History
Germany was the first country to produce dedicated ground-attack aircraft (designated CL-class and J-class). They were put into use in autumn 1917, during World War I. Most notable was the Junkers J.I, which pioneered the idea of an armoured "bathtub", that was both fuselage structure and protection for engine and crew. The British experimented with the Sopwith TF series (termed "trench fighters").
Between the World Wars, the United States Marine Corps Aviation applied close air support tactics in the Banana Wars. Though they may not have pioneered dive bombing tactics, Marine aviators were the first to include it in their doctrine during United States occupation of Haiti and Nicaragua.
Read more about this topic: Attack Aircraft
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“When we of the so-called better classes are scared as men were never scared in history at material ugliness and hardship; when we put off marriage until our house can be artistic, and quake at the thought of having a child without a bank-account and doomed to manual labor, it is time for thinking men to protest against so unmanly and irreligious a state of opinion.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“The reverence for the Scriptures is an element of civilization, for thus has the history of the world been preserved, and is preserved.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)