air Force

Air force refers to a military force that performs missions in the air . It is the last military branch to appear in human history, and as the strategic value of airplanes was recognized in the two world wars of the 20th century, the existing Naval Air Corps and Army Air Corps specialized into the air force. The Air Force secures air superiority and secures the safety of the land and sea, the Navy secures supply routes to maintain troops and projects firepower on the ground, and the Army is responsible for ground logistics and can achieve the goals of the war and ultimately end the war. Therefore, in modern warfare, the army, navy, and air force have a close interdependent relationship.

Not everyone who operates an aircraft is an air force. In some countries, the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps also operate aviation units . Additionally, the Air Force also has bases and lodgings on the ground or on the coast, and operates infantry, armor, air defense, and surface units that guard them. The difference between them lies not in the location of operation but in the purpose of operation. The Army operates air units for land, and the Navy operates air units for sea control. Since they are operated for auxiliary purposes, it is rare for the modern army and navy to even operate fighter jets. When operating an aircraft carrier, the Navy deploys fighter jets to the Naval Air Corps, but due to the cost of building aircraft carriers, the scale is smaller than the Air Force and only a few countries operate them. In most countries, the air force is an independent development of the army's fighter unit, so it is rare for the army to operate fighter jets. Generally, it is limited to transport planes for carrying troops, helicopters to support ground operations, and drones for aerial reconnaissance.

This document also covers air units that are not formally part of the Air Force, but have historically served as de facto air forces in the Army and Navy.

The Air Force was the last to be launched in the history of human warfare among the three conventional armies, the Navy, and the Air Force, excluding the Space Force. However, in modern warfare, it is very difficult to win a war without the Air Force, so its value is very high. The start of a war for the armies of most advanced countries in modern times is to use air power to attack strategic objectives such as the enemy country's headquarters, capital, production and infrastructure, and major military units.

Despite its essential factors, there are many countries that are properly equipped with Air Force. In order to have the latest budget, maintenance system, and various mission performance (air wars, ground attacks, transportation, early warnings, and air refueling, etc.), it is necessary to have a certain level of economic size and mature and stable political system.

The reason why the Air Force can play this role compared to other military species is as follows.

The army is most affected by terrain. Regardless of infantry and armored forces, the army's movement is limited to land, and engineers are essential to bypass or clear obstacles such as mountains, rivers, and swamps, and in island areas, naval transport ships and air force transport aircraft are required. The entire Earth is connected by the sea, so the Navy can deploy to all continents if it wants to, but it cannot go to the middle of the continent where there is shallow water or no water at all. However, the air force deploys through the sky and is free from interference from terrain. No matter how high Mount Everest is , it is under the sky, and for air force pilots, ordinary mountain ranges are just a matter of slightly increasing altitude. If refueling is done through stopovers and aerial refueling, the air force's operational area is unrestricted. The fact that the U.S. Air Force takes off from North America and strikes West Asia has already been proven through the Iraq War, and the Republic of Korea Air Force also proved through Red Flag and Pitch Black exercises that it has the ability to deploy from the Korean Peninsula to Alaska and Australia .

Additionally, the Air Force is the most essential military branch to help the Army and Navy due to its ability to go anywhere. It is difficult for the Army to help the Navy fighting at sea far from land. Likewise, it is difficult for the Navy to help the Army fighting inland. If there are long-range missiles, there is nothing that the Army and Navy can't help each other with, but units and warships with such missiles are not common. However, the Air Force can assist both the Army and Navy on land and at sea, and the use of missiles is the most fundamental issue for the Air Force. So, it is unlikely that the Air Force will be excluded from any training, unless the training planner is an idiot or it is a political issue. The Air Force appears in army training, navy training, and Marine Corps training for close air support and air superiority .

In addition, it has the widest deployment distance and is the fastest. No matter how quickly the Army infantry division or armored division moves, the fastest speed to the operational area cannot exceed 100 km per hour, and infantry soldiers face the limit of their physical strength, and even advanced tanks such as the K2 Black Panther , M1 Abrams , and Leopard 2 from advanced countries do not have a range of 600 km. The same goes for the Navy's fastest high-speed ships, and since each warship in the Navy is equivalent to one base, fuel storage conditions are better than those of the Army, and the scope of deployment is more flexible than that of the Army. On the other hand, the modern air force deploys to the operational area at Mach speeds when necessary, and the range of even the F-16 , a lightweight fighter , is ridiculously over 3,000 km. Therefore, the start of a battle/war is usually initiated by the Air Force, unless Army or Navy units have been moved to the operational area in advance.

The goal of army operations is to expand friendly forces' territory based on regional occupation under the concept of a front, but the air force's vast expanse is the stage for operations, and there is no concept of a front on land, except for base protection. Of course, there is an airspace to be protected in the sky, an air defense identification zone that recognizes and warns of enemy approaches, and there is a concept of airspace as an airspace where operations are conducted, but airspace is not a line that must be kept, but a space where tactical measures are taken, and can deviate as much as desired to achieve the goal. Air Force operations strike targets identified in the air and on the ground individually, so they are closer to point-by-point attacks rather than attacks that create lines and planes by deploying large-scale forces.

