Which air force was the most difficult adversary the USAF/USN faced in its history?

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10 years 11 months

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was it the
Luftwaffe?
Imperial Japan?
North Korean Air Force?
North Vietnamese Air Force?
Iraqi Air Force?
Serbian Air Force?
Others?

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9 years 9 months

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Only one to have had a definitive technical superiority was right the one you have forgotten.
Luftstreitkräfte.

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15 years 4 months

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At the risk of falling to cliches. Each other.

Both organisations need to secure funding from a finite pot. (And that's not a problem for democratic nations only)

At the beginning of WW2 The Imperial Japanese Navy certainly had a technical and competency-based advantage but Imperial Japan was never able to compete industrially.

If (and thank God it didn't) the Cold War had ever become a real shooting war then Soviet-era manufacturing capacity and numbers would have posed a genuine existential threat that I don't think that we in the West* could have met.

*which would pretty much have meant the USAf and USN with a few supporting players

For the all of short-sighted, expensive folly that nuclear weapons represent their very threat did at least prevent such an air war ever starting.

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12 years 3 months

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At the risk of falling to cliches. Each other.

Both organisations need to secure funding from a finite pot. (And that's not a problem for democratic nations only)

.

Well said, that and Congress. Since 1990, Congress might be the US militaries worse opponent: stretching out development, adding requirements, constantly pushing acquisition programs to the right, acting outranged when programs suffer a Nunn-McCurdy breach after procurement is reduced.

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Imperial Japan

Luftwaffe

North Korean

North Vietnamese

Iraqi

Serbian

In that order.

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Luftwaffe ?

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Luftwaffe ?

Given the loss rates of the 8th air force and the comparable or more advanced technology in many cases of the Luftwaffe I can't see how it could be anyone else.

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Well given the USAF didn't exist at the time, I guess it's North Vietnam :angel:

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Well given the USAF didn't exist at the time, I guess it's North Vietnam :angel:

Are you saying United States of America did not have Air Force during WW 2 ?

:D

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Army Air Force

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And the USN's air force, but the USAAF (established 1941) operated pretty much independently from the army during WW2.

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USAF or USAAF, it doesn't matter. During World War Two the AAF had complete command and control of all aviation assets within the Army.


In its expansion and conduct of the war, the AAF became more than just an arm of the greater organization. By the end of World War II, the Army Air Forces had become virtually an independent service. By regulation and executive order, it was a subordinate agency of the War Department (as were the Army Ground Forces and the Army Service Forces) tasked only with organizing, training, and equipping combat units, and limited in responsibility to the continental United States. In reality, Headquarters AAF controlled the conduct of all aspects of the air war in every part of the world, determining air policy and issuing orders without transmitting them through the Army Chief of Staff. This "contrast between theory and fact is...fundamental to an understanding of the AAF

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Air_Forces

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No doubt the four independent air arms and the rocket forces of the Soviets were the biggest threat. They just didn't fight directly. I have zero doubt their willingness to fight.