Command of the Air [Giulio Douhet, Charles a. Gabriel] on *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Reprint of the translation by staff of the. The Command of the Air is the greatest military treatise on air war ever written – a dogmatic manifesto promising victory through strategic. Credit to Nicholas Morrow Giulio Douhet, an Italian army officer who never learnt to fly, first published one of military theory’s most recognized.
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In other projects Wikimedia Commons. In so doing it of necessity created a new battlefield; for wherever two men meet, conflict is inevitable.

The Evolution Of Airpower Theory. In 32 attacks by Austro-Hungarian fliers from April to the end of Octoberapproximately 1, bombs were dropped in an area about 1 kilometer square.
Giulio Douhet – Wikipedia
The organization of a combat unit must be such as to include a number of planes which can fight in formation; and the forma- tion must be of a nature to concentrate maximum intensity of fire in any direction in order to ward off enemy aerial attack, or at least make it hazardous for the enemy to commznd.
Once this weight is computed, we know the number of planes needed in a bombing unit. But this matter of bombs is a particular detail to which I allude only in order to give you an idea of the scope of the whole problem of the formation of o bombing unit.
Although the preponderance of forces necessary for the offen- thd to tip the scale made offensive operations more difficult than dpuhet ones, yet indirectly the situation worked to the advan- tage of the offensive by making it possible for the offensive to thin out its own defensive lines and mass the greatest possible force in the sector chosen for attack.
Compared with such units— the purpose of which, I repeat, is not to attack, 46 The Command of The Air but to defend themselves against attack— pursuit planes, with all their superior speed and maneuverability, would have no advan- tage, but rather the disadvantage of light armament.
In my opinion, the extent of this surface should be exactly the area of a circle meters in diameter. Brodie, “Heritage of Douhet,” 64, A progressive decrease of land and sea forces, accom- panied thr a corresponding increase of aerial forces until they are strong enough to conquer the command of the air.
Gas attacks must be so planned as to leave the target permeated with gas which will last over a period of time, whole days, indeed, a result which can be attained either by the quality of the gases used or by using fommand with varying delayed-action fuses. It can therefore be accomplished only by aerial means, to the The Command of The Air 29 exclusion of army and navy weapons.
This favoritism produced a rapid growth of this flying specialty; but at the same time it obscured the problem of national defense dpuhet prevented a correct understanding of what the command of the air consists in. In the days when war was fought with small, light, fast-moving bodies of forces, it offered a wide field for tactical and rhe moves; but as the masses engaged grew larger, the playground diminished in size and the game became more restricted.
This supposition is consistent with present practice.
Giulio Douhet
A unit of combat composed of slower, heavily armed planes is in a position to stand dommand to the fire of enemy pursuit planes and carry out its mission successfully. National defense can be assured only by an Independent Air Force of adequate power. I argued that the airplane should be the third brother of the army and navy. Speed and arma- ment were the characteristics most stressed in the design of this 42 The Command of The Air type of plane; and as a consequence the pursuit plane immediately became master of the air and dominated all other types of plane in combat.
Doubling the efficacy of the active materials, in fact, automatically doubles the power of an Independent Air Force.
It would be like the reasoning of a peasant who insists upon cultivating his land exactly as his father and grandfather did before him, de- spite the fact that by using chemical fertilizers and modern ma- chinery he could double or treble his harvest.
No villagers would be- have that way.
He harboured an apocalyptic vision of the war to come: The same year he completed a hugely influential treatise on strategic bombing titled The Command of the Air Il dominio dell’aria and retired from military service soon after.
To be exact, let us say that there are twenty of these objectives. If we look at the map in “The Martyrdom of Treviso” which shows the distribution of bomb hits and the photographic reproductions of the damage done, we can readily see that if those 75 or 80 tons of bombs, correctly appor- tioned among explosive, incendiary, and poison-gas types, had been dropped in one day, Treviso would have been completely destroyed and very few of her inhabitants saved.
In the first place, other types— reconnaissance, observation, and bomber planes— were sent out on definite missions, which put them at a disadvantage in encounters with enemy chasers. In fact, he may never have learnt to fly.
By bombing cities and factories instead of military forces except air forcesthe enemy could be defeated through shattering the civilian will to continue resistance. And to prove the fact, we have only to consider what those for- midable systems of defense, which for a long period during the war formed the main bulwark of the battle line, would have been worth if the infantry and artillery manning them had been armed like those in the time of Gustavus Adolphus.
Then gradually the idea of using it as a range-finder for the artillery grew up. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. All that a nation does to assure her own defense should have as its aim procuring for herself those means which, in case of war, are most effective for the conquest of the command of the air.
The state must make such disposition of its defenses as will put it in the best possible condition to sustain any future war.

He is the one who seeks battle, who makes the attack. I should explain, for the sake of clarity, that from now on I shall confine myself to tge heavier-than-air category, airplanes, as the only kind suit- able for warfare.
Tactical aviation altered the nature of land and naval warfare and so contributed to the outcome of World War II that a few historians have suggested that its influence outweighed that of the strategic bombing campaigns against Germany and Japan. But that is not all; something more is needed.

He was wrong on both counts, as British experience in was to demonstrate. The British developed an early warning system linked with a command-and-control network that allowed their fighters to intercept bomber squadrons.
The result is war. Such an estimate is the primary object of this study.
The Independent Air Force pp.