The equipment that the Air Force has, namely aircraft and their weapons, boasts much more powerful destructive power than the Army's equipment, except for the Army's surface-to-surface missiles. The caliber of artillery shells and tanks , which are called the gods of war in the army, is relatively large at 155mm. On the other hand, the armament of the Air Force can easily exceed 200mm, no matter how small the ordinary aviation bombs are, and since they are dropped from an aircraft rather than put in a gun barrel and fired, as long as the aircraft can withstand the weight, bombs or missiles can be manufactured in a large size without any knowledge, and the destructive power is proportional to that. It is difficult to bring down a building with a single artillery shell, but the air force can. Individual fighter- bombers carry these weapons in tons . Therefore, while the Army has to deploy artillery in several batteries or battalion and brigade units, the Air Force can reduce the effort by using squadrons or strategic bombers.

The Army, whose structures in the operational area are solidified due to natural terrain and urbanization, can lay mines in advance on routes where the enemy is expected to advance, and the Navy can lay mines in underwater waterways and ports in advance to deny, block, or at least irritate them into efforts to remove them. In the Army and Navy, a small number of elites can achieve a dramatic turnaround by using the terrain. You can protect the canyon like Sparta's Battle of Thermopylae , or you can win a great victory in the strait like Chungmugong's Battle of Myeongnyang. However, nothing can be installed in advance in the air to prevent enemy air forces from approaching, and without detection means, the route cannot be determined. I expected it to appear in the western sky, but it could appear from the east. I was preparing for the north, but it could be attacked from the south.

Air Force aircraft is fast and when detection with the naked eye, it is about to be just before being attacked . It is different from the general enemy detection and level of developing and living expensive radars. If you have a stealth performance that is not detected by the radar, it is difficult to respond even if you have a radar.

There are three ways to respond to the enemy air force: 1. respond with your own air force, 2. supply surface-to-air, surface-to-air weapons to the Army and Navy, or 3. attack the enemy air force base in advance to prevent aircraft from taking off. In a normal situation, the way to respond to the enemy air force is of course numbers 1 and 2. Number 3 is difficult to see because it is used in general all-out war .

The above characteristics make the air force useful for eliminating high-value targets and operate accordingly. In peacetime, the Air Force's mission is to carry out security operations through patrol flights and participate in general field battles in wartime, but in wartime, Air Force pilots are given the task of completely wiping out the enemy's high-value targets (Pre-ATO) that have been designated in advance. While the Army advances on land and the Navy blocks the enemy and supports the Army at sea, the Air Force eliminates the enemy's strategic objectives and supports the Army at the start of war.

Strategic targets include enemy capitals, key facilities, weapons of mass destruction , and headquarters . A friendly air force that sorties in a short period of time can sweep away the enemy's leadership in a single blow, throwing the enemy country into chaos at the beginning of the war. Only the air force in history has achieved this achievement. Starting with the Great Tokyo Air Raid on the Pacific theater of World War II, it was American aircraft, and ultimately air power, that caused the Japanese to lose their will to fight. In 2024, Hassan Nasrallah , the leader of Hezbollah , died in a large-scale precision strike by the Israeli Air Force , and Ali Khamenei , who died less than a day after being struck by the Israeli and U.S. air forces in 2026 , remains the most dramatic example. #

In order for the air force to develop, it must build, fly, and maintain aircraft, and develop weapons used on aircraft. The aircraft manufacturing industry is at a different level from not only the automobile industry but also the difficult shipbuilding industry . There are ten countries on the planet that produce their own aircraft, especially jet engines for fighter jets.[1] Just looking at it, it requires a considerable amount of technology, and it takes a comprehensive development of various basic industries and defense industries, such as an excellent understanding of aerodynamics and the development of electronic devices, optical equipment, and radar for aircraft, to produce a usable aircraft. For this reason, there are only a handful of countries that can fill their air force power entirely with domestic products. In addition, the development difficulty of missiles mounted on fighter jets is very high. Even countries such as India and South Korea, which rank high in military power, import air-to-air, air-to-ground, air-to-ship missiles from Russia or the United States.[2] For reference, South Korea is making ballistic missiles and India is at the level of developing nuclear weapons. It is said that the development of missiles for the air force is that difficult.

It takes countless time and capital to train personnel and pilots to fly such aircraft and operate the weapons . It is well known to the general public that it costs at least hundreds of millions of won to train one Air Force pilot officer . Even based on the Republic of Korea Air Force, it takes about 7 years to train a pilot who will be used in actual operations because it involves 4 years of military academy, elementary flight introductory training, middle school basic flight course, advanced flight course, and separate conversion training for each aircraft type even after being assigned to each Air Force wing. An Air Force pilot who is commissioned as a second lieutenant must go through all of these processes and become a captain before being recognized as a useful squadron member. He or she must become a major, be granted the 4th class leader and instructor qualifications, and be designated as a squadron leader or squadron commander before being considered a veteran . The same goes for mechanics . For an experienced mechanic to appear, he or she must be at least a sergeant or sergeant, so it is still a matter of time.

