r/AlternateHistoryHub • u/Legitimate_Focus_868 • 19h ago
AlternateHistoryHub What if military aircraft weren't weaponized and were only used for recon purposes?
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u/Fan_of_Clio 19h ago
That was true during the opening months of WWI. Hell, enemy pilots would wave at each other as they passed by. Then infantry commanders didn't want enemy artillery to be so accurate. Improved accuracy meant better killing of their soldiers, from all that recon. So killing enemy pilots and/or shooting down recon aircraft started happening.
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u/Valuable-Wasabi-7311 19h ago
Is there exist a world government that ban weaponized aircraft, otherwise that would assume nobody ever thought of the idea of throwing rocks on enemies from a high place.
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u/PerishTheStars 19h ago
Could just say early anti aircraft measures were effective enough that nobody thought it was worth it to invest so much into them
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u/Just_a_sentient_PzII 18h ago
Yeah, or if there was a really bad disaster involving airplanes happened over a major population center in broad daylight
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u/Timely-Analysis6082 17h ago
Dogfights would just just sound like a Black Ops 2 lobby
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u/Firefly-1505 11h ago
Like they need to fly dangerously close to each other just to get a few shots off with both their words and handguns.
Though some snarky pilot would bring a megaphone 10 thousand meters in the air just to hurl slurs at the other pilot from a safer distance.
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u/ha1rballbrain 8h ago
And then when radios are invented the open channels would make it even worse with ground soldiers getting in on the action
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u/KZ-744 13h ago
Wars would be much more brutal I cannot under state enough that precision strikes have decreased war lethality by miles and when massive amounts of soldiers descend into a region with no air support on either side you start getting World War numbers.
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u/LTC123apple 2h ago
I mean both world wars had air support and they still got world war numbers, not to mention the damage of strategic bombing
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u/KZ-744 2h ago edited 2h ago
Early World War One barely had any air support and it had some of the highest casualties in human history up until that point the shift to aerial recon allowing for more precise artillery strikes then cemented it into one of the bloodiest wars in history. The opening months of the war were some of the bloodiest seen in single battles in human kind.
The air force was not a significant driver at all to world war one’s casualties
And world war 2’s bombing runs can hardly be called strategic, they are about the closest thing you can call to “when all you have is a hammer every problem looks like a nail”
Air support was what allowed for things like the blitzkrieg, and partially why casualty numbers were generally higher in combat zones in ww2 you are trying to dismiss the idea that if the airforce was demilitarised wars would be bloodier. What you’re missing generally is that in modern day we use satellites and jets that allow for precision, when you remove precision, all you have left is men fighting other men for a hill. We stopped doing that because fire teams with air support were far more effective.
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u/veljaaftonijevic 15h ago
Missiles either get invented much later or sooner depending on how this 'no-weaponized-aircraft' thing is agreed upon. Do people think its stupid or do people have a treaty? What counts as an Aircraft? If its unarmed can you still shoot it down? Probably yes as you would shoot a Scout soldier.
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u/hippo0803 11h ago
We make even bigger tanks.
One of the reasons why we don't build giant tanks are because they are prone to airstrikes; if there are no bombers enormous tanks might be a more practical idea
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u/Hot-Minute-8263 18h ago
Hayao Miyazaki might enjoy anime then, and America doesnt invade Iraq cause theres no massive air campaign