-497: A result, bomb loads were regularly dropped "blind" using dead-reckoning methods little different from those used by the RAF night bombers. In addition, only the leading bomber in a formation actually utilized the Norden sight, the rest of the formation dropping their bombs only when they saw the lead aircraft's bombload falling away. Since even a very tight bomber formation could cover a vast area,

890-549: A story about the Dresden raid. The military press censor at SHAEF made a mistake and allowed the Cowan cable to go out starting with "Allied air bosses have made the long awaited decision to adopt deliberate terror bombing of great German population centers as a ruthless expedient to hasten Hitler's doom." There were follow-up newspaper editorials on the issue and a longtime opponent of strategic bombing, Richard Stokes MP , asked questions in

979-411: A young RAF squadron commander (later nicknamed "Bomber" ), reported after a mission in 1924, "The Arab and Kurd now know what real bombing means, in casualties and damage. They know that within 45 minutes a full-sized village can be practically wiped out and a third of its inhabitants killed or injured". On an official level, RAF directives stressed: In these attacks, endeavour should be made to spare

SECTION 10

#1732855717850

1068-526: Is a term used for aerial attacks planned to weaken or break enemy morale. Use of the term to refer to aerial attacks implies the attacks are criminal according to the law of war , or if within the laws of war are nevertheless a moral crime. According to John Algeo in Fifty Years among the New Words: A Dictionary of Neologisms 1941–1991 , the first recorded usage of "Terror bombing" in a United States publication

1157-530: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Space force Countries with smaller or developing space forces may combine their air and space forces under a single military branch, such as the Russian Aerospace Forces , Spanish Air and Space Force , French Air and Space Force , or Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force , or put them in an independent defense agency, such as

1246-1035: The Wehrmacht to launch long-range attacks on the Allied Forces on the Western Front during the Second World War . The designer of the A4, Wernher von Braun , had aspirations to use them as space launch vehicles. In both the United States and the Soviet Union, military space development began immediately after the Second World War concluded, with Wernher von Braun defecting to the Allies and both superpowers gathering V-2 rockets, research materials, and German scientists to jumpstart their own ballistic missile and space programs. In

1335-655: The 3rd Department of the Main Missile Directorate of the Ministry of Defence , before in 1964 becoming a part of the new Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces Central Directorate of Space Assets. The Strategic Rocket Forces Central Directorate of Space Assets would be renamed the Main Directorate of Space Assets in 1970, being transferred to directly report to the Soviet Ministry of Defense in 1982, and in 1986 became

1424-511: The Avro Lancaster , and 20,000 lb (9,000 kg) B-29 Superfortress , with some specialized aircraft, such as the 'Special B' Avro Lancaster carrying the 22,000 lb (10,000 kg) Grand Slam . During the first year of the war in Europe, strategic bombing was developed through trial and error. The Luftwaffe had been attacking both civilian and military targets from the first day of

1513-460: The Gulf War , where they proved so critical to the U.S.-led coalition, that it is sometimes referred to as the first space war. The first discussions of creating a military space service in the United States occurred in 1958, with the idea being floated by President Reagan as well in 1982. The 2001 Space Commission argued for the creation of a Space Corps between 2007 and 2011 and a bipartisan proposal in

1602-578: The Imperial Japanese Army Air Service frequently used strategic bombing over Singaporean, Burmese, and Chinese cities such as Shanghai , Guangzhou , Nanjing , Chongqing , Singapore , and Rangoon . However, the Japanese military in most places advanced quickly enough that a strategic bombing campaign was unnecessary, and the Japanese aircraft industry was incapable of producing truly strategic bombers in any event. In those places where it

1691-559: The Mustang ) became available. Conditions in the European theatre made it very difficult to achieve the accuracy achieved using the exceptional and top-secret Norden optical bombsight in the clear skies over the desert bombing ranges of Nevada and California. Raids over Europe commonly took place in conditions of very poor visibility, with targets partly or wholly obscured by thick cloud, smokescreens, or smoke from fires started by previous raids. As

1780-617: The Royal Air Force (RAF) and the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) during their strategic bombing campaigns as Terrorangriffe —terror attacks. The Allied governments usually described their bombing of cities with euphemisms such as area bombing (RAF) or precision bombing (USAAF), and for most of World War II the Allied news media did the same. However, at a SHAEF press conference on 16 February 1945, two days after

