Bombers vs. Fighters: The Battle Every Air Force Faces

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By Robert Farley,The National Interest

In the years before World War I, theorists and engineers of military aviation began contemplating a division of responsibility between military aircraft. Large bomber aircraft, with long ranges and heavy payloads, could undertake strikes at distance. Smaller, more maneuverable aircraft could undertake tactical tasks such as reconnaissance, light attack, and winning air superiority.

By the end of the war, several countries had succeeded in manufacturing dedicated bombers and fighters, the former geared towards heavy strike against enemy cities, and the latter (in some part) to the defense of those cities. Over the next seventy years, the actual and perceived balance of capability between bombers and fighters would have an enormous impact in how nations built their military institutions and provided for their defense. This balance would depend to great extent on how effectively fighters could detect, intercept and destroy incoming bombers. Even today, the biggest air forces weight trade-offs between fighter and bomber aircraft, based to some extent on how effectively each type can carry out its missions.

World War I

The strategic bombing campaigns of World War I both began with huge advantages for the bombers. The British lacked much in the way of an early warning system, meaning that German dirigibles could attack with surprise, and interceptors of the time could not climb to the altitudes necessary to defeat the bombers. A typical zeppelin could make around 60mph and carry around 3000lbs of bombs, allowing it to deadly, although on balance minor, damage on British urban areas. These early raids nevertheless inspired terror in civilian populations across England.

Anti-aircraft guns had some success, but early fighter intercepts were unimpressive. In February 1916, the British lost six of twenty-two interceptors to bad weather in a single raid, and failed to shoot down any dirigibles. Additional raids on England were successful, but in September 1916 a British B.E.2c piloted by William Leefe Robinson managed to intercept and down a large dirigible. The B.E.2c was only slightly faster than the zeppelin, but by this point the British had developed a combination of incendiary and explosive ammunition that could turn a dirigible into a death trap. The Germans still had an altitude advantage, but needed to operate at dangerous heights in order to deliver bombs with any accuracy. More importantly, the British had developed an early warning system and airspace monitoring that allowed fighters to respond quickly to dirigible incursions, a critical requirement given how long it took the fighters to reach high altitude. Coast watchers, telephones, and powerful searchlights illuminated the dirigibles as they approached, and gave fighter the chance to get into intercept position. British aviators shot down several more dirigibles across the rest of 1916, making the campaign untenable.