World's oldest air arm(s)

[Graham Boak]

A couple of aircraft doing recce missions (or any other) would not justify an independent Service to organise and operate them, no more than a bridge-builder is important if the army has a river to cross.  Which is why few nations chose to take that route for their first air/military operations.  However a newly independent nation  is starting from somewhere very different, and at this particular historical point the importance of the air was widely recognised.  However, the relative sizes are significant.  If we look back from the official starting dates of the FAF and RAF, we may well find that the relevant decision dates reverse the order of priorities.

[Blimpyboy]

It may not justify maintaining an independent service to our modern-day (dare I say, first-world) sensibilities, but clearly it has been and is done.

Even today some countries persist with maintaining independent air forces that have less than four operable rotorcraft - and they often started with less. Many tiny Navies do it too and they are no less independent services/arms.

 

I suspect we are trying to drum up some kind of framework that fits our own views of what we think an independent arm should be, instead of what they have been and in many instances are.

 

I feel the principal factors would be any country’s legislative action (or other ‘legal’ instrument of creation) declaring the formation of said arm, in conjunction with the physical wherewithal to operate, and the commencement of operations to meet National requirements.

It may seem anathema to us in our advanced world of mature trillion-dollar joint domain, global-reach peer-on-peer warfightery capabilities, but I think we can’t really dispute those past intentions and actions.

 It happens commercially, too - many companies exist as legally-recognised (and taxable/prosecutable) entities, even though they are maintained as barely-functional shells.

 

Don’t write off recce or any other non-shooting role, they are just as valid in the field (enablers, anyone...?).

If only one aircraft could provide reconnaissance that wins a battle, prevents a rout, enables my artillery to smash the enemy or otherwise shapes success, I for one (and possibly a few politicians, and infanteers and their families) would say money well spent on that arm - three cheers for the (insert independent air arm of your choice)!

Edited December 22, 2020 by Blimpyboy

[Lord Riot]

Whatever the historical facts, in my mind the first, and best, air force will always be Her Majesty's Royal Air Force. Purveyors of freedom since the days Royal Flying Corps, winners of the Battle of Britain when we stood alone against fascism. Handlebar moustaches, silk scarves, Spitfires, then Hunters, Vulcans, Harriers; give old Johnny Foreigner 'what for' then home in time for tea chaps! Bang on. 

[Blimpyboy]

 

And so perish all enemies of the Queen...

Edited December 22, 2020 by Blimpyboy

[Giorgio N]

Since the definition of "independent" air force discussed til now is in the end little more than administrative, what's wrong in considering the Finnish service as the first ? Granted, it maybe wasn't a true force when established, but at the same time other non-independent forces were way larger than independent ones for many years.

And what really changed between the RFC and the RAF in the days right after the establishment of the latter ? What changed in terms of capability and operations ? Did the new "independent" RAF immediately change their strategy compared to the "Army controlled" RFC ? No they didn't. Afterall the RFC and other air forces had already operated independently of the needs of the Army or Navy before their recognition as independent forces.

In the end it all depends on what we mean for independent: if it's just a formal matter, then Finland should be recognised as the first if they were the first to formally establish their air force, regardless of the capability. If we mean the capability of operating independently, then other countries achieved this even before independent air forces were established

This unless we just want to turn this into a "mine's bigger" contest, contest that would have little sense since the date of establishment has generally little to do with capabilities or importance... the USAAF was not an independent air force in WW2 but this didn't prevent them to become the most powerful air force in the world and their heir today may be one of the youngest air forces in the world but they can look from much higher up at the capabilities of the many older air forces,,,

[mhaselden]

To my mind, there are 2 separate elements to this discussion.  The first is independence from other services which certainly has an administrative component to it but it includes broader matters such as political oversight (e.g. in the UK context, the creation of the Air Ministry) and, crucially self-determination over budgetary issues.  The other part of the equation is what constitutes an "air arm" which inherently includes a capability component. 

