Spy Planes, Intruders, and Wild Weasels examines the emergence of electronic warfare and SEAD as critical components of air strategy during the Vietnam War. Utilizing declassified documents and firsthand accounts, Thomas Wildenberg provides a scholarly analysis of technological innovation, operational adaptation, and interagency coordination in the evolution of modern aerial warfare.The air war over Vietnam, often termed the first high-tec...

This book provides readers with an in-depth understanding of the professional development of two notable and highly accomplished naval officers and their contributions to the development of the Aegis Weapons System. The main argument is that there was no single career path or set of formal qualifications for achieving excellence in the naval profession as characterized by selection for Flag rank.One of the major points is the revelation that a combination of essential personal trai...

Naval warfare was confined for centuries to surface combat, or undersea clashes. In the twentieth century aerial warfare became the third domain and shortly thereafter, the electromagnetic spectrum also appeared. Until now, little has been written about this important aspect of military conflict on the high seas. In Fighting in the Electromagnetic Spectrum author Thomas Wildenberg provides the first book covering these aircraft, their missions, and the methodology of conducting co...

Adm. Joseph Mason Reeves (1872–1948) took command of the U.S. Navy’s nascent carrier arm during a critical period, transforming it from a small auxiliary command in support of the battle line into a powerful strike force. Until the carrier commanders of World War II proved their mettle, Reeves’s expertise in the use of the aircraft carrier in naval tactics was unequaled. All the Factors of Victory is the first full-length biography of this eminent naval officer.

When Billy Mitchell returned from WWI, he brought with him the deep-seated belief that air power had made navies obsolete. However, in the years following WWI, the U.S. Congress was far more interested in disarmament and isolationist policies than in funding national defense. For the military services this meant lean budgets and skeleton operating forces. Billy Mitchell’s War with the Navy recounts the intense political struggle between the Army and Navy air arms for the limited r...

On 4 June 1942, three squadrons of U.S. Navy Dauntless dive bombers destroyed Japan's carrier force sent to neutralize Midway, changing the course of the war in the Pacific. As Thomas Wildenberg convincingly demonstrates in this book, the key ingredient to the navy's success at Midway was the planning and training devoted to the tactic of dive bombing over the previous seventeen years. Examining how political, economic, technical, and operational factors influenced the development of carri...

Striking the Hornets’ Nest provides the first extensive analysis of the Northern Bombing Group (NBG), the Navy’s most innovative aviation initiative of World War I and one of the world’s first dedicated strategic bombing programs. Very little has been written about the Navy’s aviation activities in World War I and even less on the NBG. Standard studies of strategic bombing tend to focus on developments in the Royal Air Force or the U.S. Army Air Service. This work concentrates on ...