Because it takes too much time and money to train pilots, it is more economical to rescue pilots who are lost and isolated in enemy territory than to train and recruit new pilots lost during operations. That is why we are operating a special unit that specializes in rescuing only stranded pilots. ( Air Force Special Search and Rescue Battalion, etc.)

It is true that they are treated better than other soldiers because they are a difficult workforce to train and each one is a resource that can achieve strategic goals. Pilots and mechanics are given top priority in promotions, and pilots are given preferential treatment by being reassigned to policy, research, or education departments even if they become unable to fly, commonly known as ' grounding .' The opinions of mechanics are respected second only to pilots in the Air Force and are reflected in policy. Usually, the flight squadron and the maintenance squadron are inseparable, so when pilots receive commendations, they always say that rather than bragging about themselves, it is because the mechanics worked hard on maintenance to keep the aircraft in top condition.

Thus, the Air Force is close to the aircraft, the more people who are involved in the aircraft, the more high -quality personnel, and those who are involved in the ground operations are treated ordinary. The Air Force is a major combatant, and soldiers are assisted, so soldiers rarely participate in the top -level process of aviation operations.[3] The army, on the other hand, is a soldier in charge of headquarters, so the soldier must be skilled.

Due to the nature of the technical military, the division of labor is sophisticated and one's specialty must be advanced, so unless it is a military police specialty, ordinary soldiers do not stand watch , guard duty, or guard post duty like the army. Since facility specialties are responsible for work related to airfield and runway facilities, if you are working in an air wing, regular soldiers will not be mobilized for construction work, which is generally called 'work' in the Army. They rarely receive combat training. If the air force soldiers raise their guns and resist, it means that the air wing has already fallen. In Korea, the Army is in charge of defending the air wing, so the Air Force Military Police acts as the last line of defense. If the Air Force Military Police, not the Army, is defending the air wing in the first place, the friendly army has already been annihilated and the air wing surroundings are all occupied by the enemy.

Because of these characteristics, the Air Force has an elite character, and no matter how dictatorial a country is or a country with a dominant army, air force personnel are treated well. Even in North Korea, which has both dictatorship and military superiority, the air force is famous for enlisting from highly loyal and wealthy families.[4] As explained in the development history below, many sons of European aristocratic families joined the elite air force and made a name for themselves as knights of the sky, and the example of U.S. President George W. Bush completing his military service as a National Guard pilot clearly shows the image of the air force.

Due to its international level of cutting-edge technology and the indispensable characteristics of elites, the Air Force (=Aerospace Force) is the last military branch that a general country can have following the Army and Navy. It is not a military branch that any country can have, and has the characteristic of being subordinate to other countries unless its own technological capabilities and training conditions are guaranteed . No matter how much money a country has, if it does not have the technology to manufacture aircraft and armament, it must buy them. Rich oil-producing countries like Saudi Arabia best demonstrate this reality. The United States and Russia, the two major aviation superpowers, sell weapons to foreign countries, but never sell technology with strategic value. No country wants to buy their own weapons and create better national power and weapons than themselves. Therefore, even if these superpowers sell aircraft and weapons, they subjugate the purchasing country by implicitly downgrading them , limiting technological capabilities, and leaving the most necessary maintenance to the purchasing country's air force rather than the purchasing country's own air force. Since the ultra-precision missiles used by the air force turn into dumb bombs without the help of GPS systems provided by military satellites provided by the United States, Russia, or Europe , the powerful countries that sold aircraft and weapons can keep purchasers with poor technology at their feet simply by not providing these systems if they wish. And just because a purchasing country buys aircraft and equipment does not mean that pilots and operating personnel will come out of that country, so the selling country has no choice but to send training personnel to the purchasing country. The selling country trains the purchasing country's pilots and operating personnel, but in the process, the selling country is able to understand and extract the purchasing country's air force status and information. Moreover, since the purchasing country's air force is trained according to the selling country's tactical doctrine, the purchasing country cannot train without the selling country's help. The Army, which has easy technical difficulty, is less subject to this dependence, while the Navy and Air Force, which have high technical skills, are more severe. This is also the reason why more and more middle-income countries , including Korea , have attempted to develop domestically produced 4.5- to 5-generation aircraft and weapons since the 21st century.

On the other hand, the Air Force does not operate solely on pilots and mechanics. Although these are the main forces of the Air Force, countless support personnel are needed for Air Force operations.

For example, without the control department, it is impossible to operate itself because it is the same as the air force's eyes and brain. It is essential to observe and forecast weather observation and forecasts, as the operational operations are done to know the climate of the operational area. Since it cannot operate without oil on the aircraft, there must be a supply of aircraft and a tanker who puts it in. There is also a driving disease that carries the pilot to carry the pilots because they cannot walk or jump to the runway. If a bird flies to the Air Force Base runway, it is dangerous for the aircraft, so you need a bat team that is driven out and you will need an engineer to manage the runway. Including all of these people, military police must keep the bases safely to take off, and air defense artillery guards the aircraft until the aircraft take off. If you are an air force who works with relevant specialties in air defense cannons and control battalions, soldiers and NCOs , such as the Army and the Navy , are also major combatants. So the Air Force has an important characteristic of teamwork .