 

I suspect we'll never all agree on a single definition of what constitutes an air arm but I maintain that any force worthy of the name must have sufficient training and logistics to back up its operations.  That simply wasn't the case for Finland in March 1918.  We must also be careful of correlating modern small air forces with the situation in 1918 when aircraft reliability was so much worse than it is today.  Any air arm, regardless of size, must have the ability to sustain a given minimum level of operations.  Finland couldn't do that in March 1918.  

 

Again, I applaud Finland's foresight but it was based on plans for a much larger force than the 2 airframes available in March 1918.  At that time, Finland lacked a training programme and, I suspect, didn't have effective second- or third-line maintenance capabilities.  Thus the force they had couldn't be sustained.  As Antti pointed out, one of the two aircraft operated by Finland in March 1918 crashed after a few weeks.  When the engine of your second, and sole remaining, aircraft, fails to start on the day it's required for operations, you no longer have a force.  When that second, and sole remaining, airframe is undergoing second- or third-line maintenance, you no longer have a force. 

 

I'll throw another thought on the table.  If we have two men with rifles, does that constitute an army?  I suspect most of us would answer in the negative.  

Edited December 22, 2020 by mhaselden

[mhaselden]

On 12/21/2020 at 1:17 PM, Antti_K said:

At that time (and later on) general Mannerheim was the newly appointed supreme commander of Finnish Defence Forces. He had three "branch" commanders (army, navy, air force) to report directly to him.

 

Hi Antti,

 

Just following up on the statement you've made above.  The only references I can find identify Mannerheim as "Commander-in-Chief of the army of the Finnish Republic (16 January -29 May, 1918)."  I've seen no reference to "Finnish Defence Forces".  Can you enlighten me and perhaps point me to other material I may have missed?

 

Many thanks,
Mark

[Giorgio N]

Mark, I understand your view and I sure agree in general on the definition of air arm

The potential problem however is that all the aspects that you mention as defining the independence of an air force (budgetary control, political oversight) are strongly dependent on the way the armed forces and the government are organised in each country and these aspects would differ by country and by timeframe within the history of the same country.

Afterall there have been and there are today commands within or across the forces of several countries that have practically independent budgets and refer directly to the government for their operations, yet we don't consider these as separate independent forces since there is no formal recognition as a separate force. And maybe we should.

I believe that if we wanted consider the factors that make an air force properly independent we would have to look in depth into the organisation of all the various forces within the existing military organisation of each country and see when such factors were implemented, regardless of the formal recognition of the establishment of an independent air force. Fascinating subject...

Edited December 22, 2020 by Giorgio N

[mhaselden]

Hi Georgio,

 

I entirely agree...and there's a lot of murkiness around what "independent" actually means in this context, as you pointed out in an earlier post.  Was the USAAF in 1945 really that dependent on Big Army?  Arguments can be made on both sides.  

 

I do think, though, that a fundamental measure has to be based on capability.  If not, we risk counting paper forces that include squadrons which exist administratively but not in operational fact. 

 

It's certainly an interesting and thought-provoking topic, and I've learned a lot from the inputs so far.

 

Cheers,
Mark

[Graham Boak]

One important point to be stressed is that an independent force requires an independent doctrine.  A purpose, if you like, that distinguishes itself from merely being an arm of another service.  In the case of Britain, experience showed that an independent arm was vital for Home Defence, and to allow for strategic bombing being separate from at the beck and call of other needs.  Add to this the "indivisibility of the air", meaning the rapid transfer of units from one area and sometimes role to another.  A bomber squadron could be supporting one division/army on one day, another on the second, and the navy on a third.  Probably with slightly longer delays, but that's the principle.  No need for each of these ground/sea forces to have individual air units fulfilling all their own needs alone, adding up to much more than would be efficient (or affordable!).  This does not necessarily mean total independence of (say) separate supply lines (a bit difficult when most of your force is across the Channel) but certainly approaching that.

 

What was the doctrine that called for the Finnish air force to be a separate arm other than integral?

