[Download] "Military Innovation and the Helicopter" by Carl J. Horn III ~ Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Military Innovation and the Helicopter
- Author : Carl J. Horn III
- Release Date : January 18, 2013
- Genre: Engineering,Books,Professional & Technical,History,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 37739 KB
Description
Since 1989, the American military has sought to adapt to the changing missions and threats in order to secure American strategic objectives. The Army and the Marine Corps have sought to provide a force sufficient for current missions/contingencies while creating a force to defeat future threats. To meet this objective, leaders gaze into history looking for a shred of enlightenment as to how to proceed, or, just as importantly, what to avoid repeating. In this paper understanding the process of change is more important than the final product. The development of American vertical envelopment and airmobility doctrines are significant for two reasons. First, they are examples of the complex inter-relationship between strategic threats, bureaucratic politics, technology, operational adaptation, and doctrinal development in modern warfare. The major difference between the Marine Corps and the Army in this area was that the Marine Corps came to the brink of irrelevance after World War II. While successfully seeking Congressional assistance, this adversity also helped to keep the Marine Corps focused on developing a new doctrine for the nuclear era. The Army also suffered from a reduced role in the nation’s defense, but at no time did the Army ever doubt its importance, nor did anyone seriously believe that there was no need for a good Army. Without much external “push” the Army’s development of airmobility occurred gradually and incrementally. The Army’s conceptual visions of airmobility provided the impetus for change, and technology provided the means to achieve it. While the rapid pace of technological change directly influences the United States Army’s current transformation, this was definitely not the case in the twenty years following World War II. The second comparative theme is the Army’s attempt to reinvent itself in the 1945-1965 period is much like the Army’s efforts today. The airmobility concept was considered revolutionary during its time much like the Army’s current efforts to obtain information dominance and use the precision weapons are considered the key components of today’s “revolution in military affairs.” The insights extracted from the Army’s experiment with airmobility and the Marines’ successful transition to vertical envelopment may serve as a guide for the Army’s current dilemma of meeting the demands of modernization, personnel recruitment and training, and mission within the constraints of limited funding.