Compared to the origins of the army and navy , which can only be assumed to have originated when apes began to split sides and fight, or when people began to travel on ships , the origins of the air force are very clear. This is because it was in the modern and contemporary era when the recording culture was sufficiently developed that the technological power to establish an air force that had to fly in the sky was secured. Therefore, the history of the Air Force is very short compared to the history of the Army and Navy.

Before developing a power plane, there is a precedent used for reconnaissance using hot air balloons or gas instruments, but it is difficult to see this as a proper air force. However, it can be seen as a distant ancestor of a modern air force, because the Aviation Service under the US Signal Corps was founded in 1914, the first war, the US Army Aircraft, the predecessor of the US Air Force. US Army Air Corps). At the time, one of the main missions of the aircraft was weather observation and terrain reconnaissance, which was used in the aircraft and the instrument until the aircraft was invented and operated in each group, which was mainly in charge of modern information and telecommunications departments. Therefore, the claim that the air force's predecessor is used for weather observation or scouting through hot air balloons, gliders, and kites is not very wrong.

The first army of the Air Force was the Yuk/Naval Air Force, which was founded in each country just before World War I, which broke out in 1914. In the early days of World War I[5] The flight altitude is also low, so it is often shot down when skilled infantry builds up, but in a few years, it is very rapidly developed due to continuous research and performance improvement of fighters, training of pilots, and practicality of the fighter and bombers in the military.



The history of bombing also began at this time. Immediately after the start of World War I, Germany and France began primitive bombings, with old aircraft flying toward each other's camp and dropping bombs by hand from the cockpit. Soon after, Germany's advanced Zeppelin airships bombed cities in Britain and France. Afterwards, the Gota G.IV and other full-scale bombers were developed.

In this way, fighter jets began to appear to shoot down or chase away the other country's reconnaissance aircraft/reconnaissance devices and bombers/bombing airships , and soon these fighters began to engage in fierce battles to dominate the air superiority over the battlefield. In this process, slow and dull balloons and airships are eliminated, and fixed-wing aircraft become the center of aviation power. In addition, commanders, including Britain's Trenchart, began to worry about what to do with these new weapons, and eventually in 1918, Britain integrated the Army and Naval Air Corps for the first time, creating a true air force that controlled the country's air defense operations and bombing operations against the enemy. A few days before this, Finland , a then-new country , officially established an air force, but with only one pilot and one aircraft, it is difficult to view it as a truly modern and modern air force.

The early fighter planes were two-seaters, with a gunner riding in the rear seat. However, the engine thrust was still lacking, the size was large, and most of the wings, including the wings, were made of wood, so it was not possible to maneuver quickly. To compensate for these shortcomings, a modern single-seater fighter jet was designed that allows the pilot to fire a gun in the direction of travel.[6] In the early days of single-seat fighters, guns were attached to the wings of the plane, but with the technology at the time, the wings were not able to withstand the weight of the plane itself, nor could they withstand the recoil of the machine gun. Therefore, we studied mounting a machine gun on the nose, which was the strongest part, but this time, it was necessary to solve the problem of firing while avoiding the propeller attached to the front of the fuselage. Accordingly, countries around the world tried to solve this problem by offering prize money.

The first plan adopted was to attach bulletproof plates to the propeller. Although it was useful right away, there was a high risk that the early airplanes, which had poor flight performance compared to today, would crash due to vibration caused by hits, and in the worst case, the propeller could be pulled out during continuous shooting. Later, a stopgap measure was developed to install the engine at the back of the fuselage like the Airco DH.2 , but this problem was completely solved with the development of a synchronization gear that installed a cam between the trigger of the machine gun and the engine shaft to prevent the gun from firing when the propeller was in front of the muzzle.

Air warfare at the time took the form of a dogfight , which mainly relied on the abilities of the aircraft and pilot to catch the enemy's tail and then neutralize the enemy aircraft with machine guns or kill the pilot. Even in World War II and the Korean War , this method was the basic combat method between the air forces of both sides, and in the Vietnam War and the Middle East War at the time , the tactic of catching and suppressing the enemy's rear with such machine gun fire was effective due to the primitive performance of missiles.

The air combat of the time showed a different aspect from the ground war, which was a mud fight. Unlike ground battles, in which numerous troops were brutally killed in trenches by artillery fire and machine guns , air combat was a battle in which the skill of individual pilots was a major factor in the outcome, and the battle was mainly fought between relatively small troops. Additionally, because becoming a pilot required dangerous and difficult training, most of the pilot members were children of noble families who received advanced education. Also, unlike the Army or Navy, the Air Force was a relatively young organization and had many civil aviation experts, so the military's unique military discipline was relatively weak. Accordingly, romantic stories of one-on-one battles between knights spread across borders, and medieval chivalry was often expressed, such as paying respect and not attacking the pilot who escaped even if he attacked and shot down the opposing aircraft .[7]

So fighters at the time did not consider the low visibility paint that can be seen today. Members of the same squadron were unified with colorful seals, and aces flew in the sky with very conspicuous primary color seals, just like medieval knights put crests on their shields and armor. These colorful paints have been passed down as modern nose art .

