| In World War I the United States first confronted the problem of fighting an enemy that possessed air power. The experience of using airplanes during the Punitive Expedition into Mexico in 1916 led the Service to believe that airplanes were of marginal value and were militarily insignificant. At the same time, airplanes had begun to play a major role in the European war.;Given those components, the Antiaircraft Service built an organization in France that ultimately fielded two antiaircraft artillery gun battalions and two antiaircraft machine gun battalions for duty in the front lines, as well as a number of indifferently equipped antiaircraft artillery battalions intended to protect the critical, rear area assets of the Army. In a brief period of combat duty, the gun and machine gun units acquitted themselves satisfactorily. In the development of doctrine for combatting airplanes the Antiaircraft Service played an important part in the growth of the Army.;The most important fact to emerge from the experience of World War I, is the strong resemblance between the doctrine of 1918 and the present-day doctrine. This underscores a general conclusion that there are two major ways in which the military can respond to technological advance. The first is that advancing technology causes changes in doctrine--as in the case of the introduction of the rifled musket and the consequent developments in infantry order of battle. The second, however, is that advancing technology demands an appropriate technological response, as well as a doctrinal response, but that subsequent refinements in technology do not necessarily occasion corresponding refinements in doctrine. (Abstract shortened with permission of author.).;During World War I, the United States Army relied on foreign armies, notably the French, to supply it with antiaircraft equipment, training, and emerging doctrine. The Antiaircraft Service of the American Expeditionary Service was therefore from the first an ad hoc organization created in the midst of war, assuming a combat mission that the Army had not previously considered. Talented and perceptive officers built the Antiaircraft Service from components of the Coast Artillery Corps, the Infantry and the Corps of Engineers. |