1869-663: The Russian Aerospace Forces , which reestablished the Russian Space Forces as one of its three sub-branches, although it is no longer an independent entity. In 1998, the Chinese People's Liberation Army began creating its space forces under the General Armaments Department , before being reorganized and renamed as the People's Liberation Army Strategic Support Force Space Systems Department in 2015. The PLASSF

SECTION 20

#1732855717850

1958-471: The appeasement of Hitler in the late 1930s. During the Spanish Civil War , the bombing of Guernica by German aviators including the Condor Legion , under Nationalist command, resulted in its near destruction. Casualties were estimated to be between 500 and 1500. Though this figure was relatively small, aerial bombers and their weaponry were continually improving—already suggesting the devastation that

2047-559: The bombing of Dresden , British Air Commodore Colin McKay Grierson replied to a question by one of the journalists that the primary target of the bombing had been on communications to prevent the Germans from moving military supplies and to stop movement in all directions if possible. He then added in an offhand remark that the raid also helped destroy "what is left of German morale." Howard Cowan, an Associated Press war correspondent, filed

2136-671: The Air Force's space rivals in the Army Ballistic Missile Agency , Naval Research Laboratory , and Advanced Research Projects Agency were absorbed by NASA when it was created in 1958, leaving it as the only major military space organization within the U.S. Department of Defense. In 1954, General Bernard Schriever established the Western Development Division within Air Research and Development Command , becoming

2225-647: The Allied campaign against Germany only really succeeded when the Allies began targeting oil refineries and transportation in the last year of the war. At the same time, the strategic bombing of Germany was used as a morale booster for the Allies in the period before the land war resumed in Western Europe in June 1944. In the Asiatic-Pacific Theater , the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service and

2314-615: The Belgian city of Liège , killing nine civilians. The second attack was on the night of 24–25 August 1914, when eight bombs were dropped from a German airship onto the Belgian city of Antwerp . The first effective strategic bombing was pioneered by the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) in 1914. The mission was to attack the Zeppelin production lines and their sheds at Cologne (Köln) and Düsseldorf . Led by Charles Rumney Samson ,

2403-544: The British and Americans (who started the war with predominantly similarly sized bombers) developed their strategic force based upon much larger four-engined bombers for their strategic campaigns. The payload carried by these planes ranged from 4,000 lb (1,800 kg) for the B-17 Flying Fortress on long-range missions, to 8,000 lb (3,600 kg) for the B-24 Liberator , 14,000 lb (6,400 kg) for

2492-587: The British be cowed into making peace. At first the Luftwaffe raids took place in daylight, but changed to night bombing attacks when losses became unsustainable. The RAF, who had preferred precision bombing, also switched to night bombing, also due to excessive losses. Before the Rotterdam Blitz on 14 May 1940 the British restricted themselves to tactical bombing west of the Rhine and naval installations. The day after

2581-753: The Chief Directorate of Space Assets. Established in 1967, the Anti-Ballistic Missile and Anti-Space Defense Forces of the Soviet Air Defense Forces were responsible for space surveillance and defense operations. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the Russian Federation gained its space forces, with the Chief Directorate of Space Assets was reorganized into the Military Space Forces , an independent troops ( vid ) under

2670-632: The Eastern England towns of Great Yarmouth , Sheringham , King's Lynn , and the surrounding villages. In all, four people were killed and sixteen injured, and monetary damage was estimated at £7,740 (about US$ 36,000 at the time). German airships also bombed on other fronts, for example in January 1915 on Liepāja in Latvia. In 1915 there were 19 more raids, in which 37 tons of bombs were dropped, killing 181 people and injuring 455. Raids continued in 1916. London

2759-521: The German Naval Airship Department. By the end of the war, 51 raids had been undertaken, in which 5,806 bombs were dropped, killing 557 people and injuring 1,358. These raids caused only minor hampering of wartime production, by later standards. A much greater impact was the diversion of twelve aircraft squadrons, many guns, and over 10,000 men to air defenses. The raids generated a wave of hysteria, partially caused by media. This revealed

