Editing Battleship (section)

=== Rise of air power ===
[[File:Ostfriesland bombed by Mitchells team p19.jpg|thumb|Bombing tests which sank {{SMS|Ostfriesland}} (1909), September 1921]]

As early as 1914, the British Admiral [[Percy Scott]] predicted that battleships would soon be made irrelevant by [[military aviation|aircraft]].{{sfn|Kennedy|1983|p=199}} Between 1916 and 1918, US Admiral [[William Fullam]] published a series of papers stating that aircraft would become an independent strike arm of the fleet, and argued that the {{sclass|Lexington|battlecruiser|1}}s then under construction should be converted to [[aircraft carrier]]s than scrapped.{{sfn|Hone|Friedman|Mandeles|1999|pp=25–26}} By the end of World War I, aircraft had successfully adopted the torpedo as a weapon. In 1921 the Italian general and air theorist [[Giulio Douhet]] completed a hugely influential treatise on strategic bombing titled ''The Command of the Air'', which foresaw the dominance of air power over conventional military and naval forces.{{sfn|Budiansky|1998|pp=136–137}}

In 1921, US General [[Billy Mitchell]] used the ex-German dreadnought {{SMS|Ostfriesland}} in a series of bombing tests conducted by the Navy and Army. The test involved a series of attacks on the stationary, unmanned ships using low-level, land-based bombers dropping bombs that ranged from {{convert|550|to|2000|lb}}. ''Ostfriesland'' was sunk by the heaviest bombs, though Mitchell broke the rules of the tests and the subsequent report concluded that had the ship been crewed, underway, and firing back at the aircraft, damage control teams aboard ''Ostfriesland'' could have managed any damage inflicted. Mitchell and his supporters nevertheless embarked on a public campaign that falsely claimed that ''Ostfriesland'' was a super-battleship, and the quick sinking proved that battleships were obsolete. Mitchell would eventually be subjected to a [[court martial]], convicted, and discharged from the Army over his insubordinate tactics.{{sfn|Budiansky|1998|pp=147–151}}

Naval aviation traces its origin back to the first decade of the 20th century, though early efforts were based on using aircraft to scout for the fleet and help direct gunfire at long range. A number of experimental aircraft carriers were employed during World War I, primarily by the Royal Navy, all converted from merchant vessels or existing warships. The US Navy completed its first carrier, {{USS|Langley|CV-1|6}}, in 1922. But aircraft carriers in the 1920s faced a number of challenges to be overcome: aircraft of the day were short-ranged, which meant the carrier had to be very close to the enemy to be able to launch and then recover a strike, which exposed the carriers to attack. In addition, the available planes had insufficient power to carry meaningful bomb loads. Early naval aviators nevertheless pioneered effective tactics like [[dive bombing]] during this period.{{sfn|Gardiner|Gray|1985|pp=64–71, 120}}{{sfn|Hone|Friedman|Mandeles|1999|pp=13–15, 41–43}}