How do airplanes change the nature of warfare during world war I?
The biggest impact of the airplane on warfare was on reconnaissance. From the earliest days of warfare ground combat was limited by line of sight. Past the front lines, commanders could only guess at enemy troop positions and strengths. With the airplane, warfare forever more became three dimensional. The days of war being drawn out on maps as long red and blue lines facing one another along fronts a hundred miles long became a thing of the past. Since then, airplanes allowed for armies to attack the enemy’s rear…to attack his resources and transportation centers. From Hitler’s Blitzkrieg to the “surgical strikes” of today, the Air Power changed war from a “massed strength against massed strength” philosophy aimed at destroying an enemy’s will to fight, to a race to destroy one another’s capacity to fight.