Space Corps - Misplaced Pages Continue

2848-769: The House of Commons on 6 March. The controversy stirred up by the Cowan news report reached the highest levels of the British Government when on 28 March 1945 the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill , sent a memo by telegram to General Ismay for the British Chiefs of Staff and the Chief of the Air Staff in which he started with the sentence "It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for

2937-735: The Indian Defence Space Agency . Countries with nascent military space capabilities usually organize them within their air forces . The first artificial object to cross the Kármán line , the boundary between air and space, was MW 18014 , an A-4 rocket launched by the German Heer on 20 June 1944 from the Peenemünde Army Research Center . The A4, more commonly known as the V-2, was the world's first ballistic missile , used by

3026-520: The Japanese island of Iwo Jima further enhanced the capabilities that the Americans possessed in their strategic bombing campaign. High-explosive and incendiary bombs were used against Japan to devastating effect, with greater indiscriminate loss of life in the firebombing of Tokyo on March 9–10, 1945 than was caused either by the Dresden mission , or the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki . Unlike

3115-959: The Rotterdam Blitz a new directive was issued to the RAF to attack targets in the Ruhr , including oil plants and other civilian industrial targets which aided the German war effort, such as blast furnaces that at night were self-illuminating. After the Butt Report (released in September 1941) proved the inadequacy of RAF Bomber Command training methods and equipment, the RAF adopted an area-attack strategy, by which it hoped to impede Germany's war production, her powers of resistance (by destroying resources and forcing Germany to divert resources from her front lines to defend her air space), and her morale. The RAF dramatically improved its navigation so that on average its bombs hit closer to target. Accuracy never exceeded

3204-660: The Russian Ministry of Defense, but not a military service ( vid ). The Soviet Air Defense Forces' Anti-Ballistic Missile and Anti-Space Defense Forces were reorganized into the Russian Air Defense Forces' Rocket and Space Defence Troops  [ ru ] . In 1997, the Rocket and Space Defence Troops and Military Space Forces were merged into the Strategic Missile Forces; it subordinated the priorities of

3293-522: The Spanish Nationalists, generally agreed. The strategic bombing conducted in World War II was unlike any before. The campaigns conducted in Europe and Asia could involve aircraft dropping thousands of tons of conventional bombs or a nuclear weapon over a single city. Area bombardment came to prominence during World War II with the use of large numbers of unguided gravity bombs , often with

3382-673: The Trenchard school in Great Britain, and General Billy Mitchell in the United States. These theorists thought that aerial bombardment of the enemy's homeland would be an important part of future wars. Not only would such attacks weaken the enemy by destroying important military infrastructure, they would also break the morale of the civilian population, forcing their government to capitulate. Although area bombing theorists acknowledged that measures could be taken to defend against bombers—using fighter planes and anti-aircraft artillery —the maxim of

3471-702: The U.S. Congress would have created a Space Corps in 2017. Then on 20 December 2019, the United States Space Force Act, part of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2020 , was signed, creating an independent space service by renaming and reorganizing Air Force Space Command into the United States Space Force. In the Soviet Union, the early space program was led by the OKB-1 design bureau, led by Sergei Korolev . Unlike in

3560-574: The U.S. military's first space organization, which continues to exist in the U.S. Space Force as the Space Systems Command , its research and development center. During the 1960s and 1970s, Air Force space forces were organized within Aerospace Defense Command for missile defense and space surveillance forces, Strategic Air Command for weather reconnaissance satellites, and Air Force Systems Command for satellite communications, space launch, and space development systems. In 1982, U.S. Air Force space forces were centralized in Air Force Space Command ,

3649-492: The USAAF's strategic bombing campaign in Europe, with its avowed (if unachievable) objective of precision bombing of strategic targets, the bombing of Japanese cities involved the deliberate targeting of residential zones from the outset. Bomb loads included very high proportions of incendiaries, with the intention of igniting the highly combustible wooden houses common in Japanese cities and thereby generating firestorms. The final development of strategic bombing in World War II