In addition, in the early air battles, formations were not developed, so when fighters met, so-called dogfights took place. However, Max Immelmann and Oswald Bölke of the Luftwaffe realized that air battles also had a great effect only when they formed formations and fought organically. and tactical areas such as tactical maneuvering. Thus, Bölke's maxim that pilots still learn, the Roughberry circular formation , which was a useful defensive formation even during the Vietnam War , and the Immelmann turn, an aerial maneuver method, were born.



The most famous pilot of the time was the Red Baron Manfred von Richthofen, who painted his entire aircraft in red and commanded the skies . The Red Baron became the object of envy among all pilots, and later influenced the mass media, becoming a motif for various derivative characters.

You can see the transitional look of biplanes from World War I and designs from World War II. The picture above depicts the Maltese Air Battle of World War II , but the British Army's Gloucester Gladiator and the Italian Army's CR. The 42 was a fighter developed in accordance with the aircraft concept of the interwar period.



U.S. Army General Billy Mitchell and Italy 's Giulio Duhe , who observed the operation of their country's air force and the British Air Force during World War I , were optimistic about the future of air power, and came to think that the superiority of air power would determine the outcome of future wars. In the case of Mitchell, he had already planned a large-scale airlift operation at the end of World War I , and began to spread the idea that using air power rather than the navy would advance American national interests in terms of cost and effectiveness. Italy's Giulio Duhe not only believed that battlefield domination by aircraft would become the future trend, but also began to spread the bomber invincibility theory among the powers at the time, claiming that the emergence of high-speed/precision bombers would make even fighter planes useless.[8][9]

However, despite this pioneering plan, each country at the time was expanding disarmament due to the aftereffects of World War I, and in the case of Mitchell of the United States, he suffered the humiliation of being kicked out of the military due to excessive disparagement of the Navy. Duhe was unable to put his prediction into practice at home due to Italy's underdeveloped aviation industry. Germany was unable to make significant progress in aviation strategy because its military reinforcement or development of new weapons was limited due to its defeat in World War I, while France had a strong tendency to focus on the army and was focused on building the Maginot Line, so it fell behind in strengthening its air force.[10] In the case of Britain, the situation was slightly better and it had a bomber-centered system following the theories of Trenchart and others who influenced Mitchell, Duhe, and others, but it had difficulty expanding due to conflict with the Navy.

In the 1930s, the Nazis and Hitler came to power in Germany and pursued re-armament. Thanks to Germany's advanced technology, it was easy to possess superior aircraft compared to other countries of the time. However, the problem was that the focus was on the development of dive bombers that would immediately support allies on the front line and destroy the enemy's major military facilities, rather than long- range bombers that would penetrate the other country's air defenses and bomb enemy cities. Meanwhile, Germany's twin-engine bombers were not incapable of strategic bombing, but they failed to properly develop long-range escort fighters to cover them, leading to a crushing defeat in the air battle on the British mainland . In addition, the Allied Forces, which had deployed strategic bombers on a large scale, were running out of steam until mid-1943, as there were no long-range escort aircraft.

Britain and France also began to expand their military capabilities following German rearmament, but in the case of Britain, thanks to radar technology comparable to Germany's, more advanced understanding of air power, and a superior air force, the UK quickly built an integrated and effective air defense system. However, France simply focused on increasing the number of fighters, had a poor operational system, lacked the concept of ground attack bombers and attack aircraft, and above all, had few possessions.

The United States was organized in such a way that the Army and Navy operated separate Army and Navy Air Corps as during World War I, but it had production capacity that surpassed that of European countries, and thanks to the size of the country, the aviation industry developed early and became commercially available in the private sector. Sufficient human resources were prepared. However, in the case of the Naval Air Corps, although they introduced an aircraft carrier due to naval disarmament , they did not expect much because of the bad memories of Mitchell and the still prevailing battleship- centered ideology.

In World War II , which began with Nazi Germany 's invasion of Poland in 1939, the capabilities of air power in battle came to the fore. The German Air Force quickly destroyed Poland's air power on the ground and in the air, and soon supported the army, destroying the Polish army and cities, proving that the prophecy that air superiority would change the leadership of the battlefield was a reality. In addition, it crushed the French Army, which was a powerful army at the time , with superior air power along with the excellent operational capabilities of the German Army, putting an end to the controversy over air power.

However, from the time of the invasion of England, the overwhelming power of the German air force began to show holes. At the time, Britain showed interest in defense as well as air power attack, so radar bases were built throughout the UK, and the enemy's location and situation were controlled wirelessly by fighter jets, which at the time were searching for the enemy purely with human vision. The existence of such a radar base finally made real-time battlefield control possible for the Air Force. Naturally, the German Air Force, caught up in Britain's well-organized integrated air defense system, began to struggle unexpectedly, and the Stuka , which had wiped out the powerful ground forces of Poland and France , turned out to be powerless in such long-range bombing battles, and Germany's long-range bombers stumbled as they revealed their limitations in cruising speed and payload capacity.[11] In addition, the Bf 110, which was originally supposed to escort long-range bombers, was easily divided by the Spitfire, and the Bf 109, which was unable to fly for a long time due to its short range, took over the mission and was pushed out by the Spitfires, who systematically attacked based on an environment that maximized their shortcomings and an integrated air defense system. Of course, there was no answer to long-distance bombing without escort based on the bomber invincibility theory, no matter what bomber was brought in in the first place.

