CHASING SILVER BULLET

CHASING SILVER BULLET PDF Author: WERRELL KENNETH P
Publisher: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
This exhaustive study of 40 years of Air Force high-tech weaponry challenges myths about U.S. military prowess. With a panoramic sweep and shocking frankness unrivaled in the current literature, Ken Werrell reveals the true extent of the Air Force's technological transformation. Chasing the Silver Bullet traces in unprecedented detail the evolution of the Air Force's entire inventory since the Korean War and offers sage analysis of the strategies and doctrine that fashioned the hardware.

CHASING SILVER BULLET

CHASING SILVER BULLET PDF Author: WERRELL KENNETH P
Publisher: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
This exhaustive study of 40 years of Air Force high-tech weaponry challenges myths about U.S. military prowess. With a panoramic sweep and shocking frankness unrivaled in the current literature, Ken Werrell reveals the true extent of the Air Force's technological transformation. Chasing the Silver Bullet traces in unprecedented detail the evolution of the Air Force's entire inventory since the Korean War and offers sage analysis of the strategies and doctrine that fashioned the hardware.

Chasing the Silver Bullet

Chasing the Silver Bullet PDF Author: Kenneth P. Werrell
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 1935623567
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Airpower is credited with success in Afghanistan, Desert Storm, and Serbia, but in Vietnam all of America's aerial might could not defeat a vastly outnumbered Third World force on bicycles. With a panoramic sweep and shocking frankness unrivaled in the current literature, Ken Werrell, one of today's most experienced airpower historians, reveals the true extent of the technological evolution that fueled this transformation. Chasing the Silver Bullet traces in unprecedented detail the evolution of the Air Force's entire inventory since the Korean War, from the ill-fated F-105 fighter-bomber to the F-117 stealth fighter, but one of its chief contributions is its analysis of the strategies and doctrine that fashioned the hardware. Werrell's exhaustive research and sage analysis challenge the Air Force's mantra that precision-guided munitions delivered from long-range, stealthy aircraft are America's true war heroes. Desert Storm gave us the wrong impression about airpower technology and Werrell corrects that mistake with this landmark study, rendering superficial all other books about Desert Storm and current capabilities. Objective, even-handed, and unimpressed with the bells and whistles of new technology, Werrell understands how airpower works.

Technology and the American Way of War Since 1945

Technology and the American Way of War Since 1945 PDF Author: Thomas G. Mahnken
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231517882
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
No nation in recent history has placed greater emphasis on the role of technology in planning and waging war than the United States. In World War II the wholesale mobilization of American science and technology culminated in the detonation of the atomic bomb. Competition with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, combined with the U.S. Navy's culture of distributed command and the rapid growth of information technology, spawned the concept of network-centric warfare. And America's post-Cold War conflicts in Iraq, the former Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan have highlighted America's edge. From the atom bomb to the spy satellites of the Cold War, the strategic limitations of the Vietnam War, and the technological triumphs of the Gulf war, Thomas G. Mahnken follows the development and integration of new technologies into the military and emphasizes their influence on the organization, mission, and culture of the armed services. In some cases, advancements in technology have forced different branches of the military to develop competing or superior weaponry, but more often than not the armed services have molded technology to suit their own purposes, remaining resilient in the face of technological challenges. Mahnken concludes with an examination of the reemergence of the traditional American way of war, which uses massive force to engage the enemy. Tying together six decades of debate concerning U.S. military affairs, he discusses how the armed forces might exploit the unique opportunities of the information revolution in the future.

Flying Camelot

Flying Camelot PDF Author: Michael W. Hankins
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 150176067X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
Flying Camelot brings us back to the post-Vietnam era, when the US Air Force launched two new, state-of-the art fighter aircraft: the F-15 Eagle and the F-16 Fighting Falcon. It was an era when debates about aircraft superiority went public—and these were not uncontested discussions. Michael W. Hankins delves deep into the fighter pilot culture that gave rise to both designs, showing how a small but vocal group of pilots, engineers, and analysts in the Department of Defense weaponized their own culture to affect technological development and larger political change. The design and advancement of the F-15 and F-16 reflected this group's nostalgic desire to recapture the best of World War I air combat. Known as the "Fighter Mafia," and later growing into the media savvy political powerhouse "Reform Movement," it believed that American weapons systems were too complicated and expensive, and thus vulnerable. The group's leader was Colonel John Boyd, a contentious former fighter pilot heralded as a messianic figure by many in its ranks. He and his group advocated for a shift in focus from the multi-role interceptors the Air Force had designed in the early Cold War towards specialized air-to-air combat dogfighters. Their influence stretched beyond design and into larger politicized debates about US national security, debates that still resonate today. A biography of fighter pilot culture and the nostalgia that drove decision-making, Flying Camelot deftly engages both popular culture and archives to animate the movement that shook the foundations of the Pentagon and Congress.

