The Impact of Atomic Bombs on the Role of Air Power

Does the existence of atomic bombs invalidate all conclusions relative to air power based on pre-atomic experience? It is the Survey's opinion that many of the pre-existing yardsticks are revolutionized, but that certain of the more basic principles and relationships remain. The atomic bomb, in its present state of development, raises the destructive power of a single bomber by a factor of somewhere between 50 and 250 times, depending upon the nature and size of the target. The capacity to destroy, given control of the air and an adequate supply of atomic bombs, is beyond question. Unless both of these conditions are met, however, any attempt to produce war-decisive results through atomic bombing may encounter problems similar to those encountered in conventional bombing.

The problem of control of the air, primarily of our own air, and should we be attacked, of the enemy's air as well, becomes of even greater significance. The most intense effort must be devoted to perfecting defensive air control both by day and night, through the improvement of early warning and fighter control apparatus, anti-aircraft ordnance and defensive fighters, not only from the standpoint of technological improvement and volume, but also of disposition and tactics. It would be rash, however, to predict an increase in the effectiveness of defensive control sufficient to insure that not a single enemy plane or guided missile will be able to penetrate. It therefore behooves us to accept the possibility that at least a small number of enemy planes or guided missiles may be able to evade all our defenses and to attack any objective within range.

The threat of immediate retaliation with a striking force of our own should deter any aggressor from attacking.

If we are not to be overwhelmed out of hand, in the event we are nevertheless attacked, we must reduce materially our vulnerability to such attack. The experience of both the Pacific and European wars emphasizes the extent to which civilian and other forms of passive defense can reduce a country's vulnerability to air attack. Civilian injuries and fatalities can be reduced, by presently known techniques, to one-twentieth or less of the casualties which would be suffered were these techniques not employed. This does not involve moving everything underground, but does involve a progressive evacuation, dispersal, warning, air-raid shelter, and post raid emergency assistance program, the foundations for which can only be laid in peacetime. The analysis of the effects of the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki indicates that the above statement is just as true and much more terrifyingly significant in an age of atomic bombs than it was in an age of conventional weapons. Similarly, economic vulnerability can be enormously decreased by a well worked out program of stockpiles, dispersal and special construction of particularly significant segments of industry. Such a program in the economic field can also be worked out satisfactorily only in peacetime.

In the strictly military field the impact of atomic weapons and guided missiles on strategy and tactics can only be developed by military specialists. It is the Survey's opinion, however, that mature study by such specialists will support the conclusion that dispersal of military forces, and therefore space and distance in which to effect such dispersal, will be significant considerations; that heavy bombers similar to those used in this war will not be able to operate effectively and on a sustained basis much beyond the range of protective fighters, and that newer types of offensive weapons and new tactics must be developed to do so; that forward air bases will have to be defended or more advanced bases acquired step by step in actual combat; and that the basic principles of war, when applied to include the field of the new weapons, will be found to remain. If such be the case, atomic weapons will not have eliminated the need for ground troops, for surface vessels, for air weapons, or for the full coordination among them, the supporting services and the civilian effort, but will have changed the context in which they are employed to such a degree that radically changed equipment, training and tactics will be required.