In the end, the German Air Force, which stopped the invasion of Britain after suffering heavy losses, turned its course toward the Soviet Union and annihilated the Soviet Air Force, which was the largest in the world at the time. However, the Soviet Union recovered its military power with the support of the United States, putting the German army in a long quagmire, and from the middle of the German-Soviet War, the Soviet Union also took over air superiority. Also, in the middle of World War II, Germany suffered the humiliation of having all its major cities devastated by large armies of British and American long-range bombers. However, the UK and the US also become keenly aware of the difference between theory and reality as they spend countless aircraft and manpower in the skies over Europe. In reality, the German Air Force lost air superiority on the Western European front around April and May 1944, and it began with the appearance of the P-51 (November 1943).



It was the Imperial Japanese Naval Air Corps mounted on an aircraft carrier that dragged the United States into the heart of World War II. The Japanese aircraft carrier crossed the North Pacific over 5,000 km away and attacked Pearl Harbor , the largest naval base in the United States, and successfully carried out the operation by rendering the U.S. Pacific Fleet paralyzed.

In the Pacific War , both the US and Japan fought mainly with carrier-oriented naval aviation, but the US Army Air Corps was also active in many places . Army Air Corps B-29s subdued Japan with the power of incendiary bombs and atomic bombs . World War II served as an opportunity for air power to become a major player in the war.



For reference, the mistake that occurred at this time was kamikaze . The Japanese military , which was wasting endless amounts of resources and pilots who were difficult to train (the Japanese military was even more difficult to train/produce due to its notorious turds ), exhausted the properly skilled pilots after the Battle of the Philippine Sea and the good quality fighter planes produced before the war, and endured with a bundle of defective planes and biplane trainers thrown around by ragtag trainees who barely knew how to fly or during flights that could not be called air power, and then this crazy thing. By creating tactics, the remaining skilled soldiers and aviation power were destroyed, and the destruction of the already incompetent Japanese army was hastened. Moreover, it was a meaningless experiment like J7W Shinden from the beginning of the war to the end.[12][13] , Excluding the MXY-7 Oka, which was nothing more than a bomb carrying people rather than an airplane, the only real main fighters were the Raita Zerosen , a flying aircraft that turned quickly but burned when hit, the army's Ki-43 Hayabusa , and the twin-engine bomber G4M, which was famous for its burning leaves . The opposing US military is in a situation where new planes are flying around. This reckless, top-of-the-line military power, and the eccentricity of literally 'throwing down' humans before it, did not have any real combat effect, but only stimulated the US military's absurdity and desire to fight. What I mean by the desire to fight is, to put it bluntly, it means aggression caused by the absurdity of thinking, 'The people I'm dealing with ( the Japanese military , especially the leadership) are not human' and 'I have to end this crazy act as quickly as possible, even if it's the worst thing I can do .' Furthermore, the voices of the pilots who carried out the kamikaze were 'Long live His Majesty the Emperor!' It is widely known for its determination, but in fact it is 'Mom! dad! 'Help me!' It is said that it was a death that the pilots themselves did not want. This is natural as a human being before being a soldier, but the eccentricity called this operation was closer to 'your death is now part of the operation (of course, there is no chance of protest)' rather than 'you may die during the operation'. Just as the dead do not speak, there are certainly cases where people who protested were shot to death by the military in their madness. The surprising aspect of kamikaze is that it is not an unconditional suicide attack, but rather an order to escape from the plane by parachute ‘if possible’.[14] So, what should the miracle pilot do when he comes back alive? Should I be discharged? Kamikaze is an act of madness committed by the Japanese military when they no longer had manpower or any answer. We have to go kamikaze again. It was also the distorted will of the Japanese military that said, ' Even if we all die, it is beautiful and we will not surrender .'

In any case, as a result (and also in the political sense of the United States)[15] ), the U.S. military took the opportunity to drop the atomic bomb from an aircraft , resulting in the complete surrender of the Japanese military and the disbandment of the Japanese military at the cost of countless Japanese citizens' sacrifices. Since then, even today, after the Potsdam Declaration , Japan only has the right to have a military force aimed only at defending the Japanese mainland called the ' Self-Defense Forces ', but it is impossible to possess military power, at least in name, and it has become a country with no name or right to exercise the right to engage in hostilities except for a preemptive invasion of the homeland. The Potsdam Declaration was nominally about 'I will rule on your behalf and give you a chance for democracy and peace,' but in reality it was 'Let's end it now.' If you do not sign, we will literally destroy the military, nation, and people of Japan in order to destroy militarism and imperialism. It was also an ultimatum: ‘ I can do that and I will do that.’ This was not a half-baked bluff or a means of violent diplomacy, but a national-level declaration of destruction that was real, practical, and had a clear will to carry out it, because it was actually possible to do so, including the scenarios for the realization of follow-up operations, as well as the current times. Afterwards, humanity, which witnessed the worst and largest war in human history, which came close to this insane mutually assured destruction , with a flood of human blood, began to shout even louder against war and weapons of mass destruction. And humanity entered the Cold War era, in which psychological warfare, information warfare, scientific power, and diplomatic warfare became the main means of war instead of direct force. Of course, it's not that people's nature has become good or good, but it has a big role in humanity's greater awareness of the clear basis and survival instinct that says, ' If I continue this crazy act to the end, I'll die.'[16] To add, this paragraph is by no means an expression of moral justification or right and wrong regarding this worst tragedy, and it should not be. Clearly, the objective fact that people have learned is that this crazy thing called war should not be done anymore, and the content of the paragraph is only the basis for that.

