By Robert Farley
A recent piece at Medium by David Axe highlighted (in addition to including some remarkable pictures of wave-riding B-52s) the USAF’s efforts to make the BUFF again relevant for maritime affairs. During the Cold War, a portion of the B-52 fleet was modified to carry anti-ship cruise missiles for operations against the Soviet Navy. As part of the Pacific Pivot, as well as Air Sea Battle, modifications to the B-52 are again making it a potentially potent maritime weapon.
While the decision to arm B-52s for a maritime role may seem utterly sensible, the use of strategic bombers in maritime roles has long been a sore spot for Navy-Air Force relations. Since before World War II, tensions between the USN and the various iterations of Army aviation burst forth regularly, most memorably with the destruction of the old German battleship Ostfriesland by Army bombers in 1921, and the cancellation of the prototype supercarrier USS United States in 1949.
Organizational infighting over naval aviation is common, and can have serious negative effects. The Luftwaffe, optimized for tactical and operational support of the Wehrmacht, never worked very well with the German Kriegsmarine, leaving the submarine and surface fleets with a limited picture of the battlespace.
The most famous organizational catastrophe to afflict naval aviation happened in the United Kingdom during the inter-war period. As a result of the brutal bureaucratic infighting between the Royal Navy and the infant Royal Air Force, responsibility for naval aviation fell to the RAF, which had little interest in carrier aircraft. As a result, training, doctrine, and procurement suffered, leaving the Royal Navy’s carrier force ill-prepared for the challenges of World War II, although during the war the relationship between the RAF’s Coastal Command and the Royal Navy became a model for inter-service cooperation.
Read the full story at The Diplomat