Offensive Counter Air
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Offensive counter-air (OCA) is a military term for the suppression of an enemy's military air power, primarily through ground attacks targeting enemy air bases: disabling or destroying parked aircraft,
runway In aviation, a runway is an elongated, rectangular surface designed for the landing and takeoff of an aircraft. Runways may be a human-made surface (often asphalt concrete, asphalt, concrete, or a mixture of both) or a natural surface (sod, ...
s,
fuel A fuel is any material that can be made to react with other substances so that it releases energy as thermal energy or to be used for work (physics), work. The concept was originally applied solely to those materials capable of releasing chem ...
facilities, hangars,
air traffic control Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled air ...
facilities and other aviation
infrastructure Infrastructure is the set of facilities and systems that serve a country, city, or other area, and encompasses the services and facilities necessary for its economy, households and firms to function. Infrastructure is composed of public and pri ...
. Ground munitions like bombs are typically less expensive than more sophisticated air-to-air munitions, and a single ground munition can destroy or disable multiple aircraft in a very short time whereas aircraft already flying must typically be shot down one at a time. Enemy aircraft already flying also represent an imminent threat as they can usually fire back, and therefore destroying them before they can take off minimizes the risk to friendly aircraft. Air-to-air operations conducted by
fighter aircraft Fighter aircraft (early on also ''pursuit aircraft'') are military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat. In military conflict, the role of fighter aircraft is to establish air supremacy, air superiority of the battlespace. Domina ...
with the objective of clearing an airspace of enemy fighters known as
combat air patrol Combat air patrol (CAP) is a type of flying mission for fighter aircraft. A combat air patrol is an aircraft patrol provided over an objective area, over the force protected, over the critical area of a combat zone, or over an air defense area, ...
s can also be offensive counter-air missions, but they are seen as a comparatively slow and expensive way of achieving the final objective - air superiority. The opposite term is defensive counter air, primarily referring to the protection of territory, men and/or materiel against incursion by enemy aircraft, usually with a combination of ground-based
surface-to-air missile A surface-to-air missile (SAM), also known as a ground-to-air missile (GTAM) or surface-to-air guided weapon (SAGW), is a missile designed to be launched from the ground or the sea to destroy aircraft or other missiles. It is one type of anti-ai ...
s and
anti-aircraft artillery Anti-aircraft warfare (AAW) is the counter to aerial warfare and includes "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It encompasses surface-based, subsurface (Submarine#Armament, submarine-lau ...
but also through defensive combat air patrols.


History

Offensive counter-air strikes have been used since
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
. The Teishin Shudan and Giretsu Kuteitai carried out two OCA raids in the Pacific theatre against B29s. In one measure the most successful single OCA mission to date was Operation Focus, the
Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...
i offensive that opened the
Six-Day War The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states, primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10June ...
of 1967, when the Heyl Ha'avir destroyed a large portion of the air power of
Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...
,
Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...
, and
Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...
, mostly on the ground, totaling roughly 600 airframes destroyed by a force of 200 aircraft. However, in sheer number of planes destroyed, the opening two weeks of
Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and several of its European Axis allies starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II. More than 3.8 million Axis troops invaded the western Soviet Union along ...
saw some 3-4,000 Russian planes destroyed in total. Other successful attacks include US counter-air operations in Korea in 1950 and 1953, French and British attacks during the
Suez Crisis The Suez Crisis, also known as the Second Arab–Israeli War, the Tripartite Aggression in the Arab world and the Sinai War in Israel, was a British–French–Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956. Israel invaded on 29 October, having done so w ...
and many others. However, there have also been notable failures like Operation Chengiz Khan initiated by Pakistan during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 and Iraqi attacks on Iran. Although OCA missions are often carried out via air strikes, they are not limited to aerial action. The Teishin Shudan and Giretsu Kuteitai commandos carried out two notable OCA raids during World War II, as did the British
Long Range Desert Group The Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) was a reconnaissance and raiding unit of the British Army during the Second World War. Originally called the Long Range Patrol (LRP), the unit was founded in Egypt in June 1940 by Major Ralph Alger Bagnold, ...
. The Vietcong successfully destroyed a number of American aircraft with mortar fire during the Vietnam War, and more recently a Taliban raid in Afghanistan destroyed eight
AV-8B Harrier The McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) AV-8B Harrier II is a single-engine Attack aircraft, ground-attack aircraft that constitutes the second generation of the Harrier jump jet, Harrier family, capable of V/STOL, vertical or short takeoff and l ...
s. The Swedish Air Force developed and used the Bas 60 and Bas 90 air base systems during the
Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
, as a suite of defensive measures against offensive counter air operations.


Weapons used

During the 1950s, the Cold War strategy of both
NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...
and the
Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact (WP), formally the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance (TFCMA), was a Collective security#Collective defense, collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Polish People's Republic, Poland, between the Sovi ...
called for OCA to be carried out with
tactical nuclear weapon A tactical nuclear weapon (TNW) or non-strategic nuclear weapon (NSNW) is a nuclear weapon that is designed to be used on a battlefield in military situations, mostly with friendly forces in proximity and perhaps even on contested friendly territ ...
s, but by the mid-1960s, new policies of 'proportional response' brought about a return to conventional tactics. Beginning shortly before the
Six-Day War The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states, primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10June ...
, specialized weapons were developed for disrupting runways, which were further developed into munitions such as the
BLU-107 Durandal The Durandal is an anti-runway penetration bomb developed by the French company Matra (now MBDA), designed to destroy airport runways and exported to several countries. A simple crater in a runway could be filled in without issue, so the Durandal ...
anti-runway bomb (carried by USAF F-111Es), and the Hunting JP233 (carried by RAF
Panavia Tornado The Panavia Tornado is a family of twin-engine, variable-sweep wing multi-role combat aircraft, jointly developed and manufactured by Italy, the United Kingdom and Germany. There are three primary #Variants, Tornado variants: the Tornado IDS ...
aircraft), both used during the 1991 Gulf War. After the UK signed an international accord in 1997, banning the production & use of anti-personnel mines, the JP233 was withdrawn from RAF service.


References

{{Reflist Aerial warfare strategy Aerial warfare tactics