Air Supremacy: Mastering Aerial Warfare Strategies and Technologies for the 21st Century

By Fouad Sabry

What is Air Supremacy

Aerial supremacy is the degree to which a side in a conflict holds control of air power over opposing forces. There are levels of control of the air in aerial warfare. Control of the air is the aerial equivalent of command of the sea.

How you will benefit

(I) Insights, and validations about the following topics:

Chapter 1: Air supremacy

Chapter 2: Fighter aircraft

Chapter 3: Military aircraft

Chapter 4: Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21

Chapter 5: Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17

Chapter 6: Interceptor aircraft

Chapter 7: Heavy fighter

Chapter 8: Israeli Air Force

Chapter 9: Mikoyan MiG-29

Chapter 10: Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25

(II) Answering the public top questions about air supremacy.

Who this book is for

Professionals, undergraduate and graduate students, enthusiasts, hobbyists, and those who want to go beyond basic knowledge or information for any kind of Air Supremacy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: One Billion Knowledgeable
• Release date: Jun 19, 2024

Book preview

Chapter 1: Air supremacy

A side's level of control over opposing forces' use of air power during a conflict is referred to as aerial supremacy (sometimes called air superiority). In aerial combat, air control is exercised at many levels. The aerial equivalent of command of the sea is control of the air.

Military strategists believe that having an environment of at least air superiority is essential since air power has grown to be a potent component of military campaigns. Increased bombing operations, tactical air support for ground forces, parachute assaults, airdrops, and straightforward cargo plane transfers, which can move ground forces and supplies, are all made possible by air superiority. Although the amount of air superiority and the variety of aircraft are factors in air power, the scenario it symbolizes defies simple categorization. The level of air control between two forces is a zero-sum game; as one force increases control, the other force decreases control. When air forces are unable to compete for air parity or superiority, they can try to achieve air denial, in which case they keep their activities at a level that concedes air superiority to the opposing side but prevents it from obtaining air supremacy.

Achieving aerial supremacy does not ensure a low loss rate of friendly aircraft since opposing forces might frequently adopt novel strategies or spot flaws. For instance, while having aerial superiority over Kosovo, NATO forces nonetheless lost a stealth strike aircraft to a Serbian ground-based air defense system. There have been a number of battles in asymmetrical warfare where relatively under-equipped ground troops have managed to down aircraft despite facing overwhelming aerial superiority. Insurgents found more success targeting coalition aircraft on the ground than while they were flying above them in the skies during the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The ultimate level is when one side has complete control over the sky, or air dominance. It is described as the degree of air supremacy when the opposing air force is incapable of effective intervention by NATO and the US Department of Defense.

The second stage is air superiority, where one side has an advantage over the other. According to the NATO definition, it is the degree of dominance in [an] air combat... that permits [one side] and its related land, sea, and air forces to undertake operations at a particular time and place without prohibitive interference from opposing air forces.

A favorable air scenario is one in which the enemy's air forces are not exerting enough air power to jeopardize the success of friendly land, sea, or air operations.

The lowest level of control is air parity, in which neither side has any kind of sway over the skies.

Although the most visible component of air supremacy is the destruction of enemy aircraft in air-to-air combat, there are other ways to achieve air superiority. The destruction of enemy aircraft on the ground and the infrastructure necessary for an adversary to mount air operations has historically been the most efficient approach to achieve air superiority (such as destroying fuel supplies, cratering runways with anti-runway penetration bombs and the sowing of air-fields with area denial weapons). Operation Focus, which took place at the beginning of the Six-Day War and saw the Israeli Air Force defeat the Egyptian, Jordanian, and Syrian Air Forces and their airfields, serves as a historical illustration of this.

Attacks from the air and on the ground can cause disruption. The primary aim for which the British Special Air Service was established was to launch raids against German aircraft and airfields. B-29 aircraft were destroyed on Leyte by the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force Raiding Group Teishin Shudan on December 6, 1944. The Soviet Union asserted throughout the Cold War that by seizing NATO airfields and placing their tanks on the runways, much like they did during the Tatsinskaya Raid during the Battle of Stalingrad, they might gain air superiority despite the inferiority of their aircraft (note the Germans used parts of their autobahn motorways as airfields during the last war). In the event of a conflict, the Soviet Union intended to strike NATO airfields with its Spetsnaz special forces.

Some commanders have viewed special force assaults as a way to level the playing field when up against superior numbers or equipment. North Korea maintains a sizable force of infiltration troops due to the disparity in effectiveness between their fighters and those of South Korea and the US. In the event of a war, they would be tasked with attacking coalition airfields with mortar, machine gun, and sniper fire, possibly after being dropped on them by about 300 An-2 low radar-observable biplanes. Even more recently, during the asymmetrical warfare of the War in Afghanistan, eight US Marine Corps Harrier jump jets were destroyed or severely damaged by 15 fedayeen during the Camp Bastion raid in September 2012. As a result, pilots were forced to engage in infantry combat for the first time in more than 70 years.