[Antti_K]

Hello Mark,

 

I used probably a misleading name when I used the current naming: Finnish Defense Forces for Suomen Puolustusvoimat. The official name has changed several times over the years but the organization has remained pretty much the same for the past 100 years.

 

Some historical oddities have also emerged. Take for example the restriction set in the Paris Peace Treaty in 1947, which denied the Finnish Air Force to have or operate bomber aircraft with internal bomb carrying equipment. FinnAF acquired two SAAB B17As for target towing in 1959 (See my RFI here: 

and those aircraft have internal bomb bays. No protests were heard though. Only a couple of years later four Il-28 bombers were purchased from the USSR and again, without any protests.

 

Cheers,

Antti

[mhaselden]

13 minutes ago, Graham Boak said:

One important point to be stressed is that an independent force requires an independent doctrine.  A purpose, if you like, that distinguishes itself from merely being an arm of another service.  In the case of Britain, experience showed that an independent arm was vital for Home Defence, and to allow for strategic bombing being separate from at the beck and call of other needs.  Add to this the "indivisibility of the air", meaning the rapid transfer of units from one area and sometimes role to another.  A bomber squadron could be supporting one division/army on one day, another on the second, and the navy on a third.  Probably with slightly longer delays, but that's the principle.  No need for each of these ground/sea forces to have individual air units fulfilling all their own needs alone, adding up to much more than would be efficient (or affordable!).  This does not necessarily mean total independence of (say) separate supply lines (a bit difficult when most of your force is across the Channel) but certainly approaching that.

 

What was the doctrine that called for the Finnish air force to be a separate arm other than integral?

 

Hi Graham,

 

This goes back to my reference to the US capability definition process using the DOTMLPF-P acronym.  All pieces are necessary to deliver any capability, regardless of size or scale.  Of note, the acronym is typically written as DOTmLPF-P to denote that the materiel element of capability is actually far smaller than the others.

 

Cheers,
Mark

[Antti_K]

26 minutes ago, Graham Boak said:

What was the doctrine that called for the Finnish air force to be a separate arm other than integral?

Hello Graham,

 

Finnish Air Force has been an independent force from the very beginning. Its primary task was and is to guarantee a partial or total air supremacy over the area(s) ordered by the supreme HQ (they give the orders to the army, air force and navy HQs). A secondary task has always been to support the army and navy. During the wars there were only few occasions when the air force had the resources to fulfill that supporting role. That was because of the air force doctrine; fighters were used to fight against Soviet bombers (and the escort fighters) close to and/or over strategic areas. Finnish bombers were mainly tasked to strike against strategic targets on Russian held areas.

 

Cheers,

Antti

[Graham Boak]

That's how it was in the 40s.  Surely it did not have any strategic bombers in 1918?  Nor the immediate need to defend against any such attack on its own territory?  Nor indeed the problem of competing authorities for national defence?  Those were the three main drivers for the formation of the RAF (although I am probably understating the ambitions and egotism of the likely commanders).  Presumably Finland could foresee some of these factors, but there doesn't seem to be quite the driving urge brought by harsh experience.  It seems to me that the air defence of Finland could have been efficiently managed as a subsidiary arm of the Army, as indeed it was in most nations.  At least as far as the 1920s was concerned.  What was the actual drive for an independent arm?  Surely more than just ambition of individuals with an "air-mindedness"?

[Selwyn]

I have always understood the term "independence" in this contex to refer to independence of command.  

 

Before 1 April1918 there were two British independent military services, the Army and the Navy. They both had their own seperate command structures with their own seperate commanders who sat in the  British Military hirachy as equals. Neither commander had any influence on the command of the other service.  The RFC was a unit of the British Army, in the same context as how a seperate Regiment would be seen, in this case an offshoot of the Royal Engineers. The RNAS was a naval unit,  On ships they were seen as part of ships companies, their land bases were seen in the same way  as seperate ships in the Royal Navy.  As such both were commanded ultimately by the heads of the Army and Navy respectively and were ruled by their services command structure.  

