sea- and land-based planes; otherwise, the US fleets would become dependent on
land bases. However, Americans did not fully appreciate the operational potential
of that particular technology—and how it could prove decisive in a theatre—
until the United States was well into the war. 37 The battleship remained the fleets’
capital ship going into the war. Yet, the US navy’s pre-conflict war games revealed
key differences in the dynamics of engagements between battleships and aircraft
carriers; in the former, fire occurred in streams which could be adjusted as the
battle progressed, while, in the latter, firepower was delivered in pulses, as aircraft
needed time to return to ship, rearm, refuel, and relaunch. This difference was key
information for operational planners, who had to plan for enough carriers to be
present in any major operation so that a defensive canopy of air protection was
always present. The games also showed, beyond question, that an opponent’s
aircraft carriers must always be the first target in any strike, and must be rendered
combat ineffective as soon as possible in order to establish air superiority. 38 The
newer battleships were now several orders of magnitude faster and more powerful
than their predecessors were in the Great War, and operational artists still referred
to battleships as capital ships. However, in operational planning and execution,
aircraft carriers had become the real gauge of a fleet’s power.
American operational art at sea also took on an added dimension with
amphibious operations; but only marginally so, when one considers how impor-
tant they would become in the war. American experience with amphibious
operations began well before the Great War, with landings at Santiago, Cuba,
and Manila serving as examples. The doctrinal publication for such operations,
Tentative Manual for Landing Operations, was completed in 1934; it was made
authoritative the following year. 39 Like most countries, the United States had few
fiscal resources available in the inter-war years to put into defence spending in
general; so amphibious concepts and technologies received little attention.
THE SECOND WORLD WARIf American mobilization for the First World War was a rough start which grew
more efficient as time went on, that for the Second World War was similar, even if
it was unprecedented in size and, more importantly, completely exceeded the
estimates and capacities of the three Axis powers combined. By 1943, American
production figures alone greatly surpassed those of the Axis: 47,000 US planes to
27,000 Axis aircraft; 24,000 American tanks to 11,000 Axis; six US heavy guns for
every one produced by the Axis. By war’s end, the United States was producing
sixteen warships for every one built by Japan. 40 Certainly, the disparity between
Allied (particularly American) and Axis production figures and population bases
meant that the latter could not afford to suffer severe losses. Thus, while the war
might have seemed to have been a series of manoeuvre battles on one level, on
another it was simply a matter of grinding Axis strength down through a number
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