89:, little thought had been given to the most efficient formations to use for military aircraft. Groups of fliers, drawn from the various nations' army or navy, would fly in columns, or line, ahead as if they were troops of cavalry or flotillas of ships. That was soon found to be inefficient for several reasons. Firstly, the leaders and their squadrons could not communicate with each other except for the vague instruction to follow the leader. Secondly, if they came under anti-aircraft fire from the ground, the flight would all turn at once, scattering the formation, or would follow the leader round a point, as horsemen or ships, which maintained cohesion but being exposed to fire on a fixed point. The remedy was to fly in a close V formation, which allowed the aircraft to make a sudden 180 degree turn if they were fired upon, which would leave them flying out of danger with the formation intact but with their positions in the formation reversed.
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232:, whose strategy was daylight bombing. Tight bomber formations relying on massed defensive fire were expected to win through to the target. The most basic formation for bombers was a three-plane "V", called an "element". Stacks of these elements were configured to form a defensive bombing formation called the "
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The formation also allowed the fliers to see one another and communicate by hand signals and allowed them to stay together in poor visibility or cloud. Later, when bomber and reconnaissance flights came under attack from fighter aircraft, the Vic proved to have good defensive characteristics.
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We had not time to experiment when we were in combat three and four times a day. Moreover we were getting fresh pilots straight out of Flying School who were trained - barely - to use the old type of close formation – they simply could not have coped with anything radically
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In addition, the primary purpose of
Fighter Command was to intercept the bombers, which still flew in the defensive Kette and so the optimum formation for attacking them was a corresponding three-plane Vic so that each fighter would find itself against a different bomber.
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pilots were disparaging about the RAF's use of the Vic formation during the Battle of
Britain, but in practice, there was little else that Allied pilots could do. Germany, as the aggressor, had the choice of how and when to attack, and, based on its experience during the
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The basic unit was the three-plane section in a Vic. Two sections made up a flight and two flights a squadron. Squadrons would fly in line astern, one Vic behind another, which left the squadron leader effectively the only person looking for the enemy.
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could only improvise until the battle was over before it reviewed and made changes. As an interim method, RAF adopted the line astern formation on which four-plane flights flew behind one another. Luftwaffe related to them derisively by calling them
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Some modifications were made by the RAF within the Vic structure. Pilots learned to open the formation, and the rearmost Vic in a
Squadron was tasked with weaving to improve observation, but casualties from the weavers remained high.
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At the outbreak of the Second World War, the Vic was still in use by both bombers and fighter formations in most air forces, but the
Finnish and German air forces fighter units had changed to the more flexible and aggressive pair
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When the campaign was over, Fighter
Command experimented with and adopted the pair and four arrangements, but they could fly in echelon or in line astern to aid in identification.
236:". The combat boxes, involving full squadrons, groups or entire wings, could produce huge firepower and offer mutual support, but casualties remained high without fighter escort.
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to the left and the right, the whole resembling the letter "V". The formation's name is derived from the term that was then used for "V" in the
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Pilots, looking inwards to maintain formation, could overlook one another for attackers, and their observer/rear gunners could use
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This article is about the military aircraft formation. For the flight formation of birds, see
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The formation is still in use but has been superseded or replaced in some circumstances.
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144:) combination. They comprised a pair (leader and wingman) and four (two pairs) in a “
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The Vic was the basic flying formation adopted by every major air force. The
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Bob
Oxspring, a pilot officer in 66 Squadron and a future ace, commented:
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That was also the conclusion of the
Luftwaffe later. When faced with
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but it was one hell of a time to alter everything we had practiced.
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Four elements in vic formation comprising a combat box
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Dog-Fight: Aerial
Tactics of the Aces of World War I
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202:of massed Vics, German pilots reverted to the
247:The Vic formation remains in use today.
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243:Modern aerobatics team in Vic formation
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110:Imperial German Army Air Service
228:In 1942 was the arrival of the
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131:Curtiss P.40s in Vic formation
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34:Military aircraft formation
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365:Blitz on Britain 1939–1945
323:Bader: The Man and his Men
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60:and first used during the
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97:to protect one another.
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395:Aerial warfare tactics
372:Luftwaffe Fighter Aces
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104:referred to it as the
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72:RAF phonetic alphabet
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171:("rows of idiots")
85:At the start of the
400:Tactical formations
367:(1977) ISBN (none)
351:Spitfire vs Bf 109
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230:US Army Air Forces
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359:978 1 84603 190 8
198:bombers in their
180:Battle of Britain
160:Spanish Civil War
95:interlocking fire
58:military aircraft
16:(Redirected from
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405:Aerial maneuvers
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308:Burns pp 150–152
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206:to tackle them.
118:Second World War
102:French Air Force
44:in Vic formation
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148:” arrangement
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56:devised for
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281:Holmes p 64
272:Holmes p 61
186:different".
146:finger-four
112:it was the
29:V formation
389:Categories
316:References
299:Spick p 57
290:Price p 25
234:combat box
108:, and the
67:en echelon
154:Luftwaffe
54:formation
374:(1996)
353:(2007)
339:(2003)
325:(1990)
142:Schwarm
106:Chevron
81:History
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251:Notes
204:Kette
196:USAAF
138:Rotte
114:Kette
52:is a
376:ISBN
355:ISBN
341:ISBN
327:ISBN
151:The
48:The
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