Military operations conducted by airplanes, helicopters, or other aircraft against aircraft or targets on the ground and in the water.
Air warfare did not become important until World War I (1914–18). The British, French, German, Russian, and Italian armed forces had flying units, including biplanes armed with machine guns for "dogfights" with enemy fighter aircraft . aircraft carrier . During World War II (1939–45), the {{link=Britain, Battle of">Battle of Britain was the first fought exclusively in the air, the Battle of the Coral Sea was the first between carrier-based aircraft, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the first use of nuclear-armed bombers. In the jet age, air power has continued to be used in strategic bombing of an enemy's home territory (as in the Vietnam War, 1965–74), destroying enemy air forces (as in the Arab-Israeli wars), attacking and defending carrier-based naval fleets (as in the Falkland Islands War, 1982), and supporting ground forces (as in the Persian Gulf War, 1990–91).