The use of airplanes equipped with machine guns was one of several firsts in the field of aerial combat during the First World War, The Command of the Air, a book by Italian aerial warfare theorist Giulio Douhet, asserted that future battles would be decided in the air. At the time, air power was not considered a war-winning strategy by conventional military philosophy. According to Douhet, air power may be a decisive force and be utilized to prevent the drawn-out and expensive War of Attrition.

Billy Mitchell, an American general, was another important proponent of air power theory during the interwar years. Mitchell, then-Assistant Chief of Air Service of the United States Army Air Service under Chief Mason Patrick, organized live fire exercises that demonstrated the capability of aircraft to sink battleships after World War I. (the largest and most heavily armed class of warships). The first of these was Project B in 1921, in which a bomber flight sank the captured German battleship SMS Ostfriesland in 22 minutes.

The opposing sides' perspectives on the significance of air power changed as the Second World War progressed. In Nazi Germany, the tactic was known as flying artillery, and it was seen as a useful instrument to support the German Army. Long-range strategic bombing was seen by the Allies as a more crucial aspect of warfare that was capable of destroying Germany's economic hubs.

The Luftwaffe (Germany's air force) ruled over Western Europe after the Battle of France. Germany made a concentrated effort during the Battle of Britain to defeat Great Britain with air superiority, but it was unsuccessful. Britain was able to achieve air supremacy over the territory—a superiority it never lost—thanks to home-territory advantage and Germany's failure to carry out its plan to target Britain's air defenses. It prevented the German forces from having air control over the English Channel, which rendered Operation Sea Lion, a seaborne assault, impractical in the face of British naval might. At the end of the conflict, Britain and Germany's overall status at home and abroad could be viewed as being on an equal strategic footing. Following the Battle of Britain air battle, the Germans adopted a policy of night bombing attacks, to which Britain responded by conducting raids over Germany.

The Luftwaffe initially dominated the skies over the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa. The Allied air forces gradually won supremacy in the West as the war stretched on when the United States joined the battle. (For instance, on D-day, the Luftwaffe fielded 391 aircraft against over 9,000 allied aircraft.) The Eastern Front saw a similar action from Russia, which prevented the Luftwaffe from substantially interfering with Allied land operations. By achieving complete air superiority, the Allies were able to conduct increasingly more strategic bombing raids on Germany's industrial and populated areas (such as the Ruhr and Dresden) and successfully carry out the land war on both the Eastern and Western fronts. Starting in March 1944, the new 8th Air Force commander Jimmy Doolittle allowed P-51 Mustangs to fly far ahead of the bomber formations rather than closely escorting them after the Big Week raids in late February 1944. As part of a large fighter sweep strategy to rid the German skies of Luftwaffe planes, this started in March 1944. Allied aircraft pursued German fighters everywhere they could be found, greatly reducing their side's bomber losses for the remainder of the war over Western Europe.

Development of aircraft carriers, which enable aircraft to operate without designated air bases, was motivated by the need for air superiority. For instance, planes flying from carriers thousands of miles away from the closest Japanese air base carried out the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

While interceptors were initially built to combat bombers, some fighter aircraft were specifically designed to take on other fighters. The Messerschmitt Bf 109 and Focke-Wulf Fw 190 were the two most significant German air superiority fighters, while the Supermarine Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane were the main British air superiority fighters. The P-51 Mustang was an exceptional escort fighter thanks to its performance and range, which allowed American bombers to fly over Germany during the day. More than any other American fighter in Europe, they shot down 5,954 aircraft. The A6M Zero gave Japan air superiority for a significant portion of the war's early stages in the Pacific Theater, but it struggled against more modern naval fighters like the F6F Hellcat and F4U Corsair, which performed and endured better than the Zero. The Lockheed P-38, a land-based aircraft, came in third with 3,785 enemy aircraft shot down in all theaters, while the Hellcat shot down 5,168 enemy aircraft (the second-highest total).

