Airplanes play a crucial role in warfare, providing a fast way to engage the enemy, transport supplies, and conduct surveillance. During World War II (WWII), air combat created intense battles between skilled fighter pilots to quickly gain a tactical advantage over enemy fighters while minimizing loss. These fearless pilots were trained to perform daring maneuvers in the sky to attack their opponents.
During WWII, anti-aircraft artillery and air-to-air combat became more prevalent as battle strategies evolved to include bombing the ground from above. Fighter planes were used to protect bomber aircraft while carrying out these missions or stopping enemy planes from reaching their targets.
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Because modern aircraft have reliable radar technology and missile guidance systems, dogfighting is no longer necessary. Aiming and shooting missiles with precise accuracy from further distances is now a reality, which means close-range aircraft combat is generally outdated. According to Smithsonian Magazine, the last ever dogfight occurred in 1969 over Central America between Honduras and El Salvador.
With that said, the aerial tactics used during WWII are still considered by many to have won the war. Aerobatic enthusiasts often recreate these incredibly dynamic maneuvers to help people appreciate the complexities of WWII dogfighting.
WWII expert John Wukovits details the last dogfight of WWII between the Americans and the Japanese. United States Admiral William F. Halsey ordered an air attack on a Tokyo airfield on August 15, 1945, to pressure the Japanese to finally surrender.
A dogfight, or dog fight, is an aerial battle between fighter aircraft conducted at close range. Modern terminology for air-to-air combat is air combat manoeuvring (ACM), which refers to tactical situations requiring the use of individual basic fighter maneuvers (BFM) to attack or evade one or more opponents. This differs from aerial warfare, which deals with the strategy involved in planning and executing various missions.[1]
Dogfighting first occurred during the Mexican Revolution in 1913, shortly after the invention of the airplane. It was a component in every major war, though with steadily declining frequency, until the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s. Since then, longer-range weapons such as beyond-visual-range missiles have made dogfighting largely obsolete.[2][3]
The term dogfight has been used for centuries to describe a melee: a fierce, fast-paced close quarters battle between two or more opponents. The term gained popularity during World War II, although its origin in air combat can be traced to the latter years of World War I.[4] One of the first written references to the modern-day usage of the word was in an account of the death of Baron von Richthofen in The Graphic in May 1918: "The Baron joined the mle, which, scattering into groups, developed into what our men call a dog fight".[5] On March 21, 1918, several British newspapers published an article by Frederic Cutlack, where the word was used in the modern sense: "A patrol of seven Australian machines on Saturday met about twenty of this circus [von Richthofen's] at 12,000 feet. Ten of the enemy dived to attack our men. A regular dogfight ensued for half a minute."[6]
British Brigadier General Hugh Trenchard ordered that all reconnaissance aircraft had to be supported by at least three fighters, creating the first use of tactical formations in the air. The Germans responded by forming Jastas, large squadrons of fighters solely dedicated to destroying enemy aircraft, under the supervision of Boelcke. Pilots who shot down five or more fighters became known as aces. One of the most famous dogfights, resulting in the death of Major Hawker, is described by the Red Baron, Manfred von Richthofen,
By the end of the war, the underpowered machines from just ten years prior had been transformed into fairly powerful, swift, and heavily armed fighter planes, and the basic tactics for dogfighting had been laid down.
Airplane technology rapidly increased in sophistication after World War I. By 1936, dogfighting was thought to be a thing of the past, since aircraft were reaching top speeds of over 250 miles per hour (400 km/h).[19] The experiences of the Spanish Civil War proved this theory was wrong.
The other stream of thought, which emerged primarily[citation needed] in Britain, Germany, the Soviet Union, and the United States was the belief the high speeds of modern combat aircraft and the g-forces imposed by aerial combat meant that dogfighting in the classic WWI sense would be impossible. Fighters such as the Messerschmitt Bf 109, the Supermarine Spitfire, the Yakovlev Yak-1, and the Curtiss P-40 were all designed for high speeds and a good rate of climb. Good maneuverability was not a primary objective.