On 1 April1918 the RAF became a seperate service with its own commander and now had that  crucial independence of command.  The RAF commander sat at the top table along with the commanders of the Army and Navy as equals. Neither the Army and Navy commander had any influence on the command of the RAF, or vice versa.

To me this criteria is the test of the term  Independent service. 

Of course one would assume that the three heads of the services would work together  towards a common goal, something that history has proved did not always happen. but I digress!

 

Selwyn

 

 

 

[Antti_K]

Graham,

I'll start with some humor if you don't mind: at the beginning Finnish Air Force had only one MRCA. It was used for bombing, reconnaissance and leaflet dropping. Seriously, you are right, there wasn't any need for a fighter force. The Russians had some Nieuport fighters on Finnish territory but they spent most of the time on the ground thanks to bad weather. This of course affected the Finnish side as well.

 

The main drive for an independent arm then. As I mentioned earlier, all military aviators in 1918 had received their training and combat experience in service with the air corps of other European nations. I'm not sure if there were any that were trained in England. Most of the men had served in Italy, France, Germany or Russia. General Mannerheim was certainly very interested in this new form of armed battle and urged that Finland should create her own air corps or air force as soon as possible. He was also wise enough to listen to those who had knowledge and recent experience and maybe those officers persuaded him to establish an independent air force rather than "just" a branch of the navy or the army. Surely Mannerheim was air minded.

 

Cheers,

Antti

[Antti_K]

Selwyn, I think you explained the term "independent service" very well.

 

Cheers,

Antti

[Blimpyboy]

6 hours ago, mhaselden said:

I'll throw another thought on the table.  If we have two men with rifles, does that constitute an army?  I suspect most of us would answer in the negative.

I considered that, too, and it didn’t seem to fit neatly with air and maritime arms! Still, if a governing body establishes and maintains it as such, can we really dispute its existence, historically or otherwise?

 

I think using numbers of functional aircraft as the deciding factor is a bit specious. I feel that if it’s been allocated at least one thing, then it has form and function (however woefully insufficient it may be).

If a unit’s entire fleet is grounded for whatever reason, do we consider it to (even temporarily) be ‘not a thing’?

 

2 hours ago, Selwyn said:

I have always understood the term "independence" in this contex to refer to independence of command. 

 

 I must say, I lean this way too.

A force could have a doctrine that states it will only support the Army, but if it’s got a separate command structure and legal authority to function as such, who can say it isn’t so?

Edited December 22, 2020 by Blimpyboy

[Blimpyboy]

Another thought, along the lines of the Finnish Air Force - where does this leave the South Africans, with their claim (the Finns notwithstanding) of being the ‘second oldest’, in relation to the Australian claim?

Edited December 22, 2020 by Blimpyboy

[mhaselden]

37 minutes ago, Blimpyboy said:

I considered that, too, and it didn’t seem to fit neatly with air and maritime arms! Still, if a governing body establishes and maintains it as such, can we really dispute its existence, historically or otherwise?

 

Why doesn't it fit?  Surely it's exactly the same principle.  Two soldiers versus 22,000 soldiers is a considerable difference.  The latter is clearly a military arm, the former is just a couple of guys with guns, regardless of what doctrine says.  Same-same for aircraft.  Two aircraft is not an arm...it's barely a section (in formation terms).  

 

 

37 minutes ago, Blimpyboy said:

Still, if a governing body establishes and maintains it as such, can we really dispute its existence, historically or otherwise?

 

I'm not disputing its existence.  I'm disputing that it's a viable force, or arm if you will.  Finland never intended to maintain a force of just 2 aircraft.  Let's flip this on its head a little.  If a nation has a doctrine that requires an independent air force to provide fighter defences, bombing and reconnaissance capabilities, but it only has a few aircraft that can barely conduct single sorties of the latter 2 categories of air operation, is it meeting national needs?  Is it a viable air arm?  

 

 

37 minutes ago, Blimpyboy said:

If a unit’s entire fleet is grounded for whatever reason, do we consider it to (even temporarily) be ‘not a thing’?