The US, UK, and NATO allies battled the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact, and its allies between 1946 and 1991 during the Cold War. In order to counter the threat posed by intercontinental strategic bombers carrying nuclear bombs, both sides got involved in an arms race to improve radar and fighter intercept capacity. Aiming to keep nuclear bombers out of the reach of fighters and subsequently surface-to-air missiles, both of which occasionally carried nuclear payloads, high altitude was initially combined with high supersonic speeds. The 1960 U-2 incident effectively disproved the idea that high altitude serves as a shelter for high-performance bomber aircraft when an American very high altitude spy plane was shot down over the USSR with an S-75 Dvina(SA-2) long range high altitude surface to air missile. In an effort to defeat attempts at air superiority over the enemy landmass, US training shifted to low altitude flight of bombers and unpiloted cruise missiles. The goal was to dodge ground-based air defense radar networks by hiding in ground clutter and terrain. Additionally, ballistic missiles were developed, and even with nuclear-armed defensive missiles, they were incredibly challenging and expensive to intercept.

Although this was partially mitigated by later generations of electronic countermeasures, airborne early warning and control flying radar aircraft, as well as look down shoot down radar in fighter and interceptor aircraft, permitted attacking low flying invaders, once more upsetting the balance. In the end, the US took the lead in developing the first stealth technology for tiny strike aircraft like the F-117 and stealthy nuclear cruise missiles carried on conventional bombers for standoff launch before the air defenses were too robust. Though they had to spend a lot on interceptors, surface-to-air missiles, and radar sites to cover the vast Soviet Union, they significantly invested in expensive to defeat intermediate and intercontinental range nuclear missiles and less on expensive to maintain patrol bombers. North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, was established by the US and Canada to coordinate defense of the region around Alaska, Canada, and the continental US. NORAD utilized both interceptors, some of which were equipped with nuclear AIR-2 Genie weapons, and a surface-to-air missile component, which was briefly nuclearized. The B-2 stealth bomber was the first completely developed stealth aircraft to enter service. Its development was planned for and in anticipation of a nuclear conflict. Both were introduced after the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. The F-22 Advanced Tactical Fighter was a stealth fighter and interceptor aircraft designed during the Cold War as a medium altitude air superiority fighter with the intention to destroy Warsaw Pact aircraft without ever being detected or engaged.

Fighters intercepting or deflecting nuclear and conventionally armed strike aircraft, as well as ground-based air defenses, some of which were developed into mobile systems that could accompany and protect armored and mechanized formations, would be necessary to achieve air superiority in the dreaded WW-III European theater during the Cold War. Although the Warsaw Pact and NATO alliances never directly engaged in hostilities during the Cold War, the US did participate in two significant limited air wars, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, supporting allies who were fighting Soviet-backed adversaries and utilizing weapons designed for such a conflict.

The Korean War, the first battle in which jet aircraft played a crucial role in combat, marked a significant turning point for aerial warfare. formerly powerful fighters like the Hawker Sea Fury, F4U Corsair, and P-51 Mustang The USN's mainstay at this time was the straight-wing carrier-based Grumman F9F Panther, which had a respectable performance with a 7:2 kill ratio versus the more potent MiG-15.

The US side in the Vietnam War, particularly in the north, had strict rules of engagement that frequently required visual identification, negating the advantage they would have had using beyond visual range missiles but possibly avoiding friendly fire due to IFF systems not being widely used on US strike aircraft. The F-8 Crusader, sometimes known as the Last Gun Fighter, served as the close-range air superiority fighter for the US Navy in the 1950s. The F-4 Phantom, which was created as a missile-armed interceptor, would take over this function. The F-100 and F-104 were created by the USAF as air dominance fighters, though by the Vietnam War they had already been phased out from all but air support operations. The fast but slow turning F-104 was also replaced by the F-4 in the USAF by 1967. The Century Series aircraft, which were initially intended to deliver tactical nuclear weapons or intercept heavy nuclear bombers, were found to be lacking when they were engaged by the very agile fighters Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17 and Shenyang J-6 provided to the VPAF by the USSR and PRC; the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21, despite being less agile, was formidable against the F-4 and traded range for very high performance. Due to this imbalance, the USAF ordered F-4 models with internal 20mm guns, although both the USAF and USN occasionally flew aircraft without internal guns while mounting centerline gun pods.

Due to the American aircraft' poor agility during dogfights over Vietnam in the 1960s, air superiority fighters were once again developed, leading to the Teen Series F-14, F-15, F-16, and F/A-18. They were all outfitted with cannons, which were not present on early Phantoms, and placed a high focus on close-combat maneuverability. Due to their longer range radars and ability to carry more missiles of a greater range than lightweight fighters, the heavier F-14 and F-15 were given the primary air superiority task.

Since 1948, when Israel regained its independence from a League of Nations-mandated protective administration run by the UK, the neighboring nations have, to varied degrees, contested the validity of a Jewish state in an area with a preponderance of Arabs. In recent decades, some of Israel's neighbors have acknowledged and signed peace agreements; all of them have ended large-scale conventional conflict against Israel in large part because Israel is increasingly able