I started reading @PhillipsPOBrien How the War Was Won: Air-Sea Power and Allied Victory in World War II a few weeks ago (and belatedly). Now that I've finished it, I want to recommend it and one other book as the two books that I would recommend to non-airpower people looking 1/

to learn more about airpower. Pairing nicely with OBrien's emphasis on what airpower can do is Clodfelter's work on Vietnam, although framed more largely in a comprehensive discussion of airpower: 2/

In some ways, these two works bookend what airpower can and can't do, which is why I think they work so well together. Both also do something important: they examine airpower pretty holistically 3/

O'Brien really wants to deemphasize the "land" portion of WWII, which he does from the beginning by this map, which stresses the vast expanse of the air sea "super" battlefield compared to what he argues are relatively small expanses of land operations. 4/

Whether or not one is ultimately convinced of this conceptualization, I find it useful if nothing else for reexamining my own mental map of WWII. 5/

O'Brien begins with a contrarian opening statement: There were no decisive battles in WWII. Thus he begins his quest to end a battle- and land-centric interpretation of WWII. He insists that we interpret the results of these battles out of proportion to their importance . . . 6/

because material losses were "small and easily replaceable." Also, non-combat losses were a "more crippling drain" In essence, the war really boiled down to a "competition of aircraft development and construction." Thus nations spent 2/3+ of their effort on air&sea weapons 7/

Thus Midway>>>El Alamein or Kursk because aircraft carriers took years to replace. Air and sea, not land, power were "decisive because they multiplied exponentially the physical space and conceptual possibilities of the area of battle. This allowed the British & Americans 8/

to start destroying Axis equipment long before it ever reached what we have traditionally described as the battlefield," thus his use of the term "super battlefield" 9/

The Japanese, by contrast, used their naval and air forces improperly and too narrowly, shaped by a "battlefield-centric understanding of warfare" 10/

Meanwhile, super battlefield enabled efficient destruction in 3 phase: pre-production, production & deployment , thus providing a framework for applying to other conflicts 11/

This "relationship between the-air sea super-battlefield" &the more traditional "land battlefield" is the key characteristic of modern warfare, which is about inhibiting mobility 12/

All of this challenges the historiographical trend that the war was won on the ground, more specifically on the eastern front, with too many assuming that "manpower in land armies is the determining measure of national effort" 13/

O'Brien then rescues, to some extent, "strategic" airpower. He does so not in the way that the bomber barons might have done to suggest it won the war independently, but he seems to see it as more important than the eastern front for some of the reasons already mentioned 14/

Chapter 1 sets out to prove that air & sea production dominated national economies. He calculates Germany spending 66% of armaments production on air-sea at max level, 10% of that to anti-aircraft weapons & ammo 15/

But the "strategic bombing campaign" kept Germany from fully and effectively mobilizing. Meanwhile in the US FDR sought control of the air, which meant airplanes, and lots of them. It had the adv of org its aircraft production without worrying about another power targeting it 16/

He also provides interesting comparisons. US spent 6x on its B-29 program compared to Germans' v-2. In 1943, the US even started cutting into $ spent on the Army, cutting into half of proposed size, to build . . . you guessed it, even more airplanes (gif not hist accurate) 17/

Likewise, tank production goals were cut by 55 percent. Sorry #tanktwitter O'Brien doesn't stop there. He challenges the assumptions of European historians who stress that the war vs Japan was a "sideshow," claiming it produced as much stuff as USSR, making it the . . . 18/

"most surprising of major air-sea powers." USSR & Japan used about the same amount of steel, but USSR put it toward the land war while Japan used it for naval ships & shipping. And that's just the first chapter . . . 19/

Chap 2 is Air & Sea War & Phases of Equipment Destruction (3 phases: pre-prod, prod, & deployment). O'Brien expands on how much stuff never made it to the battlefield after being made (69-72). In 1944, Japan's Navy lost 3635 aircraft in combat. It lost 6675 outside combat(72) 20/

Pre-production phase is diff to quantify, but combo of US air/sea on Japan's raw material shipping was enormous (72-73). By contrast, Germany had much larger stockpiles (75). 21/

In the production phase, O'Brien gives more credit to strategic bombardment than is generally done. The August 43 Regensburg raid, usually seen from perspective of US casualties, caused more loss than in the "skies over Kursk or even Sicily" (77-78) 22/

He est at least 5000 fighters were not built (80). The same, he argues, was true of a pre-LeMay strike against a Mitsubishi factory in Dec of 1944, leading to a sense of "hopelessness" (80) 23/

O'Brien really wants to stress the underappreciated work done to destroy during the deployment of recently-made aircraft, though (82-83) and thus warns against allowing the "overwhelming focus" to be on using AP in a "tactical sense of battlefield" ops (84). This aligns with 24/

much traditional AP thinking, but it no doubt will raise some eyebrows. But, back to deployment, this focus leads him to claim that the "toll taken" on convoys on their way to Guadalcanal more so than the fighting itself decided the victory (86). 25/

