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Battlefield Helicopters for the Army?
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Battlefield Helicopters An Army Aviator’s View
For centuries, military commanders dreamed of being able to see what was going on beyond the next ridge line, to be able to bring accurate fire to bear on their enemies’ depth positions and infrastructure and to be able to move quickly on the battlefield regardless of the terrain.
The use of high points as observation posts became universal, but even if available, these were rarely in ideal situations and were very vulnerable. Eventually technology was developed to the stage at which it offered a solution (the balloon) to the ground force commanders’ observation problem and military aviation was thus born.
However, technology does not stand still and what is breathtaking at its introduction becomes, almost inevitably, first accepted as normal and then obsolete. The invention of the aeroplane, while not initially rendering the balloon obsolete, offered the ground force commander a new capability: the possibility of direct vertical observation of the enemy’s rear areas. Although the introduction of the aeroplane must have required great organizational changes, it quickly became an accepted part of armies around the world as an observation machine.
But one of the characteristics of warfare is the rapid adaption of new technology to other uses and the consequent need for changes in tactics, operating procedures and organizations. So it was that the aeroplane was developed either by armies or at their request to perform other functions, such as resupply, transport, air defence, bombing and strafing of enemy troops and ultimately long-range or strategic bombing.
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