Question

Compare the significance of air warfare and. naval warfare vs. ground warfare in determining WWII's outcome?

Answer 1

Fighting on the ground was still important to hold positions and drive back enemy armies, however WW2 was the war that proved that air power was just as important if not moreso.

The Japanese adopted the idea of blending together air power and naval power fairly quickly allowing them to gain an early advantage in prosecuting their war in the Pacific. Their Zeroes were among the best, if not THE best, planes in the war until the Americans managed to catch up and eventually surpass them in numbers matching them with their own designs such as the Hellcat and the P-51.

The Pacific theater was almost entirely a naval war between the US and the Empire of Japan. Both used carriers armed with planes, mighty battleships, and fleets of destroyers by necessity because of where they were fighting. But the growing use of carrier-based air power would also eventually make battleships obsolete.

In the Atlantic, the Germans used U-boats to strangle trade between the US and Britain in order to starve the English out of the war. Eventually, their codes were broken and the US were able to employ techniques and new technology to defeat the superiority Germany had enjoyed using their U-boats, but if they hadn't, England may have been forced to sue for peace knocking them out of the war.

At the same time, Germany's failure to defeat the Royal Air Force kept them from going through with their plans to invade England in a D-day style invasion across the English Channel. If they succeeded in breaking the Royal Air Force, things might have turned out much differently.

The Germans had also used air power to assist their blitzkrieg efforts, bombing enemies from the sky and using them to demolish enemy positions without having to send soldiers across a "no man's land" to do the same job. During their push into the Low Countries, they dropped paratroopers using gliders into the supposedly impregnable fortress of Eben Emael on the Belgian border, taking it by surprise.

So in short, many pivotal moments and battles were due to the use of naval power and air power by every side.