Space Corps - Misplaced Pages Continue

3738-636: The United States, there was a fierce interservice rivalry between the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army over which service would gain responsibility for the military space program, with the Air Force, which had started developing its space program while it was the Army Air Forces in 1945, seeing space operations as an extension of their strategic airpower mission, while the Army argued that ballistic missiles were an extension of artillery . The Navy also developed rockets as well, but primarily for Naval Research Laboratory projects, rather than seeking to actively develop an operational space capability. Ultimately,

3827-472: The United States, where excerpts from his book The Command of the Air (1921) were published. These visions of cities laid waste by bombing also gripped the popular imagination and found expression in novels such as Douhet's The War of 19-- (1930) and H. G. Wells 's The Shape of Things to Come (1933) (filmed by Alexander Korda as Things to Come (1936)). Douhet's proposals were hugely influential among air force enthusiasts, arguing as they did that

3916-439: The United States, where the U.S. Air Force held preeminence in missile and space development, the Soviet Ground Forces , and specifically the Artillery of the Reserve of the Supreme High Command (RVGK), was responsible for missile and military space programs, with the RVGK responsible for the launch of Sputnik 1 , the world's first artificial satellite on 4 October 1957. In 1960, Soviet military space forces were reorganized into

4005-472: The Yemeni side, were 65 killed or wounded (one RAF pilot was killed and one airman wounded). Between the wars the RAF conducted 26 separate air operations within the Aden Protectorate. The majority were conducted in response to persistent banditry or to restore the Government's authority. Excluding operations against Yemeni forces—which had effectively ceased by 1934—a total of twelve deaths were attributed to air attacks conducted between 1919 and 1939. Bombing as

4094-418: The acceptance of the provisions of the Joint Declaration of the Powers. Nuclear weapons defined strategic bombing during the Cold War . The age of the massive strategic bombing campaign had come to an end. It was replaced by more devastating attacks using improved targeting and weapons technology. Strategic bombing by the Great Powers also became politically indefensible. The political fallout resulting from

4183-423: The air raids with a series of night infiltration bombings of ADD airfields near Leningrad . Strategic bombing in Europe never reached the decisive completeness the American campaign against Japan achieved, helped in part by the fragility of Japanese housing , which was particularly vulnerable to firebombing through the use of incendiary devices . The destruction of German infrastructure became apparent, but

4272-521: The bombing air arm was the most important, powerful, and invulnerable part of any military. He envisaged future wars as lasting a matter of a few weeks. While each opposing Army and Navy fought an inglorious holding campaign, the respective Air Forces would dismantle their enemies' country, and if one side did not rapidly surrender, both would be so weak after the first few days that the war would effectively cease. Fighter aircraft would be relegated to spotting patrols but would be essentially powerless to resist

4361-507: The bombing of railways, trains, canals, and roads more harmful to production than attacks on factories themselves, Sir Roy Fedden (in his report on a postwar British scientific intelligence mission) calling it "fatal" and saying it reduced aero-engine production by two thirds (from a maximum output of 5,000 to 7,000 a month). Strategic bombing was a way of taking the war into Europe while Allied ground forces were unable to do so. Between them, Allied air forces claimed to be able to bomb "around

4450-444: The civilian population , thought to be demoralizing to the enemy, seemed to have the opposite effect. E. B. Strauss surmised, "Observers state that one of the most remarkable effects of the bombing of open towns in Government Spain had been the welding together into a formidable fighting force of groups of political factions who were previously at each other's throats...", a sentiment with which Hitler 's Luftwaffe , supporting

4539-427: The clock". In fact, few targets were ever hit by British and American forces the same day, the strategic isolation of Normandy on D-Day and the bombing of Dresden in February 1945 being exceptions rather than the rule. There were generally no coordinated plans for the around-the-clock bombing of any target. In some cases, single missions have been considered to constitute strategic bombing. The bombing of Peenemünde

SECTION 50

#1732855717850

4628-527: The conflict. Strategic bombing has been used to this end. The phrase "terror bombing" entered the English lexicon towards the end of World War II and many strategic bombing campaigns and individual raids have been described as terror bombing by commentators and historians. Because the term has pejorative connotations, some, including the Allies of World War II , have preferred to use euphemisms such as "will to resist" and "morale bombings". The theoretical distinction between tactical and strategic air warfare