Tiger Check

Tiger Check PDF Author: Steven A. Fino
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421423286
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 449

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Book Description
How did American fighter pilots respond to the challenges posed by increasing automation? Spurred by their commanders during the Korean War to be “tigers,” aggressive and tenacious American fighter pilots charged headlong into packs of fireball-spewing enemy MiGs, relying on their keen eyesight, piloting finesse, and steady trigger fingers to achieve victory. But by the 1980s, American fighter pilots vanquished their foes by focusing on a four-inch-square cockpit display, manipulating electromagnetic waves, and launching rocket-propelled guided missiles from miles away. In this new era of automated, long-range air combat, can fighter pilots still be considered tigers? Aimed at scholars of technology and airpower aficionados alike, Steven A. Fino’s Tiger Check offers a detailed study of air-to-air combat focusing on three of the US Air Force’s most famed aircraft: the F-86E Sabre, the F-4C Phantom II, and the F-15A Eagle. Fino argues that increasing fire control automation altered what fighter pilots actually did during air-to-air combat. Drawing on an array of sources, as well as his own decade of experience as an F-15C fighter pilot, Fino unpacks not just the technological black box of fighter fire control equipment, but also fighter pilots’ attitudes toward their profession and their evolving aircraft. He describes how pilots grappled with the new technologies, acutely aware that the very systems that promised to simplify their jobs while increasing their lethality in the air also threatened to rob them of the quintessential—albeit mythic—fighter pilot experience. Finally, Fino explains that these new systems often required new, unique skills that took time for the pilots to identify and then develop. Eschewing the typical “great machine” or “great pilot” perspectives that dominate aviation historiography, Tiger Check provides a richer perspective on humans and machines working and evolving together in the air. The book illuminates the complex interactions between human and machine that accompany advancing automation in the workplace.

Other People's Wars

Other People's Wars PDF Author: Brent L. Sterling
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
ISBN: 1647120616
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
Case studies explore how to improve military adaptation and preparedness in peacetime by investigating foreign wars Preparing for the next war at an unknown date against an undetermined opponent is a difficult undertaking with extremely high stakes. Even the most detailed exercises and wargames do not truly simulate combat and the fog of war. Thus, outside of their own combat, militaries have studied foreign wars as a valuable source of battlefield information. The effectiveness of this learning process, however, has rarely been evaluated across different periods and contexts. Through a series of in-depth case studies of the US Army, Navy, and Air Force, Brent L. Sterling creates a better understanding of the dynamics of learning from “other people’s wars,” determining what types of knowledge can be gained from foreign wars, identifying common pitfalls, and proposing solutions to maximize the benefits for doctrine, organization, training, and equipment. Other People’s Wars explores major US efforts involving direct observation missions and post-conflict investigations at key junctures for the US armed forces: the Crimean War (1854–56), Russo-Japanese War (1904–5), Spanish Civil War (1936–39), and Yom Kippur War (1973), which preceded the US Civil War, First and Second World Wars, and major army and air force reforms of the 1970s, respectively. The case studies identify learning pitfalls but also show that initiatives to learn from other nations’ wars can yield significant benefits if the right conditions are met. Sterling puts forth a process that emphasizes comprehensive qualitative learning to foster better military preparedness and adaptability.

The Beef Industry

The Beef Industry PDF Author: John Peirce
Publisher: Sunstone Press
ISBN: 1611394082
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
Whether or not you are a beef consumer, are you satisfied that you know all you should about this product? Usual sources of information might, to a very large degree, not give adequate information about beef. Some of these sources might be biased—either f

Adapting to Flexible Response, 1960-1968

Adapting to Flexible Response, 1960-1968 PDF Author: Walter S. Poole
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Cold War
Languages : en
Pages : 494

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Book Description


History of Acquisition in the Department of Defense

History of Acquisition in the Department of Defense PDF Author: Elliott Vanveltner Converse
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Cold War
Languages : en
Pages : 494

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Book Description


War Made New

War Made New PDF Author: Max Boot
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9781592402229
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 664

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Book Description
An analysis of the pivotal role of technology in modern warfare focuses on four historical periods that shaped the rise and fall of empires, in a narrative account that covers such topics as gunpowder, the Industrial Revolution, and stealth aircraft. First serial, American Heritage.