CHAPTER 4 AIR POWER FROM C 1950 TO C 1991 56 The Korean War 56 F 86 58 The Vietnam War 59 B 52 61 Wars in the Middle East 63 The Persian Gulf War 65 67 CHAPTER 5 AIR POWER IN THE MISSILE AGE Avionics Developments in Long Range Capabilities Other specialized and Multirole Aircraft Unmanned Aerial Vehicles The Afghanistan War The Iraq War 70 70 73 75 79 81 CHAPTER 6 MAJOR AIR FORCES OF THE WORLD 84 China 85 England 87 Germany 90 Israel 91 North Korea 94 The Soviet Union and Russia 95 Air Forces in Outer Space 98 101 102 104 108 109 CHAPTER 7 THE UNITED STATES AIR FORCE Major Commands Pararescuers Aircraft F 16 Fighting Falcon F 22 Raptor A 10 Thunderbolt II MQ 1 Predator Air Force One C 130 109 110 110 111 113
CHAPTER 8 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 114 114 116 AIR FORCE World War I World War II Women Airforce Service Pilots Postwar period and Cold War Into the 21st Century 117 120 121 124 125 CoNCLUSION GLOSSARY FOR MORE INFORMATION FOR FURTHER READING INDEX 129 133 135
D An early balloon used for reconnaissance during the American Civil War Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
INTRODUCTION ommanders had long recognized the advantage that could be gained from controlling the skies over a battlefield However it was not until the time of the French Revolutionary Wars and the American Civil War that they could realisti cally achieve that advantage Those conflicts saw the first uses of observation balloons to monitor an enemy s movements The inability to reliably steer balloons their vulnerability to enemy fire from the ground and their lack of offensive weaponry made balloons more of a novelty than a direct threat to opposing troops Nonetheless the skies had been mili Second tarized and the 20th century would see radical H e changes in military doctrine to accommodate this new frontier in warfare and defense This to book will profile the technologies and tactics that have led to the growth and evolution of air forces from the earliest lighterthan air craft to the unmanned aerial vehicles of the 21st century battlespace One of the core concepts of military sci Hence is force projection Force projection is the ability of a country's military to conduct operations outside that country's established borders The greater a country s force projec tion capability the greater its influence both I n