4717-410: The detachment radius) of communications, their indifference to obstacles, and the unlikelihood of casualties to air personnel combine to encourage their use offensively more often than the occasion warrants. In British strikes over Yemen in over a six-month period, sixty tons of bombs were dropped in over 1,200 cumulative flying hours. By August 1928, total losses in ground fighting and air attack, on

4806-412: The first direct predecessor to the U.S. Space Force. U.S. space forces were first employed in the Vietnam War , and continued to provide satellite communications, weather, and navigation support during the 1982 Falklands War , 1983 United States invasion of Grenada , 1986 United States bombing of Libya , and 1989 United States invasion of Panama . The first major employment of space forces culminated in

4895-436: The first independent strategic bombing force, was created in April 1918. By the end of the war, the force had aircraft that could reach Berlin , but these were never used. Following the war, the concept of strategic bombing developed. Calculations of the number of dead to the weight of bombs would have a profound effect on the attitudes of the British authorities and population in the interwar years. As bombers became larger, it

4984-399: The following two decades fighting for survival in an environment of severe government spending constraints. In Italy, the airpower prophet General Giulio Douhet asserted the basic principle of strategic bombing was the offensive, and there was no defense against carpet bombing and poison gas attacks. The seeds of Douhet's apocalyptic predictions found fertile soil in France, Germany, and

5073-406: The force of four aircraft inflicted minor damage on the sheds. The raid was repeated a month later with slightly more success. Within a year or so, specialized aircraft and dedicated bomber squadrons were in service on both sides. These were generally used for tactical bombing; the aim was that of directly harming enemy troops, strongpoints, or equipment, usually within a relatively small distance of

5162-463: The front line. Eventually, attention turned to the possibility of causing indirect harm to the enemy by systematically attacking vital rear-area resources. The most well known attacks were those done by Zeppelins over England through the course of the war. The first aerial bombardment of English civilians was on January 19, 1915, when two Zeppelins dropped 24 fifty-kilogram (110-pound) high-explosive bombs and ineffective three-kilogram incendiaries on

5251-440: The goal of defeating the enemy by destroying its morale, its economic ability to produce and transport materiel to the theatres of military operations , or both. The term terror bombing is used to describe the strategic bombing of civilian targets without military value, in the hope of damaging an enemy's morale. One of the strategies of war is to demoralize the enemy so that peace or surrender becomes preferable to continuing

5340-406: The independent space forces currently in operation: Strategic bombardment Strategic bombing is a systematically organized and executed attack from the air which can utilize strategic bombers , long- or medium-range missiles , or nuclear-armed fighter-bomber aircraft to attack targets deemed vital to the enemy's war-making capability. It is a military strategy used in total war with

5429-454: The mighty bombers. In support of this theory, he argued for targeting of the civilian population as much as any military target, since a nation's morale was as important a resource as its weapons. Paradoxically, he suggested that this would actually reduce total casualties, since "The time would soon come when to put an end to horror and suffering, the people themselves, driven by the instinct of self-preservation, would rise up and demand an end to

SECTION 60

#1732855717850

5518-464: The newest major command of the Air Force, which would be renamed to reflect an "evolution of its mission" into the area of outer space . The Space Command is effective since 2019 and the Air Force was renamed Air and Space Force on 24 July 2020, with its new logo unveiled on 11 September 2020. The Spanish Government announced in June 2022, that the Spanish Air Force would be renamed as the Spanish Air and Space Force . The following list outlines

5607-651: The only answers—a later generation would revisit this, as Mutual Assured Destruction . During the interwar period (1919–1939), the use of aerial bombing was developed as part of British foreign policy in its colonies, with Hugh Trenchard as its leading proponent, Sir Charles Portal , Sir Arthur Harris , and Sidney Bufton . The Trenchard School theories were successfully put into action in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq ) where RAF bombers used high-explosive bombs and strafing runs against Arab forces. The techniques of so-called "Air Control" also included target marking and locating, as well as formation flying. Arthur Harris ,

5696-401: The sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed...." Under pressure from the Chiefs of Staff and in response to the views expressed by Chief of the Air Staff Sir Charles Portal , and the head of Bomber Command, Arthur "Bomber" Harris , among others, Churchill withdrew his memo and issued a new one. This was completed on 1 April 1945 and started instead with

5785-418: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Space Corps . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Space_Corps&oldid=956118248 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description

