The Battleplane

No longer the jack of all trades and master of none

The notion of an all-purpose “battleplane” has a long history. It was first raised in the 1920s by the great Italian air power theorist, Giulio Douhet, who envisaged a warplane suitable for “both combat and bombing”.

Douhet’s idea has since been the subject of much debate, most of it critical. In particular, the attempt in the 1960s by then-US Defence Secretary Robert McNamara to force a one-size-fits-all warplane in the form of the F-111 onto the US Air Force and Navy revived not only the notion, but also the hostility toward it.