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Bayou Renaissance Man Posted: Fri, Feb 1 2008 12:51 AM

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My nomination for the greatest military aircraft of the past 100 years is the same as for the greatest civil aircraft:  the Douglas DC-3, in this case in its C-47 military derivative.

 Why not a fighter or a bomber?  Why a lowly transport?  Consider:

1. General Eisenhower nominated the C-47 as one of the essential weapons that won World War II for the Allies (along with the bulldozer and the jeep, if I recall correctly);
2. Including Soviet production (as the Lisunov Li-2:  6,157 aircraft according to Pearcy, who got his figures from the Soviet authorities) and Japanese production (485 of their L2D Type 0 according to Wikipedia) well over 17,000 DC-3 and C-47 variants were produced, most of them military variants.  That compares very favorably with the vast majority of military aircraft;
3. The C-47 revolutionized military transport in every theater of operation in World War II, providing cargo and passenger services, air assault transports, glider tugs, air ambulance/medevac, trans-Atlantic freight, and even serving as a bomber in converted versions on the Eastern Front;
4. Air-dropped supplies from C-47's were all that made certain operations possible (see the Holland campaign in Europe, the Burma operations of the Chindits, the Philippine invasion, etc.);
5. Following World War II the C-47 soldiered on, serving in all its former roles plus taking on new ones (armed counter-insurgency aircraft in Vietnam as the first of the 'gunships', followed by more modern aircraft that still wear its mantle as "Puff The Magic Dragon";  maritime surveillance [perhaps best exemplified by South Africa with turboprop-conversion C-47's that are still performing that role];  etc.).
6. The C-47 formed the initial backbone of the Berlin Airlift in 1948, without which Berlin could not have survived outside the Soviet Bloc;
7. The C-47 established and proved many of the fundamental, basic doctrines of air transport and replenishment.  Its successors have built upon those foundations, but not invalidated any of them.

Think about it.  You can take any fighter or bomber aircraft you care to mention in the last half-century.  Try operating a squadron, or a wing, or a group of them anywhere in the world without the support of dedicated air transport facilities.  How long would they remain in operation?  Not very long . . . and it's the C-47 and its successors that make such facilities possible, and thereby allow the rest of any Air Force to remain in operation.

Hence, I nominate the C-47 as the greatest military aircraft of the past 100 years.