Dave Bender wrote:This is WWI not WWII. The most important aircraft consist of tethered artillery spotting balloons. Germany has plenty of them, unlike Britain which began WWI with no artillery spotting balloons at all.
For 1914 and 1915 you are right, but once 1916 rolls around and dedicated fighter planes are organized into squadrons, then things change dramatically. Balloon busters can come over to your side and deny your artillery of its eyes very easily, unless you can fight back. The Germans started this at Verdun in February, achieving air superiority, with the British effectively realizing air supremacy at the Somme for the rest of the year, heavily hampering German artillery observation activities there. The technology battle swung back and forth, but by the end of the war the Allies had won it by sheer numbers and could range behind German lines attacking anything they wanted (despite the Germans reaching technological dominance right before the end of the war, inflicting heavy losses right before the armistice). It proved to be very demoralizing for the side so afflicted, something the Germans noted and used in WW2. Remember, by 1918 the armies had more in common with the 1939 armies than the 1914 ones.
And a happy little tidbit of information: over 10% of German aircraft in 1918 were armored ground attack aircraft. Ground support, strategic bombers, and air superiority fighters were all crucial to the battlefields of WW1; though they wouldn't achieve the same dominance that they did in WW2 and beyond, they doesn't mean they weren't crucial in WW1.
As you can see, aircraft production a big industry during the war:
http://books.google.com/books?id=-EVdYq ... &q&f=false
http://www.theaerodrome.com/aircraft/statistics.php
http://www.ww1-world-war-one.info/world ... rength.htm
"As an indication of the comparative air strengths of the belligerents in combat aircraft, those with the armies at the time of the armistice were as follows: French, 3,321; German, 2,730; British, 1,758; Italian, 812; American, 740; Austrian, 622; and Belgian, 153."
"When the United States entered the war, the Americans were urged by the French and British to concentrate on the production of engines and bomber planes, for designs of fighter planes were changing too rapidly to initiate production of any one type. The 12-cylinder Liberty engine was accordingly designed and adapted for mass production. A superb engine, it was in great demand by the Allies, and more than 30,000 units were built during the war. The Liberty engine was the greatest single contribution of the United States to World War I aviation."
http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsh ... asp?id=682
America's greatest technological contribution to the war effort was the development and mass production of the 12-cylinder Liberty engine. During a five-day period beginning May 29, 1917, Mr. J.G. Vincent of Packard Motors and Mr. E.J. Hall of Hall-Scott Motors redesigned an experimental 8-cylinder engine previously built and tested by Packard. Weighing only 710 pounds but delivering 410 hp, the Liberty far surpassed all other aviation engines in the world. Production lines were set up by various automobile manufacturers and by the end of 1918, they had built 17,935 Liberties, 5,827 of which had been sent to Europe.