5874-448: The scatter of bombs was likely to be considerable. Add to these difficulties the disruptive effects of increasingly accurate anti-aircraft fire and head-on attacks by fighter aircraft and the theoretical accuracy of daylight bombing was often hard to achieve. Accuracy, described as "pinpoint", never exceeded the best British average of about a 3 mi (4.8 km) radius from point of aim in any case. Postwar German engineers considered

5963-411: The space troops to the missile forces, resulting in the establishment of the Russian Space Forces as independent troops in 2001. In 2011, the Russian Space Forces became the Russian Space Command , part of the Russian Aerospace Defense Forces , which merged Russia's space and air defense forces into one service. In 2015, the Russian Air Force and Russian Aerospace Defense Forces were merged to form

6052-499: The strategic bombing in a bigger way than the RFC, who were focused on supporting the infantry actions of the Western Front. At first, the RNAS attacked the German submarines in their moorings and then steelworks further in targeting the origin of the submarines themselves. In early 1918 they operated their "round the clock" bombing raid, with lighter bombers attacking the town of Trier by day and large HP O/400s attacking by night. The Independent Force , an expanded bombing group, and

6141-400: The tactic's potential as a weapon that was of use for propagandists on both sides. The late Zeppelin raids were complemented by the Gotha bomber, which was the first heavier-than-air bomber to be used for strategic bombing. The French army on June 15, 1915, attacked the German town of Karlsruhe , killing 29 civilians and wounding 58. Further raids followed until the Armistice in 1918. In

6230-450: The target in waves. Nowadays, a large bomber or missile can be used to the same effect on a small area (an airfield, for example) by releasing a relatively large number of smaller bombs. Strategic bombing campaigns were conducted in Europe and Asia. The Germans and Japanese made use of mostly twin-engined bombers with a payload generally less than 5,000 pounds (2,300 kg), and never produced larger craft to any great extent. By comparison,

6319-401: The term has pejorative connotations, others have denied that such bombing campaigns and raids are examples of "terror bombing". Defensive measures against air raids include: Strategic bombing was used in World War I, though it was not understood in its present form. The first aerial bombing of a city was on 6 August 1914 when the German Army Zeppelin Z VI bombed, with artillery shells,

6408-404: The times remained " the bomber will always get through ". These theorists for strategic bombing argued that it would be necessary to develop a fleet of strategic bombers during peacetime, both to deter any potential enemy, and also in the case of a war, to be able to deliver devastating attacks on the enemy industries and cities while suffering from relatively few friendly casualties before victory

6497-406: The toll of many innocent lives. Should We continue to fight, it would not only result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization. Such being the case, how are We to save the millions of Our subjects; or to atone Ourselves before the hallowed spirits of Our Imperial Ancestors? This is the reason why We have ordered

6586-569: The unique ability of a modern air force to win wars by unaided strategic bombing. As the speed and altitude of bombers increased in proportion to fighter aircraft, the prevailing strategic understanding became "the bomber will always get through". Although anti-aircraft guns and fighter aircraft had proved effective in the Great War, it was accepted there was little warring nations could do to prevent massive civilian casualties from strategic bombing . High civilian morale and retaliation in kind were seen as

6675-429: The usual euphemism used when referring to strategic bombing: "It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of the so called 'area-bombing' of German cities should be reviewed from the point of view of our own interests....". Many strategic bombing campaigns and individual raids of aerial warfare have been described as "terror bombing" by commentators and historians since the end of World War II, but because

6764-615: The war, when Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939. A strategic-bombing campaign was launched by the Germans as a precursor to the invasion of the United Kingdom to force the RAF to engage the Luftwaffe and so be destroyed either on the ground or in the air. That tactic failed, and the RAF began bombing German cities on 11 May 1940. After the Battle of Britain , the Germans launched their night time Blitz hoping to break British morale and to have

6853-431: The war...". As a result of Douhet's proposals, air forces allocated greater resources to their bomber squadrons than to their fighters, and the 'dashing young pilots' promoted in the propaganda of the time were invariably bomber pilots. Royal Air Force leaders, in particular Air Chief Marshal Hugh Trenchard , believed the key to retaining their independence from the senior services was to lay stress on what they saw as