By 1944, only a "minority" of newly-made shiny stuff actually made it to the battlefield (87). Again, O'Brien makes a controversial point to challenge the claim that "it was the effectiveness of tactical air power over strategy" that is most important lesson learned(88) 26/

Meanwhile, casualties on the ground were relatively light compared to WWI standards (89), and Germany increasingly pulled its aircraft back home--54% by Dec 43 and 67% by Dec 44 (92), again because of strategic bombardment 27/

Chap 3: Air & Sea War to Nov 1940: Neither US or Britain had done much during the inter-war period that proved productive in WWII (97). The weakness of all early AP theory was its stress over what to strike at the expense of actually being able to strike (102) 28/

Germany and Japan didn't do much better during this time in preparing for future aerial combat (114) 29/

But both the US and GB could not only produce quantity, they could produce quality (106), in part because they better integrated scientists into their wartime efforts 30/

Royal Navy also unprepared, with 40 destroyers for convoy. By contrast, six months after Germans began unrestricted sub warfare in 1917, it had 449 vessels that could be used for convoy duty, 170 specifically designed for the role. But convoy duty was not cool ;) (126) 31/

Skipping Chapter 4: Grand Strategics & Air Sea War given it mostly provides context; moving along to Chap 5: Understanding Air & Sea War Dec 1940-Mar 1942: two key arguments on p. 184 1) "individual units" lost--even battleships--were unimportant if they could be replaced 32/

2) More interesting IMO: Battle of Atlantic="one of the few campaigns where Germany could actually wage truly modern war by destroying production in either its pre-production or its deployment phase." O'Brien, unfortunately, doesn't really discuss modern war until conclusion..33/

so a lot of these contentions about modern warfare really raise more questions than provide answers at this point, but that's not a critique, just a statement of fact that keeps the reader engaged 34/

Chap 6: Grand Strategy in Action: Prioritizing the Air Sea War--For the 1st year of US involvement, effort split about 50% between Europe and Pacific (201). USAAF leaned Europe 1st, even if it had majority of its beloved bombers in the Pacific (204). This portion provides...35/

some interesting context to this work, which stresses the southwest Pacific as a backwater and Kenney's continual calls for MOOOORRREEEEE!!: But this changed April 43 (205) 36/ https://www.amazon.com/MacArthurs-Airman-General-Southwest-Pacific/dp/0700609091

Have I mentioned lots of airplanes yet? By summer 1944, USN had the 3rd most powerful air force. It was about the same size as the Luftwaffe (214) This leads him to make the argument that if 40$ of US war construction is going to the Navy . . . 37/

then US "fought relatively similar equipment wars" vs Germany & Japan and it can be argued whether US really focused on Germany first (215) 38/

Meanwhile, some continued to hold to a World War I mindset while waging WWII, like Churchill. He thought too much in terms of advancing through territory rather than factors like striking German production & supply (221) 39/

O'Brien then makes the counterfactual argument that the US could have invaded in 1943 if USN had followed the Germany-first strategy (224). German defenses would have been weaker, there would have been sufficient "air cover" (225), etc. In short, they had the #s but ... 40/

had dispersed too much. And he insists that Luftwaffe couldn't have handled the numbers. I'm not convinced, but--again--it provides another way to think differently about how the war unfolded 41/

Chapter 7: Winning the Shipping War: Allies won because British "push[ed] the boundaries of modern warfare fully" in areas like sonar, operational analysis, etc. (230). Admiral King, on the other hand, was just a pain (237, 255 &elsewhere). Too much focus has been given to... 42/

Ultra rather than plain ol' production and strategy (241). Allies figured out how to defeat U boats so well that it finally got to the point of being "useful to Allies for the Germans to attack convoys" because it sped up the war (242) 43/

Still, the Germans had some success. O'Brien argues German navy may have destroyed 2x American aircraft in pre-production phase in 1942 as Luftwaffe did in 1942 and 1943 by sinking bauxite, etc. sailing to US for production (25). Again, this is O'Brien's continuing theme on 44/

destruction outside of the conventionally-framed battlefield (250). Indeed, it was far "more advanced" than anything on land, characterized by locating targets by radar and "attacking by 'fire and forget' weapons" 261 Again, this=other consistent theme--"modern" warfare 45/

Chap 8: War in Europe in 43: Strategic Bombing & the Land War--you know what's coming just by the title, right? Ploesti in August 1943 put 42 percent of refining capacity "out of action." 286Here and elsewhere, critics might highlight some of O'Briens... 46/

rosier assessments of airpower effectiveness. CBO, moreover, was "most important development in 1943 anywhere in the war in Europe" 289 although 1943 often seen as British not accomplish much and US still figuring out their way 47/

I have a hard time seeing CBO as most critical development of 1943 as well in terms of actual results because it was an ugly year for the CBO and still mostly a year of learning IMO