 

You're talking about an entirely different set of circumstances.  From an effects delivery perspective, yes the unit does cease to be a thing...it ceases to be operational.  It is removed from tasking mechanisms and is considered non-effective until the grounding is lifted.  However, even temporary groundings are often peacetime constraints which would be ignored during conflict. 

 

For most air forces, the concept of a single-type front line is a relatively modern occurrence driven largely by the increasing costs of combat aircraft.  In 1918, air arms typically had multiple different types of aircraft all performing the same role, hence the grounding of a single fleet would not prevent continuance of operations.  

 

In March 1918, Finland didn't have a fleet.  It had exactly 2 aircraft.  It could wipe itself out as a force with just 2 landing accidents.  I just don't see that as a viable air arm, certainly not in the context of fighting experience in Europe in that timeframe.  

 

[Blimpyboy]

My apologies for any misunderstanding, I consider the thread isn’t really about what we think constitutes a viable force; at its simplest, it’s about the existence of stand-alone forces (regardless of effectiveness) and which of those can be considered the first/oldest.

 

Numbers are neither here nor there, nor is serviceability or the extent of a force’s ‘service delivery’ capabilities.

Edited December 22, 2020 by Blimpyboy

[Giorgio N]

I can see more and more problems in trying to sort the matter...

It is easy to see the RAF as a viable independent air force in 1918, afterall they inherited all the resources of the RFC and RNAS. However if we look back a few years earlier, when did Britain start to have an air arm ? Was it when the first aircraft entered military service ? Or was it the day the forces had enough aircraft to be able to complete all the intended missions ? And speaking of intended missions, since these evolved during the years, would a force be considered an air arm only when they can accomplish all the missions that have been set by their commands or when they can fulfill any mission generally associated with an air arm ?

Afterall in those early years everybody started with forces of very small size: the first military flying school in Italy was established in 1910 with... 1 aircraft ! Should a school with 1 aircraft be considered a proper flying school ? Whatever the answer, that was what available in January 1910. In 1911 a force was sent to Tripoli during the conquest of Libya,  9 aircraft. Was this a proper air arm or not ? These aircraft performed a number of tasks, from a certain point of view their use was experimental as nobody had experience of how to use an aircraft in combat. Yet they were used in combat... should we consider this the first use of an air force in combat or not ?

 

It is IMHO very hard to make specific argumented claims regarding most of the "oldest" "first" and similar titles in the armed forces and not only... should we consider as oldest serving unit one that only fulfils ceremonial duty ? Maybe not but afterall if the lineage is not broken maybe we should ? Is HMS Victory really the oldest commissioned warship in the world ? She is formally, but can we consider a wooden sailing ship supported by steel and concrete plinths a warship ? Similar comments apply to USS Constitution and other vessels of the kind, in the end their role as "warships" is only ceremonial since they are not capable in any way of performing any combat duty but their formal titles are rarely disputed (and I'm sure someone will think "how dare you questioning HMS Victory status ???").

Not to mention that at any level, from air force to squadron, from regiment to company, everyone will always find something to give credit to the idea that their unit is the oldest/first/most commended etc. etc... now which is the oldest Squadron in the RAF ? Or the regiment with the oldest lineage ? And is an older lineage more or less important than the position in the official order of seniority ? In any case the officers and soldiers/sailors/airmen of that specific unit will make something up to elevate their unit above the rest 😀

[Blimpyboy]

20 minutes ago, Giorgio N said:

And is an older lineage more or less important than the position in the official order of seniority ?

Don’t say that out loud!

 

Do you want the Navy to come and admonish us with their ‘senior service’ vibe!? 😉

Edited December 22, 2020 by Blimpyboy

[alt-92]

On 12/21/2020 at 11:50 PM, mhaselden said:

Alas, both the FAF and the RAF are shadows of their former selves, at least in terms of aircraft and squadrons.  

Careful now, you might provoke another politician to view manned aircraft to be a waste of effort and write up a plan to replace everything with missiles and drones  

[Eric Mc]

Brilliant discussion chaps - well thought out points, well argued and no rancour.

 

The way it should be.