AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT IN WORLD WAR II: A QUANTITATIVE HISTORY.
Abstract
This Paper is a brief impressionistic survey of tactical air warfare (particularly air-to-air combat) from its primitive beginnings in the First World War through the one-sided air operations over Korea. In part the essay is a narrative, but a principal goal is to assemble data on air losses from scattered sources. To better understand how certain kinds of aircraft have performed against others in the past, this study stresses sortie-loss ratios for both the allied and enemy air forces. Thus, it is an essay in historical perspective whose purpose is to supply useful information for estimating attrition parameters in a cost-effectiveness study on allocation of tactical air. While the past cannot serve as a precise guide to the future, it serves as a minimum prerequisite for a parametric study of air losses in some future conflict. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Nov 01, 1966
- Accession Number
- AD0659043
Entities
People
- Joseph H. Reinburg
Organizations
- Institute for Defense Analyses