The radar , which was developed at the same time in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany, proved its usefulness in the early warning system in the air defense operation, and these radar developers quickly develop not only on the ground base but also for aircraft -mounted radars. The German army, especially the night bombing of the day and night, was equipped with a radar, and was enthusiastic about the development of fighters that could detect the position of enemy bombers by replacing the pilot's view at night. Despite the good skills, Germany was basically small, and the American bomber was not fruited because of the continuous stabbing of the bombers in the United States. However, it was used as a night -time patrol (mainly bombed at night) with a radar on a large double pair, and these night fighters were used until the Vietnam War, when the radar was mounted and the missile was operated in the weekly fighters.



On the other hand, the United Kingdom and the United States, which had trouble with the activities of U-boats and the Japanese Navy, equipped long-range patrol aircraft with anti-surface radar and put them into the search for enemy submarines or ships. Developed a more powerful radar. This difference in electronic equipment was one of the main factors that gave Allied air power superiority over German air power, and since then, the proportion of electronic equipment in military aircraft has gradually increased.

At the end of World War II, jet engines, which had been under research and development since the 1930s, were put into practical use, and the world's first practical jet reconnaissance/bombers and fighters, such as Germany's AR 234 and Me-262, were produced. However, due to the insufficient amount of input in the first place, it was already too late to achieve great results, and many aspects were still technologically immature.[17] In particular, Germany's technological development, which seeks to offset the overwhelming air power of Britain and the United States with superior performance, is tear-jerking. Many of these German experimental and prototype machines were great from the perspective of the time, but many of them were unrealizable at the technological level of the time, except for some that were put to practical use or those that were later used for training purposes in the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom, and many were unrealistic or inefficient. Like other countries, this is the result of slowly researching, developing, and designing experimental machines and blueprints through other projects and making products based on them, but it is not a result of Germany's technological prowess being overwhelming compared to other countries.



However, the development of jet engines continued even after the war, and eventually the first proper jet aircraft, the MiG-15 and F-86, were developed in the Korean War. The clash of sabres took place. Even in this early jet age, dogfights were still the norm, and even the sabre's main weapon was still the M3 machine gun, a collateral descendant of the M2 Browning heavy machine gun .[18] However, the Sabre finally began to be equipped with a miniaturized radar that could be mounted on even the small fighters it had developed, and this one feature separated the fates of the MiG and Sabre, which were almost like twins, and resulted in the MiG being mercilessly swept away.[19]

The F-105 was a U.S. fighter-bomber that played an active part in the Vietnam War.

Right before the Vietnam War, the Air Force encounters a new weapon system called missiles . This dream-like weapon is like a brain attached to a rocket, and the rocket recognizes, tracks, and even shoots down enemies.



In particular, the air force based on missile all-round ( exactly the first tape of the US Navy Air Force and the air force followed), saying, 'There is a missile in the future, so you will not need an old cannon . ' In addition, most of the aircraft developed by the air force, thanks to the nuclear all -round , were the same as the fast bomber.

The missile is a long range, but because of the political problem, even if the radar and situation judgment are clearly known at a long range, the order was ordered to "don't shoot until it is completely visible." However, the actual accuracy was not very high because the missiles could be avoided in various ways, not an absolute interceptor that shot down the enemy once. In addition, the Miggi of the Vietnamese Air Force was relatively weak, but the size was smaller than the phantom, so the maneuverability was good, and when it entered the melee, the phantom was in a disadvantage. Of course, even if the phantom turns upward with a powerful engine thrust, it is not easy to follow, so it is not easy to follow even if there is no cannon. On the contrary, the cost of air warfare was not a food, but the phantom was wandering. Miggi per phantom drops 3.67 units. In addition, the Navy Phantom fought without a cannon, but he was better than the Air Force Phantom, such as shooting down 40s while loss of seven generations and exceeding 1: 5.

In any case, the situation was like this, so the Air Force came to its senses even though it was late and installed machine guns as additional equipment , but the Navy did not install them until the end due to their pride and 'they did not want to copy the Air Force.' Of course, that was not the only reason. Unlike the Air Force, the U.S. Navy used revolver-type gunpods rather than the Vulcan type, but this had poor performance due to mechanical problems, and the missiles used by the Navy were more maneuverable than those used by the Air Force. And because the Navy did not want to give up the high-power radar installed on the F-4 to use it for air defense, it was difficult to properly equip it with guns. For reference, among the three sets of missiles used in the Vietnam War, the AIM-4 Falcon recorded a hit rate of 0%, and the Sparrow and Sidewinder also did not exceed 10% in the early days. Of course, even if the U.S. military's rules of engagement used the method of launching two missiles at the same enemy, an accuracy rate of this level is truly unanswerable.