Immediately following the Spanish Civil War came World War II, during which dogfighting was most prevalent. It was widely believed that strategic bombing alone was synonymous with air power; a fallacy that would not be fully understood until Vietnam.[21] After the failings in Spain, a greater emphasis was placed on the accuracy of air-to-ground attacks. The need to stop bombers from reaching their targets, or to protect them on their missions, was the primary purpose for most dogfights of the era.[22]
Dogfighting was very prominent in the European theatre. While the French Air Force was a major force during World War I, it was inadequate and poorly organized, and quickly fell to the German onslaught. As the first battles between the Germans and the British began, the power of the German's anti-aircraft artillery became readily apparent, with 88 millimeter shells capable of firing 40,000 feet (12,000 m) in the air. General Wolfram von Richthofen noted that these guns were equally destructive when used for ground fire. Adolph Malan compiled a list of aerial combat rules that were widely taught to RAF pilots. The Bf 109 and the Spitfire were some of the most common fighters used in the European theater.[23]
During this time, three new Russian fighters, the LaGG-1, the Yak-1, and the MiG-3 were just coming off of the production line. The Soviet Air Defense Force had been fraught with problems since World War I.[25] The German Barbarossa offensive on June 22, 1941, destroyed more than 2000 Soviet aircraft on the first day, and more than 5000 before October. With great desperation, the Soviets fought in dogfights over Leningrad, Moscow, and Ukraine for more than a year.
Fireteam, a triple of aircraft ("troika"), has been the main tactical unit used in battles since the beginning of World War II. The analysis and synthesis of fighting experience resulted in a conclusion that group tactics should have been rejected and replaced by action pairs.[26][27] However, ramming an opponent was still a common practice among the pilots of the Soviet Union.[25] Another successful maneuver was a "Sokolinnyi udar" (falcon punch) when a pilot obtained a speed advantage by swooping down on an opponent, characteristically from the direction of the sun in order to hide their fighter within the glare of the brilliant light before and during the attack. This maneuver and many other tactical principles were introduced by Alexander Pokryshkin, one of the greatest tacticians of the Soviet Air Force who showed his worth during World War II. His famous motto sounded as "Height, speed, maneuver, fire!". It became popular in the air armies and was adopted by pilots.[28]
The Second Sino-Japanese War began on June 7, 1937, between China and Japan. The Japanese used the Mitsubishi A5M; the predecessor of the famous "Zero", which was a very lightweight and maneuverable fighter. The Chinese mainly used Russian biplanes similar to those from WWI, such as the Polikarpov I-15 and early monoplanes such as I-16. Despite being much lower in power and speed than the Japanese planes, the Chinese planes were much more maneuverable, and many dogfights ensued, resulting in high losses reported on both sides. Reports of dogfights that made it to the U.S. military provided valuable insight into the Japanese tactics and their plane's flight characteristics.[30]
Technology advanced extremely fast during World War II in ways that would change dogfighting forever. Jet propulsion had been demonstrated long before the war, by German engineer Hans von Ohain in 1934, and by British engineer Frank Whittle in 1937. The Messerschmitt Me 262 was the first jet fighter to be used in battle, with a speed over 500 mph (800 km/h), and began taking a toll on Allied bombing missions in 1944. The British were testing a jet that same year, the Gloster Meteor, which would later see action in the Korean War. Although U.S. General Hap Arnold test flew the XP-59A in 1942, the plane was never used in combat. Other prime inventions of the era include radar and air-to-air missiles.[37]
The Chinese were very competent in a dogfight, and large swirling battles were fought in the skies over Korea.[41] However, it was highly suspected by many U.S. pilots that some of the opponents they faced over Korea were in fact well-trained Soviet pilots, whom the Americans referred to as "hanchos", (a Japanese word, meaning "bosses").[42][43] Major Robinson Risner recalls,
The Vietnam War "was the first 'modern' air war"[45] in which air-to-air missiles were the primary weapons during aerial combat, and was the only confrontation between the latest aerial and ground defense technologies between the Soviet Union and the United States.[46] If U.S. air power could successfully conduct war against Soviet doctrine and equipment in the skies over North Vietnam, then it could expect to successfully operate against the Soviet Union during a massive war in Europe.[46] Over the skies of North Vietnam, U.S. aircraft would be attacking the "most formidable and most heavily defended targets in the history of aerial warfare".[47]
By this time, dogfighting techniques had fallen out of favor in U.S. training doctrines, as missiles were considered to be all that was necessary to shoot down the big bombers expected to be deployed by the Soviet Union. As a result, air combat methods known by fighter pilots since World War I became all but lost as veterans from WWII and Korea retired and didn't pass them on to succeeding generations. American fighter pilots would meet in the skies in secret to engage in mock combat[citation needed] to try to maintain some level of proficiency. It wasn't until TOPGUN was established for the Navy in 1969 and Red Flag was started for the Air Force in 1975 that pilots were formally trained in dogfighting again. ff782bc1db