In World Wars 1 and 2, airplanes played a big role in the occurrences on the battlefield. Most of the planes that were used in those times were owned and run by the Europeans. Europeans having these aircraft were placed at an advantage over their enemies who did not have aircraft. The planes served a lot of purposes and mostly they were used as weapons or as a means to shoot the weapons. They were also used to transport administrators and other people. Goods and weapons were also transported using planes. In this article, the uses of airplanes during the wars are discussed in detail.
Movement of Senior Personnel
Planes were used to transport war leaders and other senior officials. Due to the airplanes being fast they were used to move the officials from one point to another. Air transport was preferred to using roads since it was safer. The war leader needed to get to places in good time and thus the existence of airplanes was an added advantage.
Reconnaissance
During both World Wars 1 and 2, airplanes were used for reconnaissance. The movements and position of enemies were monitored. Airplan
es used to move over the enemies’ territory so as to monitor their actions. Having an idea of what enemies were up to made it easy to strategize. The presence of planes greatly helped to conduct reconnaissance in the enemies’ territory since no other mode would be used to move in the air.
Actual Combat
Airplanes were used in bombings. As usual, in any war, there must be use of weapons, and in the world wars bombs were used. The existence of airplanes made this easier since there was no other safer method of dropping the bombs. The planes would fly over the location of the enemy territory and drop bombs. The planes used in the bombing were vulnerable to ground attacks. As the war proceeded, there was an introduction of better planes that would drop bombs from long distances and also move faster. The planes made bomb attacks easier.
Mounting machine guns on planes. The European nations were fighting against each other and they all had planes which increase in the air. Pilots had to come up with ways to defeat the enemy while still in the air. Machine guns were put in planes and they would be used to shoot enemy planes. They made aerial combat much easier.