An AIM-7F Sparrow launched by Israeli Air Force pilots in 1979. But nothing happened .

Meanwhile, missiles have also had an impact on the ground, so while anti-aircraft attacks previously were purely a matter of how much you could pour into the sky, with the advent of missiles that track the enemy, they appear as a threat to fighter jets. Ironically, missile universalism shines brighter on the ground.[20]



Also, from this time on, the capabilities of ground attack aircraft, which inherited the ground attack power of dive bombers during World War II and were used as air power to neutralize modern MBTs , and helicopters, which were successfully put into practical use during the Korean War and have been deployed in large numbers since the Vietnam War , came to the fore. In particular, attack helicopters and attack aircraft became a reliable helper for fellow ground forces in ground warfare.

However, since the main mission of helicopters, such as attack helicopters and anti-submarine helicopters , is to support the ground forces and the navy, most of them are operated not by the air force but by the navy / marine corps or air corps belonging to the army .

A-10 ground bombing.

After the Vietnam War, the radar capabilities of fighter jets have improved further, with the radar on the fighter jet detecting enemy aircraft hundreds of kilometers away, a mapping function that reads the terrain and visualizes it on the screen even in poor visibility situations by analyzing the pattern of radar waves being reflected and returned after shooting them to the ground, and bombing after aiming a laser at a target. All kinds of weapons are beginning to appear, such as bombs aiming by following a laser sight, or guided missiles guided by GPS in conjunction with satellites .



The photo is a B-52 Stratofortress .

On the other hand, stealth technology that prevents aircraft from being detected by enemy radar has begun to be developed, and the only country that has put this field into practical use is the United States . Early stealth aircraft used special magnetic paint to absorb some of the radar waves, making the aircraft appear smaller to radar. The next thing that came out was a stealth aircraft like the F-117 Nighthawk, which absorbs and reflects radar waves. In addition, great efforts are made to minimize infrared rays and engine noise. The threat of this ability was demonstrated in the Gulf War .

From the first day of the war, the Iraqi military found itself in a situation where major structures, including command posts and radar facilities, were bombed by unknown aircraft. While existing bombings were carried out by dropping bombs on visible targets, the US military's bombings were carried out in the middle of the night by something that could not even be detected by radar, dropping one or two accurate bombs, leaving the Iraqi air defense network at a loss.

However, for this ability, the design of the aircraft itself was made so that it could not realistically fly.[21] Thanks to this, the speed was at a crawl, the explosive load was limited to about two laser-guided bombs, and flight itself was impossible without computer assistance (FBW). There is also one reason for the angular design. Skunk Works later said that because spherical calculations were not possible with computer technology at the time, it was only possible to design on a flat surface . In other words, it is an early work created somehow with insufficient computer technology.

As time passed, attempts were made to develop radars to neutralize stealth aircraft, led by Russia, and are known to have achieved some success. The F-117, which boasted of being invincible, also suffered losses, including being shot down in an attack on Serbia . There was a lot of controversy about this, but the most accepted explanation is that a French Air Force lieutenant colonel who had been bribed by the Serbian military authorities passed on NATO's flight schedule and route, thinking that this would not be very useful after a few days, but due to the US military's laziness, the F-117 flew the same flight path for a week, so SA-3 and other units were deployed on that route (for reference, the Serbian military's anti-aircraft radar at the time was at the level of the Vietnam War, and it was impossible to use it to detect the F-117). So close, right after the shootdown, there was a war of nerves between NATO and Russia over whether Russia had sold the latest radar .)

However, the United States later changed the direction of stealth to the B-2[22] Change the direction to reflect radar waves with an elegant design like the F-22.[23] , Since the F-117 was assigned as a second-line stealth virtual enemy aircraft, it can be said that the United States is still number one in stealth technology.[24]

In the 21st century, the importance of UAVs is emerging. It is showing great results in actual combat for reconnaissance and attack purposes, and air forces around the world, including the U.S. military, are also increasing the proportion of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). In the future, aerial combat using not only stealth aircraft but also unmanned aerial vehicles, electronic warfare, artificial intelligence, and big data is expected, and the importance of the air force is expected to be greatly highlighted.

Because the Air Force emphasizes the characteristics of a technical force, it has a stronger image of being highly educated or technical masters compared to other services. In the past, when army officers started as grade 1 officers with high school diplomas , air force officers only accepted college graduates from the beginning. Also, there is an image that it is somewhat more comfortable compared to other groups.[32] In the United States, there is a nickname for working while sitting on a chair: Chair Force. In a similar context, in Korea, there is a derogatory term called air public service , which refers to living in the military as comfortably as public service . Additionally, because of these factors, the military's unique authoritarianism is relatively less compared to other military types.[33] It also presents an open image.