6942-449: The women and children as far as possible, and for this purpose, a warning should be given, whenever practicable. It would be wrong even at this stage to think that airpower was simply seen as a tool for rapid retribution. A statement clearly pointed out that the ability of aircraft to inflict punishment could be open to abuse: Their power to cover great distances at high speed, their instant readiness for action, their independence (within

7031-582: Was accidentally bombed in May, and in July the Kaiser allowed directed raids against urban centers. There were 23 airship raids in 1916, in which 125 tons of ordnance were dropped, killing 293 people and injuring 691. Gradually British air defenses improved. In 1917 and 1918, there were only 11 Zeppelin raids against England, and the final raid occurred on August 5, 1918, which resulted in the death of KK Peter Strasser , commander of

7120-433: Was achieved. In the period between the two world wars, military thinkers from several nations advocated strategic bombing as the logical and obvious way to employ aircraft. Domestic political considerations saw to it that the British worked harder on the concept than most. The British Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air Service of the Great War had been merged in 1918 to create a separate air force, which spent much of

7209-468: Was developed between the two world wars. Some leading theorists of strategic air warfare during this period were the Italian Giulio Douhet , the Trenchard school in the United Kingdom, and General Billy Mitchell in the United States. These theorists were highly influential, both on the military justification for an independent air force (such as the Royal Air Force ) and in influencing political thoughts on

7298-856: Was eventually dissolved in April 2024, with the space force element of the SSF becoming the People's Liberation Army Aerospace Force . In 2010, the French Armed Forces created the Joint Space Command, a joint organism under the authority of the Chief of the Defence Staff . In 2019, the French President Emmanuel Macron announced that the Joint Space Command would become the Space Command and

7387-411: Was fully expected that deaths would dramatically increase. The fear of aerial attack on such a scale was one of the fundamental driving forces of the appeasement of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. These early developments of aerial warfare led to two distinct branches in the writings of air warfare theorists: tactical air warfare and strategic air warfare. Tactical air warfare was developed as part of

7476-575: Was in a Reader's Digest article dated June 1941, a finding confirmed by the Oxford English Dictionary . Aerial attacks described as terror bombing are often long range strategic bombing raids, although attacks which result in the deaths of civilians may also be described as such, or if the attacks involve fighters strafing they may be labelled "terror attacks". German propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and other high-ranking officials of Nazi Germany frequently described attacks by

7565-575: Was required, the smaller Japanese bombers (in comparison to British and American types) did not carry a bombload sufficient to inflict the sort of damage regularly occurring at that point in the war in Europe, or later in Japan. The development of the B-29 gave the United States a bomber with sufficient range to reach the Japanese home islands from the safety of American bases in the Pacific or western China. The capture of

7654-477: Was still disarmed and France was Britain's only European rival, Trenchard boasted, "the French in a bombing duel would probably squeal before we did". At the time, the expectation was any new war would be brief and very brutal. A British Cabinet planning document in 1938 predicted that, if war with Germany broke out, 35% of British homes would be hit by bombs in the first three weeks. This type of expectation would justify

7743-687: Was such an event, as was the bombing of the Ruhr dams . The Peenemünde mission delayed Nazi Germany's V-2 program enough that it did not become a major factor in the outcome of the war. Soviet Air Forces conducted strategic bombings of Helsinki , the capital of Finland , between 1939 and 1944, with Finland being subjected to a number of bombing campaigns by the USSR in that period. The largest were three raids in February 1944, which have been called The Great Raids Against Helsinki . The Finnish Air Force responded to

7832-423: Was the use of nuclear weapons. On August 6 and 9, 1945, the United States exploded nuclear bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing 105,000 people and inflicting a psychological shock on the Japanese nation. On August 15, Emperor Hirohito announced the surrender of Japan , stating : Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is indeed incalculable, taking

7921-490: Was to come in the near future. Yet the theory that " the bomber will always get through " started to appear doubtful, as stated by the U.S.  Attaché in 1937, "The peacetime theory of the complete invulnerability of the modern type of bombardment airplane no longer holds. The increased speeds of both the bombardment and pursuit plane have worked in favor of the pursuit ... The flying fortress died in Spain." Large scale bombing of

#849150