Air Power system Indeed, air power would be strategically decisive Like H G Wells before the Great War, Douhet foresaw vast fleets of bombers overflying enemy armies to attack war industries, factories, and cities in strategic rear areas The idea of strategic bombing grew from this and other kernels, but mainly as a cheap deterrent to war rather than as an offensive doctrine Rudimentary efforts at strategic bombing had been tried by Germany and Great Britain in 1917–1918, and by the early 1930s, several powers deployed fleets of bombers they hoped would provide a deterrent to keep the peace But few as yet considered the bomber as a potentially and massively destructive offensive force On the other hand, theories about morale bombing, or terror bombing, were already taking shape Adolf Hitler only ever thought of bombing as a terror weapon He did not understand that the RAF had come to see the strategic bomber as a potential decisive weapon of economic blockade and destruction, with terror or morale effects as incidental to a primary economic purpose The bomber as a terror weapon was unveiled to an already frightened world at Guernica on April 26, 1937 Bombing of that undefended Basque town by aircraft of the Kondor Legion dramatically increased fear among all civilian populations, while encouraging airmen on all sides who thought that they could win the next war on their own by bombing As air war historian Richard Overy succinctly put it: “It was movement of ships and men and the occupying of land that won the day [in World War II] Air power had a complementary rather than an autonomous role to play.” That said, the contribution of air power to the defeat of the Axis states was substantial The Red Army Air Force (VVS) had over 14,000 aircraft in 1939, making it the largest air fleet in the world by a factor of four or five Most VVS planes were obsolete types: nearly all its 20,000 aircraft in 1941 would be destroyed by the end of the first six months of the German–Soviet war However, the sheer scale of the Soviet aircraft industry permitted rapid recovery in 1942, then production of vast quantities of new models Germany’s Luftwaffe ranked second to the VVS in 1939 with over 3,600 front-line military aircraft But the lead was somewhat illusory, as production of its newer models was already behind that of the aircraft production of the Western Allies The RAF and Armée de l’Air had 1,900 and 1,700 firstline planes, respectively, in 1939 But Britain and France were both accelerating production of all types of military aircraft The RAF concentrated on building fighters because it had overestimated the size of the Luftwaffe and exaggerated projections of future German production As a result of the error, British fighter production soon surpassed Germany’s The Luftwaffe would not ramp up its own production until two years into the war That meant German production continued at a slightly higher than prewar rate even while producing outmoded dive bomber and medium bombers, while the RAF was developing and deploying new four-engine heavy bombers and more advanced fighters The aircraft industry of the other Axis states was in even worse shape The Regia Aeronautica had almost as many operational aircraft as either Great Britain or France, but most Italian models were woefully inadequate and hardly counted as frontline planes In the entire war, the Italian aircraft industry produced just over 7,000 new planes 25