Aviation Advanced and Air Forces Grew at a Breakneck Pace
As the first major conflict involving the large scale use of aircraft, World War I revolutionized aviation. In 1914, airplanes were rickety technological marvels, little more than a decade old, and their role was limited to reconnaissance. When fighting ended in 1918, major offensives featured hundreds of airplanes supporting the ground troops, and heavy bombers were striking the enemy’s cities and strategic installations.
At war’s start, airplanes were slow and fragile machines, with barely enough power to lift a pilot and, perhaps, a passenger. Few grasped airplanes’ potential, or even had a good idea of what to do with them other than fly them over enemy lines on reconnaissance missions. In that role, they provided valuable service, and the Entente victory in the First Battle of the Marne owes much to airborne reconnaissance spotting a growing gap in German lines.
The growing importance of aerial reconnaissance spurred the need to stop the enemy from aerial spying behind one’s own lines. Firing on enemy reconnaissance aircraft from the ground was usually ineffective, so intrepid pilots started taking things into their own hands, and firing at their opponents with pistols, rifles, and shotguns.
That gave way to machineguns, whose use was awkward at first, until a Dutch inventor developed an interrupter gear – a mechanism that synchronized machinegun bullets to fly between the spinning blades of propellers without hitting them. With machineguns mounted in airplane’s noses, fighter airplanes were born. Soon, fighter squadrons were crisscrossing the skies, duking it out in dogfights.
Another use for airplanes was to drop explosives on enemy troops below, and at first, pilots simply chucked grenades out of their cockpits. Soon, specially manufactured bombs were utilized, and dedicated bomber airplanes came into regular use, capable of carrying steadily heavier bombloads over increasingly longer distances. By war’s end, the basics of aerial warfare, with reconnaissance, fighter, and bomber airplanes, had been established.